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Tag Archives: last i saw you


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my cello. [kerri’s blog on k.s. friday]

i sold my cello this week.

i would be lying if i told you i didn’t cry at the string shop.

i did cry. i’m crying now.

i am a professional pianist. a composer. proudly a yamaha artist with an intensely beautiful C5 in my studio and fifteen albums plus of vulnerability out in the world. i play the guitar and the ukulele. i dabbled on the trumpet in college for five minutes or so. but, oh…the cello.

the moment i touched my cello i had a bond with it. and, holding the idea close of learning to play mournfully heart-draining melody lines, i purchased it. because artists dream, i played.

but reality is reality.

and now – with 45° of wrist forward range of motion – my cello needed a new home. it’s just a fact.

i held onto it long after i knew this. it’s hard to let go a dream. and i’ve never before sold a beloved instrument.

yet, cellos – like all instruments – need to be loved on: played, listened to, tweaked, played more. a paesold, german-made, warm and resonant in tone, it begged to come out of the corner of my studio. though i tried to ignore it, it is like ignoring the stare of an australian shepherd who clearly wants you to do something (and we have experience with this). so my cello kept staring at me and staring at me. even without entering my studio – for i have not spent much time in there in these most recent years – i could feel the stare of the cello through the wall.

until finally.

i know this cello is valuable. yet, the string shop i sold it to – for much less than its value – was full of string music and luthiers working, a performance space and a full marching line of cellos on the wall. it will not be lonely as it waits to be re-homed.

the shopowner knew how hard it was for me to sell this cello, to leave it behind, to leave at all.

i touched its maple and spruce, exquisitely varnished. i spoke to my cello. and i blew it a kiss as we left, entirely and utterly choked-up.

and i wondered how my cello-dream might morph into something else.

because it’s still raw.

*****

LAST I SAW YOU from THIS PART OF THE JOURNEY ©️ 1997, 2000 kerri sherwood

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peonies in perpetuity. [d.r. thursday]

the time for our peonies has passed. they have been momentary, ephemeral. yet, even in their briefest of moments, their impact has been profound. their sweet fragrance wafted through the backyard, their stunning pink punctuated the green of the garden, their blossoms – from bud to full bloom – have been enchanting. and now, the green remains. i understand the plant is in full working mode – storing up energy for the next season of blooms. i already can’t wait to see them.

we planted a small herb garden on our potting stand this past weekend. basil, rosemary, mint, parsley. we added one dwarf indeterminate cherry tomato plant. and we placed a potted citronella on the deck. there is something infinitely satisfying about going outside with kitchen scissors to snip off the herb i need for a recipe. caprese salads or skewers, mint tea, parsley because heidi’s mom said everything is lifted with a little parsley, and rosemary – it reminds me of the brunch we had one day a couple years ago on the porch of the gingerbread house bistro up west of milwaukee. we split a steak seasoned with rosemary – i can still taste this delight. i’ll be using the rosemary today with roasted baby potatoes. all from steps away, an extension off our patio.

i wrote the album this part of the journey in 1997. piano-based instrumentals, a few of the pieces on that album had their moment on adult contemporary radio. and then, like all good peonies, they faded a bit, stoking up energy in the plant for next. but as i pull up the album and listen – last i saw you, the way home, good moments – i can still hear the pink, can still feel the peaceful wafting, can grasp its relevance. i still hear about this album from people out-there listening. it’s steps away from now, but it’s on an extension of the patio of my discography.

instrumental music – like peonies – has no half-life. both evoke emotional reactions – visceral reactions – both are steadfast in their passive zeal to just be. both wrap one in the right now. both go on.

i suppose, in a rare moment, i might one day put this album – or as it is – or any of my instrumental albums – on the cd player. i might sit down in an adirondack chair next to the peony within the concentric scent-circle of mint and basil, and simply listen.

i might be reminded of the moments in composition, the moments in practice, the moments in recording, the moments in concert.

and i might be able to see the peonies that will surely arrive next season.

*****

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the turtles. [k.s. friday]

i think about the turtles. they are there in the warmer months, sunning on logs and rocks that jut out of the river. but, when it dips below fifty degrees or so – and stays there – they disappear. apparently, they dive down to the muddy bottom, their metabolism slows down, they require less oxygen. their mucky homes keep them safe as they bide time, these wise, long-lived creatures of the water and the land.

from time to time on the trail we look for them. we know where they hang out and have watched for telltale signs of small snouts poking out of the water. but then it got cold and we just missed them.

the river is alive with other wildlife. geese and a few hardy ducks, squirrels, deer – we see them as we hike.

but we always talk about the turtles anyway. just because we can’t see them doesn’t mean we forget about them. we know they are there – somewhere – in hidden spots, places they feel sheltered and secure. i think about what they might be doing. they are silent and the fallow is long. i trust they are sorting what is next, kind of like us.

he can tell you i worry about them, despite the fact that i know they are completely capable, totally self-sufficient, quite brilliant actually. nevertheless, i am more comforted by seeing the turtles every now and then – at least – than by wondering how they are faring. time keeps moving, though, and i keep hope that when it warms up and the turtles have a more secure sense of themselves in the world they will reappear, out of the suspension of presence. i’m hoping for an early spring.

i know that the turtles are aware i am watching for them and waiting. and the river freezes. and then it thaws.

*****

LAST I SAW YOU ©️ 1997, 2000 kerri sherwood

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a long while. [k.s. friday]

last i saw you

a long while.

since last i saw you. and you. and you. it is dizzying. the yous and the longwhiles.

it makes me want an RV, updated map apps and a little bit of time.

i’m finding myself talking to people these days – people who have gone on to different planes of existence like my sweet momma or my poppo.  i ask them advice.  i tell them tales of the day.  i bemoan the challenges of our world with them; i wonder with them.

twenty-eight years ago today my big brother crossed over.  the transition of here to there is something of great ponderance for human beings.  we don’t know.  we profess to knowing, but we hardly know.  we only know what it feels like to be left behind, missing and yearning.  i will forever-and-ever yearn to be within embracing distance of my parents, my brother, and loved ones who have no tangible form but whose silken threads-of-being are eternally wrapped around me, always reminding me.

it’s like that for people still here on this very planet, people who we have not seen, people who we pine about when last we saw them.

truth be told, i spent the last couple of days in tears.  not slow-motion-tears that quietly weep down my face.  but the kind of tears where your ribs and your back hurt the next day; the kind of tears that swell your eyelids and make mascara application undoable.  the kind of tears that remind you how much you love someone and how much you miss them.  for me, this time, this was about my children.  it’s impossible to really explain what this missing feels like.  i can say it is wrapped up in the act of breathing, in every aspect of living a day, in the darkening of light.

the pandemic has brought exponential pain to people in our world.  suffering its disease, we worry about those who have been diagnosed, we grieve those who have succumbed to its ugliness, we wrangle with the illogical, implausible, grossly inadequate response of our land.  we are floored at those who are picking fights over this monster that is on a path of destruction which has unfathomable fallout.  we cannot understand the division and the planting of flags-of-the-ridiculous when peoples’ very health and lives are at stake; what truly matters more than that? it’s insanity: how can so many people be so lost? we try to sustain good attitudes and do the right thing.  we try to protect each other.  we try to avoid being a reason that this pandemic is spreading.  and we miss everyone we love in the process.

we wonder:  when?  when will “last” be now?  when will we see you?

and we hope, with great desperation, that it is not a long while.

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LAST I SAW YOU ©️ 1997, 1999 & 2000 kerri sherwood


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last i saw you. [k.s. friday]

last i saw you songbox

the last i saw him was not the last of this world being this world.  but it was the last moment my world was the same.  i wrote about this yesterday.  it’s all fragile.  like a soaring violin note bowed over a line of piano, it’s ephemeral.  it will vanish in the next moment.  we keep hearing the line in our heads; we keep hearing the cello passionately talking to us; we keep those we have never seen again close.

i wrote this piece to speak to the last time i saw my big brother.  i listen to it now and it is also about the last time i saw my sweet momma, my poppo, my uncle allen, my grandparents, my adored high-school-english-teacher andrea, my not-really-a-triplet-from-elementary-school-on-dear-friend kenny…  it’s about the last time i saw people i’ve loved forever.  it’s about holding on to shared moments with my living-far-away-children.  it’s about the last time – when i don’t know when the next time is.

LAST I SAW YOU is the gossamer strands of connection between us.  it’s how we hold that and honor that.  for me, just know it is a statement of enduring love.

download THIS PART OF THE JOURNEY on iTUNES or CDBaby

read DAVID’S thoughts this K.S. FRIDAY

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LAST I SAW YOU from THIS PART OF THE JOURNEY ©️ 1998 kerri sherwood


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‘peanuts’ and my big brother.

as i type this on an ipad under a blanket on the couch, i am using a hard-cover book to steady the ipad….it is the charles schulz “peanuts treasury” copyrighted in 1968. now that is a kind of random bit of information, but its randomness makes me think of my big brother. and so whatever i was going to write has now gone by the wayside, getting lost in this ‘peanuts’ treasury of memories. wayne was an avid ‘peanuts’ follower, a lover of all fullsizerender2things charlie brown and snoopy, a wonderful artist and brilliant mathematician, a person who could make or fix all things. he papered his walk-in closet in our basement growing up with ‘peanuts’ cartoons, cut out of the newspaper. what wasn’t covered in cartoons was drawn by hand, and when i inherited this bedroom/closet combo from him at 16, i adored it. the wallboard in our garage had drawings by wayne, making it the only ‘peanuts’ garage-gallery on the block, ok, probably most anywhere.

what was so compelling to him about ‘peanuts’? i’m not sure. i never had a philosophical conversation with him about it. for me, 9 years younger than him, it was just a fact of life…he loved the cartoon. and if he loved it, that was good enough for me. i loved it.

having a cartoon we have been honing for some time, we have studied ‘peanuts’ in more recent days, david and i. looking for clues as to why it was so very successful. it seems obvious now. it was so relate-able, for so many reasons. simply written, predictable, cleanly done, beautifully drawn. ‘peanuts’ has spoken to so many of us through the years. and still does. it holds a certain special place in our hearts, reaching across decades and spanning generations. i recently was given a charlie brown mug from the charles m. schulz museum and research center in california – a gift from h, an older member of our choir who had just visited the museum – and i cherish it. wayne would have loved it.

years ago, a long while of years, i visited long island and went to my old house. as i sat out front in the car, the owners of the house pulled up into the driveway. without much hesitation, i went to them and told them that this was the house i had grown up in; my parents had been the first owners. they were the second owners. we stood out front and we chatted about the house -my-home-now-their-home- and how they had changed some of the interior and yard (but not the hand-placed rock fireplace or the forsythia out front or my poetry tree.)

i must have had a wistful look on my face, because they asked if i wanted to see it, go inside my house, er, their house. of course i did. who doesn’t want to go back to those old touchstones and feel – from the inside – times spent there.

they showed me the kitchen, which they had updated, the backyard deck, which they had added, the laundry room (of course, without the westinghouse dryer that played “how dry i am” upon finishing.) i talked about the basement. about the bedroom i had had there and the coolest closet my big brother had created. they laughed hearing that and said they had seen and loved it but had, indeed, changed it to a cedar closet for storage. i didn’t expect it to still be there, but i guess something inside of me had hoped for that.

once again, the look on my face must have said all.

they looked at each other and then back at me. “but you might want to take a look at the garage,” she said.

we walked out into the garage, just a one-car garage that they hadn’t changed. as i walked in through the door in the den, i looked at the wall behind me. the world war II flying ace snoopy graced the wallboard and charlie brown was there beside him. ‘peanuts’ had done it again. warmed my heart.

i reached out to touch the wall, moved, knowing my big brother’s hand had been there, many many years before.

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LAST I SAW YOU on iTunes: kerri sherwood – track 11 on THIS PART OF THE JOURNEY