i know you have never experienced this. nope. never.
mars-venus. saturn-pluto. smack-dab in the middle.
ahyup.
*****
read DAVID’S thoughts this SMACK-DAB SATURDAY
SMACK-DAB. ©️ 2021 kerrianddavid.com
saturn and pluto. [saturday morning smack-dab]
Tag Archives: in the middle of the night
just waiting to float. [merely-a-thought monday]
the clock read 2:39am when i finally looked at it. i had been awake for some time already. because sleep remained elusive, i listened to the birds as they woke up to be with me, to be sure that i would know that the sun was soon rising, that the day was starting. 4:45 came and went. sleep stayed at bay and every thought that was ever present stayed wide awake. the white miniblinds glowed to the east. the sounds of the world waking: mourning dove coos, chattering squirrels, cawing crows, tiny finches, maybe a cardinal, maybe a blue jay, a lumbering train, robins, always songbird robins.
though deep slumber is a personal favorite of mine, i did not mind the night last night. the pondering of life, the listening, the sighs of dogdog and his paws running in his dream – all were a pre-coffee tapestry and i knew, as the sun rose and i finally drifted for a bit, that this day will blanket me with goodness. particularly if i sing. the dogdog song, all the incorrect lyrics of songs from the 70s i would sing back then at the top of my lungs, any random song that occurs to me, any song i invent in the moment.
for there is something about spontaneous singing, something about the making-up of lyrics or the repetition of well-worn lyrics spun into space that changes things. poetry in air. the frequency of happiness, of joy, of breaking into song changes what is happening in you, around you, sending its waves out, out, out.
i do believe in kindness. i do believe in mischief. and i do believe in singing. any old time. mary oliver and i might have sat together and chatted over tea, for we would have agreed about all matters of joy. and, even though mary and i never tipped cups or glasses, i consider all with whom i have, especially as dark turns to light and i am wide-awake and snug under blankets in a window-open-chilled room. i was lucky to sit with andrea, a love-filled free-spirit poet, songstress of peace. i have been lucky to sit with joan, thoughtful writer and ardent reader, her wisdom resonates and lingers in my pondering. i have been lucky to sit with susan, in her kitchen, writing songs with words and good food and cakes and so much music. i have been lucky to sit with jim, music at the ready, joined with him in improvisational weaving. i am lucky to sit each day with david, a word devotee, think-provoker, slow-dancer, and now, spontaneous singer.
the sky is brilliant and cloudless as i write this on sunday morning for monday. the sun is golden. the sound of the keys of two laptops punctuates my thoughts. a mug of coffee gets cold next to me as i type, as i am lost in musing. i think to the day ahead.
though my routine has been upheaved in recent months, though good sleep has been in hiding, though there are many things to worry about, to wonder about, this day begs my attention. it begs good mischief. it most certainly begs kindness, as the universe is full of goodness and has been gloriously kind. this day begs to be sung to.
even if i don’t sing aloud. because the songs are there with me just waiting to be chosen, to float.
*****
read DAVID’S thoughts this MERELY-A-THOUGHT MONDAY
youwannabanana? [d.r. thursday]
smack-dab in the middle of the night. like every night. i lay awake listening to the peaceful, gently-breathing sighs and sounds of him sleeping. sleeping! the gall!
and so, smack-dab in the middle of the night, i wake him up. since, smack-dab in middle-age, we decided to share our lives, it only seems right that we share our non-sleep moments as well as our sleep moments.
we are not alone. it would seem, especially in these times, that there is a lot – a hell of a lot – of insomnia going on. it is likely i could, should i choose to, have a texting conversation with most of my friends in the wee hours. we’d all be completely and utterly awake, completely and utterly coherent. perhaps more coherent in the wee-wee hours than in the day, when we are weary from the night.
when one lays awake at night and ponders all of life, one uses up much energy. and thus, i get hungry. and not just a little. in the ‘olden days’ (read: when we first married) we used to get up and make pancakes. there is nothing like midnight pancakes to soothe the weary soul. but we have cut to the chase these days and choose, instead, a shortcut to satisfying midnight hunger pangs. and so i poke at his shoulder and ask, “youwannabanana?”
post-banana we sit, happy lights turned low, and chat. there are no real rules to this. sometimes we watch a trail and joey coconato ultimately tucks us back in to sleep. sometimes ‘grace and frankie’ make a middle-of-the-night cameo appearance. eventually, and it’s heavy on the eventual, we settle back in and sometimes i end up snoozing in-between hot flashes and heaving blankets and pulling blankets up and moving pillows and removing pillows. it’s exhausting. but somehow, it is not sleep-inducing.
i don’t know much. but i do know this: we’re smack-dab in the middle of middle-age. and by golly, we are going to celebrate THAT.
*****
read DAVID’s thoughts this D.R. THURSDAY** – as we introduce SMACK-DAB
SMACK-DAB ©️ 2021 kerrianddavid.com
** and, by the way, i don’t REALLY “guffaw”.
the black bin in the middle. [d.r. thursday]
personally, i like the black bin in the middle of the room. right now, it gives me a sense of peace, or, more accurately, less of a sense of panic. in our seemingly neverending plumbing story, we are still seeking the proper gasket for our dysfunctional coupling. we were behind a local plumbing truck on the way to lowes. this business has operated in our town for four decades servicing all these old houses with their variety-pack of fittings and pipes and unions and o-rings and such. as i told a friend, it was a universe-is-laughing-at-us moment as we drove behind this truck that i just knew had shelving with old disheveled water-stained cardboard boxes full of the exact gasket we needed. i wanted to jump out of littlebabyscion at a stoplight and run up to his driver’s window and knock-knock-knock on it and beg him to check the ratty cardboard boxes for this gasket, which of course, he probably had in his pocket, upon which i would offer him 10 or 20 dollars for this simple vintage rubber 79 cent piece. it didn’t happen, of course. i’m quite sure that he would have done anything to avoid my panicked face in his window. and so, we are still on the quest. and learning a lot about gaskets and o-rings and sheet-and-ring gaskets and fun stuff. someone said to me yesterday, “oh, like that’s something you really want to know about!” but i disagreed. though i wish the tiny leak would stop, i am finding the puzzling-out of it a great learning process. a creative process, let’s just say. so. the black bin in the middle of the room.
soon we will piece back together david’s studio down in that space. he’s bringing paintings back into the light and we gaze at them as he recalls much of this pandemic year, time spent without painting. i know this feeling as i enter my own studio upstairs. a crate of cantatas i composed, some resource books i have used for decades, a few decorations from the choir room i used to occupy – they sit along the side wall of my studio, the remainder of what i need to file away, put away, throw away. i, too, have not spent time in my studio creating. it’s the wrists, it’s the job-loss, it’s the pandemic … it’s a long time of fallow, i suppose. it is the juxtaposition of art that makes a living and art that is living. it’s a sort of betrayal by art. it’s feeling that which you have dedicated yourself to letting you down. it’s change. it’s a time of discernment. it’s a time of confusion. it’s a time of loss. it’s a time of not-found-yet. it’s a time of grief. it’s complex. it’s a mixed bag.
we laid awake in the middle of the night. we had a banana, our traditional middle-of-the-night snack. we talked. we grappled with the year-of-years we have all had. once again, for the millionth time, we tried to sort it out.
we talked about my snowboarding-broken wrists and a community of leadership that never reached out to me. we wondered aloud. we talked about the pandemic breaking out, virtual-work, exponential curves of connecting to others online. people, including us, losing positions we loved to a virus that shut everything down. we talked about financial hardship, too common a denominator. we wondered aloud. we talked about the terrifying covid numbers we watched on the news – climbing, climbing, climbing. we wondered aloud. we talked about political division, a time of chaos and the amping-up of bigotry, complicity and vitriolic rhetoric. we wondered aloud. we talked about isolation, people missing people. we wondered aloud. we talked about the civil unrest in our town, deaths-by-automatic-weapon a few blocks over, curfews, fires, boarded-up businesses. we wondered aloud. we talked about my fall in the fall, a whopping new wrist ligament tear and, again, a community of leadership that did not reach out. we talked about losing my long-term job. we talked about the silence of others. we wondered aloud. we talked about david’s dad and his move to memory care, his mom and her spinning grief and loss-paralysis. we wondered aloud. we talked about our sweet babycat and his sudden dying, the heartwrenching hole. we wondered aloud. we talked about the lack of security, rampant. we talked about extreme gun violence and people’s hatred of anything-they-aren’t. we wondered aloud. we talked about exhaustion, pervasive and overwhelming all of us. and we wondered aloud.
not much sleep.
we’ll find a gasket that works soon. or we’ll call a real plumber in. and maybe, little bit by little bit, our artistry will call to us – to trust it, trust ourselves. it will remind us that it is not responsible for making a living. it will ask us to look around at that which is of solace to others in these times, regardless of lacking financial reward: it is music, it is visual art, it is the written word. it is art and it is living.
and, for some time to come, the black bin will sit in the middle of the studio. to remind us of the process.
*****
read DAVID’s thoughts this D.R. THURSDAY
so, dance. [d.r. thursday]
when my daughter was a baby, the thing that could calm her, quiet her unhappy crying, was to hold her tightly and dance with her. her favorite back then was the sound of marvin gaye’s heard it through the grapevine and i can remember it on repeat in the sitting room while we danced and danced and danced.
it seems perverse to think about dancing in the middle of a raging pandemic, in the middle of intense concern about david’s dad’s declining health, in the middle of being fired from my job. so much to worry about, the list seems expansive and ever-growing. i wonder what will calm us, what will quell the fears that keep us awake at night.
jonathan wrote to me, in the wise way of jonathan, and said to “get the water boiling and the corkscrew; it’s time to celebrate!!” he left no room to push back. “take stock,” he texted.
i’m wondering if i should put on the big chill soundtrack and put #1 on repeat. maybe the music of marvin gaye and dancing would help.
*****
read DAVID’s thoughts this D.R. THURSDAY
this amazing painting – TANGO WITH ME – is sold, but you may visit other paintings online here
TANGO WITH ME ©️ 2018 david robinson
a dance in the night. [k.s. friday]
to sit in the dark. to watch the flicker of flame on the yard torches. to stare into the bonfire. to listen to the crickets. to feel cool air brush your face. to walk barefoot in dewy-damp grass. to slowly swirl, in time to music, in time to your heartbeat, in time to deep breaths.
we all need a break.
instead of a mind racing-against-itself in the middle of the night, we need a dance with slow. we need a dance of hope. we need a dance of release.
do you remember how to slow dance…in the middle of the night?
even in the bleakest of times, even in the dark. the tiniest pinprick of light through an inky sky will remind us of the trillions of stars that are always there.
read DAVID’S thoughts this K.S. FRIDAY
SLOW DANCE ©️ 2002 kerri sherwood
sweet sleep. [d.r. thursday]
i write this with a sound-asleep babycat tucked up next to me. he is snoring, deeply sleeping, curled up, his paws tucked in, one under his little head. it is sweet and i savor this moment of his complete trust. he is obviously in bliss.
i envy his blissful slumber. i am not as good a sleeper as he. this middle-age-menopause thing wakes me every night. and every night, despite my urging to the contrary, my brain, clearly wildly uncontrolled, starts to think. lists accumulate, calendars form in my mind, my worry starts. and that’s it. i am lost in the weeds of insomnia.
after we had spoken about it a day or so prior, dan told me one morning that he had been awake thinking of our under-the-sink plumbing problem at 2am (!) and had, at that hour, come up with a solution. truth be told, he didn’t really have to wait under the next day; i’m quite sure i was awake and could have had a plumbing-solution-guru-text chat in the wee hours. wendy and 20 have both teased about texting me in the middle of the night when they are awake. i am not alone in sleep deprivation.
this painting is like looking at babycat. a sleep that is uninterrupted, peaceful. it evokes younger images of small children on mats during naptime. it is serene.
babycat stretches and rolls onto his back. he is tucked under the computer cord, laying on top of papers. but he is content. and back to sleep. sweet sleep.
read DAVID’S thoughts this D.R. THURSDAY
4×4/SLUMBER ©️ david robinson
back to back. [two artists tuesday]
dogdog and babycat – back to back
in the middle of the night when i wake up – which happens every night thanks to the keeps-on-giving gift of menopause – i can hear them.
dogdog is gently breathing, sometimes punctuated by his paws running in a dream where he is doing laps around our pond, excitedly barking. his even breaths, a dog in mostly-quiet slumber, reassure me, and my heart and i listen as he peacefully sleeps.
the peaceful-sleep bar is different for babycat. he is not a stealth-sleeper. well, actually nothing that babycat does is stealthy. he’s not that kind of cat. instead, his sleep on the end of the bed (he picks the side and you definitely know early-in-the-night if you have drawn the short straw) is noisy, fraught with snoring. i’ve never heard a cat snore as loudly as he does; it is absolutely necessary to nudge him a little so that he steps it down a tad bit. even with the snoring and the give-him-an-inch-he’ll-take-a-mile-bed-hogging, babycat’s presence sleeping on the bed is reassuring and i lay awake in wonder at how peaceful he seems, how content.
these two are buddies. i was concerned at the beginning, having never had both a dog and cat simultaneously. i needn’t have worried though. they will lay napping on the raft back to back, with their people nearby. perhaps at those times it is the two of them tuning in and listening – to our voices, our laughter, the rhythm of our day. and perhaps it is those times that they are reassured.
read DAVID’S thoughts this TWO ARTISTS TUESDAY
in the night. [k.s. friday]
i am writing this ahead of time…in anticipation of a so-much-looked-forward-to trip to the high mountains to spend time with The Girl and our new granddog lumi. when you read this, we will be almost home. and there are a few things i know for sure.
that i will -for sure- awake at night, as i often do, and i will relive the time we spent in those mountains. i will relish the time i will now have in my memory bank, the visions in my mind’s eye. i will cherish the bits and pieces i will have brought back for our special box. i will hold dear the photographs i will have taken.
when the moon wakes me, i will be endlessly grateful for any and all moments in the little town she calls home. i will run conversations and laughter through the middle-of-the-night quiet. i will catch a hint of the cool midnight colorado air on the breeze through the window. i will feel what it feels like to, once again, hug my beautiful daughter. and i will store it all away. so that in the night – any night – i can recall all of it.
download IN THE NIGHT track 5 THIS PART OF THE JOURNEY on iTUNES
purchase the physical CD THIS PART OF THE JOURNEY
KS FRIDAY (KERRI SHERWOOD FRIDAY) – ON OUR SITE
read DAVID’S thoughts about this KS FRIDAY
IN THE NIGHT from THIS PART OF THE JOURNEY ©️ 1997 & 2000 kerri sherwood
ks friday #1
i just updated my “about” page on this blogsite. i wrote the words “15 albums and a bunch of singles and i’m still wondering what i’m doing in this industry.” truer words were never spoken. our current world, in all its fantastic technology, has changed everything for recording artists everywhere. music is not hard to create. sales are. i have ranted many a time (and even on this blogsite) about this very thing – vastly minimized earnings with the challenge of streaming and burning and grabbing. but i am a musician. and, if you are an artist of any sort, you know that you are what you are and that’s the story.
our studio melange (paintings, music, cartoons, books, children’s books, plays) introduces friday as ks kerri sherwood friday…an opportunity to say a few words about a song or piece of music, maybe acquaint you with an album or a track you haven’t yet heard. something that might resonate with you. something i recorded in a rainy auditorium 23 years ago (a few people will understand that…carol and the-amazingly-“fine”-ken included.) something i flew to nashville to record. something i recorded after twenty-three hours in the studio. something i recorded at yamaha artist services in nyc. something i recorded five days before my wedding. or maybe something new.
so – in keeping with valentine’s day (and every day) – not to be all geeky-mushy and everything, when IS the last time you slow danced? this song, SLOW DANCE, when it was released as a single from the album AS SURE AS THE SUN climbed a secondary adult contemporary radio chart up to #13. 
for a recording artist, there is nothing like hearing your song on the radio. except for maybe slow dancing with the love of your life. yup. no comparison.
slow dance. the song. it seems to speak to people. and THAT is my work. what more can i ask for?
SLOW DANCE from the album AS SURE AS THE SUN (track 3)
www.kerrianddavid.com/the-melange
SLOW DANCE from AS SURE AS THE SUN ©️ 2002 kerri sherwood
reverse threading 