more than once i have been in a moment when i thought, “this is a slice of heaven.” everyone has them. like this scene, it may be on the beach. it may be in the woods. it may be in the rocking chair with your tiny baby. it may be on the mountain in fresh powder. it may be listening to music while running (or sitting quietly) or reading poetry in an adirondack chair. it’s different for everyone. regardless of where it is, of when it is, of what it is, everything feels in balance and all feels well with the world, at least in your little piece of the world. we feel grateful and alive. and we wish for more of those moments.
what if we treated every breathing moment like that? like a slice of heaven.
sisu sue swore by them. turtlenecks. she has them in every color, every kind of weave and fabric. she looks fabulous in them and wears adorable chic jackets over them. she is one cool and trendy lady and i adore her.
having already started the hot-flasharama-period of my life when we were working together, i would ask her how she could stand having a turtleneck on; it was (and mostly still is) out of my realm of imagination being able to wear a turtleneck and not ripping it off in the middle of -say- the choir room or the train to chicago or in the car while driving. this oh-so-wise treasured woman told me that someday i would understand.
THAT DAY HAS COME.
i look in the mirror, a few steps of days away from 59, and stare at (you might want to stop reading now) my NECK. what has HAPPENED? suddenly, my neck (and chin, for that matter) have become O-L-D. where has the time gone? where did my old neck go? and where did that new chin-under-my-chin come from?
my sweet momma, at 93, looked at me one day and said, “i looked in the mirror and (in a horrified voice) i saw an OLD woman.” “momma,” i reassured her, “at 93, you are an old woman, but you are a BEAUTIFUL old woman.” personally, i thought my momma was striking. every last wrinkle told a story. every last thing she saw as a flaw. but my words fell on deaf ears. she just stared back at me. probably feeling much the same as me. delusionally thinking that time would stand still in our necks and chins and -yup- everywhere else. time and menopause take their toll.
the next time you see me try not to stare at my neck (although i have likely set you up for that.) i may or may not be wearing a turtleneck. the ironic part is that a real turtle’s neck really does look a lot like mine. sheesh.
anyone walking in our home knows this is true: i’m a vintage type. our home is not populated with new things fresh from the pottery barn catalog. instead, it is filled with things that are re-purposed, things that are old, things that have some history, things we haven’t replaced with new things. even our manner of work is kinda vintage, although this blog and our online product lines aren’t evidence of that. but as an acoustic-analog-type musician and a brush-to-the-canvas painter, we pretty much scream
“vintage”.
one of my most treasured physical memories of my poppo are a few old small wooden boxes we found next to his workbench. they would likely have been thrown away, but i knew he had “saved them” for some future purpose – perhaps holding random fasteners or nuts and bolts. we carefully wrapped them and brought them home and they now sit in our sunroom (next to our not-so-vintage-and-really-awesome nespresso machine) and they hold nespresso capsules (which are recycled) and a collection of old clothespins my sweet momma used to use on the old clothesline in our backyard growing up. it’s not the fancy stuff. it’s the vintage stuff.
i lusted over this typewriter in the antique store. i’m still thinking about it. if it’s still there one day when we are visiting that shop and i have a little bit of extra spending money, i will buy it. i’m not sure what i will do with it, but it speeeeeaks to me. my sweet momma loved typewriters too. what is it about those?? i think correctotype and purple carbon paper, the workout your fingers got, how it feels when you take the return handle to move to the next line down of type, and that really great sound -think of it…hear it- when you pull the paper out of the roll. it’s visceral.
the stove/oven in our kitchen is, ummm, old, and, although i prefer to think of it as ‘vintage’, it doesn’t necessarily count as romantic ‘vintage’. it was here when we bought the house in 1989 and had likely been here at least ten years at that point; the people who owned the house before us were not the buy-new or even fix-it-up type. matter of fact, they took it to a new level, putting contact paper on the countertops and backsplash and offering to teach us how to replace it. (eww. the sheer bacteria-breeding-ground-ness of that makes me shiver. one of the first things i did was remove that stuff.) but, back to the stove/oven. it continues to work and i can’t tell you how many meals i have cooked on it and how many people have eaten those meals. (if you merely consider almost 29 years and maybe just one meal a day, that is 10,585 times that this appliance has served me and my family and it is likely about 40 years old.) my sister has had multiple stoves/ovens in the time i have had this one. granted, she has enjoyed lots of updated features i haven’t had, but i haven’t (knock wood) spent anything to date on a stove/oven since 1989. amazing. it’s a testament to kenmore’s older appliances. someday i know we will have a new one, but in the meanwhile this workhorse is not taking up room in a dump somewhere, with a half-life of a billion years (ok, slight exaggeration) and i feel good about that. it’s not pretty, it’s not high-tech; i feel it has earned the label ‘vintage’ and no one seems to run – aghast- out of our kitchen because it graces the spot for ‘stove/oven’. there is something to be said for that.
we just had breakfast; d made it as he does each morning these days. he cooked it on that stove and it was deeeeelicous. and me? i’m going to get out our coin jar and count what’s in there. maybe there will be enough to go back to that antique shop so i can bring home this typewriter.
as much as i like black and white, NOTHING is really quite black and white.
we walked the tax stuffff into the accountant’s office this morning. it’s been over 20 years that i have been keeping precise records for the company that is my recording label: sisu music productions inc. this company (like me, like any of us) has seen its ebbs and flows through the years. some of it was due to economy, some due to personal reasons, some due to technology and the internet changing every professional musician’s life, some due to the matter-of-fact financial challenges on any independent recording artist.
while i was compiling all the information this year, i had many conversations with d about how i was feeling. at one point, he turned to me and said, “this is like reading your calendar at the end of the year, isn’t it?” mmm. yes. a cruise through the year in my life as an artist with albums, an artist who has spent time on the radio, on stages, on wholesale show floors. some years that ramble-through is exciting; some years that ramble-through is disappointing. there is always back-story behind the activity, the sales, the decisions. it’s not black and white.
i stand here in march, 23 years after the release of my first album, touching the very very black of my piano and the very very white of the scrap paper i use so often to write on, and look out ahead of me. i wonder where – in this arena of my life, this heading, this column – i am going. the view from here is foggy and unclear. do i have albums to make? stages to play on? my end-game is different now – it has to be; i am 23 years older than i was back then – at the beginning. i can only wonder if the music that is still a part of me, still inside me, never yet hitting anyone’s ears as a finished recording, will find its way, will find relevance, will lead me into the next. it’s not black and white.
i love design. and i love finding the small morsels of design hidden in each of david’s really exquisite paintings and, with my mind’s-eye-magnifying-glass creating products with them…my favorite new design challenges are – amazingly – leggings! but, regardless of the product i am designing, it makes me crazy how many stunning individual images are within the whole…i’m bowled over with my camera roll after i shoot a painting.
earth interrupted I, mixed media 48″x53″
it occurs to me that this is not far from something i should notice in all of life. quarter earth – a part of earth interrupted I – is no less a beautiful image because it is a smaller piece of a whole painting. ahhh. it’s not a stretch to see – that the individual daisy is no less a beautiful image because it is a small part of a field of daisies…this moment is no less a beautiful image because it is a small part of a life of moments…we are no less a beautiful image because we are are a small part of a whole world of people.
i hardly know where to start. eye to eye. i to i. dang.
it’s easy to look at this and think of my own daily-life-eye-to-eye challenges. but – i can’t look at this cartoon and stay away from the political climate in our country. whether you prefer blue or red – or even purple – you have to admit, we are not in a state of blissful co-existing. we have moved in together and have drawn lines down the middle of the virtual apartment, down the middle of the ever-increasingly important issues, down the middle of integrity, down the middle of people’s hearts. and, with such strong big-thick-font-lines drawn, there seems to be no meeting ground, no where to go. the “eyes” of wisdom and for-the-good-of-all-people have disappeared and the “i’s” have shown up, stronger and bigger and more powerful than before; superman without clark kent’s goodness.
where DO we start? pstacey said the other day that we have to start in our own little corner of the world. i agree. how hard is it sometimes to see eye to eye/i to i in our own relationships, our own families? ptom’s words “acts of radical kindness = building community”. i agree. in the middle of our own concentric circles, we make a teeny movement of goodness and the ripple spreads out. there is no where else to start. without our grounding in the breath-space we each take up in the world, we can’t make any progress, we can’t ripple out.
perhaps we all could work on seeing eye to eye (er, i to i) if we made conscious and generous life-giving decisions with every choice-we-are-faced-with that take into account a weighing-in of how it might impact others. we don’t have to agree. but we have to respect each other in the process, try to walk in another’s shoes, see another perspective, see what someone else’s eyes see. see i to i.
yes! there are two different product lines – each easily accessible by clicking on the “eye to eye merchandise” link OR the “i to i merchandise” link above.
i don’t have to look further than my two children for examples of being relentless.
The Boy decided, early in high school, that he wanted to change his attention from baseball to tennis. now, most of his classmates who were tennis players on the varsity team had played since earlier childhood. The Boy had only hit the ball around on the court a few times with his very-best-growing-up-friend-miles or pierre-who-hung-out-here-all-the-time-in-high-school but his decision was made and he pursued it with zeal. a part of the jv team, he practiced and took individual lessons, group lessons, worked with his coaches. i, on the sidelines, sweated and watched, trying hard to be quiet as he pushed himself. he, a natural athlete, was moved up to the varsity team and doubled-down on the hard work of tennis – a “game” possibly more psychological than physical….ridiculously tough on a mom. he went to a university that welcomed him on their tennis team and, for years, i spent the better part of tennis season (and tournament season) driving all over the state and beyond, proud to see his skill on the court, proud to see his drive and, mostly, that it paid off for him. now he applies the same strategic tennis-approach to his life, his career. he was – and is – relentless.
The Girl decided, upon moving to the high mountains of colorado, that she, having never been on skis or other propelling-downhill-snow-gear (other than a sled), wanted to snowboard. she was working in a professional (indoor office) position out there, but she spent every spare moment on the slopes, striving to learn. every now and then she’d report in about her experience on copper mountain or keystone or breck or vail or …. she broke her arm, she twisted limbs, she broke her helmet. she persisted. time passed and she traded up for better snowboards, more equipment; she asked more people for advice or pointers; she was a learner beyond compare. she boarded in aspen, in snowmass, in patagonia. she dropped off ledges and split-boarded up vast mountains. fast forward just a few short years and she, no longer in an inside office doing the piece-of-paper-from-the-university-of-minnesota-work-she-was-trained-for, has taken the learn how to learn, learn how to persevere, learn how to dream – from life, from college, from her own purposeful heart – and is a snowboard instructor and a snowboard coach for a team in aspen. she offers more than snowboarding to those around her; she is the picture of excited zealousness. she was – and is – relentless.
so i………who read to them as little ones and tucked them in and drove them to music lessons and sporting events and played with matchbox cars and dressed barbies and ran alongside two-wheelers and crossed my fingers as they sat behind the wheel of the car and tried to instill a little appreciation of beauty and respect, and helped with homework and stayed up all night while they worked on last-minute-projects and rocked them to sleep at night with a well-loved-tattered ‘goodnight moon’ falling off my lap……..now learn from them. to be relentless.
there is this adorable couple from mississippi on hgtv these days. erin and ben star in a show called Home Town and they are working to restore their tiny town of laurel one beautiful home at a time. my favorite moment, as they run commercials for this very popular show, is erin passionately looking into the camera saying, with the most charming southern drawl, “get up and DO it.” you can tell she means this about every single thing. and to her call to action, i just might add – and be relentless.
i used to spend a lot of time driving across the country to wholesale shows where i would represent my cds and sell to stores everywhere that stocked music. the world has changed since then and not only are there less boutique-type shops with original work (inexpensive copies have taken over), but there are few shops that actually sell physical cds. in this world of downloading (read: streaming, but don’t get me started on THAT subject) it is hard for a proprietor to invest in anything they aren’t sure will fly out the door.
when i drove east with a vanload of boxes and merchandise, i would pass a lake called meander lake. i looked forward to these signs and the view of this lovely lake through the trees. the word “meander” conjured up images of every time i had taken the time to do just that: meander. on a back road, on a trail in the mountains, in the woods in a state park, along the lake, through a magazine or book, or in my mind’s eye. i am a meanderer. i believe i come by it naturally; my sweet momma loved meandering…any day she would suggest a car drive or a bike hike to some distant spot, meandering on the way. she wasn’t afraid of getting lost; for her, meandering WAS the meaning in the time spent.
sitting at yamaha artist services in nyc i had a list of titles i had collected, words that had spoken to me or touched my heart. “meander” was on that list. with “record” on, i simply ‘played’ the word “meander.” the amazing “fine” ken orchestrated this piece back in chicago, bringing in musicians to add tracks.
sitting next to me right now, david just listened to it. the richness of that orchestration wrapped around me and i was back on I-76, jotting down on a scrap of paper the word “meander.”
years ago i was commissioned to write for and perform at the annual breast cancer symposium in san antonio, texas. after talking with the producers, i had gathered enough details to know that this symposium is a very big research event in which new research is both shared and celebrated, at which researchers and physicians from all over are honored. these folks are often the people in the foreground of new advances but the background as far as survivors and lay-people knowing who they are. it was from that place that i wrote this song.
a couple of years after that, lance armstrong was leading the tour of hope across the country. despite his more recent fall from grace, there were countless good people working on this tour of hope – bicyclists riding across the country with big rallies in various cities – to raise awareness for cancer and celebrate survivorship. i performed alongside my cherished friend and breast cancer survivor speaker heidi on an out-of-season gorgeous day in october in downtown chicago at the block 37 on state street park that is now a high-rise. lance was there and was laser-focused and passionate in his support of cancer survivors. at the time, i was honored to work with him and i credit that day with meeting my dear friend scordskiii, his photographer, who brought many a laugh and hours of conversation during subsequent years when i really needed both.
this song is personal for me. the moffitt cancer center in tampa, florida used it as a thank-you in a hospital-wide video to the staff for their work. for me, their efforts included extending my poppo’s life 12 years beyond diagnosis. i was proud and honored for this song to be featured.
in the last two decades, heidi and i have performed all over the country at innumerable oncology events together (walks, runs, survivor celebrations, conferences, hospitals, cancer centers, churches, memorials): she, speaking from a survivor’s viewpoint; me, performing songs i have written to resonate with these events. each event has been a shining light for us.
as i listened to this song YOU MAKE A DIFFERENCE the other day, i realized, once again, that this is not a song dedicated to one effort, to one fight. it is a song that is dedicated to any effort in which people gather together in community to fight against darkness, whatever that darkness might be. it’s for the people in the foreground, on the front line. and it’s for the people in the background, not looking for any credit whatsoever, just looking for change…good change. it’s for all the people we don’t know who walk, strike, write, argue, research, march, petition, and present clear options to the light.
this week i would dedicate this song to those young students who have risen up from the pitch-darkness shooting at marjory stoneman douglas high school in florida. to have a voice. to bring light. we are all proud of you. you make a difference.
peace. the written word (or the symbol) punctuates the corners of our home. it’s suspended on doorknobs, off of old window frames, made of old copper or tin, in my studio handmade by the boy out of a scrap of wood, a necklace from the girl hanging on a mirror, a chunky silver ring on my right hand from david…
“may you be peace” would be my motto, if we all had mottos. i just feel like i can’t think of better places to lead from than kindness and peace. way back in high school, a long while ago, the-amazing-english-teacher-andrea made an impression on all of us – with her peace signs and her pay-it-forward-thinking; if my obsession with peace signs hadn’t already started by then, this indeed was its jump-start.
david’s painting MAY YOU wraps a buddhist prayer around you and is astoundingly beautiful. as i photographed it for his gallery site, i found myself concentrating also on morsels of the painting, each stunning in their own right. this is one of the morsels. may you be peace is simple and complex, beckoning you to be both of this world and beyond this world. wishing you, today and every single day, this peace.
more than once i have been in a moment when i thought, “this is a slice of heaven.” everyone has them. like this scene, it may be on the beach. it may be in the woods. it may be in the rocking chair with your tiny baby. it may be on the mountain in fresh powder. it may be listening to music while running (or sitting quietly) or reading poetry in an adirondack chair. it’s different for everyone. regardless of where it is, of when it is, of what it is, everything feels in balance and all feels well with the world, at least in your little piece of the world. we feel grateful and alive. and we wish for more of those moments.
