there was not room on island for my piano, sheets of blank score paper, baskets of notebooks of lyrics, melody smidges, chord progression fragments. they waited at home for my return.
consumed by many tasks and layers of work since we arrived back home, we are surrounded by boxes and bins still unpacked. there is much to do. we have many other things tugging at us and these packed boxes, although frustratingly in the way, have sunk to a lower rung on the list of things-to-do.
i have been in and out of my studio, grabbing music as i need it, playing through a piece here and there, reviewing music for work. i have added a few notes to notebooks, to my calendar, a line of lyric here and there to remember on scraps i hope not to lose.
the other day i pulled out cds, finding a few with pieces that didn’t get tracked. rough cuts of piano for under lyrics, rough cuts of piano instrumentals. every artist has them…the cuts that didn’t get finished, the cuts that didn’t make it to the album. scraps of paper, notebooks of ideas, rough cuts of beginnings. they all eventually lead somewhere. no idea, no melodic gesture, no lyric stands alone.
and so, my really beautiful big resounding piano waits for me as i am quiet. pencils i’ve saved from The Boy’s and The Girl’s pencilboxes sit atop, next to blank score paper, notebooks and pa pads. they all wait. the muse waits. the music waits.
“the box: a place to put all the stuff of our lives.” (from BLUEPRINT FOR MY SOUL liner notes 1996)
the old black suitcases store stuff. treasured moments, all in a jumble, some decipherable, others bits and snatches of times we want to remember, so we keep these feathers and ticket stubs, notes and river stones, scraps of wrap, cards, red rock. they proudly sit in the dining room, in a stack, their vintage scrapes and broken handles call to me each time i pass them by. they shower me with memories and times i have passed through, moments i have lived. i can feel what is in them.
in another box, in another place, are old dreams. torn vestiges of paper with lyrics, a few notes scribbled in the margins of old spirals. there are visions and imaginings, goals and undetermined outcomes. like you, these are the things undone. there are no ticket stubs or photos in this box; these are the things that have not come to fruition. these are the things that beckon over and over. these are the things that demand i consider and reconsider what i am doing today, tomorrow. these are the things that make me question. each time i pass them by. i can feel what is in them.
i am reminded:
“a ship in harbor is safe. but that is not what ships are built for.” (john a. shedd)
these are the full liner notes:
“the box: a place to put all the stuff of our lives. sometimes this place really hurts.” (BLUEPRINT FOR MY SOUL 1996)
download THE BOX from BLUEPRINT FOR MY SOUL on iTUNES or CDBaby
the sun set on another day on island. and the moon rose. who knew?
four years ago, when david walked down the aisle to this song, who knew? who knew what would come, what adventures would appear, what challenges would rear up, what tiny moments would tear up in our eyes, what heartaches would befall us? who knew? who knew what chaos would reign our world, what gentle calm would envelop us, what times with family would look like, what times without loved ones would feel like? who knew?
four years ago, when david walked down the aisle to this song, we were decades younger, starting out all over again, baby-stepping into an unknown, beguiling, mysterious future. who knew? who knew the times of decisions, of direction-choosing, of sacrifice, of abundance? who knew the dances we would dance, the cries we would cry, the pages of life filled with, well…life? who knew?
there we stood, last night, on the back porch, white happy lights glowing on the railing, watching the moon rise over our little bay, high in the sky, gigantic, tiny hog island in the distance. we wondered aloud, in wonder, about the wonderment of it all. who knew?
and now…….looking forward…..outward….onward….with great love….
there is a moment when the sky turns a delicious shade of pink as the sun sets in the western horizon. each beyond-the-crayon-box-color doesn’t last long; they morph into the next color and then the next. each second, as you watch, counts.
there is a moment when before-night turns into after-day. crossing the pink.
“live in the present/grab onto this time/don’t look behind you/you gotta walk that thin line/of the future and the past/it’s all within your grasp/that second could come way too fast”
there is a moment – one that probably occurs multiple times a day – when you can choose how to react to things. you can linger in the not-taking-it-personally-they-are-hurting-you-not-because-you-are-you-but-because-they-are-them zone or you can step over the line and bite back. crossing the pink. everyone in relationship recognizes this. any relationship, be it spouse-spouse, significant others, parent-child, child-parent, colleagues, supervisor-employee, employee-supervisor, drivers stuck in traffic, customer-customer service rep, strangers in a long grocery line. not biting back doesn’t render you powerless; instead, in the hardly-ever-easy not-taking-it-personally, it aids in your health and well-being. you choose. crossing the pink.
“you look in the mirror/today’s world stares back”
there is a moment – a split second – when you stand still and see all that was behind, all that is here and now. it is impossible to see all that is possible, for surely if you were back many pink crossings ago you would not have imagined the now of now.
and so, this split second should tell us that we have no idea, that our imaginings of the future are both wildly over-feared and inconceivably understated, that with each split-second breath we take, we cross the pink into another split-second that is filled with hope of new. but sheesh, we are human and we are worried, fearful, guilt-ridden, persistently trying to figure out what we did wrong to elicit ‘such a response’, repeatedly weighing everything, sorting, feeling powerless.
what if we stayed in the moment of delicious pink, watching the sun promise rest and a new day.
“take it slow/don’t let this moment go/it’s here and it’s now/use this gift somehow”
your toes curl. your breathing is shallow. adrenaline rushes. your legs are a little shaky. your hands feel tingly. butterflies in your belly. you are on the edge. in that tiny place between before and after.
i gingerly walked to the edge of the canyon, my daughter encouraging me. at the moment i stood there, feet firmly planted, no guardrail, nothing between me and canyon wall, my heart slowed down and i breathed in both the enormity of the moment and the taste of both before and after. my girl and i laughed, loudly, the sound echoing across the vast canyon. and then, it was after.
i sat at the piano, ready to record this first piece GALENA of the first album, 24 years ago, savoring the safety of before but ready for after. at the edge of the put-it-all-out-there canyon, i walked onto the stage, brand new cds in the lobby, ready, with quivering knees and boots that gave me confidence. and then, in what felt like a minute, it was after.
now, many album and stage edges later, many life and love moments later, many work and play split-seconds later, i wonder what the next after will be. i can feel the edges; i can see them. i’m aware of my toes curling. my breathing is shallow and adrenaline rushes. my legs are a little shaky and my hands feel tingly, butterflies in my belly. there is a canyon beckoning.
i remember writing this. i was coming out of storms and it felt like i was, at last, rising like a weak sun in the dense fog, slowly but surely burning off the fog. it was my right-now.
i wonder how many times in life we re-do that. like the movie groundhog day, we re-live again and again the process of coming out of the mess, the stress, the worry. life seems fraught with those storms and fog sometimes. we yearn for steady, for clear skies, for brilliant sun.
when the day is done and we go to sleep with wrinkled brow, we try, albeit sometimes futilely, to remember that right-now passes into the next. this very ‘right-now’ will soon be ‘before’.
there will be a new day. a new right-now. new hope.
it’s not often i see something and don’t think of a song to go with it. whether it is a pre-existing song or one i make up on a dime, i want to just break out into song, spontaneously. it’s a by-product of the trade.
the eagle that makes its way across our yard, zig-zagging across the bay, is no less inspiring. depending on the day, i hear the steve miller band singing “fly like an eagle…to the sea” or john denver’s “i am an eagle, i live in high country…”
if a song doesn’t occur to me rising out of the recesses of my brain i’ll make one up. ask jen and brad about ‘the butterfly song’ or ‘sitting in the sun’ or ‘bigotry’, just for instances. mary kay and i have had conversations about making up songs on the fly…in the car…in the shower….walking in the woods. these are not – you might be surprised – serious compositions that may make the cut for the next album. these are just meaningful-in-the-moment songs that you belt out and, mostly, promptly forget.
as the eagle passes over our heads, i am amazed to see it in ‘real life’. i pause and steve miller fights with john denver for attention in my head. i hush them both and just listen to the waves and the silence of this majestic creature catching the wind.
it is against the odds that this tree clings to rock and doesn’t topple into the lake with a great splash and float away. instead it stubbornly holds on, a steadfast intention. the rock, the basso ostinato.
at a time when holding steadfast seems mightily important, i wonder about the questions we have been asked. will you stay? will you leave? will you love it here? in the midst of all the infighting, are you going to give up? will you hold on?
the answers may not be directly related to the actual intent of those questions.
will we hold on? yes, we will hold on. we will hold steadfast to our integrity. we will hold steadfast to the reasons we came here in the first place. to make a difference, to bring ideas and change, to apply that which we have learned, studied, experienced over at least 80 combined years of work, higher education and profession. to be honest and transparent and collaborative. to try and instill a sense of working together into a community divided by narratives too numerous to list.
will we hold on? yes, we will hold on. we will hold steadfast to our belief that people should be kind to each other, that people should not work around others nor should they undermine others, that people should instead lift each other up, not drive stakes into another.
will we hold on? yes, we will hold on. steadfastly. to honoring art, the driving force behind this initiative. to honoring creativity and the blossoming of beauty and wisdom, staunch tenets of artistry.
will we hold on? yes, we will hold on. steadfastly. to believing all is possible.
but, in answer to the real intent of the question asked us….will we hold on?
we will not hold on if others cannot join us in what is real, what is truth, what is most important. we will not hold on in the fire of pettiness or shameful self-serving underhandedness. we will not hold on, holding still while others take turns throwing rocks at us, at the real goals of this place, if those are indeed about art.
the answer to the question is not up to us. we can either cling to the rock, holding steadfast or we can topple, with a refreshing splash, into the lake and float away.
download HOLDING STEADFAST from BLUEPRINT FOR MY SOUL on iTUNES or CDBaby
on this very day, at this very time, i do not feel at home. and i believe i take home with me, so this is truly a statement of much discontent.
what is home to you?
how important is it to you to be surrounded by people who, with consciousness of others, support you? how important is it to you to be amongst those who are kind, who are magnanimous, who are respectful to all, who are collaborative? how important is to you to be around people who lead with goodness, who work together, who do not embrace divisiveness?
how important is the place? does an idyllic location exempt bitter disputes and argumentative people? does it matter if the sun rises and sets in dramatic color if the timbre of the place is ugly, combative, rift-producing, breach-exacerbating? what flowers override belligerence, competition and antagonistic voices? what soaring birds and graceful wildlife eclipse closed minds and turning a blind eye to others’ pain?
important questions, i believe. eye-opening questions.
home is indeed subjective for each of us. our hearts lead us.
my sweet momma would start the day by chirping to me, “good morning merry sunshine!” what a gift to consistently start the day that way.
i wrote this piece at a difficult time in my life. the titles on this album somewhat tell the story: boundaries. scattered. pulling weeds. holding on, letting go. it’s not black and white. figure it out. taking stock. baby steps. each one a descriptor of that time; each title written for the album before the music. i composed to each word.
but the most important title on the album, the arc that reigns over the gut emotion of the rest, i realize now is ‘each new day’. for we are granted yet another chance….to choose to live the day well, to embrace the new, to walk in tomorrow’s grace, to love, to choose kindness, to say we are sorry, to recuperate from something that has hurt us, to work toward balance, to forgive, to model goodness, to help someone else in pain, to learn something new, to listen, to laugh, to hold someone’s hand or share a hug, to do better…
time really does move breathtakingly fast. each new day counts. good morning merry sunshine.
