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the dazzle. [kerri’s blog on k.s. friday]

“still, what i want in my life is to be willing to be dazzled – to cast aside the weight of facts and maybe even to float a little above this difficult world.” (mary oliver)

we check on the world right before sleep these days. we feel like it is a citizen’s duty to know what is happening in our own country, what is happening because of our own country, to be aware of the chaos, to be somewhat versed in the goings-on, to try – without success – to understand where it’s all headed and to – somehow – grok why. it’s all nearly impossible. and it is overwhelming.

we check on the world when we wake these days. we feel like it is a citizen’s duty to know what is happening in our own country, what is happening because of our own country, to be aware of the chaos, to be somewhat versed in the goings-on, to try – without success – to understand where it’s all headed and to – somehow – grok why. it’s all nearly impossible. and it is overwhelming.

and we know that there is less and less probability of it all making sense. for this must be intended-chaos and the world is ever more difficult because of it.

we sat at the bistro table in our sunroom with a glass of wine. dusk had fallen, the happy lights were on, dogga was on the rug at our feet.

we talked about the unsteadiness of these days.

and we talked about our own steadiness. we talked about the sweet phase.

we talked about sitting on the rocks in the middle of the stream way up in the mountains on a cool, quiet afternoon.

we talked about the change in our own chase of success – what that word even now means to us.

in spite of the world outside our sitting room – even with all that in mind – we could feel a sense of amazement.

we listed little things – the happy lights, the chiminea in the corner, the muddy hike, the score of finding an eight dollar glass candlestick lamp, the celebration of homemade pizza.

we listed bigger things – things more personal, more close-in, adulting things, things of quiet but profound accomplishment.

we acknowledged that – despite the broken road meander of our lives – even in the weight of all the cruel, mind-bogglingly destructive actions of this planet – we can see the dazzle around us.

and that’s the thing. the dazzle.

we need to recognize its presence. we need to keep seeking it. we need to keep reaching for it. we need to wrap our freaking arms around it – for dear life.

“i don’t want to end up simply having visited this world.” (mary oliver)

*****

MEANDER © 2004 kerri sherwood

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light. hope. [kerri’s blog on k.s. friday]

“anne frank became a symbol of hope – a light in the dark – by maintaining her optimism and belief in human goodness despite enduring extreme fear, confinement and the horrors of the holocaust.” (AI)

it is certainly difficult to imagine anne frank maintaining her optimism and belief in human goodness. such darkness that she experienced in her short life is unparalleled.

the woods – away from any candlelit trail – were dark. but it was a starlit night and so the shadowy figures of trees and underbrush were more clearly trees and underbrush, rather than the dark figures of scary stuff we might have imagined. in this one spot, artificial light from lightposts lit the pines, illuminating the bow of the branches up close. beyond those lit boughs, a darker woods.

this was a night – as i wrote about – much-needed. a reminder of beauty, of presence, of quiet. it gave us both hope – and gratitude for the rejuvenation of being outside. for in these times – right now – in this country – there is so much about which to be horrified.

“darkness cannot drive out darkness: only light can do that.” (martin luther king, jr.)

there is no way for us all to beat back the dark except to beat back the dark. for light to prevail, we must shine light on all that is dark…with no exceptions. as we learn more and more of the plan of this administration’s agenda – the absolute corruption sans impunity – it becomes harder to not shrink back, to recoil from such dark. but we cannot pass this dark on to the next generations, we can’t bequeath them with this kind of depravity. and so there is no choice but to shine light.

“do the best you can until you know better. then when you know better, do better.” (maya angelou)

and for those who have cheered on this atrocious kakistocracy, it is my hope that you will soon see it for what it is, that you will step away – gasping, that you will take light into your own hands and shine that light with us and all the others who are shining, that you will unearth moral conscience.

“hope is being able to see that there is light despite all of the darkness.” (desmond tutu)

and i have to believe that light begets light, hope begets hope – and through all humanity has endured – there will be enough light – held by enough good people – to shine into the corners of all the most ghastly of shadows, to shake down this dark, to exponentially multiply light by light and hope by hope, to reveal renewed sense and love, to expose goodness at its best and to reclaim it.

*****

HOPE © 2005 kerri sherwood

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toward the bench. [kerri’s blog on d.r. thursday]

tucked into the trail – the river trail – are spots i always find i am looking forward to: the curve of the river, the cattails in the marsh, the hill where you look down on the trees along the riverbank, the section that looks like a bayou, the turn in the path where deer linger, this one spot – where the reeds are thick and the turtles are numerous. we hike along and these are touchstones along the way, indicators of how far we have come, how far we have yet to go.

we all have them – the indicators of how far we have come, how far we have yet to go. i think about this now as i walk into my studio.

i spend way more time on the written word these days than on the piano bench. i spend way more time typing on a keyboard than pencil-jotting on scraps of paper scattered above the keys.

i look at high profile artists, years and years after their last album release, after long drought periods, in their 60s, now recording and releasing new albums. and it makes me wonder. it’s been 16 years since i released a full-length album.

sixteen years.

as someone who released fifteen albums in fifteen years that is stunning to me. and, thus, the wondering.

my piano is a touchstone to me, an anchor, something i can touch that is profoundly meaningful to me. i have walked a textured journey in the years i have spent with a piano central in my life, in time that the creating and performance of music was imperative. i have assigned success and failure, acceptance and rejection, support and betrayal to my piano.

and, in the way that enlightenment happens, i am beginning to learn that it is not my piano that is responsible. it has merely been my spokespiece, a vessel through which i might give voice.

instead, it is in that giving of voice – that expression of me – that amplification and celebration of music – that others – people – have squelched the how-far-i-have-yet-to-go, have taken the get-up from my get-up-and-go.

i don’t really know the reasons that one might feel they should push someone else under water, that one might feel the best use of their energy is to abuse or denigrate or minimize someone else, that one might feel that the most humane treatment of someone else is to concoct narratives and sway public or private-circle opinion. i don’t know the reasons why anyone would want to break another person or their spirit, creative or otherwise. i don’t really know the reasons why anyone would do any such things. it’s crushing.

i do know the impact these things have on a person. for no matter how tough one’s skin, how devoted to confidence, how determined, how bootstrapping one might be, there are others who can do great damage and who are – apparently – damned devoted to it.

it’s not my piano’s fault.

and so now – in this great enlightenment or admittance or downright sad awareness – i can see that those people who have done great harm have undermined so much between how-far-i-have-come and how-far-i-have-yet-to-go. and i am thinking – now – that I’ll be damned to let them rob all that from me, to let them take my piano – or my muse – hostage any longer. not that that’s easy. it is a difficult uphill journey.

it’s maybe time to stand in the reeds, hang with the turtles and cattails, get my feet wet in the marsh and walk – or sprint – or, more likely, crawl – toward the bench.

*****

read DAVID’s thoughts this D.R. THURSDAY

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like a good moisturizer. [kerri’s blog on k.s. friday]

we are not much into the glorifying of products to shape our waist, pump us up, give us clarity, thicken our hair, raise our status, change our libido, make us sexy in the first place et al. we do, however, each use one product that makes us feel like we are taking some kind of interest in how we might age. we each use moisturizer. facial moisturizer to “limit” the – ahem – aging of our faces. body moisturizer to, well, make our skin “dewy” and “resilient”. hand moisturizer to avoid the dreaded wisconsin thumbcracks. yep. we trust that these products are working and they have become a part of our careful budgeting.

barney did not subscribe to any of these products and, thus, is aging without the benefit of peptides or collagen or retinol or blue algae extract or sea parsley. i hardly think that barney cares as i truly cannot point to an aging piano more beautiful.

as each layer succumbs to the weather, we see a tiny bit more of the heartandsoul of our barney. as each layer peels back, falls off, there is evidence of yet another layer, the simple insides of an acoustic instrument whose voice box is the space within.

there is only truth in there – only pure pianovoice, only echos of the rich resonance of hammers hitting strings, only breathy harmonics.

there are few days that i don’t gaze at barney and feel grateful for its presence in our backyard. there are times i think about my growing-up-piano in our basement maybe having the same life arc. it would be difficult to get that piano up the stairs of our old house, as the enclosed staircase (enclosed since the piano was delivered downstairs) with its angles, makes two ninety degree turns, making a complete about-face…all difficult maneuvers for a hulking piano up on end. i guess we’ll see. i’m not sure that there is room for two pianos in our backyard.

in the meanwhile, barney steals the show. every little creature that makes its way into or through our yard knows this old piano. and vice-versa. this old piano knows every creature as well. including us.

just at the moment we need a smidge of something beautiful, the touch of something other-worldly, barney beckons at us from the garden and settles its serenity on our skin. like a good moisturizer.

*****

PEACE © 2004 kerri sherwood

download music from my little corner of iTUNES

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read DAVID’s thoughts this K.S. FRIDAY

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i-was-here. [kerri’s blog on k.s. friday]

it is a sweet i-was-here.

i walked into my studio and there was snowman. sometime – in some moment – dogga had picked up his treasured snowman, walked into my studio and left snowman there.

he will often just walk into my studio, kind of tool about, walk under the piano in a sweeping circle of the room and then walk back out. sometimes he – clearly – brings a toy with him.

the thing is – in no uncertain terms – for neither d nor i carry snowman around nor move him to and fro – i immediately knew dogga had been there.

in this world of chaos we are now living in, it’s a pretty good question to ask ourselves – what do we wish our i-was-here evidence to be?

it’s not as simple as a plastic squeaky toy left on an old wood floor.

but whatever it is – whatever our tracks or affirmation-of-existence, whatever snowman we leave behind – it is vital to consider, something to reckon with, legacy to bear in mind.

*****

LEGACY © 1995 kerri sherwood

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now.never not.never not now. [kerri’s blog on k.s. friday]

it’s a heavy load. to be the woke – the empathetic, voiced, visioned, courageous, big-feelinged folks – both disparaged and desperately needed.

when all else has been sloughed off, when all else has failed, when all else is dross, it is art that will remain…there will still be heart.

this quote – way too big to actually write about without a feeling of undeserved arrogance, way too big to even begin to dissect without a feeling of ineptitude – it is an urge, a plea, a last-licks, it is an imperative we artists follow anyway: to turn complex feelings into something people can touch, can hear, can see, can taste. to turn that which we cannot see in any simplicity – beliefs, faith, love, philosophy, interconnectedness, bigotry, hatred – into something we can feel, something that resonates, something that gives us bite-sized bits to try and grok.

contemporaneously, without bruce springsteen there would still be the streets of minneapolis. but his music, his lyrics – his song has given beat and melody to the excruciating pain and stalwart dedication of the people in those streets. his music has given the rest of us – those of us in other places – also in pain and with dedication – something to grab onto, something to hold and wave and hum.

contemporaneously, without bad bunny there would still be a half-time show in the super bowl. there would still be grammy winners. but his tear-filled words, his staunchly raw comments ricocheting off the walls of the arena gave goosebumps to the rest of us – something we could grab onto, something to hold and wave and speak.

contemporaneously, without the cartoonists populating social media, the stuff that is happening would still be happening. but those cartoonists are bravely offering humor – sometimes truly dark humor – to give us something to grab onto, something to hold and wave and maybe, just maybe, laugh at.

there isn’t any way to rise and reclaim this place without the artists who are the building blocks for actual humanity, the collective melt in the melting pot, the mortar that holds it all together even when it collapses.

“people got to come together, not just out of fear…” (chicago – where do we go from here? – 1970)

it is never not the artists’ time. now is not different.

“let’s all get together soon, before it is too late

forget about the past and let your feelings fade away

if you do i’m sure you’ll see, the end is not yet near…“

the artists have already taken all those big, complex feelings and turned them into something we all can believe in. they’ve been doing it all along. the whole of time.

the world does need artists’ voices, artists’ vision and artists’ courage.

steep yourselves in it all. urgently. get brave. get going.

“where do we go

where do we go

where do we go from here?”

*****

YOU MAKE A DIFFERENCE © 2003 kerri sherwood

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read DAVID’s thoughts this K.S. FRIDAY

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heavy hearts. [kerri’s blog on k.s. friday]

“you are not weak just because your heart feels so heavy.” (andrea gibson)

every friday we look at each other and say, “wow. it’s friday again.”

it’s astonishing. the fridays come and the fridays go. it seems that they come and go ever faster.

this has been a long week. so many of them are long weeks now. despite the fact that the fridays arrive in a moment of surprise acknowledgement, the weeks themselves are laden with difficult, burdened with sadness, whelmed over with the horrific.

and we get to friday, panting with others in this hyperventilating country. we are exhausted. we are frustrated. we are frightened. our tender hearts break with the others, shattered by the vile betrayal by leadership.

we feel weak.

but we are not.

our hearts are heavy.

but they are no less fervent.

we are empowered.

the joining of hands, the extension of kindness and care, the shared value of each other, we are connected.

the spirit of this country beats steady in each of us who push back: when your heart is too heavy for your chest, i will firmly hold it. when your heart feels frail, fragile beyond the pale, i will handle it gently. when your heart is feeling timid, i will bring you courage. when your heart just doesn’t know what to do, i will quietly stand with you.

we are in this together. with our hearts. in every long week. in every friday that finally – and suddenly – arrives. in every storm that is raging around us. in every day.

and those without hearts – without love – without conscience – can just stand back and watch how utterly powerful having a heart really is.

*****

WATERSHED © 2004 kerri sherwood

download music from my little corner of iTUNES

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read DAVID’s thoughts this K.S. FRIDAY

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buymeacoffee is a website where you may directly support an artist whose work directly impacts you.


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in the ant farm. [kerri’s blog on k.s. friday]

when i came across the green plastic ant farm stashed on a shelf in the storage room in the basement – between two stacks of books – just innocently sitting there – i couldn’t help but immediately feel like it could be a metaphor to how this universe – in the biggest sense of the word – is now looking at us.

through a plastic shield, the universe stares at the goings-on on this planet – and let’s make that even more specific – in this country – and – without describing all the horror that meets the eye, the horror that is happening below the surface, the horror that is intended and about which we can only guess – so let’s cut to the chase – the universe groans in utter dismay, shocked beyond belief that we have screwed up OUR ant farm so appallingly.

because instead of ants – relying heavily on the importance and responsibility of connected community, with unselfish dividing up and equal sharing of work, with patience and problem-solving skills, their committed and unrelenting devotion to a positive and generative end result – we humans here on this earth seem to shun the values of equality or connectedness in community, lead with narcissistic and immorality-driven agenda, devote ourselves to divisiveness, cultural, status and caste, racial, gender, religious, nativistic dominance, drive toward a brutally suffocated powerless populace.

to think that an uncle milton’s giant ant farm could show us humans up is preposterous. but it’s absolutely true.

and that – to me – is pitiful.

*****

read DAVID’s thoughts this K.S. FRIDAY

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so. to sew. [kerri’s blog on k.s. friday]

i used the old singer when i sewed the shutter-curtains for the nursery. i placed it on a piano bench and sat on the loveseat to sew. it was mama dear’s no-bells-no-whistles machine – the kind that is stored in a black case – and i was hoping that her seamstress skills would transfer to me as i stitched. i didn’t quite finish the curtains before our daughter arrived – a week earlier than expected.

i have another machine – a sears kenmore – from when i was about ten or twelve, i guess. it’s in a sewing cabinet – the machine stores down under the lid – and one can sit right at it to sew. i’ve sewn innumerable things on this machine. it doesn’t have bells and whistles either, so it’s a workhorse.

because i was dedicated to the art of sewing – at least back in the day – i’ve accumulated many patterns through the years, storing them carefully in a bin so that they would keep their tissue-pattern-integrity.

i just opened the bin and took them all out, laying them on the dining room table, organizing them to move them along. there are about 75 of them, many toddler patterns and craft patterns. the 80s and the 90s were craft-heavy times and i was right in there sewing bunnies and dolls, quilting pillows and piecing sweatshirt appliqués. the fabric store was an inspiring adventure limited only to your imagination. attending art and craft shows was glorious fun, a place to get new ideas and marvel at others’ craftiness.

it was quite late in the 90s when it occurred to me to show at these art and craft fairs as a musician. way different than concerts or even wholesale show marketing, i’d set up a booth with a keyboard and displays and play all day while simultaneously selling cds. the being-a-mom skill of talking while playing transferred easily from mom-ing to entrepreneur. providing music for the background of people – most notably, women – to shop with friends and linger over beautiful homemade objects was a joy and i sold thousands upon thousands of cds at these shows over the course of some years.

until, of course, the advent of writeable cds.

being able to rip a cd from another cd enabled the buying market to do-it-themselves and severely shrunk cd sales from independent artists.

and then came streaming, a death-blow to these same independent artists.

but i digress.

i wonder how many people sew now. i wonder if moms still make matching jumpers for their baby girls and themselves. i wonder if people are still sewing bunnies and dolls and pillows. with the bankruptcy of joann fabrics – a legend for those of us who devotedly bought fabric there – i wonder if imagination is sparked as brightly in small fabric departments of other craft-type stores; joann’s was packed with fabrics and knowledgeable store personnel who could answer most any question from aspiring seamstresses.

sewing is kind of like riding a bike. you think you’ve forgotten how to thread the machine – until you sit down in front of it and your hands automatically weave the thread in and out of tiny sprockets and around dials. you think you’ve forgotten the little tidbits of wisdom you’ve gleaned along the way as you lay out a pattern or cut or piece a few patterns together to craft your own iteration of something – and then it all comes rushing back as you touch the ever-familiar manila-colored tissue paper.

i thought i would just move all the patterns along. and then a few caught my eye. “i could make those overalls,” i thought, and “what an easy pj pattern” – and i was hooked.

maybe half a dozen patterns made the cut – to stay with my sewing supplies. the toddler patterns moved on – for other moms or for grandmas to joyfully create. the craft patterns will move on as well. i already have a yo-yo quilt in my future and who knows what i’ll do with all the sports t-shirts left behind by the girl and the boy. we’ll see.

the coolest part of it all – revisiting all these patterns – was remembering the fun challenge of a sewing project and the excitement of a newly-purchased bag of fabric, feeling my grandmother’s legacy surge through me, the expansive way creating creates more ideas for creating.

*****

LEGACY © 1995 kerri sherwood

download music from my little corner of iTUNES

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read DAVID’s thoughts this K.S. FRIDAY

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buymeacoffee is a website where you may directly support an artist whose work directly impacts you.


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hold the light. [kerri’s blog on k.s. friday]

(about this week: there is a peril, it seems, to writing ahead these days. we had decided that this week – the first full week of a new year – we wished to use images of light as our prompts, we wished to linger on the possibility of light, of hope, of goodness. though our blogposts might stray from that as we pen them, it was without constant nod to the constant updating of current events – a mass of indefensible, unconscionable acts. we pondered what to do about these blogposts we had written and decided to keep them. we hope that – whether or not any absence of the happenings of the day, whether or not the chance these written words seem somewhat inane at this moment – you might know that those events – of corruption, illegality, immorality – do not distill or distort our intention – to bring light and hope to this new year – the first days of which bring more insanity and unnerving instability. we are still holding space for light.)

and so…

reticent to un-decorate, we left it all up. we were just hesitant to take down all that glitters, all that sparkles, all that gives light to the season. we were hesitant because there has been so much dark.

it is not out of the norm to be questioning what is happening here. to give over – without inquiry to integrity or morality – is to abdicate, to align, to be complicit.

in this earliest part of 2026, i hope that there will movement to right this country and its unconscionable adoption of the unprincipled as its leaders. i hope there will be steps made that, instead of demolishing diversity, equity and inclusion, will light a fire beneath the heart strings of this very diverse populace, powerful wicks embracing differences. i hope that the inhumane and unjust treatment of people – downright cruelty – will cease. i hope that the constitution will hold.

it is outrageous – in this day and age – 2026 – a time that should be filled with brilliance, forward-advancing research, safety measures and social safety nets for all, a dedication to action concerning climate change, and a world concerned with those who follow – that we are in this place – by most measures – becoming a cauldron of atrocities.

it is unbelievable – in this day and age – 2026 – in this country – that we are surrounded by untruths, steeped in the tactics of evasion, drowning in elitist indulgences, worried about basic necessities.

it is chokingly sad – in this day and age – 2026 – right here and right now – that we are watching this democracy shake at its core, that we are being bullied from republic to regime.

leaving the holiday decorations up didn’t change any of it. but in these winter days of early darkness, it helped hold the light a little longer. and so, we have left a few bits still – bits of light surrounding us, not packed away.

and maybe that’s the inspiration we all need.

hold the light of this democracy.

do not partake in snuffing it out.

*****

HOPE © 2005 kerri sherwood

download music from my little corner of iTUNES

stream on PANDORA

read DAVID’s thoughts this K.S. FRIDAY

like. subscribe. share. support. comment. – thank you. xoxo

buymeacoffee is a website where you may directly support an artist whose work directly impacts you.