reverse threading

the path back is the path forward

Tag Archives: pianist


by Leave a comment

wonderful world. [k.s. friday]

“easy living” it advertises on the cover of the wayfair summer catalog. inside, you can purchase everything you need for easy living. for a price, you can create easy living spaces on your deck, your front porch, in your kitchen, in your bath, by your pool, in your backyard. most items are really beautiful, beckoning you to believe in the power they have to help you live easy. this summer, we actually added a few small things to our own deck, though our deck is a mostly-target-added-to-repurposed-stuff deck. i have to say, a few cushions and outdoor pillows make an inviting difference.

we have changed our schedule a bit these days. we used to stay up really late and watch late night news and comedy talk shows, but through the pandemic and the political-rah-rah times it has tended to get us riled up. so instead, after the sun has fallen from the sky and mosquitoes having joined us on the deck, we watch minimal tv and go to bed early to read aloud or watch trails on a laptop. we wake up early, with rising sun and birdcalls streaming in through the wide-open windows in our bedroom.

this morning, just as the sun rose, i plugged in the coffee, fed dogdog, opened the windows in the sunroom and went outside. i greeted the tiniest farm on our potting stand, tested the soil for dampness, looked for ripe cherry tomatoes, pinched back the sweet basil. i checked on the lavender. i added bird seed to the feeder. i looked for magic in the pond and pulled a couple weeds. i watched dogga sniff around his yard and drank in the salmon sky lightening in the east. i came back inside and wandered from plant to plant, saying good morning to succulents and KC and snakeinthegrass. the coffee pot beeping drew me out of where i was standing by the window, looking out, and i pulled out cabin coffee company mugs. every day is different and every mug brings with it a different set of visceral memories. it was a breckenridge mug kind of day.

it was quiet; all was still. i thought: this. this is easy living. a little bit of ritual, a little peace at the beginning of the day, a little peace at the end of the day – these are ingredients you cannot purchase from a catalog. these simple gestures we make to being present-here-now are contagious. they spread the intention of simplicity to the rest of our day. and though we don’t always stay there, in peace, we know we can find our way back there.

because at the beginning of the next day we can try again. we can find the wonderful in this wonderful world.

PULLING WEEDS from RIGHT NOW (kerri sherwood)

and – click here – just because everyone should listen to louis armstrong every day

listen/download music on my little corner of iTUNES

stream my growing library on PANDORA

read DAVID’S thoughts this K.S. FRIDAY

PULLING WEEDS ©️ 2010 kerri sherwood


by Leave a comment

sweet laughter. [d.r. thursday]

i can’t imagine what it would feel like to have written enormously happy screenplays like ‘when harry met sally’ or ‘sleepless in seattle’ or ‘you’ve got mail’. my sweet momma loved the play of meg ryan and tom hanks and billy crystal and, even in face of a double mastectomy at 93, she would watch these movies and she would feel good. nora ephron had feeling good dialed in. her recommendation to “laugh in the face of calamity” is not surprising and deborah copaken’s recent article in the atlantic with snippets of deborah-nora 2011 conversation includes two more of nora’s rules for middle-age happiness: gather friends and feed them and cut out all the things (people, jobs, body parts ) that no longer serve you. these seem to be sage tidbits of wisdom.

when i was younger, there was no shortage of reader’s digest issues in our house. i grew up reading these excerpted and short stories. one of the features was called ‘laughter, the best medicine’. people would submit their own stories for a chance to be published and paid $100. some of these paragraph-stories would elicit a snicker or two, others a real chuckle, though i don’t remember ever out-and-out guffawing. i suppose guffawing is not so young-girl-like; perhaps i should substitute another word. regardless, they were clean jokes and real-life experiences of people that were there to make you laugh. i loved watching my mom and dad laugh over them.

when i googled reader’s digest, i stumbled across an article about bob carey, a man whose wife has been battling breast cancer since the early 2000s. he, in his hope to help, pulled on a pink tutu and went all over the country having his picture taken to raise money for breast cancer research. there is nothing like a man-who-doesn’t-have-a-tutu-body in a pink tutu struttin’ his stuff in the middle of new york city or at the grand canyon to make you laugh. his honoring his wife linda through the tutu project he embraces her spirit, her courage and the power of laughter in their lives. it’s good stuff, this laughing.

laughter triggers physical and emotional changes in our bodies. even a smile elicits goodness in our own selves, relaxing stress muscles, encouraging others around us to relax. it’s the reason i will always start a concert with a story that will likely make people laugh, a story of vulnerability, even a self-deprecating story. a relaxed audience is a participatory audience who has been invited in. there’s no second chance to make a first impression.

my sweet momma would have been good friends with nora, had she had the chance. she would have applauded bob carey in his pink tutu, had she seen him. the sound of her laugh and the dancing light in her eyes stay with me.

in the words of pablo neruda, “…deny me bread, air, light, spring, but never your laughter for i would die.”

sweet laughter. like the whisper of words of your beloved or a gentle kiss to the top of your head, the laughter of your beloved.

there is a book i haven’t read yet – by richard cohen, about nora ephron. it is called ‘she made me laugh’. can you imagine a better legacy?

*****

read DAVID’s thoughts this D.R. THURSDAY

browse DAVID’S gallery


by Leave a comment

ten thousand wishes. [two artists tuesday]

“it is a serious thing just to be alive on this fresh morning in this broken world.” (mary oliver)

really, truly exquisite. the last few mornings have been exquisite. we woke up early-early on saturday and sunday morning, nowhere to be, sat and sipped coffee and listened to the quiet world outside. our impulse was to be home, to read together, to write, to go slow, to exercise in the basement, to sit on the deck and watch the birds, the squirrels and the chipmunks, to cook good meals. we felt no need to go anywhere. instead, feeling the sun and breathing in a cool breeze, we reveled in the staying-here.

as headlines point out, the pandemic is heating up. again. the prediction that there will be 300,000 diagnosed daily in mid-august is stunning. so much sickness, so much loss. we feel fortunate to be vaccinated and we are dedicated to continued safe practices. we want at least ten thousand more exquisite mornings, at least ten thousand more days, ten thousand more sleeps. to sacrifice now, we feel, is to bestow upon ourselves a chance at those ten thousand wishes. it IS a serious thing just to be alive. and, even in moments of taking it for granted, we don’t take it for granted.

if i could find a four-leaf clover or blow the puffball off a dandelion or spot a shooting star or spy a haywagon from the back, i would issue a hope for each of us to recognize the gloriousness of this very day, each very-day. to stand in responsibility for each other and to seriously choose to mend the tiniest piece of this broken world for the rest. to stitch together the biggest quilt honoring the inhabitants of this good earth, each thread an acknowledgement of gratitude, each piece of fabric a choice to take care of each other, to live in community the best we can, to do everything possible to keep each other healthy.

just to be alive in this broken world takes some chutzpah. sacrificing for the whole takes some humility. bowing to safety guidelines in a pandemic takes some love.

*****

read DAVID’S thoughts this TWO ARTISTS TUESDAY


by Leave a comment

sleepynightnight. [saturday morning smack-dab.]

there is no question – whatsoever – that i lay awake inthemiddleofthenight waaay more than he does. i ponder and wonder and fret and worry and perseverate and plan and make lists and sigh and re-start the cycle over again. i lose sleep over things that are troubling me and during times of discontent. it is impossible for me to not carry these concerns into sleep – it’s disquieting and, most definitely, interruptive.

on the other hand, it takes david about six seconds to fall asleep and – perish the thought – stay asleep. there is little to no tossing, turning, blankets-on-ing-blankets-off-ing, staring-at-the-ceiling, looking-at-the-clock. somehow it is possible for him to empty-his-mind-of-all-troubles and just sleep.

how annoying! 😉

*****

read DAVID’S thoughts this SATURDAY MORNING SMACK-DAB.

SMACK-DAB. ©️ 2021 kerrianddavid.com


by Leave a comment

frames et al. [d.r. thursday]

bruce said, “i like what you do with frames.” he and ben were visiting from california, having dinner with us on the deck, passing through on their way to the northeast. i haven’t really thought lately about all the frames around our house, but, after he said that and they left, i walked around noticing. big glass-less window frames around small cards, frames around paint on the wall, frames around paintings-in-frames, empty frames. he commented that he even liked the ones outside on the fence. i laughed. the neighbor’s vine is starting to wrap its tendrils around the frames out there and surprised chipmunks bump against the one standing on its corner on the piano, knocking it over. i guess i like frames.

for the longest time – years, really – i carried the frame of a kodachrome carousel slide in my wallet. no film in it, just the simple two inch square white frame.

in times of overwhelm, if you take the slide out and hold it at arm’s length, focusing your attention through it, you will see that it limits your vision to the tiniest picture. instead of looking at the whole scope of the big picture, you can move the slide around and simply take in a morsel, one at a time. as you get comfortable, as anxiety eases, you can move the slide in closer to your face, little by little. and little by little, the perspective will change, until you are back to seeing the big picture. sometimes, you need to dissect things and view all the ingredients of the moment one by one.

i’d forgotten about this tiny frame in my old wallet until the other night. i think i’ll dig it out. you never know when you need to be reminded to take one thing at a time.

*****

read DAVID’S thoughts this D.R. THURSDAY

browse works of art you might frame for your wall


by 1 Comment

fluid. with wings. [k.s. friday]

“when she transformed into a butterfly, the caterpillars spoke not of her beauty, but of her weirdness. they wanted her to change back into what she always had been. but she had wings.” (dean jackson)

“trust the wait. embrace the uncertainty. enjoy the beauty of becoming. when nothing is certain, anything is possible.” (mandy hale)

i had an IME on tuesday. an IME is an independent medical exam. it is a brief exam ordered by an insurance company and the physician is both chosen and paid for by that insurance company. it is defined as an independent assessment of an injury or illness, in my case, my wrist, and the determination by the doctor-chosen-and-paid-for-by-the-insurance-company-paying-for-treatment will be placed next to the reports of the medical hand specialist and the occupational therapist who have been treating me consistently for the last five months. a basic review of articles about IME reveals that the insurance-company-paying-for-treatment will pick the report they wish to concur with and that will decide if there is to be future, in this case, my future, treatment. so be it.

there is nothing to do now but wait.

my OT is wonderful. she has encouraged me, pushed me, held me accountable and she has brought me from twenty degrees of forward right wrist movement to fifty-five. this is big news, since, at first, six degrees was all i could muster. brutus and my OT have caused me much pain, but what’s that saying? no pain, no gain. we have worked hard. and, in the way of hard work and healing, there are things i can do now that i wasn’t able to do a few months ago. and there are things i fear i will never be able to do again. uncertainty.

there is nothing to do but wait.

sometimes i wonder what life will look like in a year or two years. i wonder what i will be doing. if i looked back a year i would never have guessed back then what this year would have looked like. no, last july looked very different than right now. it just suggests that truly everything is uncertain, that everything is in the act of becoming, in the middle of the fire, maybe everything is ashes transitioning to riches over and over again. possibility, evidenced in tomato plants bearing fruit on an old barnwood potting stand, evidenced in a nest-home created in a birdhouse hanging empty for years, evidenced in the smell of the rain bringing cool on a summer morning.

there are times, when you are simply going about your business, going about life, that you don’t expect change. you don’t expect to be thrust into ‘different’. times when you find out the caterpillars were talking about you all along. after reeling from the surprise, after trying to grab the wheel to stabilize, after railing about the unfairness of it all – for life does not seem to be fair, you find yourself out of the deep, dark water – in the shallows.

and in the shallows there is abundant life, abundant food, abundant shelter. in the shallows we can rest and nourish and breathe. we can sit in uncertainty and the unknown. we can imagine new. because anything IS possible.

there is nothing to wait for and everything to wait for. it’s now.

i’ve written here about transition before. and again. and again. and i suspect i will yet again.

because life, i am learning over and over, is one transition after another. fluid. with wings.

*****

listen to music on my little corner of iTUNES

tune into an ever-growing library on PANDORA

read DAVID’S thoughts this K.S. FRIDAY

IN TRANSITION from RELEASED FROM THE HEART ©️ 1995 kerri sherwood


by 3 Comments

joey’s parmesan. [not-so-flawed wednesday]

one of the funniest things to come out of joey coconato’s backpack out in the middle of nowhere was a can of kraft grated parmesan cheese. there were definitely other funny things too, though: a bottle of sriracha, a dozen eggs, avocados, brats, bota box wine. he is not your regular backpacker. joey is not afraid to carry stuff. he’s not afraid to go back-country. and he’s not afraid to bust the norms. passing this display in the grocery store made me laugh aloud and think of joey.

one night recently, in the wee hours, i was awake and, thus, so was david. we chose a PCT trail video to watch and got through the whole video with nary a yawn. they had mentioned mountain house meals, so we were curious. we visited – at 3am – the mountain house website and were astounded to find many meals that sounded so delicious they instantly made us hungry. we were also astonished to find that each one was just shy of $10. that would mean that if we chose to hike the pacific crest trail – for about five months – and each of us had a mountain house meal for breakfast and for dinner – it would cost us (do the math: $10each x2of us x2mealsaday x30daysamonth x5months) about $6000 just for those meals, not to mention lunch or snacks or gear or permits or or or…. so, no wonder joey carries baggies of pasta and flour tortillas and avocados and parmesan. we literally clinked with him (virtually) when he whipped out the bota box of wine to celebrate with his hiking mates.

we haven’t long-distance hiked. yet. i suspect at some point we will try this (or some part thereof). we love hiking and we are addicted to these backpacking trips, these long-distance trails. we have watched joey all through the pandemic. his hikes have kept us sane in days of seesawing sanity. and apparently, though we are just simply joey-fans, we have talked about him enough that we have received email messages asking us for his contact information.

we have viewed john muir hikers in high elevation and appalachian trail hikers in distinctly humid-humidity. continental divide and the colorado trail thru-hikers. norwegian xplorer wherever he hikes. pacific crest trail hikers ‘heading somewhere‘ and ‘walking with purpose‘ have captured our attention as they hike out west right now, live and posting. we felt sad as ‘miles to go‘ gave up her brave and gigantic quest to finish the pct this season. these people are out there – doing life the best they can in the best way they can. present in each moment. we root for each of them. just like we root for joey.

we’re not sure where joey coconato is right now. he hasn’t posted a new video in quite some time. he is one of the best examples of being one with the outdoors we have seen. he has been making his way in the wilderness for years now, respectfully and with all good intention and gratitude, and we guess that the wilderness loves him as much as his viewers do.

we suspect – and hope – that he is safely out there somewhere, pitching his hand-me-down/loaned tent on some ridge or under some trees or in some gorgeous meadow or next to some lake, gazing around his campsite, drinking it all in, taking his clanging aluminum pot off of the outside of his backpack where he has it tied as an alert to bears in the area and is boiling some pasta up and adding in some parmesan – right from the 8 oz can he carries with him. what a good life he lives.

cheers, joey. and all the rest of you hikers out there, carrying the very least and experiencing the very most. don’t forget the parmesan.

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


by Leave a comment

every sanctuary needs a crank. [two artists tuesday]

it’s all about the crank. it’s one of those unremarkable-yet-remarkable imperative gizmos that makes all the difference.

we’ve had an umbrella. it was 9′ in diameter and dark green in color. but there was no crank and it was – now – in the departure of having a “normal” wrist and the genesis of a we’ll-work-this-as-hard-as-we-can-and-see-where-we-get wrist – literally impossible for me to open or close it. i would huff and puff and stand on a chair, but even in the good old days of normal-wrist, i was hard-pressed to open it. and so, it would remain closed. and closed is not the life-goal, not the self-actualization of an umbrella. so it was time for the big-green-umbrella to move on, to be loved by someone else…someone with two normal wrists. we put it out by the big tree between the sidewalk and the street with a sign that said “free” and it was gone within fifteen minutes. that made my heart happy. but it left us with a challenge: to find another umbrella.

now, if you haven’t been out there looking – in brick and mortar or online – there are a LOT of umbrellas. they come in all different sizes and shapes and with all different purposes. there are umbrellas that tilt and market umbrellas and patio umbrellas they have named cantilevers – which stand next to chairs or outdoor settees and gracefully shade you from the side or the back, not just the middle of a table.

we wanted one for the middle of the old wrought iron table and found one – after much research (as you might guess) – that we really liked. i did all the proper investigating: does it have a crank? is it heavy enough to stand in the wind? does the diameter of the pole fit properly into the stand we already have? will it match or complement our deck and patio? is it spf friendly?

the umbrella we found was just lovely. off-white with a floral print of black flowers, some of which are faded to a deep gray. that may sound weird, but it was really pretty and somewhat unusual and matched our vision of the deck…a little pattern in what was mostly solid or simple design.

we ordered it. we picked it up. we glanced at the outer covering, a sheath with a photograph of the umbrella set up in some faux-yard. we were pretty excited -like when we got our fire column (for this umbrella preceded it) – when we opened it up. we were setting the stage for our backyard sanctuary, this place of peace, with much planning and as few expenditures as possible.

we slid it out of the sheath we would later store it in during cold winter days as it waited to be used once again in early spring.

we brought it outside to the deck.

and we started to open it up.

and. . .

there was no crank.

none.

not a handle to be found.

though the photograph and the description depicted a crank handle, it was a misnomer. false advertising. someone mightily slipped up.

and though it was quite lovely, i could not open it alone. what good is an umbrella you can’t open? we had just given one of those away.

a couple of umbrellas later and in umbrella-information-overload, we settled on this one. it’s not perfect. it’s not exactly the color tone i wanted. the pole is not black as it was advertised. it doesn’t have a self-tie. but it was on a terrific sale and – – – it has a crank.

i thought i was over the lovely off-white-black-flower-patterned-umbrella until i saw it in a yard in the ‘hood. i stopped in my tracks and stared, poking david in the arm and pointing, speechless. i wondered if they were also surprised by its no-crank-handle-ness. i wondered if they ever open it. i wondered if they have normal wrists.

but i’ve moved on. i no longer think about the off-white-black-flower-patterned umbrella. because there are some things that a sanctuary really needs.

a crank is one of them.

*****

read DAVID’S thoughts this TWO ARTISTS TUESDAY


by Leave a comment

what would popeye do? [flawed wednesday]

i know there is a simple solution: cut them off and scatter them back behind the garage so little critters can munch on them and appreciate them. yes, a simple solution. but i just haven’t done it. so, in the meanwhile, i whine and complain – aloud – about the spinach stems tucked tenderly under my potatoes and eggs, next to my halo and banana and adjacent to my steaming mug of bold black coffee.

though popeye attests ad nauseam to the benefits of spinach, never once have i seen him depicted wrestling with a spinach stem. this begs the question – do he and olive oyl remove them first? he sticks his hand into that infamous spinach can and sends a spinach lob through the air into his mouth, but, indeed, no stems.

i just googled, “should you remove spinach stems?”

it’s pretty apparent that this is An Issue. numerous sites are dedicated to showing how to wash and properly de-stem your spinach leaves. in fact, bon appétit.com states the obvious, “it’s pretty crucial to know when to keep the stems on your greens and when to take them off.” i say – in most cases, though not all, lest i be accused of limiting the magnesium intake potential and discriminating against non-fibrous-non-stringy-non-stuck-in-your-teeth-possible stems – take them off.

take them off. snip them. tear them. just get them off. this simple solution will likely add frequency to the spinach lineup in our breakfast menus. just the thought of nakedly-stemless rich green leaves peeking out from under the roasted potatoes on my plate makes me want to call popeye and stop kvetching.

*****

read DAVID’S thoughts this FLAWED WEDNESDAY