“sometimes it takes longer to understand and appreciate what is around you.” (liner notes)
it’s the ah-ha! you feel when you realize that it’s ALL about perspective and even this moment will soon disappear into vapid space. yet this very moment is the one that counts. we simply can’t waste it. there’s no time to not appreciate it, no time to throw it away while yearning for the next.
i have come to realize this over and over and over, through loss, through mistakes, through absolute joy, through reminders spoken, seen, felt on an excruciating gut level. we are all repeated students of this lesson, for we are all human. we are all human, for we are all students of this lesson.
on an everest documentary we watched the other day there was this quote: “it’s not that life is so short. it’s that death is so long.” if that doesn’t make you spring into action – noticing life – i’m not sure what will.
“…the other end of the process of living through uncertainty…” (liner notes)
sometimes when we drive along third avenue, right around the corner from our house, the fog totally obscures lake michigan. you would never know it was even there. you can’t see where the shoreline is, you can’t see the expanse of lake. further down the road, you can’t see the beach, the waves, the jetty. it is as if, for this time, the lake and the sky are one; neither exist and both exist.
this duality, this co-existence…is what this piece is about. the presence of clarity and the presence of haze. when i read my liner notes this morning, i sighed. i wrote them in 1997 – (a shocking) twenty-two years ago. i was 38. i must have thought there was an “end” to uncertainty then. and, at the time, i must have interpreted the fog, the mist, in a somewhat negative way, as something to get “through”, relief at the other end.
and then the fog lifts over the lake and there is differentiation of planes. the sky becomes sky; the lake becomes lake. until the next fog rolls in.
this month i will turn 60. it takes me a few seconds for that to sink in each time i think about it. were i to re-record this piece now, i would slow it down. i would linger in the fog a little longer, not so afraid of it, of its mystery. i’m still learning to embrace the fog, still learning to watch for the sky when it lifts, still learning that both can co-exist: clarity and uncertainty. nothing is really clear in life. nothing is absolute. we keep stepping. it is truly all a little foggy. i now think it’s supposed to be that way.
‘you-hold-me’s i will always remember… among the more-than-i-can-count-mom-heart-moments, one of the last times My Boy fell asleep on my lap and i knew – at the age he was then, rounding 5 or 6 – it was something to hold onto. or the time he, all-grown-up, bent down and, one more time, hugged me goodbye. precious time dancing to marvin gaye with My Girl in the sitting room, her favorite infant-lullaby. the bittersweet-tender-time-stood-still time she – as an adult – fell asleep while i held her. in o’hare airport when d just held me while, with people swirling around us, we were lost in reuniting, in recognition. the greetings we get from dogdog and babycat every single time we arrive home. the hugs we get inside the door to our best friends’ house, their big beloved dogs jostling for attention. the memory of watching my sweet momma and poppo hold hands as they walked, always…those linked hands grasping each other. watching my momma hold my dad’s hand at the side of his last hospital bed, nodding off, both of them, but holding on. ‘you-hold-me’s aren’t always just about you.
in these times, in any time, the simple feeling of being held – a quick hug or embrace that goes on and on – is the one true thing. it doesn’t solve any problem, take away a worry, change any circumstance. but it is a reminder that you are not alone. you are woven of and into so much more. and you are held – by your family, by your children, by your friends, by this good earth, by a higher power. in appreciation of you. in a bigger thing called love.
“when one door closes another door opens.” how many times have you heard that? people fail to address the hallway in-between. ahh….that hallway in between. full of mystery. full of questions. full of wondering. full of not-knowing. it can be freeing; it can be torturous. bridging from now to next.
two to three months after my big brother died, my sweet momma continued to have nights when she could not sleep. she would rise from bed and go down the short hall to the bedroom that served as her office. in that short walk, she would pass the entrance to the living room. one night, as she passed the living room, glancing in she saw a depression in the very top of the recliner, the way it looks when someone is sitting with their head against the back of the chair. this chair…the very one that my brother sat in so many times in the last months of his life, close to the front door so that he didn’t have to go too far and become too tired.
my momma, not given to fanciful imaginings, decided to walk into the living room to find out why the headrest of this chair gave the appearance of someone in it. she came around to the front of the chair and found my brother. he was sleeping in the chair and did not stir while she stood there. she never said a word, just silently watched for a couple of minutes. her heart full, she quietly walked to her office. an hour or so later, when she was ready for bed, she walked back down the short hall, this time glancing in to the living room to see if the headrest was still shaped as it had been, if my brother was still there. the recliner had returned to its normal state. my brother was no longer there. she went to bed and slept, her time in the hall of grief a little lighter, a little less encumbered, a little less painful. mysterious, full of questions, full of wondering and not-knowing. freeing and a little torturous. but moving into next.
ken calls this my MUSH album. he is an amazing producer and i feel fortunate to call him my dear friend as well. he produced 14 of my albums and, although one of my albums and a few vocal singles were done in nashville, now i can’t really imagine any other recording projects without him.
MUSH stands for made-up-shi* and is aptly named. this album came at a really inspired time for me. artists have their highs and lows, inspiration-wise, and this was one of the highs. i’ve mentioned the story before, but i’ll short-story it here again: i had a list of titles – titles i wanted to use eventually for compositions; i carried a notebook and scraps of paper everywhere i went. i had this list with me as i recorded two other full-length albums in nyc at yamaha artist services. in-between recording the two other albums, i would choose a title and play it. simply play it. my heart is laid out in the tracks of this cd; every title was meaningful to me, every piece tells what it means.
AS IT IS is the title track so it’s interesting that i gave over the melody line to a flute, the only piece on all of my albums that has a flutist playing. it’s also rare for me to step away from the piano and, in the production-post-initial-recording phase, play a keyboard. but life is like that. you have to give over sometimes. the texture changes. the melody isn’t yours to own; sometimes you are support staff. make peace with it. it is as it is.
AS IT IS: life. we are right here…where we are supposed to be in this part of the journey…the best time is now. simply because life is as it is. (liner notes)
purchase and download the album AS IT IS on iTUNES or CDBaby
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
“…and whether or not it is clear to you, no doubt the universe is unfolding as it should…” (desiderata by max ehrmann)
when i listen to tracks i have recorded i can either picture the time i spent writing at the piano or the time i spent in studio recording. this piece drums up the same image; in a time of pronounced inspiration and the transferring of much emotion into music, this was simultaneously written and recorded at yamaha artist services in nyc back about 15 years ago.
even then, i could see the willows-bending-in-the-wind characteristic of life – it will unfold as it should, despite our best efforts to stymie it or change it or enhance it. and so i loved when ken, my truly amazing producer, added a bended electric guitar line, arching and buckling, flexing around the melody line, a musical painting. even now, and i suspect as will always be, i try to be that willow, bending as the wind takes me, allowing the universe to unfold.
“unfolding: trying to trust that life is unfolding the way it should be”(liner notes)
“…sometimes you just need some space in between. a few moments to think.” (liner notes)
time to sort, to ponder. a breath. in music, it’s used in between verses and choruses, a time for an instrumental, a time for a pause in lyrics, a pause for thought.
right now feels like an interlude. space that is falling between the verses, it’s quieter with more pondering. it’s a time of figuring out, a time of ‘what’s next?’ not every interlude is comfortable, but that space in a piece of music, in life, is a time that can be rich.
as mozart said, “the music is not in the notes but in the silence in between.”
the air coming through the windows this morning felt cool. almost chilly. it has been a long while since the last time i could say that of a morning here. we have had a very hot, very humid summer…not my favorite combination. but today. it was different. and it made me feel immediately homesick. that happens every fall for me. maybe it’s a melancholy recognition of the passing of time, years zooming by. maybe it’s the season-change-thing…we know grey days are lurking right around the corner. either way, i feel homesick.
it’s a time when i miss long island the most, recall my growing-up years, pine for the autumn at millneck manor and long deserted-beach walks at crab meadow. a time when my sweet momma and poppo are really present for me in their absence, if that makes sense. i yearn to talk to them. a time when The Girl and The Boy seem oh-so-grown-up now, steeped in their own adult-lives, having adventures and being a dynamic part of this world, far away, without the benefit of hearing ‘good night moon’ every night. i know that every evening they roll their eyes at my goodnight texts to them, but i figure that someday they will understand. homesick.
yesterday was my father-in-law’s 85th birthday. we called columbus and sang ‘happy birthday’ to him. my momma and daddy did that every year for me and i try to carry on the tradition with the people i love. he laughed and told us he had gotten back from dinner at texas roadhouse and was listening to an old record. he listens to old records a lot. i suspect, because he is the man he is, that he gets homesick. i can tell by his eyes that he would totally understand me if i told him how i felt.
so today, if you are spending time together with someone, memorize it. if you are lucky enough to spend time with your momma or your daddy, please hug them. if you are one of the fortunate parents who have their children nearby, hold on just a little tighter and look into their faces when you say goodnight. relish it.
you can’t help but listen to country music when you are in nashville. there’s something about the storytelling in country songs that i can really identify with. i love telling a good story. ok, i even love bad stories. i’m sure there are a slew of people rolling their eyes around me most times i am talking. when i was writing for this album and traveling back and forth to the studio in nashville, i decided i wanted one of the songs to be a little bit of a nod to that genre, of which i am a big fan. i wrote this song on a single page of notebook paper on an airplane. some songs just show up. my favorite part is the happy ending. 🙂
reverse threading 