“…adopt the pace of Nature. Her secret is patience.” (ralph waldo emerson)
no matter how hard we try, there is not one thing we can do to make the sun appear or the day warmer or the moon to rise or the snow to fall. we accept that time will come, time will pass, time will form and time will destroy. we give over to nature, anticipating that which we know, expecting the unexpected. we baby-step through this very time in the universe, our footprints barely visible on the timeline that is forever. we learn that no matter our stride, we are simply tiny beings. eventually, we learn, after giving over to patience, that that is enough.
the john denver sanctuary in aspen is a treasure trove. we have been there three times now. a garden of trails and large river boulders etched with lyrics and quotes, perennial daisies and aspen trees, it is a gentle sinking into peaceful. the city sounds of aspen fall away and the river and streams are lulling.
we wandered for hours, reading, sitting, pondering, the sun on our faces, the sound of quaking leaves slowing us down. i stood on a giant rock, like a stage under my feet, and bowed deeply to no one and to the brilliance of a man who knew how to tenderly shape melody and weave lyric into a fabric like a soft blanket.
we were immersed in poetry, in words, delicious to read aloud. we were quietly taking it all in, i in all my john-denver-glory, reliving the cassettes i wore out, rewinding, rewinding, listening again and again. this exquisite place, tempting all-day-hooky-playing, wielding a magic defined by thought, encouraging reflection, softly begging you to tumble in your own thoughts. this place slowing you down, reminding you that it is not stuff that defines you, it is not the stuff-of-you that will remain with others.
we wrestle with timing, with suspense, with expectation and disappointment. we measure against ladders of success and hold ourselves to higher higher higher standards of accomplishment.
nature quietly treks on, luminescent and glorious, patiently acknowledging every babystep moment of its impact, surrendering judgement and secretly, from the heart of the universe, signing its autograph on all of us, whispering to us to slow our pace.
time continues to peel back the layers. barney is vulnerable and is, thus, exposed.
artistry is like that. we share our vulnerabilities. we write, we paint, we compose, we lyricize – we peel back the outer shroud of mystery to reveal that which is inside. we take chances at judgement, at others’ opinions, at evaluation. we are exposed. and time goes on. winter turns to spring which turns to summer and then fall. the seasons take their toll; the seasons enrich us. both.
the first album i released felt earth-shaking. the notes – white and black keys tumbling from deep within – flew out into the world on a piece of polycarbonate, aluminum and acrylic plastic. what could be a coaster contained fifteen deeply-excavated emotions, musings each released into the light. exposed. the scraps of paper that gave birth to these were soon filed in a binder with invoices and order forms, designs and ups tracking numbers. one season. one album. done.
each original album since is no less an exposé. each still holds pieces of me, permission by me to be peeled back. a little less scary than the first but still risk-taking. vulnerability does not recede from the sandy beach as the big waves come and go. but it stands a little more stoic, with a little more sisu. the albums, like seasons, arrive when it is time. and they, in some way that albums might, tremble with anticipation and that tiny bit of fear that remains, even after many layers have been peeled. soon there will be no more black and white at all.
now i wonder if i will need shrink-wrap again. i wonder about recording. and i don’t know. yet. i do find that i am thinking of wooden stages and boom mics. i also find that i am thinking that all this writing – these written words on the page – have been feeding me and that hunger for polycarbonate, aluminum and acrylic plastic.
each day, barney and i age. the veneer blisters and the shell reveals our hearts. we are both emotional, barney and i. we are conscious of our craggier look, the wrinkles and the age spots. though we wonder about how we resonate with the rest of the universe-out-there, we take the dusty road together anyway and we hold hands, vulnerable together. though laminate no longer hides our souls, we are standing in the sun this season, new growth springing up.
20 calls it “putzing”. “what did you do today,” we ask. he says, “nothing. i just putzed.” putzing has a way of taking up the day.
my sweet poppo was a world-class putterer. he was happy doing something and happy doing nothing. he’d spend hours at his workbench in the garage in florida, cool damp towel wrapped around his neck. he could fix or make just about anything. hours just puttering. the whole day could go by.
my big brother could tinker in competition with the best of the tinkerers. he would tinker on building projects, home improvements, engines, motors, and all good assorted tinker-able sources. his adoring little sister, i was happiest when i got to sit and watch him tinker.
we road-trip-traveled down south, two friends and i. it was -wow- many years ago now. fans of the paint-a-picture-of-sweet-idle-and-wild-adventure-living j. peterman catalog, we went to the j.peterman (of seinfeld fame) retail store in kentucky. walking in, time slowed down. quiet piano music played overhead and the cool air conditioning of the store was a welcome change from the humid heat outside.
there was an associate acting as hostess who approached us drawling, “good afternooooon. welcome to j. peterman. would you lahhk an ahhsti?” “an asti,” we thought, “would be remarkable!” who wouldn’t like cool bubbly asti spumante on a hot steamy day? we graciously accepted and browsed around the space waiting for our wine glasses to appear, admiring the there-was-a-gentle-breeze-off-the-starboard-side-catching-the-silken-folds-of-her-aqua-dress-as-she-stood-watching-the-sail-raise sundress for $279. time slowed down.
the hostess-associate returned, three tumblers filled with – iced tea- and topped with a lemon wedge. ahhh. ICED TEA. not ASTI. our lounge-y afternoon puttering about the shop with asti in our hands vision disappeared in the breeze off the starboard side (or was that the ceiling fan overhead?) we left, post-beverage, and drove to the j. peterman headquarters where i managed to talk our way in to meet with THE j. peterman in a messy office filled with thoughts and dreams of his company. we entered and he apologized for the mess, telling us he was “puttering” and hadn’t had a chance to pick up. putterers shouldn’t apologize.
i’ve come by trifling with my day honestly. a list-maker, my brain tends to be consumed with lists-of-things-to-do, neatly under different headings, highlighted in order of import. they wake me up at night; they are consuming some days.
but there are some days that lists are not relevant. life days. putzing-puttering-tinkering days. days when frittering time away is the right thing to do, really the only thing to do. you loiter in your happy-doing-something-happy-doing-nothing. and you sit and have an iced tea.
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.
it’s a wave. and, like the tide, we ride it out to sea and back in to shore. we grab handfuls of sand when we hit the beach, to remind ourselves that we are indeed of this earth and this is real. and then we read or watch the news and see the charts and the numbers-who-are-people-not-numbers and we are back out to sea, on precarious standup boards.
it’s almost a mantra “staying more or less sane.” we wake in the morning and, for the first few delicious seconds, we don’t remember. but as we share dreams – the dreams we can remember – we know that even our subconscious are trying to process all this.
we compare notes with others: what is acceptable to do in these restricted times, what is not. we are aghast at the impropriety of the suggestion of large gatherings, no matter where they are. even small gatherings of people not isolating together are questionable. we wonder if we will all be agoraphobic when it’s time to cease restrictions. we worry that this decision will be made irresponsibly, skewed in the direction of the ever-important dollar and not in the interest of people being healthy, getting better, staying alive. we are afraid.
we do whatever we can, whatever works; we are all in different places on the what-works-for-you continuum. outside of working we struggle to fill in time. we take on new projects; we sit quietly. we bake loaves and loaves of bread and test new recipes; we cook just whatever is necessary. we obsessively deep clean the closets, the cabinets, the basement; we pick up around ourselves and disinfect what needs disinfecting. we organize, organize, organize; we have trouble paying attention, finishing going through the piles. we watch movies and binge on sitcoms; we look out the window and get lost in thought. we spend time on our muse; we stay away from that which makes us feel more deeply. we spend vast amounts of time on social media and video-conferencing apps; we desperately miss those we love and yearn for them. we get impatient; we wait.
we are a world of people-people, broken and reeling, and we are all trying to stay more or less sane.
i was really, really happy when it started snowing. not only was this softly falling snow beautiful, but it placed me back in time. although listing toward spring, it is, actually, mostly still winter. it is march. it is wisconsin.
time is warping and it is difficult to remember what day it is, nonetheless what month it is. the stress of worry, of deep concern for our children, our families, our friends, of social distancing and isolation, of working remotely – all of it has taken us out of time.
although there were many negative social media comments about it snowing, i was grateful. we went out and walked in it.
snows are different. there’s the light snow that blows across the sidewalk as you walk. there’s the heavy snow that invites you to make snowballs and greet snowmen as you pass them in the neighborhood. and then there is this – the magical snow that feels and looks like stars falling from the sky. we walked in quiet, mostly.
march. wisconsin. winter poised on the birth of spring. snow. it grounded us back into right now. we believe all things will come. in time. we are all marking time. one day we will sit in the warm sun. one day this worry will lessen.
my sweet momma would start the day by chirping to me, “good morning merry sunshine!” what a gift to consistently start the day that way.
i wrote this piece at a difficult time in my life. the titles on this album somewhat tell the story: boundaries. scattered. pulling weeds. holding on, letting go. it’s not black and white. figure it out. taking stock. baby steps. each one a descriptor of that time; each title written for the album before the music. i composed to each word.
but the most important title on the album, the arc that reigns over the gut emotion of the rest, i realize now is ‘each new day’. for we are granted yet another chance….to choose to live the day well, to embrace the new, to walk in tomorrow’s grace, to love, to choose kindness, to say we are sorry, to recuperate from something that has hurt us, to work toward balance, to forgive, to model goodness, to help someone else in pain, to learn something new, to listen, to laugh, to hold someone’s hand or share a hug, to do better…
time really does move breathtakingly fast. each new day counts. good morning merry sunshine.
the first time we went to the tiny farmer’s market on island we ran into a few people we had just met. new friends, they stopped to chat for a time and tom said, “the whole island is a welcome sign.” that seems to be true. a welcome sign.
yesterday we heard about people standing in line in the little grocery store. the clerk and the customer checking out were having a chat. no one in line interrupted. no one shuffled their groceries. no one shifted from one leg to the other, impatiently sighing loudly. they just waited. and then, when it was their turn, they had their own chat with the clerk. the grocery store is a welcome sign.
we were walking down the road arm in arm, a few miles from home, and an old light blue pickup truck pulled up next to us. a sweet old man leaned out and said, “you two lovebirds want a ride?” we laughed and said that we were out for a stroll. motioning to the bed of the truck, he told us he had plenty of room but added, “it looks like you are doing just fine.” we chatted a minute more and he pulled away. a welcome sign.
we were obliviously riding our bikes on the road, looking for deer in the woods. talking quietly and laughing at my attempts at no-handed riding (which, by the way, came back after a try or two), i suddenly realized there was a car behind us. i motioned quickly to d to pull over in front of me and get out of the car’s way. as it passed, i called into the rolled-down window “sorry!” the driver called back, “no worries! enjoy your ride!” no horn beeping, no revving of engine, no grumpy voice, no gesturing. just a “no worries!” a welcome sign.
my sweet momma had a painting of a modestly nude woman hanging in her master bath. she was proud of this painting and of its location. it traveled with them from long island to various homes in florida, an item that made the keep-it cut time and again. now, this painting was not a brilliant work of art, for it was actually a paint-by-number that she had painted at some point before painting her own abstracts. (more on paint-by-numbers at a later date.)
but momma’s painting was meaningful to her and i suspect it represented a powerful statement – the beauty of a woman’s body, the grace of line, the respect shown. perfection. i think it resembled her in her youth, and in later years reminded her of earlier years, an earlier body before babies and emotion and injury and surgeries and wrinkles and time changed everything. changed the shape and the look of body but added strength and wisdom that only life lived can add. momma was indeed a woman before her time.
CLASSIC is such a painting, but is exquisite art. the beauty of a woman’s body, the grace of line, the respect shown.
momma would have loved this painting of david’s and, probably, would have convinced him to hang it for her in her own home. it would remind her of how much she loved being a woman. of how she taught her daughters and granddaughters to embrace being female and yet, not to stand by meekly or idly or retreatingly. to revel in the beauty of having a body that is female, but not to tout or compare or compete. to move with grace as best as you can, for in that movement grace will be found. to show and expect respect for your own body, in all ways. to recognize perfection. in all the times of life.
“…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.
reverse threading 