One thing leading to another (again)

Following a series of long winding paths on the internet, I was surprised to discover the photography website of a woman who worked for decades in the Children's Library section of our public library where I volunteered as a shelf-reader for several years in the early 2000s.  Her husband plays the autoharp and appears on the album of an Irish musician.  What a joy to see her photography and find these videos on her website just now.

 

Absolutely on Music

Thank you to Lori for the inspiration.

I'm in the process of reading Absolutely on Music and have found myself inspired to retrieve my Suzuki keyboard from my bedroom closet and pick up where I left off in teaching myself to play the piano nearly 20 years ago.

Plague / Newborn babies wailing like a mourning dove

A cousin of mine brought this to my attention.

Just this morning I re-read the liner notes to Blood on the Tracks after a friend mentioned that he had just re-read them.  I remember standing in a record store in Bellingham in January 1975 reading those liner notes and weeping and then going home to listen for the first of many many times.  That was over 40 years ago.

The painting from 1990 above is titled "63rd Month / Talking 43-Hour Day With Roots Gathered From Coincidence."

This morning I woke up feeling something I couldn't define.  When I focused on the feeling, not the words about the feeling, my body sensations were minimal but murky and unpleasant nonetheless.  If pressed for a single word that matched the feeling, I could only come up with "flat." If asked for the color of the feeling, it would be a sickly tan.  Suddenly I heard Janis Joplin singing, "Busted flat in Baton Rouge, waiting for a train, feeling just as faded as my jeans ..."

With that, the feeling shifted because I could hear a human voice singing accompanied by musical instruments.  The first time I heard that song was the morning my Richard arrived home from Vietnam.  We were riding in my 1965 Volkswagen, on our way out to the coast to surprise Richard's family, who didn't yet know that he was home.

Then I found this.

Don't know what else I want to say.  Don't know where I am going with this.  No easy answers.  Lots of questions.  Wait.  I know what I want to say.

We can refuse to live in fear.  We can know that we are not alone.  Any loving action, no matter how small, counts.

Turning Point in Early June 2015

Yesterday I was out on my porch with my camera. Turning around, I noticed my reflection in the window. Interesting to discover when I downloaded the photo that through my silhouette I can see photos of mother's mother and father, my mother, my father's mother and father, and my father, as well as my two sisters, my only nephew's father, and my nephew and his girlfriend and their now 1-year-old son, Pablo. Over my heart is the light I draw and paint by at my work table. If you look closely, you will see the carved red cardinal who perches on the light. The book is The Songs of Bob Dylan: 1966-1975 on a wooden music holder.  In front of that is one of the caned chairs that my mother's parents bought when they were first married in Boston in the early 1900s.  What appear to be white polka dots on dark blue is the pattern on my couch. On the couch is a colorful pillow with Fair Isle patterns knitted by my Scottish / German mother years ago. Sweet to see that my old dulcimer, made in Santa Cruz, California, in the 1970s, appears to be out on the porch with me, along with everything else, including the red Salvia plant that I bought and put in a planter in my porch garden this past week and the lush cattail pond, nearby dark hills, and lovely grey sky.

Veteran's Day 2014

So long as the human spirit thrives on this planet, music in some living form will accompany and sustain it and give it expressive meaning.
(Aaron Copland)

People Listening (1984)