to sit in the dark. to watch the flicker of flame on the yard torches. to stare into the bonfire. to listen to the crickets. to feel cool air brush your face. to walk barefoot in dewy-damp grass. to slowly swirl, in time to music, in time to your heartbeat, in time to deep breaths.
we all need a break.
instead of a mind racing-against-itself in the middle of the night, we need a dance with slow. we need a dance of hope. we need a dance of release.
do you remember how to slow dance…in the middle of the night?
even in the bleakest of times, even in the dark. the tiniest pinprick of light through an inky sky will remind us of the trillions of stars that are always there.
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.
magical. the starry tufts of white floating on the breeze. seeds from wild flowers, they are on a course not of their own volition. white filaments of dandelions, designed to fly and leave a wake behind their path, fluff past, on their way to parts unknown. part of the wind. dandelions’ wispy seeds can be aloft over a half mile before parachuting their way to the ground. no gps, no triptik, no maps or intended destination.
much like how it feels right now. a part of the wind.
in this time of global pandemic, of racial protest, of economic strife, of political chaos, it feels as though the wind has taken me. battered to and fro, it feels as it there is no determined destination, no way to avoid the headwinds, no escaping the jet stream. the wind just picks me up and takes me, each day, to a different place. never physically far from the place of origin, it makes me feel just enough of a lack of control that i am ill at ease, never quite settled, never quite sure, always a bit tentative, always wary.
and instead of letting the breeze blow and riding it like a standup board in a serene lake, i resist. i find the need to know – where am i going? – too pressing, too unnerving. i paddle against the current, seeking ways to see, to move in a direction that makes sense. but it’s ineffective. i tire and give it up to the myriad of air currents swirling around me.
it is what it is. we are, indeed, a part of the wind. just starry tufts.
these old boots. save for the laces, which were definitely in-beaky’s-book-worth-saving, these boots are now moving on. looking at them, side by side on the deck, i could hear my big brother playing the guitar and singing, “these boots were made for walking, and that’s just what i’ll do…”
we’ve run out of everest movies to watch. we have seen all the hollywood movies, all the national geographic movies, all the north face and eddie bauer movies and the rolex movies. we have watched youtubes and imax-without-the-max-part. we have sat through short home videos and a two hour and three minute go-pro video with no narration and hardly any talking. we’ve watched k2 and annapurna and aconcagua and denali. we have run out.
we have now moved on to the appalachian and pacific crest trails. these boots – neither pair – were not made for that walking. we can both vouch for it.
these boots were different. they were more life-boots. mine took me through well over a decade of travel, well over a decade of wholesale and retail shows, well over a decade of schlepping, lugging, driving very long distances, more schlepping and lugging. well over a decade of practice on wooden stages while lighting and sound engineers ran cues. well over a decade of flatbed trailers. well over a decade of dreaming and sweating, well over a decade of highs and lows.
i’ve been attached to them. the soles have separated from the leather uppers and wearing them would be like wearing closed flip flops, but heavy-heavy and flopping around, looking to catch on something and throw me headfirst into the ground.
i’ve been attached to them. in some way they became part of my uniform, the same way that the black zip-up sweatshirt that no longer has cuffs or a working zipper was. i’m attached to that too. somehow, it felt like those kept me safe, kept me going, and brought me back home. i suspect it wasn’t the boots or the sweatshirt hoodie.
so i’m saving the laces. they can be used in a different pair of boots.
and i’m wondering: maybe we should fill these old boots up with dirt and plant some basil.
i warm up first. the sound system is on and i wail through the building like a country artist on a flatbed. the sound takes on air with the natural reverb of the room; it encourages me to sing more, sing louder, sing with abandon.
i’m recording nine pieces of music a week right now. five of these are vocal songs. i stand in the venue in front of the piano, boom mic in place and turn on the voice memo on our island-iphone-which-is-newer-than-our-other-iphones. i play and sing from the beginning to the end, without stopping. there is no tracking; there are no editing features, no going-back-and-fixing-this-or-that, no auto-tune, no equalizing, no other instrumentation, no balancing wavelengths, no mastering, no amazing engineer, no producer. any ambient sound becomes a part of the recording. we listen afterwards and decide if i need to re-record, which simply means starting over from the beginning. it’s more recording than i have done in-studio in a long time. and it’s vastly different, this straight-up tape-it-with-the-phone recording. in the last bit of time i have recorded over 90 pieces of music. that’s a serious amount of recording. in album terms, it’s at least seven CDs worth.
it makes me want to stand -again- on a wooden stage in front of a piano and a boom and sing my heart out. it makes me want to maybe get some of my own stuff – the stuff lingering in notebooks and folders of scrap paper – on tape. it makes me think about rv’s and touring and the little voice in my brain reminds me that i’m 61. “ONLY 61,” i retort. it makes me wonder.
it’s a common story. ask carole king or phil vassar. they wrote songs. lots of them. and other people sang them. until one day…and then they forever owned that boom mic over their pianos.
decades ago, i thought i’d just write songs. i’d play all my instrumental pieces in concert – like george winston and david lanz – and i’d grant permission to ‘real’ singers to sing the songs i had written. but then one day…and now you would have to wrestle that boom mic from me. different stories, same principle.
we are singer-songwriters. we are people who sing.
all warmed up, it’s easier to get from the beginning to the end without too much pitchy-ness. it’s easier, warmed-up, to know what to expect from my still-healing-broken-wrists. it’s easier to know what to expect from my voice.
and so i keep singing. i wail through the building. and the sound takes on air with the natural reverb of the room. i sing more, i sing louder, i sing with abandon.
the old file cabinets are in the closet in the studio. at some point i organized all – well, most of – my music, lugged a couple metal cabinets up from the basement and spent a few days filing. there’s overfill in a few cardboard bank boxes on the floor. maybe someday i’ll get to those.
yesterday i was looking for a piece of music i thought i had. i went to the drawer it should be in and starting rifling through the books and sheet music. every title i looked at brought back memories: “moon river” made me think of my uncle allen, who took voice lessons and sang that song beautifully. “all i need” made me think of days at moton school center, comparing ‘general hospital’ notes with lois over lunches of peanuts and diet cokes. “the rose” made me think of earlier years of promise and love.
i forgot about what i was searching for and dragged out a pile of music, sheets spilling out onto the floor as i struggled to pull them from their tightly filled drawer. books – collections of artists or full transcribed albums – called my name, begging to see the light of day. i whispered to them i would be back for them. it has probably been decades since they were opened.
standing at the piano, not another thought in my head, i started shuffling through sheet music and playing. it was no longer 2020, transported instantly back to the 70s, the 60s, the 80s.
had i opened a different drawer i would have found all my old piano books, my old organ music – tools of a student learning her eventual trade. in those drawers are the books my children used for their music lessons, for band and orchestra. in those drawers are the books i used as i attempted junior high oboe and college trumpet lessons. in those drawers are the pieces that kept me on the bench for hours as a child and then as a teenager, practicing, playing, dreaming.
other drawers yield a plethora of more advanced piano and organ music, years of accumulated resources. there are drawers of choir music, both sacred and secular, from years and years of directing and conducting work. and still others house the scores of music i have written, staff paper and pencil, finished in calligraphy pen.
it made me want to just clear a day off. liberate my mind from every worry, every task, every watching-the-time responsibility. brush off the dust of the dark drawers from the lead sheets and scores and play.
i’d love to gather a whole group of friends around the piano and sing through john denver and billy joel songs, through england dan and john ford coley’s “we’ll never have to say goodbye again” and paul mccartney’s “maybe i’m amazed” and david soul’s “don’t give up on us” and the carpenters’ “bless the beasts and the children” and led zeppelin’s “stairway to heaven”, through carole king and james taylor and pablo cruise. through the ‘great songs of the sixties’ book and the ‘sensational 70 for the 70s’ book and fake books from all time. just take a day – a whole day – and sing. and remember together.
in light of the restrictions of the coronavirus pandemic, this would have to be virtual, i suppose. so that might not be such a good idea. but maybe d and i could just take that day. think of nothing else but music and where it has brought us, where it brings us. our long stories.
a few things can instantly place you back in a moment. songs, scents, pictures. a whiff of my sweet momma’s favorite perfume has me immediately missing her. john denver singing anything off any number of albums of his that i owned places me in my room hanging out on my beanbag chairs with my slick 3-in-1 turntable/8-track/cassette stereo or driving my little bug around the island. wings’ “silly love songs” or elton’s “don’t go breaking my heart” and i can feel the hot sand under my beach towel at crab meadow.
the chaos of irato. a passage of angry, passionate. a symphony of irate engaging us, challenging us, buckling us under in its fervor.
“take a break,” earth-the-breathless-conductor would admonish. “hold and rest,” earth-the-counselor would encourage. “slow down. be deliberate,” earth-the-sage would advise. caesura. fermata. lento.
acknowledging the rage. listening. resting in the questions. conscious mindful steps. measured decisive action. slowly leading the way with goodness.
i suspect mother earth, in its mother-earth-wisdom, would hear the symphony as transition. the space between before and after. a time of growth and change and every possible note, every possible emotion.
we listen, as earthlings, imperfect-in-every-way, and we get lost. to live in irato is uncomfortable. a cliffhanger.
but mother earth smiles. after all, she knows all about suspense and the big bang and butterflies.
“music moves our world.” bmi’s tagline: “we celebrate your talent. we value your music. we champion your rights.”
i don’t blame bmi. as an royalty organization, it is trying to keep up with an industry imploding on itself. the very same opportunity to ‘get music out there’ using online platforms is what is destroying opportunity to make a living ‘getting music out there.’
as you might guess, i just received a bmi royalty statement. the check, which will come later in the mail and stamped with a 55 cent first class stamp, will cost them more per penny paid for the stamp than i will receive per performance play of my music.
because i am a specific-detail kind of person, here are the details of that: if you take my check of $71.57 and divide it by the (just shy of 100,000) performance plays this particular quarter, it amounts to an average of .00074 of a cent per performance play (you read that 7/ten-thousandths of a cent). it you take a 55 cent stamp and divide it by the check, it is .00768 of a cent per penny of the cost of the stamp (you read that 7/thousandths). that’s 10 times as much as i receive per play.
to cite some examples: there were 7530 youtube views of my piece ‘last i saw you’. the royalties i earned for that are 66 cents. CENTS. the piece ‘i didn’t know’ yielded 49,085 plays counted on a few digital music services, which averaged $.00025 of a cent. that is 2/10-thousandths of a cent. way to make a living.
i’m not really sure anymore why i’m telling you this, except for the big word “awareness”. i think most people are not aware of the explosively-good-explosively-bad impact that all these music services have had on independent musicians. headlining musicians and independent musicians – a schism of differences. yet, i’m not a person with one or two albums, new to the industry, eager to do anything to ‘spread the word’. i am an artist with fifteen albums, multiple singles, in the industry for decades and who did all the eager-stuff for many, many, many years. and like you, i want to believe that all the time and energy and writing and practicing and recording and sacrifice and thought and perseverance and education and experience and drive and hard work i put in might yield something in return now – dividends – kind of like how a retirement works.
in these times of chaos – a pandemic, an uprising of protests striving for equity in race, in gender identification, in sexual orientation, in all manners of humanity – it seems that one of the most unifying calls is that of music. music does move our world.
why, then, is this so inequitable for us? because i don’t know about you, but there isn’t one bill in my bill folder that totals $71.57 over the course of a quarter. dog food alone costs $73.16 for a quarter. there isn’t a bill that is merely for $71.57 for a month. not the phone bill, not the mortgage, not home insurance, not health insurance (don’tgetmestarted!), not the gas/electric bill, not student loans (again, don’tgetmestarted!), not car insurance, not groceries, not wifi-cable. too much information, i suppose.
with thousands of cds in boxes in storage in the cds-have-gone-poof world, i wonder, as i have written and you have read before, where to go from here. most professional careers keep building, arcing in some positive direction. i try to remind myself that this music is played hundreds of thousands of times, millions of times a year. i try to remind myself of all the times i have heard that some piece, some song, some album, some concert, some performance has resonated with someone, that it has given them a moment of reflection, of peace, that it has buoyed them. i try not to be jaded by people who burn copies of cds for their friends or who change their email every three months to access apple music streaming for free.
but as i write checks or click ‘pay’ online for the accountant, the doctor, the mortgage, the water, the gas and electric, the health insurance, the phone bill, the wifi and cable, the car and home insurances, the student loans, the groceries, i wonder what would happen if somehow each of those things went poof and there were free ways to access all of them.
ella jones said that it’s a time to “have courageous conversations.” she is the first black mayor of ferguson, missouri and, as i listened to her speak, i wrote down these words.
have courageous conversations.
senator lisa murkowski, a republican from alaska, said, “perhaps we are getting to a point where we can be more honest with the concerns that we might hold internally and have the courage of our own convictions to speak up.” i read her words, thought “it’s about damn time!” and took a screenshot.
the courage of our own convictions to speak up.
former president barack obama addressed a virtual town hall. “every step of progress in this country, every expansion of freedom, every expression of our deepest ideals has been won through efforts that made the status quo uncomfortable,” he reassured a trembling nation. i looked for these words so that i could remember them.
the expression of our deepest ideals. uncomfortable.
as we all sit together, walk together, protest together, cry together, we are talking together. in the last ten days of enlightenment, our conversations are asking necessary questions. we are desperately seeking to reach way down inside and to be honest about what we are feeling. we are intentionally trying to learn, to discern, to understand. we are debating. we are arguing. we are admitting we are wrong. we are listening. we are uncomfortable and we are courageous.
yet donald trump tweeted a letter, in a clear display of vehement agreement with the writer who penned it, his attorney, that refers to the peaceful protestors as “terrorists”.
but there’s this: “congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances.”
and there’s hope. absolute hope. we can’t un-know what we know, un-see what we have seen, un-hear what we have heard, un-change what has changed, un-understand what we are beginning to, yearning to, understand, or un-hope for hope.
it was but a mere second – nigh unto 4:30 in the morning – when my sweet poppo was on this planet and then wasn’t.
i said a wee-hours-goodnight to him, propped in a hospital bed at home in their house. he whispered back to me. i tried desperately to memorize his face, the love in his eyes.
and before the birds woke up in the morning, that morning eight years ago yesterday, i went from with to without.
three years later, we left my sweet momma sitting on the edge of her assisted-living-bed, grasping onto the blue-notebook-that-documented-their-moments-in-europe, her expression dancing with excitement, waving to us. i tried desperately to memorize her face, the love in her eyes.
it wasn’t but a couple weeks later, on the road back again to florida, around the time the sun is highest in the sky, i went from with to without.
suddenly, i was orphaned. suddenly i was without the two people who gave me life. suddenly i was without the two people who could answer any question i had about my growing up. suddenly – in a split second – nothing was the same.
100,000 families. in the past few months, due to the global pandemic decimating our country, 100,000 families have desperately tried to memorize a loved one’s face. they have held tightly to the memory of love shining in their beloved’s eyes. they have moved from one split second into the next. with to without.
and last night, on the solemn occasion of this number passing from 99,999 to over 100,000 – that one second – one person- one life – one with to without – i expected, foolishly, that something would change. that there would be gut-wrenching acknowledgement. that there would be communal nation-wide mourning led by the person in the highest seat in the land. that there would be kind, generous, thoughtful words spoken, grief-filled heart-soaked empathy for all that the withs-to-withouts have gone through.
and nothing.
we need remember. all of it. these are our split seconds.
reverse threading 