long island chamber of commerce

back in the day crunch and i went to every lighthouse on long island’s shoreline and its peripheral islands off the coast. i was doing a photographic study for a college class and crunch was a happy participant, lugging me around in his big green truck and taking us out in his boat, a few boats before his current beloved ‘elephant ears’. the day i got to go up into the fire island lighthouse was memorable. it wasn’t open to the public but the lighthouse keeper was there and generously offered us a tour. the textures – going up the 182 steps on that spiral staircase to the light tower – were photographically inviting: the iron stairs, the cement walls, the ribbed glass of the light. every so often there was a peek out one of the windows built into the structure in 1826 and rebuilt, more than twice as high, in 1857, its eventual black and white bands of color distinguishing it along the ocean front. my essay is all on slides and, after borrowing one of those kodak carousel slide projectors (you can hear the ca-chunk of the slides changing even in your memory), we watched it a couple years ago. all those lighthouses – some steadfast, tall and proud, some crumbling, some pristine and unmanned, each a source of a study in woven texture and, when you are lucky enough to hear the mournful sound of the foghorn and breathe in thick salty air, a synthesis of senses. discovery.

when we were walking along the seine river in paris the sun was setting. i had never been to the eiffel tower and, though i had seen pictures, kind of expected to be underwhelmed. i’ve never been a really big tourist-attraction kind of person, preferring places of nature. we kept walking toward it, strolling, and i could see it in the distance starting to loom into the sky. the lights turned on as we got close and i caught my breath. it was stunning. gold against the early evening sky, light of day dropping away, it was one of my favorite moments in paris. discovery.

every time we come over the pass and start to drop down – the vista of high mountains before us – i cry. forests of evergreens to our side, snow-caps ahead, towering mountains that make my toes curl. i literally want to pull over every few feet to capture the sheer stunning beauty of it all, to remember the green and the blue, to breathe in the cooler air and the scent of pine. we keep driving and i memorize it for the days i am at sea level, wondering if, were we to live there, i would ever not see the incredible-ness of it. or would it always and always be a discovery?

as we walk around our ‘hood, as we hike familiar and unfamiliar trails, i feel open. open to seeing the textures of life as it goes on around us, as it goes on through us. back in the day, with crunch and my blue jean cap, i took a lot of photos on my old 35mm camera. nothing has really changed. my camera is an iphone these days, i don’t have my old blue jean cap and, missing him, david and i haven’t seen crunch in a few years.

but on the best days, in the best moments, when everything else drops off and we are nowhere but right where we are, i am aware of texture after texture, grain and weave and nap and frequency and harmonics, a composition of smooth and rough, woven and intermingled, softly and intensely waiting to be discovered.

isn’t it grand?

*****

read DAVID’S thoughts this D.R. THURSDAY

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jackettpotjjpeg copy one of the first things i told david when we spoke was that “i don’t do nutshells.” he had asked me a question and framed it with, “in a nutshell….?” i laughed. it is not in my dna to do nutshells. none of my family is good at nutshells. my big brother always told a long long story, filled with minute details. he was brilliant and it was always truly fascinating to listen to him. my poppo was the same way, when you got him started. my sweet momma, well, she was a practiced tangent-story-queen. and my sister? suffice it to say she is much like me in story-telling. 😉

i love a good story. i WANT to hear the details. i WANT to see ALL the pictures, not just a few. i WANT to know what-happened-next. it’s the same way i will tell a story, winding all the peripheral stuff right into the very crux of the point, as if it all mattered and carried the same weight, which, of course, isn’t always true. there have been people in my life who have said, “get to the point!” (which i have to say is not a fun thing to be told; it deflates the storyballoon inside one’s heart and makes you lose track of what it was you were trying to say in the first place.)

i blame growing up on long island as well as dna. people tawwwwwk there. they will go on and on. and interrupt each other. and go on and on. it’s great fun following a conversation that way – you are never bored. perhaps a little blurry on the story-point-edges, but never bored.

it’s a long story is the first piece on the album this part of the journey. it starts off with a lift and has a cello line i wish i had the ability to perform. the amazingly “fine” ken produced an album for me that has withstood time. originally recorded in 1998 on a CFIIIS, this is still my best-selling original instrumental album. we were in the studio for long hours, sometimes as long as 23 hours at a time. but we were moved by our studio musicians and their performances on each track and it was easy to summon the energy for this emotional album.

i felt that it’s a long story could be an apt first instrumental piece on ks friday in the melange. with my first album released in 1995 it’s already been a long story. as i continue to define and re-define, i’m hoping that same long story continues. thank you for listening and listening and listening…no nutshells here.