reverse threading

the path back is the path forward

Tag Archives: not-so-flawed wednesday


by 26 Comments

opus one. [not-so-flawed wednesday]

it’s a mystery.

though we tried to identify this arm, the watchband and the bracelet, we have no idea.

someone texted us this photograph – sans words – and left it at that.

granted, there are plenty of texts that arrive from political groups, fundraisers, smarmy this-is-amazon-we-are-shutting-down-your-account-give-us-all-your-information-to-save-yourself. even the occasional “hi” from a number we don’t recognize or, worse yet, inappropriately vulgar texts coming from who-knows-where. but never a bottle of wine.

apparently, this is an expensive bottle of wine. we looked it up. it ranges in price from several hundred dollahs to several thousand dollahs – neither of which we could or would spend on a single bottle at this moment.

when i had dinner shy of twenty years ago in nyc with a radio program director of the biggest adult contemporary station in the metro area he ordered a bottle of wine. he also ordered truffles flown in from france earlier that day. sharp cheeses for in-between courses. port to follow the meal. i hoped and prayed that we weren’t splitting the bill. my work was on radio, slowly gaining, but he had an expense account. the expense account that i had was from my label – which i owned. i kept every receipt and documented everything, but there is that small detail of having the money to cover the expense…

the wine he chose was $250. a merlot. i can’t remember which vineyard, what year, or what area of the world in which it was produced. i just remember the price and that it was truly a lovely glass of wine, with depth and complexity and a delightful finish. it could have been opus one.

the entire bill was nearing $800 and, though it was an experience i won’t forget, all i could think of was that we could have had big macs together and chatted the chat we chatted and he could have donated the rest to a food bank in the city. the fancy-fance was somewhat lost on me…the backpack-toting-jeans-boots-wearing scrappy yamaha artist recording in the city. when i arrived, i had walked into a chic place, a stainless bar going the length of the restaurant, exposed brick, program director on a stool in animated conversation with the bartender, and the hostess – or was she the maître d’? – asked, “would you like me to check your ….errr…. backpack?” i declined. at that moment, that errr-backpack had everything in it…my purse, my clothes, my composing notes, my plane ticket, fresh socks, my toothbrush and a travel blowdryer. i couldn’t check it.

so the other day when this photograph arrived in our textbox, we searched the area code to see if we could figure out who it might be from. no luck. and no follow-up. we wondered if it was an ad or – in a positive foreshadowing moment – a glimpse of a package to arrive. such teasing.

i suppose we won’t ever know. nothing has arrived via usps, fedex, ups. though yesterday i did get an email that said my dhl package was waiting to be delivered – if i would just supply them with all my payment information and signature.

payment information? uh-huh. if it’s for that bottle of wine – the 1999 signed opus one bordeaux red blend – i’m gonna need to pass. exquisite will have to wait. maybe until opus two.

*****

and an addendum – six months now after we got our opus one text message: greetings to you! it appears that this post is being read hundreds and hundreds of times – more than most any other post i have ever written. in the happy spirit of this continual opus one wine text circulation around the globe (for you are surely all over the world), please consider subscribing to this blog or reading some of the other posts i’ve written or purchasing some of my music on iTunes or stream it on pandora or listen on iHeart radio (it goes great with wine!) pass it on. i’d really appreciate it. truly. xo

and now – nine months later – this post has been visited a few thousand times. still a mystery.

buy us a coffee (or a glass of wine!) use this link or the QR code 🙂 xoxo

read DAVID’S thoughts this NOT-SO-FLAWED WEDNESDAY


by 1 Comment

slowly. [not-so-flawed wednesday]

we almost did it. almost. almost ordered thai food for pick-up.

but we didn’t.

we’d been hiking and were cold and tired. and we didn’t reeeeally want to make dinner.

but we did.

eventually.

we got around to it.

slowly.

we pulled our adirondack chairs into the last vestiges of sun in the yard, sipped wine, had a happy snack. when the sun disappeared, we brought our glasses inside and painted rocks – from the sand near the beachhouse – at the kitchen table, for we had hidden all the ones we previously painted. time stretched out in front of us, slow, a glorious saturday night.

instead of pad thai, we made tacos with homemade seasoning, had one of the last two avocados from my sister, watched a hallmark – yes, hallmark – movie under a big sherpa blanket, had two squares of chocolate.

hiking – tough elevation climbs – on this last trip to north carolina reminded me to go slow. it was the lesson i brought home from vacation. set a slower pace, don’t set too high a bar, mosey a bit, let living happen.

so i planted the painted rock on our sunroom table on top of sandstone from those smoky mountain trails. the other side of the rock reads, “no. slower.” you know…take a backroad, linger in the setting sun, sink under a blanket, climb a little slower.

my snapchat alerted me to a flashback. two years ago. on a balcony in aspen. the caption: “i don’t want to leave.” i remember slowly packing up, slowly loading the truck, slowly driving away. it was hard to go – as always – but slower made it a little easier.

i leave summer slowly and i step into autumn – my favorite – slowly. i wasn’t really ready for flannel. i pulled off the summer sheets for the last time in the season, thinking about how it feels on a hot night to place your face on a cool spot of the pillow. flannel isn’t like that.

but at the end of the night, after hiking and tacos and wine, chocolate and blanketed-movie-watching, in a house chilled by blustery northwest winds, the flannel was warm and i found myself snugged in soft stripes, slowly drifting off.

*****

read DAVID’S thoughts this NOT-SO-FLAWED WEDNESDAY


by Leave a comment

thinking notes. [not-so-flawed wednesday]

“thinking notes,” ken calls them. lingering on the same note for an extra moment, an extra beat, sorting what’s next. well, technically, it would rarely just be only one beat or one moment, but that would require more explanation. i suppose most composers are familiar with this.

writing on the fly – improvisational but with a sense of theme – is surely plotting and scheming, figuring out in the nanoseconds ahead what will come. the moments you are deep into a recording and you somehow skew the rhythmic pattern – or the melodic gesture – you’ve developed, and you know that twist will change it all. your brain delivers a quick “plot twist” faceslap to your hands and you keep going. and, for the most part, no one is the wiser for the turn in the road, save for your producer.

outside the bookstore in the little mountain town the sign made us stop, nodding our heads. sometimes it’s the plot twists – and the unanswered prayers – that save us. we think we know best. we etch the plans in stone.

but those moments come and nothing stays the same, for even the tiniest twist in the road changes latitude or longitude, beat pattern, melody line. and they deliver with them the grace to play a little thinking note, take a little breath, close your eyes tightly and then reopen them – and then keep going.

hold your plans – and your plot twists – gently.

*****

read DAVID’S thoughts this NOT-SO-FLAWED WEDNESDAY


by 1 Comment

a tall spikelet. [not-so-flawed wednesday]

she was a coloratura soprano. her leaps, her trills, her range were atmospheric. bell-like and of angel quality, rayna sang effortlessly.

i have no idea if she is singing now. the last i heard – after i graduated with a degree in composition – she left and was in med school, seeking a degree outside of the arts. she must have had a wise mentor along the way. someone who told her she could always sing “on the side”. like rice pilaf.

“on the side.”

it’s the ever-present albatross of artists. even those who stand out in a crowd are thrust – by a society that doesn’t place as much value on the arts – into the yin-yang of opposing forces: stay. go. full-time. on the side.

every now and then there is a whitetop sedge spikelet in the field that is strikingly more successful than the rest… the mariah carey, the ariana grande, the beverly sills, the joan sutherland. delivering exquisite bel canto, they do not render the other spikelets any less important, nor should they be. each voice is unique in the meadow and this spikelet is just a little taller.

before i finished my bachelor’s degree i was accepted into the business school at usf. “accounting,” i thought. “i love math, therefore accounting.” the “normal-job” world was taunting me. but i declined the placement and continued on my merry way, writing music. i did not have rayna’s mentor and i believed there was a way to stand out, somehow.

it took some time just to get around to writing. life and its put-the-art-making-on-the-side-and-get-a-real-job-and-make-a-living had me directing and teaching. but not writing. i dabbled a bit relatively early on, did some recording and visited nashville – but didn’t move there. i don’t think i recognized the garden there when i saw it.

it wasn’t until a decade later that the muse caught back up to me. and when it did, it was with some gusto.

and now i’ve seen “the fault in our stars”. and i’ve witnessed mortality. i have loved and lost and changed and learned and made giant messes and have ridden the tide in and out, in and out.

and i’ve written some of my best and some of my worst. and it all counts – whether i – or you – are a tall spikelet or not.

i wonder now if rayna is practicing medicine. i wonder if she is singing.

*****

read DAVID’S thoughts this NOT-SO-FLAWED WEDNESDAY


by 1 Comment

every waterfall counts. [not-so-flawed wednesday]

we stood in a quiet forest, the only sounds – birds and running water.

we had taken a sketchy gravel forest service road – a single-car-width-wide – to get to the trailhead up the mountain, encouraging littlebabyscion the whole way and grateful we had gotten new tires before our trip. the brochure directions were not as straight-forward as we would have liked, and we lost signal for most of the time, but eventually the alltrails app helped us find our way.

250 waterfalls. there are more than 250 waterfalls to discover in brevard, north carolina. choosing where to go is overwhelming. but once you start laying feet on the dirt, hiking, it really doesn’t matter. we were surrounded by intensity every which way we looked. we stood by the side of the waterfall, silent.

it wasn’t one of the grand falls; it wasn’t listed on the “top 10”. but it was serene and light dazzled through the trees. millions of droplets captured the sun. a tiny miracle of beauty in the woods. haloed waterfall. stunning. perfect.

“and the moon said to me, my darling daughter, you do not have to be whole in order to shine.” (nichole mcelhaney)

we hiked on up further, a steep climb to a destination unknown.

*****

read DAVID’S thoughts this NOT-SO-FLAWED WEDNESDAY


by 1 Comment

the west wall. [not-so-flawed wednesday]

it’s the west wall. and every morning as the sun streams in across the room, we comment. it’s one of those images that you anticipate, that stays with you, that you miss on cloudy days – a new day captured between miniblinds. and, because we were there and so was he, we know the shadow in the bottom left window pane is a shadow of dogdog’s furry ear and the nape of his neck. his ritual – laying on the bed with us in the morning as we sip coffee and the sun works on rising.

it will soon be a year since columbus – david’s sweet dad – died. it is now just days away. i knew him for merely eight years. but he was easy to adore. he still is. i talk to him every time i get into big red, feeling his presence as i crank up country music and roll down the windows. i don’t even know if he cranked up country music and rolled down the windows, but i sense his approval and it makes me smile. he had a gentle way about him and his shadow leaves soft edges in my heart. i told david that it will get a little bit harder each day now. there is no changing that. not feeling his absence is like trying to keep an open candle lit in the wind. impossible.

the anniversary of his leaving-this-earth forces one to recognize mortality. when my big brother died, it foisted upon me an absolute sense of a lack of infinity – time goes by and the world continues on, yet there will come a time that our relationship with the world will no longer feel the same and our shadow will be a little less pronounced, a little less definitive, a little fuzzier, though no less present. when my poppo and then, three years later, my sweet momma died, i was struck by the sheer ludicrousness of how wrapped up we all get in everylittledetailofeverything. it felt like we should spend more time shadow-dancing together in the sun and less time in the actual shadows. there is no time to waste. we learn it – and forget – again and again. and again.

in the way of shadows and energy and love, we know that our dogga can feel us, despite our temporary absence from him as we travel. just like the people we love – here and not here – he is right with us.

the west wall reminds us.

*****

read DAVID’S thoughts this NOT-SO-FLAWED WEDNESDAY


by Leave a comment

my big sister and his big brother. [not-so-flawed wednesday]

and then, there were avocados.

the box arrived on the doorstep and, almost immediately, the text came. “delivered to front porch,” my sister texted, “hooray!!!”.

this was not a small box. this box had 17 avocados in it. and not 17 measly avocados you purchase at the local wisconsin grocery store. 17 that were grown lovingly on a tree in florida, some of which weigh over a pound. a pound!

beautiful golden-green on the inside, they arrived on a difficult day and were a welcome sight from my big sister. yes, ken’s words – “life’s vicissitudes” were wreaking a bit o’ havoc and my big sister’s avocados were a balm, like his big brother’s reassurances and caring and teasing on the phone later that week.

we don’t live close to either of those siblings. one lives in florida, with a beautiful home and pool in front of a lush swamp and lake and one lives in colorado in a lovely neighborhood with stunning peonies and a view of the front range. we don’t get to see them often. but they have a way of showing up. and, for that, we are grateful.

in this world today with broad radiuses of residence instead of the close-by of years past, it’s not easy to stay engaged with those you love. you wish to spend more time with them – the ordinary kind of moments – to see what life is like, to step a tiny bit into their shoes or at least have a window into their day-to-day. it’s hard to hear of other families and easy sunday dinners, errands with elderly parents, adventures with grown children. i’ve pined more than once to go browse at target with my daughter or have a pedicure with my sister or watch my niece hold and play with her toddler-boy or view a hallmark-extravaganza with my other niece or, even harder, coffeesit once again with my sweet momma. i’ve thought about all the time i spent at tennis courts or in baseball fields with my son and wished to again watch from the sidelines as he bats and runs and fields or lobs tennis balls over the net. i’ve thought about preparation for fall and pumpkins and apple pies and corn mazes. i’ve thought about the famous calzones made in my sister-in-law’s colorado kitchen, the sweet niece who would sip red wine with me and taking a walk around the lake with david’s momma. and then, the chance to see all the rest…our families, friends, newly-found cousins, wider concentric circles still connected but a little further out.

these years have taken a toll. though we have traveled a little bit, it’s not like pre-pandemic. and there is so much to miss when wisconsin is not where everyone is, so much yearning. i know Making Time for others is important and, with work and budget and covid restraints, we try the-best-we-can to do whatever-we-can. it doesn’t eliminate the missing.

today is a good day for guac.

*****

read DAVID’s thoughts this NOT-SO-FLAWED WEDNESDAY

whole30 fajita bowl


by 1 Comment

windows-open. [not-so-flawed wednesday]

we never put the air conditioners in. all summer. it’s been windows-open. summer two.

granted, there were a few days that were a little brutal, the humidity high, the breeze slight. we all melted a little.

but we survived. and, as i sit here, knowing that there are whirring central systems all around us, i can feel the breeze coming in from the east, the sun is gracing the comforter, the chippies are out back trying to dissuade the squirrels from eating at the birdfeeder and it is mostly quiet. our old house breathes and the outdoors comes in.

i guess i know people who spend scarcely any time outside. i personally can’t imagine it. we spend as much time outside as possible. even deck time counts. moments that we get to be up-north are exceptional and this time was no different. it doesn’t matter the weather, though sparklingly sunny days are truly impossible miracles of beauty. but even the rain, falling on the woods and lulling us all, doesn’t deter us and we sneak out in-between to take a walk and find wildflowers on the side of the road.

there is a chipmunk – and i am assuming, with no real basis for it, that it is always the same one – that comes to the fence across the driveway outside my window almost every day. it sits atop the fencepost and chirps loudly, stopping only when i call out the window to him, “hi little guy! hi chippie!” and make conversational chippie noises back at him. satisfied he said good morning (again, an assumption) he scampers off the fence and on to his next task-at-hand. were the window to be closed, i would miss it.

there are trips we want to take – to gorgeous high mountains and red rock canyons, to the atlantic coast, to smoky mountains, to cool canadian provinces, to faraway places overseas. we’ll spend as much time outside in those places as we can, drinking it in.

that window is big and wide open. and there is wild and sensational beauty out there.

but it’s even in our own backyard. and i don’t want to miss it.

*****

read DAVID’S thoughts this NOT-SO-FLAWED WEDNESDAY


by 1 Comment

until the next time. [not-so-flawed wednesday]

“wherever you go, go with all your heart” (confucius)

this is not hard in the quiet bow of a canoe on a pristine dark aquamarine lake under a baby blue sky. my heart is all in.

from one time to the next you forget a little how the paddle fits in your hand, how it easily skims through the water, how it rubs that spot under your thumb. you forget the sound of water droplets hitting a quiet surface as you raise up the paddle, the swoosh of the oar back into the water, the peace. no real destination. just point the bow and paddle.

if we have a thought in the world, it is only about beauty and fresh air and a breeze in our favor. we pass water lily pads and, every so often, a lily gracing them, pink pondweed above flat vases of gathered rhododendron-looking leaves. it’s serene. it’s quiet.

there is no race, so set time limit. we simply go, aware of how full our hearts feel. we paddle back only when it seems time.

the walkie-talkie crackles, “happy-hour-snack-time-tchk.” we laugh. and turn the canoe. no pressure.

we make our way back past the fisherman, the floating mats waiting for kids and splashing and laughter, the island created by the rising lake level. past the place we saw the porcupine, past the place the turtles were swimming, past the place someone caught a giant bass some time ago.

they wave from the dock and tease over the walkie-talkie that there is nothing left.

we paddle to shore and climb out.

part of my heart stays – quietly – for a moment – in the bow and memorizes the way it felt. until the next time.

*****

read DAVID’S thoughts this NOT-SO-FLAWED WEDNESDAY


by Leave a comment

lit-fires. [not-so-flawed wednesday]

“c’mon baby, light my fire,” the saying is the centerpiece of a beautiful frame of deep woods, reaching up and reflecting in a pond down. it was part of a moving wedding gift and we treasure it on top of our dresser.

dogdog needs little to light his fire. it would seem one of his favorite things is to “go on errands”. his little body quivers with excitement and it takes a few moments for him to stop jumping-bean-jumping before he sits on the rug for his leash and the chance to bound out the door and godirectlytothecardonotstoporcollect200dollars. he – in his weird aussie-quirk way – will only get in littlebabyscion from the rear passenger door and he jumps up and waits, with great anticipation. lit-fire and all, he will wait for a very long time to discover where it is we are going and, every time, even if it is only around the block, he looks thrilled. in nice weather he sticks his head out the window and lets the wind blow his ears, his eyes wide, his mouth open. he has no expectation. he finds his glee right there and then. he is elated.

there was a moment this weekend, a busy one working around the house and in our backyard, that we took to sit and relax at the table out back, eat too many pistachio nuts and paint rocks. my green paint pen cap exploded off and neon green paint went everywhere. we looked at each other and started laughing. a couple hours went by before we realized it might be time to warm up some leftovers. nothing like a saturday, dusk on the deck and yummy leftovers.

it just makes you realize that it’s all about framing.

lit-fires and joy.

we just need to bound into it with no expectations.

*****

read DAVID’S thoughts this NOT-SO-FLAWED WEDNESDAY