rough cuts. there are lots of them. recorded on an iRiver or an iPhone so i don’t forget. scraps of paper with lyrics and chord indications, rhythms jotted above the words, a few melodic notes scribbled in the margins or throughout the page. songs that haven’t yet been recorded. songs that may some day be recorded. songs that will never be recorded. rough cuts.
before the cantata i prepared for this holiday season i had carefully selected music – all contemporary pieces, all meaningful lyrics that i felt would resonate with those watching, making the experience touch their hearts. but, as i mentioned in a past post, i’m pretty picky and there was this one song. after playing around with it with the band, i deleted it from the line-up. with a spot still to fill in-between narrative, i decided to write a new song to fill the slot. this is the song i wrote – YOU’RE HERE – and you can listen to a very rough cut of it recorded on my iPhone played on an out-of-tune church piano if you click here.
it’s been a long while since i recorded an album. more time has passed than i ever thought possible. i wonder which songs in my rough cut collection will make it onto the next album. i wonder if there will be a next album.
in the meanwhile, i’ll keep paper by the piano and have my cellphone ready. the iRiver is in the drawer, along with the microcassette recorder and a pile of cdr’s. maybe the presence of at-the-ready songs will eventually tilt the earth and i’ll be back in the studio. maybe people buying cds will come back into vogue. maybe i will record on vinyl (again). maybe it will all be virtual. more to stream. (note my tone of voice.) maybe.
or maybe i’ll just put the piano at full stick, pull up a boom stand, throw on a mic and sing.
the things i know to be important. the things on my list to strive for. each day a new day to try.
may you be peace. may you be kindness. may you be an expression of gratitude. may you be fair. may you be a good listener. may you be curious. may you be inclusive. may you be communal. may you be always learning. may you be always giving. may you be dedicated to truth. may you be forgiving. may you forgive yourself. may you be affectionate. may you be generous. may you be loyal. may you be present in the moment you are living. may you be questioning of darkness. may you be protective of others less fortunate. may you stand up to inequality, inequity, violence of any sort. may you be complimentary. may you see the simplest of things. may you push back against ignorance and the desire to not see. may you choose health. may you resist wastefulness. may you trust your intuition. may you be calm. may you embrace entertaining thoughts different than your own. may you be able to discern the difference between aggressive and forward-moving. may you say thank you. may you abstain from comparison and competition. may you be honestly empathetic. may you stand in your shoes and give wide berth to vanity. may you be resilient. may you avoid yelling at others. may you try not to ignore others. may you be understanding. may you softly care for living creatures. may you be suspicious of agenda and may you speak into it. may you be clean and tidy in your space in the world. may you breathe easily. may you help those who need help. may you lift others up. may you teach good things to little ones. may you be with voice. may you be filled with spirit. may you be excited. may you leave things better than you found them. may you be creative. may you worry about the earth and those who follow you on it. may you be responsible. may you be progressive. may you be a bright light. may you love. may you be gentle. may you be a good human.
day’s end is close. today was christmas. between last night’s eve and today we sang songs. we played carols. we lit luminaria in the backyard under an oddly warm midnight sky. we hiked in twilight woods. we gazed in the dark at trees we decorated and lit with strands of lights and glinting silver ornaments. we cooked meals and sipped wine. we watched as The Boy and The Girl opened gifts. we unwrapped presents and cards sent to us, set aside, waiting for today.
and in all of that? the common denominator?
love.
surely the spirit of the holiday season can help to mend all rifts, help to inspire goodness, help to heal us. in this world of hypocrisy, we can be united. it matters not which holiday we celebrate. what matters is heart and the rich universal tenets that march hand in hand with love.
we are all bombarded. two days before christmas and we wonder if we did enough, bought enough, wrapped enough, entertained enough, baked enough, decorated enough. we are surrounded by images – piles of presents under ornate christmas trees, horse-drawn sleighs on currier and ives backroads, families gathered at tables merrily chatting, churches full with congregations happily singing and the bells in the belfry ringing. the kind of images that nag you into thinking, “more. i must do more.”
the other evening, gathered around bowls of homemade hot thai soup, 20 said, “it’s hard to keep things simple.” the three of us share some profound times of conversation, of life’s changes and choices, of simple togetherness. he talked about soup and wine and chocolate and conversation, of appreciating each other’s company.
the catalogs arriving in the mail and the ads in the paper and the online streaming advertising all pander to the indulgence of our insecurity. of not enough. how do we respond and say no?
it’s hard to avoid. it feels like we have to say yes to everything. or we don’t quite measure up. we search for meaning. in things. we are searching outside of ourselves. holding ourselves to some sort of external standard of holiday-completeness.
how do we seek more centeredness? more connectedness? more moments held in the stillness of awe?
i distinctly remember designing this. for over a year i spent tons of time designing products: pillows, tote bags, cellphone covers, prints, beach towels, cutting boards, mugs, travel cups, coasters, cards, shower curtains, side tables, leggings. i would study david’s paintings and extract morsels and execute the process – with great joy – of the choosing of the product lines i wished to represent and the designing of those. it was our intention to sell these pieces. i would have absolutely loved to fill a brick and mortar store with these pillows and mugs and journals and tote bags, but the sheer outlay for merchandise and stock and the overhead for a physical store made that impossible. but online – at an online storefront called society6.com, which would manufacture the pieces as they were ordered – it was possible. it was a good premise. so we opened five storefronts online (listed below in case you want to stop by with a cup of coffee) to represent each day of our studio melange postings.
only it didn’t really work.
hundreds, literally hundreds, of designs and thousands of products later, we decided it was time to stop putting the hours of effort into these designs. we had some sales and it is truly a delight to see someone carrying a tote bag i designed or a laptop cover or to hear from someone who is enjoying their purchase. the sales trickle in still, $4 here, $2.10 there. the mark-up, as you would expect, lists mightily to the side of the host company, but we dreamed of great volume – so many pillows that earning a few dollars for each-one-of-many would be a big help to our working budget.
only it didn’t really work.
every now and then i visit these sites and am astounded at how actually cool the products are. the designs aren’t so bad either, if i do say so myself. (tee-hee) there are some really beautiful pieces out there, like this PEACE. EARTH. PEACE ON EARTH. morsel. simple and profound. timely. if you click here, you can see it as a pillow. if you scroll way down on that linked page, you can see all the other products that we designed and made available with this image. it was within the painting INSTRUMENT OF PEACE that i found this morsel.
even though it didn’t really work, i suppose it worked. because i can’t begin to tell you how much i learned. maybe that’s the point. maybe that’s always the point.
for more morsels of david’s paintings, click here:
hundreds of them. birds galore. all sitting on the wires. one by one they flutter and change places. but they all manage to sit on the wires together. they adjust. they move over. they change wires. they allow space. they allow other birds in. and they sit. (although technically, i suppose they are standing.) they don’t seem to be exclusive. they don’t seem to be judgemental. they don’t seem to be laden with agenda. they seem to be working it out – this being-in-community-together thing. refreshing.
and then it occurs to me. they are all the same kind of bird.
what would happen if a different sort of bird showed up and wanted to sit on the wire, to be in their community? would they react like people?
linda and jim were doing the swedish death cleanse. linda was determined to de-clutter their home of anything that could potentially burden their children one day. once on a mission there is no stopping her, so they were diligent about going through every corner, nook and cranny of their home, eliminating anything that was not needed, anything that hadn’t been used in ages or was just simply extraneous.
now, we all talked about that around the table. with the sun setting on lake michigan and wine in our glasses, our little neighborhood group discussed how hard it is to let go of things, especially things that have some meaning or are mementos of some sort. add to that the fact that many of us were raised by parents who had experienced the great depression and you have people who are pre-destined to keep stuff, repurpose it, re-use it, save it for sometime you might need it, save it for when it comes back into fashion so you don’t have to buy it again, etc etc etc. (that’s definitely my experience and my excuse.)
many times i have entered the basement storage room and gazed at the bins. in years past, we have eliminated most of the boxes and traded them for these bins, throwing out some things, giving away some things, donating items that are useful, so we have made some progress. now there are bins with christmas ornaments, bins with artwork and stories and projects created by The Girl or The Boy, bins of things my sweet momma felt too guilty to give away, bins of sewing paraphernalia, bins of art supplies, bins of old music (for everyone gives the musician they know all the old sheet music they come across in their own basement and then that musician, who feels like it’s a mortal sin to throw music out, is compelled to keep it all in file cabinets or, yes, bins.)
from time to time i get a wild hair and go through a bin or random remaining box or pile in the basement workroom. sometimes i am pretty successful at eliminating clutter. trust me – i have been in peoples’ homes who have been hoarders and just seeing that makes me want to get rid of everything and live in a tiny house (well, one that would fit my piano.)
this winter perhaps we will tackle this once again. one more layer of cleaning out. it is possible. it’s just tough for me to be ruthless. i am too thready to be ruthless. touching memories or seeing them around me is reassuring and fills my heart.
one day in more recent days i went upstairs to look for something in the closet in the hallway. on the top shelf sat these slippers. stored here, they are my sweet momma’s and my poppo’s. they kept them here for when they would visit.
i know that they won’t visit our home again. noticing the slippers stopped me in my pursuit of whatever-it-was-i-was-looking-for. all the moments of having my parents present in my home swirled around me, the finality once again a reality. i struggled with what to do. i took them out of the closet and brought them downstairs to show d.
laying them carefully on the floor, i took this picture so that i could look at it and remember. and then, i placed them in a bag so that someone else – a woman with smaller feet than mine and a man with bigger feet than d’s – could have slippers. slippers with a bank of memories. slippers worn hugging my children as they grew. slippers worn around the christmas tree. slippers worn in the cold winter sitting by the fire or in the summer drinking morning coffee on the deck. slippers that lived here, just waiting for their owners, my beloved parents, to put them on. slippers with big heart. slippers with profoundly good juju.
i found a note the other day, tucked inside a book. it was a jotting-down-of-a-memory and was a quote from The Boy. he was five and he said, “look at how i can snap (my fingers). at 5 years old!! i could become a snap teacher and teach everyone how to snap!” never too young to dream.
jen is zealous. she is reallyyyy zealous. i don’t think i have known anyone who is as zealous a learner as jen. it is invigorating and inspiring to be around someone who embraces all she does not know with questions and a hope for understanding, as opposed to resistance or suspicion. she actively seeks out ways to learn the new, the unknown, wholeheartedly jumping in and swimming. she knows that vitality comes with opening yourself to new things.
pantene recently ran a new video series. it’s referencing the holidays and in it transgender people talk about what it’s like to go home. it’s breathtakingly sad the number of LGBTQ women and men who are not welcomed at home because someone cannot learn, ask questions, try to understand. instead, resistance and suspicion and a whole lot of judgement fiercely reign and the dream of being all together celebrating is devastatingly dashed. squelching another’s dreams is not the ultimate job of our job as humankind.
yesterday i conducted a christmas cantata. ahead of time, i had, for hours and hours on end, researched songs to find the pieces i felt would resonate with people, the pieces that would be generously bestowing of spirit and not off-putting. i looked for the language i thought would tug at their hearts and remind them of the light, the miracle of the season. when one song didn’t quite fit for me after i had chosen it, i wrote a new one. they were labeled ‘contemporary’ songs, with melodies, rhythm, chords, years of copyright differing from the hymns in the hymnals. over thirty people participated: a choir, a ukulele band, a worship band, a violinist, a violist. the result was truly beautiful, the message clear and the music gorgeous. our little church – a church that proudly purports to be reconciling and all-embracing – had moments truly holy in that service.
h is 93. every week at rehearsal he is ready and willing to learn something. he is steeped in traditional – after all, he is 93, his year of copyright long ago. and yet, those new melodies, harmony, challenging rhythms he has learned to sing have brought a freshness of life to him. never too old to dream. he knows that vitality comes with opening yourself to new things.
but back to yesterday. i remain unfulfilled in one way. because the sad part about yesterday? all the work and time that these dedicated volunteers had put into this cantata – with my careful choices based on over thirty years as a minister of music – was not seen by the first service folks. the word ‘contemporary’ made it unfathomable for that service to host without complaint, relegating it only to the second service. the spirit of camaraderie, the support of the efforts of others in their own church, the truly beautiful music that was made was lost on this first service. i try to understand their dedication to traditional music, to choice, and i heartedly honor it in selecting music for every other week of the church year. but i fail to understand their unwillingness to even try to embrace something else, something ‘new’. i fail to understand any reinforcement of ‘different’, of divisiveness. especially as simply one day and a festive community celebration of the holiday. especially when churches are constantly looking for relevancy and vitality is one of the necessary ingredients. they do not know what they missed. closing off. what they are missing.
jen and h would like each other. they both openly embrace new. they both openly embrace others. they both dream dreams, happily engaging in life, snapping. what a gift to be around.
this is at least the 30th christmas. the 30th one that i was responsible for making sure that other people – in various congregations through the years – feeeeel it. the 30th one where i have chosen music to reflect the season, the love, the light…and to be certain that it was all accessible to the people listening, to be certain it touched them, to be certain it made them think and celebrate, to be certain it spoke to their faith.
i am pretty picky. i don’t like kitschy. i don’t like trite endings. i don’t like certain chord progressions. i don’t like when songs, in an inane effort to be interesting, modulate up in key (the kind of modulation where you expect bubbles to be released into the air). i don’t like certain kinds of lyrics or songs that are preachy. i don’t like songs that imply elitism in any way, including any kind of religious denominational dominance.
i have reviewed a zillion cantatas through the years. (a cantata for a church is a combination of narrative and song, telling a story, embracing a theme, usually anywhere from 30-60 minutes in length. the more traditional cantatas are oftentimes stunningly beautiful but are difficult for volunteer choirs to sing and, frankly, for congregations to sit through.) many more recent cantatas are like buying a record album…many of the songs are really good but there’s always one or two that are throwaways. i have revised every cantata i have ever purchased for a choir. ask any choir director and she/he will tell you that they are revising and improvising on the fly. if they aren’t, well, i just don’t even know what to say about that.
one year, in particular, back in the late 90’s, i was particularly displeased with the cantata samples i had been sent. so i sat down one night and started writing my own. it was the beginning of november and, because we published the actual faxes that went back and forth between me and my producer, you can see that i composed all hours of the day and night and he arranged all hours of the day and night. i had the choir working on drafts that were printed out in the wee hours of the morning, as we continued arranging and re-arranging. the pieces pretty much dropped out of the universe to my hands and i loved conducting this cantata THE LIGHT IS HERE! that year and a few more times through the years since, honing the narration and revisiting the language in an attempt to keep it contemporary. after all, surprisingly, the late 90’s were two decades ago now.
a few nights ago at band practice we were running through the pieces i had selected for this year’s special music schmear (my word instead of ‘cantata’ which is sorely outdated and makes people stay away.) one song, though well-intended, was just plain wrong. so i pulled it out.
the next day i reached for paper and a pencil and wrote a new song for that slot. it’s a solo so at least the choir and the ukulele band don’t have to learn it at this late date (although they are used to having to go-with-the-flow).
in my position as a minister of music, it’s not my job to just play any old thing or direct any old piece, dis-regarding how it speaks to the listener, ignoring whether it is accessible, whether its message is relevant or timely, whether it invites someone in. instead, it’s my job – as i see it – to open listeners’ minds and hearts, to wrap them in music and lyric that resonates, that challenges, that reassures.
someday i will no longer be a minister of music. i will sit on a mountaintop or at the edge of a lake or on a riverbed and i will listen to the sounds of this beautiful earth in celebration of every season. i will not be responsible for making sure others feeeeel it. i will just sit quietly, all the music i could ever need surrounding me.
in the meanwhile, i will be picky. it’s a curse. and i guess a blessing, as they say. picky.
because i have this thing about everest, high-mountain-climbing tales and the arctic, we have a propensity to seek out movies we can view that tell these stories. we stumbled upon an explorer series that followed the adventures of an arctic explorer at the north pole. the photography was stunning. so much white. and then the blues. a turquoise aqua that you just can’t accurately describe. the explorer described the north pole as elusive, as theoretical, since it continually moves and the longitude/latitude is never constant, always fluid. he is there at the exact north pole and he is not. both.
this painting BLUE PRAYER feels like there. sitting at the very top of our mother earth, the deep night sky behind her, she prays. for our planet, all people, tenets of goodness, generosity, peace. she is quietly still and bowed in fervently verbose prayer. she is praying for the elusive, the theoretical. she knows it is all out there and she knows it is not. both.
reverse threading 