I Know Alone (HAIM)

[thanks again to Lesley Anne Numbers for this brilliant graphic!]

About six months ago (maybe more, maybe less), I ran across a saying that became my mantra:

Whatever you
Are not changing, 
You are choosing.  

Read that again.

It helped me transform some bad habits into positive motion, and I stayed on track for a good while.  Then... coronavirus (dum dum dum dum!).  I continued my focus for another two months, but have recently found myself straying from the path, even falling into wallow and roly-poly modes, two of my biggest downfalls.  Woe is me.  What's the point?  Where's my purpose?  I wrote to a friend the other day:

"It's raining again here.  How appropriate.  Almost two weeks of daily downpours.  You are the unfortunate recipient of my fatigue:  coronavirus isolation; marital relations; social injustice; missing live music, browsing the library shelves, hugging my grandbaby, going to Publix instead of having strangers do my shopping, sitting in a booth at my favorite Thai restaurant to enjoy veggie Panang curry.  Do you yell at the TV when people shake hands? ("no, you can't do that now!").  On the few occasions I am in the car, and see people driving while wearing masks, I wonder if I've just been dropped into a nightmare/science fiction scenario, and pinch myself to wake."

Time to recalibrate.  Much to be grateful for.  So many blessings.  Started last night with a Dar Williams livestreaming concert, celebrating Patty's (her manager's) birthday, in which Dar played "deep cuts".  Wow, what a setlist!  I was invited, and eventually migrated over, to the Old School Dar-Listers watch party, connecting with dear friends I've had for decades, forever-bonded over our favorite singer-songwriter.  I am committed to carrying that spark of joy back into my daily life, and adding in more yoga, more stretching, meditation, more phone calls with long-distance friends and family, walking, even leisurely (gone by the wayside because of my sciatica), natural VitaminD, whether at the condo pool (socially-distanced, of course) or the grassy area in front of our building, kinder words, deeper understanding, open heart/closed mouth, more radical self-care, increased vulnerability, letting go of past hurts.

Forlorn/lonely... begone!


[updated at 5:30 p.m.:  I uploaded this post a bit after noon today, and since then, after doing much thinking, as well as having a productive conversation with a friend, I realize that so much of my angst comes from *struggling* with the times we're in.  I am attempting to push back against an immutable situation, a *global* pandemic... clinging to my old life, fighting "the new normal", when what I really need to do is to find acceptance (I swear I had it at one point!).  I keep talking about "the other side" of this, when there is still so much uncertainty, and no one knows where we will land, and what it will look like.  I seriously need to stop drawing a line in the sand, visualizing there and here, Point A to Point B... and rather look at it as a journey, circuitous at best, winding along with perhaps no immediate plan in place, other than to connect the dots One Day at a Time, making the smartest decisions possible ("do the next right thing", as Glennon would say), and maintaining a Buddhist attitude of acknowledging there is pain and suffering yet striving toward non-attachment to the outcome.  I feel better already...  :-) ]

P.S.  Another joy-sparker tomorrow night:  Jason Isbell, Brandi Carlile, Eric Church, Kacey Musgraves, and Bill Murray will remember the life and music of John Prine during an all-star online special on Thursday. Picture Show: A Tribute Celebrating John Prine streams June 11th at 7:30 p.m. ET via Prine’s YouTube, Facebook, and Twitch.


SONG:  I Know Alone by HAIM (lyrics in the link; thanks to my son Rob for the heads-up to this song... 💓 )

BOOK:  On Being Human: A Memoir of Waking Up, Living Real, and Listening Hard by Jennifer Pastiloff

POEM:  Quarantine Day 35 by Jaime R. Wood

The online coronavirus survey asks
if you’ve experienced hair loss
and you laugh because just yesterday
you took brand new clippers to your scalp
and sheared off enough hair to help someone
with cancer feel human again.
Your friend told you over Zoom happy hour
to hug yourself to trick your body
into feeling less lonely, so you wrap your arms,
right to left and left to right,
across your chest until your hands reach
your shoulder blades and you can feel
your heart beating inside you
as if it belongs to someone else,
but you know that hasn’t been true for a long time.
You stay up all night watching hospital dramas
because you want to know who will live
and who will die.
And one morning you wake to find out via email
that one of your students died in her sleep.
All day you tell people again and again,
“She had kids. She had kids.” Plural.
But it turns out she only had one
five-year-old daughter. Singular.
But what does it matter?
Every child is a universe.
And one morning one small girl in Portland, Oregon
woke up without her one very important mother.
Sometimes my hands shake with all they cannot hold,
and I don’t know how to measure what it means
for time to pass. Which simile will do?
Like a heartbeat?
Like a million fine hairs falling from a head?
Like a mother who slept through the night
and then stopped, her universe carrying the weight
of her through all the days of her life?

[Jaime R. Wood: “The ongoing event that we’re all experiencing right now is social isolation in an attempt to protect ourselves and our loved ones from COVID-19, and some people, like me, live alone, and so the isolation is profound. Last week, I learned that one of my students died in her sleep, and of all the things I knew about her, the thing I kept thinking about was the fact that she was a single mother and that her kids were young. I knew that, but I couldn’t remember how many kids she had until someone told me that she only had one, and at that point, it didn’t really matter to me. The loss is great, no matter how you calculate it. The loss of this one woman, and my feelings about it, can be multiplied many times over and applied to each of us. We wake up and fall asleep to loss, and there aren’t adequate words to measure it all.”]

QUOTE:  "And once the storm is over, you won’t remember how you made it through, how you managed to survive. You won’t even be sure, whether the storm is really over. But one thing is certain. When you come out of the storm, you won’t be the same person who walked in. That’s what this storm’s all about." ~ Haruki Murakami

$20 Bill - for George Floyd (Tom Prasada-Rao)

As you may recall, I am not on Facebook anymore, so I am dependent on others to alert me to concerts and music-related items generating from that medium.  Yesterday a friend posted to our local sf_folk (South Florida) list that musician friends were covering a new song by *another* musician friend... and I hadn't even heard about the original yet!

Tom Prasada-Rao is a gifted songwriter, a spiritual guru, and a brave soul who experienced a tough battle with cancer last year, and continues treatment, even during this pandemic.  I am grateful to consider TPR a friend, and of course had to delve into this cool phenomenon.  Here is but an overview of those who have passed his powerful song along the pipeline:  Mary Gauthier, Ellis Paul, Margo Hennebach & Mark Saunders, Karl Werne, and so many more.  The lyrics are included in the song link, but I am reprinting them below because they deserve repeating... 💙

Some people die for honor
Some people die for love
Some people die while singing
To the heavens above 
Some people die believing
In the cross on Calvarys’ hill 
And some people die
In the blink of an eye
For a $20 bill

Some people go out in glory
(Yeah) with the wind at their back
Some get to tell their own story
Write their own epitaph
Sometimes you see it coming 
Sometimes you don’t know until
You run out of breath
With a knee on your neck
For a $20 bill

Brother, I never knew you 
And now I never will 
But I make this promise to you
I’ll remember you still

Take, eat - let this be our communion
It’s time to break the bread
Do this in remembrance 
Just like the good book said
Sometimes the wine is a sacrament 
Sometimes the blood is just spilled
Sometimes the law
Is the devils’ last straw
The future unfulfilled
Like the dream they killed
For a $20 bill

by Tom Prasada-Rao 5/28/20 Silver Spring MD

Also, referencing the history of my graphic above, this... yet one more example of this adminstration's racism.


SONG:  $20 Bill (for George Floyd) by Tom Prasada-Rao (Tom's voice is whisper-like while he's speaking, but when he begins singing, at about the one-minute mark, you can hear him clearly...  :-)

BOOK:  Hands Up, Don’t Shoot by Jennifer E. Cobbina

POEM:  truth by Gwendolyn Brooks

And if sun comes
How shall we greet him?
Shall we not dread him,
Shall we not fear him
After so lengthy a
Session with shade?

Though we have wept for him,
Though we have prayed
All through the night-years—
What if we wake one shimmering morning to
Hear the fierce hammering
Of his firm knuckles
Hard on the door?

Shall we not shudder?—
Shall we not flee
Into the shelter, the dear thick shelter
Of the familiar
Propitious haze?

Sweet is it, sweet is it
To sleep in the coolness
Of snug unawareness.

The dark hangs heavily
Over the eyes.

QUOTE:  "There comes a point where we need to stop just pulling people out of the river.  We need to go upstream and find out why they're falling in." ~ Archbishop Desmond Tutu

Eachother (Grace Potter)

[Through a series of interesting circumstances yesterday, I was led to the amazing artwork of Lesley Anne Numbers (the above is just one example). Wow!]

Last Saturday night, after a heads-up from my daughter Sarah, I tuned into Banding Together:  A Concert for the Colorado Music Relief Fund.  From their website:  

Live music is central to Colorado’s culture.

Our musicians, their crews, and our venues are iconic and beloved across the world. Music is a force in the experience economy; attracting tourists, new residents, and business leaders to the culture of Colorado in good times. In times of hardship music is our salve.  

In this pandemic, everyone is hurting. 

The economic and fiscal impacts on Colorado’s rich music industry resulting from COVID-19 are already significant. Music employs over 16,000 Coloradans and generates 1.5 billion dollars annually and the vast majority of that revenue relies on public gatherings. These activities are unlikely to return to ‘normal’ for the foreseeable future. 

The music industry will not be back to work for perhaps a year or longer. 
Whether it is navigating unemployment, small business loans, or other quickly disappearing relief funds, the music industry is not getting the lifeline it so desperately needs. 

We need to raise funds and awareness in Colorado for this beleaguered industry and its workers that mean so much to our economy and our own health and well-being. 

We’re going to use the power of music to do this. 

Three hours of joy, beauty (Red Rocks!), and inspiration as so many artists (Dave Matthews, Brandi Carlile, The Avett Brothers, Michael Franti, to name just a few!) donated their time and energy to raise money for this worthwhile cause.  We contributed a bit, and it lifted my spirits to do so.  Click here to see/hear in its entirety for yourself...  💖

So, it is indeed Feel Good Friday.  From the depths of despair at the beginning of the week, I am feeling a bit more hope:  the other three officers were charged in the George Floyd situation, and Chauvin's charge was upgraded to second degree murder; there is an increase/emphasis on youth protest; demonstrations are more peaceful now, as many law enforcement officials changed their tactics to allow people to demonstrate while still maintaining peace.

As is tradition, five items below of beauty, interest, and humor to brighten your day/weekend/week.  Enjoy!  


~ First Youth Poet Laureate, Amanda Gorman: First ever National Youth Poet Laureate of the United States, Amanda Gorman, performs her original poem, In This Place: An American Lyric, at the Library of Congress (thanks, ElyseB!)


~ Fewer Boats Means a Safer Spring for Miami's Marine Creatures:  Over the past few weeks, amateur photographers have been capturing images and video of manatees, turtles, and sawfish in South Florida waterways and posting them on social media.  Stay-at-home orders have meant fewer boats out on the water. And that's meant a safer spring vacation for Miami's aquatic creatures, many of which are coming back to shore. 


~ Sesame Street Joins CNN to Host a Town Hall Saturday Addressing Racism
By Good News Network:  Back in April, Sesame Street partnered with CNN to explain the ABC’s of coronavirus in a televised ‘town hall’ for parents and kids. Now, it’s time to help young families educate their children about racism.  This Saturday, June 6, at 10 a.m. ET, CNN and Sesame Street are hosting a 60-minute special Coming Together: Standing Up to Racism. A CNN/Sesame Street Town Hall for Kids and Families.

~ Bank of America pledges $1 billion to fight racial inequality:  Bank of America is donating $1 billion over the next four years to community programs and small businesses to help address economic and racial inequality that has been exacerbated by Covid-19.

~ ANDY! - A Randy Rainbow Song Parody (thanks, Nance!)

SONG:  Eachother by Grace Potter

BOOK:  Music is Power: Popular Songs, Social Justice, and the Will to Change by Brad Schreiber

POEM:  Pledge by Jehanne Dubrow

Now we are here at home, in the little nation
of our marriage, swearing allegiance to the table
we set for lunch or the windchime on the porch,

its easy dissonance. Even in our shared country,
the afternoon allots its golden lines
so that we’re seated, both in shadow, on opposite

ends of a couch and two gray dogs between us.
There are acres of opinions in this house.
I make two cups of tea, two bowls of soup,

divide an apple equally. If I were a patriot,
I would call the blanket we spread across our bed
the only flag—some nights we’ve burned it

with our anger at each other. Some nights
we’ve welcomed the weight, a woolen scratch
on both our skins. My love, I am pledging

to this republic, for however long we stand,
I’ll watch with you the rain’s arrival in our yard.
We’ll lift our faces, together, toward the glistening.

QUOTE:  “Every day we slaughter our finest impulses. That is why we get a heartache when we read those lines written by the hand of a master and recognize them as our own, as the tender shoots which we stifled because we lacked the faith to believe in our own powers, our own criterion of truth and beauty. Every man, when he gets quiet, when he becomes desperately honest with himself, is capable of uttering profound truths. We all derive from the same source. there is no mystery about the origin of things. We are all part of creation, all kings, all poets, all musicians; we have only to open up, only to discover what is already there.” ~ Henry Miller

Amazing Grace (John Newton; sung by Judy Collins and The Global Virtual Choir)

This is what I needed today.  Maybe you did, too...  💗


Judy Collins Gathers The Global Virtual Choir For World Health Organisation’s Solidarity Fund ‘Amazing Grace’
by Paul Cashmere on June 2, 2020

Two weeks ago Judy Collins put the call out for contributors to the Global Virtual Choir for a new version of ‘Amazing Gace’. The message was heard by the likes of Steve Earle, Judith Owen, Beth Nielsen Chapman and others resulting in something very special to benefit the World Health Organisation’s Solidarity Fund.

Judy Collins first recorded ‘Amazing Grace’ for her 1970 ‘Whales & Nightingales’ album. She used that version as a Vietnam War protest song. She says, “I didn’t know what else to do about the war in Vietnam. I had marched, I had voted, I had gone to jail on political actions and worked for the candidates I believed in. The war was still raging. There was nothing left to do, I thought… but sing ‘Amazing Grace’.

Now, she says, it feels like the same time again.“I recorded Amazing Grace with a group of friends at Saint Paul’s Chapel on the Columbia University campus in New York City. When my recording of Amazing Grace was released it became enormously popular all over the world,” she says.

“It was written by John Newton in 1772, a man who evolved from a slave ship captain to a writer of powerful hymns, and changed his entire life, becoming a model for spiritual transformation.

“That’s what we need today once again. Stay safe, help others and pray for the planet. I am sending this song out to all the doctors, nurses and patients. We will survive this with love and music and amazing grace.”


SONG:  Amazing Grace by John Newton (sung by Judy Collins and The Global Virtual Choir)

BOOK: The President Sang Amazing Grace: A Book About Finding Grace After Unspeakable Tragedy by Zoe Mulford, Jeff Scher (Illustrator) 

POEM:  Grace by Sarah Gambito

You won’t
kill me
because I
will not
oblige you
by dying.

I hold all
my hands
under
the cherry
trees.

Clusters of
shyest
pinks
joining
hands.

Laced
like this,

diadem
like this,

we live the
past/
present/
future/
all at once

and even now.

Wouldn’t we tear
seas,
cities,
money
to get to
each other?

The public
garden—

the books
of its leaves,

the leaves
of its books—

denotes privilege,
entitlement
gorgeous belief

that we’ll meet
again and
again
holding

this
feelingtone
of
flowers

QUOTE:  "The amazing thing about love and attention and encouragement and grace and success and joy is that these things are infinite. We get a new supply every single morning, and so we can give it away all day. We never, ever have to monitor the supply of others or grab or hoard." ~ Glennon Doyle

I'm On Your Side (Michael Franti & Spearhead)

[Finally!  June 3, 2020 update:  Attorney General Keith Ellison upgrade charges against officer who knelt on George Floyd's neck; charged other 3 involved:  The charges come just days after Gov. Tim Walz asked Ellison to take over the prosecution.]

8 Minutes and 46 Seconds: How George Floyd Was Killed in Police Custody:
The Times has reconstructed the death of George Floyd on May 25. Security footage, witness videos and official documents show how a series of actions by officers turned fatal.


My sister Mari initiated a thoughtful conversation, via text, with me and my daughter Sarah a few days ago, which allowed me to state my feelings on the George Floyd situation in particular, and racism in general.  I disagree with the vandalism, arson, and looting but, to quote Leonard (below), "Enough!".  If this is what it takes to be heard, I understand.  It is crazy that we live in a world in which Jogging While Black and Driving While Black and even Breathing While Black are reasons for murder, by police or anyone else. I can't fathom why people are more outraged by the destruction of property than they are by the senseless killings of People of Color, for decades... centuries.

Why are blacks’ anguished cries of “Enough!” never enough to stop the brutality? | Opinion by Leonard Pitts, Jr.

My new favorite word, as used in Leonard's column:
quiescent [ kwee-es-uhnt, kwahy- ]
adjective
being at rest; quiet; still; inactive or motionless:
a quiescent mind.


It is a matter of being aware of the injustice in the world, and how we, from our entitled place, can help but never truly empathize.  I felt helpless as well as enraged watching that video.  thankyoujesus for cell phones recording the truth.  At this point the officers have been charged, and we will wait to see if they are convicted (as many are not).


And, from Glennon Doyle's recently-published book Untamed, p. 206-210 (thanks to my daughter Sarah for reminding me of these passages):

"  “No, listen—this feels to me like we’ve hit rock bottom! Maybe that means we’re finally ready for the steps. Maybe we’ll admit that our country has become unmanageable. Maybe we’ll take a moral inventory and face our open family secret: that this nation—founded upon ‘liberty and justice for all’—was built while murdering, enslaving, raping, and subjugating millions. Maybe we’ll admit that liberty and justice for all has always meant liberty for white straight wealthy men. Then maybe we’ll gather the entire family at the table—the women and the gay and black and brown folks and those in power—so that we can begin the long, hard work of making amends. I’ve seen this process heal people and families. Maybe our nation can heal this way, too.”

   I was adamant and righteous. But I’d forgotten that sick systems are made up of sick people. People like me. In order to get healthy, everybody has to stay in the room and turn themselves inside out. No family recovers until each member recovers. 

       Soon after that conversation with my friend, I sat on my family room couch and patted a spot to my left and one to my right. I said to my daughters, “Come here, girls.” They sat down and looked up at me. I told them that while they were asleep, a man who was white had walked into a church and shot and killed nine people who were black.

   Then I told my daughters about a black boy their brother’s age, who was walking home and was chased down and murdered. I told them that the killer said he thought the boy had a gun, but what the boy really had was a bag of Skittles. Amma said, “Why did that man think Trayvon’s candy was a gun?” I said, “I don’t think he really did. I think he just needed an excuse to kill.”

   We sat with all of this for a while. They asked more questions. I did my best. Then I decided that we had talked about villains for long enough. We needed to talk about heroes.

   I went to my office to find a particular book. I pulled it down from the shelf, came back to the couch, and sat between them again. I opened the book, and we read about Martin Luther King, Jr., Rosa Parks, John Lewis, Fannie Lou Hamer, Diane Nash, and Daisy Bates. We looked at pictures of civil rights marches, and we talked about why people march. “Someone once said that marching is praying with your feet,” I told them.

   Amma pointed to a white woman holding a sign, marching in a sea of black and brown people. Her eyes popped and she said, “Mama, look! Would we have been marching with them? Like her?”

   I fixed my mouth to say, “Of course. Of course we would have, baby.”

   But before I could say it, Tish said, “No, Amma. We wouldn’t have been marching with them back then. I mean, we’re not marching now.”

       I stared at my girls as they looked up at me. I thought of my dad in that therapist’s office all those years ago. It was as if my girls had turned to me and asked, “Mama, how do you imagine we might be inadvertently contributing to our country’s sickness?”

   A week later, I was reading Martin Luther King, Jr.’s, famous essay “Letter from Birmingham Jail,” and I came across this:

       "I must confess that over the last few years I have been gravely disappointed with the white moderate. I have almost reached the regrettable conclusion that the Negro’s great stumbling block in his stride toward freedom is not the White Citizen’s Counciler or the Ku Klux Klanner, but the white moderate, who is more devoted to “order” than to justice; who prefers a negative peace which is the absence of tension to a positive peace which is the presence of justice; who constantly says: “I agree with you in the goal you seek, but I cannot agree with your methods of direct action.”

   This was the first time I had encountered language that defined the kind of person I was in the world. I was a white person who imagined herself to be on the side of civil rights, because I was a good person who strongly believed in equality as the right idea. But the white woman Amma had pointed to in that photograph wasn’t staying home and believing. She was showing up. When I looked at her face, she didn’t look nice at all. She looked radical. Angry. Brave. Afraid. Tired. Passionate. Resolute. Regal. And a little bit scary.

   I imagined myself to be the kind of white person who would have stood with Dr. King because I respect him now. Close to 90 percent of white Americans approve of Dr. King today. Yet while he was alive and demanding change, only about 30 percent approved of him—the same rate of white Americans who approve of Colin Kaepernick today.

       So, if I want to know how I’d have felt about Dr. King back then, I can’t ask myself how I feel about him now; instead I have to ask myself: How do I feel about Kaepernick now? If I want to know how I’d have felt about the Freedom Riders back then, I can’t ask myself how I feel about them now; instead, I have to ask myself: How do I feel about Black Lives Matter now?

   If I want to know how I’d have shown up in the last civil rights era, I have to ask myself: How am I showing up today, in this civil rights era?

   I decided to read every book I could get my hands on about race in America. I filled my social media feeds with writers and activists of color. It became very clear very quickly how strongly my social media feeds shaped my worldview. With a feed filled with white voices, faces that looked like my own, and articles that reflected experiences like mine, it was easy to believe that, for the most part, things were fine. Once I committed myself to beginning each day by reading the perspectives of black and brown people, I learned that everything was, and always has been, quite far from fine. I learned about rampant police brutality, the preschool-to-prison pipeline, the subhuman conditions of immigrant detainment centers, the pillaging of native lands. I began to widen. I was unlearning the whitewashed version of American history I’d been indoctrinated into believing. I was discovering that I was not who I imagined myself to be. I was learning that my country was not what I had been taught it was.

   This experience of learning and unlearning reminded me of getting sober from addiction. When I started to really listen and think more deeply about the experiences of people of color and other marginalized people in our country, I felt like I did when I first quit drinking: increasingly uncomfortable as the truth agitated my comfortable numbness. I felt ashamed as I began to learn all the ways my ignorance and silence had hurt other people. I felt exhausted because there was so much more to unlearn, so many amends to be made, and so much work to do. Just like in my early days of sobriety from booze, in my early days of waking up to white supremacy, I felt shaky, jumpy, and agitated as I slowly surrendered the privilege of not knowing. It was a painful unbecoming.

       Eventually it became time to speak up. I started sharing the voices I was reading, and speaking out against the racism of America’s past and the bigotry and strategic divisiveness of the current administration. Every time I did this, people got pissed off. I felt okay about this because I seemed to be pissing off the right people. "


So, what can WE do to effect positive change?

RevAmy mentioned this in our "lovestreaming" UU church service yesterday: 26 Ways to Be in the Struggle

Now is definitely a time for growth opportunity for those whose hearts are in the right place.  I am a long-time peaceful protester (mostly feminist- and environmentally-related) but, much as I want to get out there, I will not risk my health by taking to the streets.  Because of my decimated social life, I have extra money, and have decided to donate to Together Rising, Glennon's organization. She speaks her truth, which also happens to be mine.  I trust her judgment as to where she allocates the money.


SONG:  I'm On Your Side by Michael Franti and Spearhead

BOOK:  Making All Black Lives Matter: Reimagining Freedom in the Twenty-First Century by Barbara Ransby

POEM:  Choke by Karim Eltawansy

A tattoo of birds
in the cage
of my throat.

I can’t breathe.

The world
is an eye
open to the

sun.

How many poems
do you have
by dreaming

of fire? of water

too late, too little
of breath
on the feathers

a naked cat

is sculpted into a
sphinx.

Tell me: the sculptor
was using his
fingers as

a ruler: his palm

a throne. I hold
all of life in
my throat. I hold

the 7th heaven

on my devil’s whisper. A genie says:
what a genie says:
I’m not available right now

get in the car.

The lamp holds
nothing to the candle
wish of tongue, holds

a shadow in the corner
of my eye: blink
thrice if a baton chops

because someone says, gravity. I’ve heard

a lot of songs about misery, but
never felt a bullet
slash through my body’s

grass limbs. Had I

to describe this membrane
what its body looked
like in breath

in its lover’s casket: I say,

brave, one syllable drops
at the speed of exhale: one
Marlboro tastes like

a carcass: if you ask
me about Africa I’ll
point my thumb down

the chamber, stick my
head in the camera
lens, fall into

black, black, black
everything—birds
included.

QUOTE:  “Breathe. Breathe deep and pure and smooth. Concentrate on it. Breathing is the pace you set your life at. It’s the rhythm of the song of you. It’s how to get back to the centre of things. The centre of yourself. When the world wants to take you in every other direction. It was the first thing you learned to do. The most essential and simple thing you do. To be aware of breath is to remember you are alive.” ~ Matt Haig

Singing from the Window (Dave Matthews)

Much to feel good about this week.  Through a series of interesting circumstances I reconnected with a sister of my best friend in high school. Mary still makes pottery, and I am going to order another piece from her soon.

Had an impromptu meet-up with Sarah, Colin, and Eric in the far parking lot of Sarah's apartment complex, where drawing/writing with chalk is the highlight.  I asked S if he sleeps with them, because he double-fists throughout. "He would if I let him", she responded.  Always a lift. He is so smart and adorable (not that I'm biased or anything...  ;-)

Thanks to my sister Mari (she called herself my "Facebook Cliffs Notes" but I changed that to "Facebook Guru") for telling me about the conversation with Indigo Girls, Glennon Doyle, and Abby Wambach last night.  Was hoping I could view through YouTube, but no...  Jumped back onto FB (temporarily) for 90 minutes of wisdom, tears, and smiles, as they all interviewed each other.  Actually found a link to share, and I plan to re-watch later today.

And today is NancyW's birthday!  We arranged a Zoom meeting with Nance, Judi, Suzanne, and myself... but little did she know we were surprising her with other friends popping in:  SusanP, Brian, Sarah/Colin.  Invited a few others who had to work or couldn't make it.  Conversation and laughter ensued, and of course there was cake, a card, and singing... 💖

So, as is tradition, five items below of beauty, interest, and humor to brighten your day/weekend/week.  Enjoy!  


~ Turning Your Backyard Into a Vacation Spot:  With summer camps shut down and beach vacations seeming risky, homeowners are investing in ways to create a summer retreat at home.


~ Simple Stretches to Combat All That Sitting:  Done correctly, these restorative stretches, working on muscles from your eyes to your toes, really do make you feel better.


~ For Those Who (Privately) Aspire to Become More Reclusive (thanks to Michele for this beautifully insightful article; also, check out The Book of Life website...  :-)


~ The End of Meat Is Here:  If you care about the working poor, about racial justice, and about climate change, you have to stop eating animals.


~ Kacey Musgraves sings "Burn One With John Prine" to John Prine


SONG:  Singing from the Window by Dave Matthews

BOOK:  Notes on a Nervous Planet by Matt Haig

POEM:  Everyone Sang by Siegfried Sassoon

Everyone suddenly burst out singing;
And I was filled with such delight
As prisoned birds must find in freedom,
Winging wildly across the white
Orchards and dark-green fields; on - on - and out of sight.

Everyone's voice was suddenly lifted;
And beauty came like the setting sun:
My heart was shaken with tears; and horror
Drifted away ... O, but Everyone
Was a bird; and the song was wordless; the singing will never be done.

QUOTE(S):  "Experience life in all possible ways ~ good-bad, bitter-sweet, dark-light, summer-winter. Experience all the dualities. Don't be afraid of experience, because the more experience you have, the more mature you become." ~ Osho

“The shortest distance between two people is a song.” ~ Edith Barnard

Mona Lisas and Mad Hatters (Elton John)

While reading Untamed by Glennon Doyle, I ran across the passage below (had no idea about this theory):

When we visited the Louvre, we entered the Mona Lisa room and found a crowd of hundreds pushing, jostling, selfie-ing all around her.

   I stared from a distance, trying to appreciate her. I really didn’t understand what all the fuss was about. I wondered if all the jostling people understood or if they were just acting like they did. A woman walked over and stood next to me.

   She said, “You know, there’s a theory about her smile. Want to hear it?”

   “Yes, please,” I said.

   “Mona Lisa and her husband lost a baby. Sometime later, her husband commissioned this painting from da Vinci to celebrate the birth of another baby. Mona Lisa sat for Leonardo to paint her, but she wouldn’t smile during the sitting. Not all the way. The story goes that da Vinci wanted her to smile wider, but she refused. She did not want the joy she felt for her new baby to erase the pain she felt from losing the first. There in her half smile is her half joy. Or maybe it’s her full joy and her full grief all at the same time. She has the look of a woman who has just realized a dream but still carries the lost dream inside her. She wanted her whole life to be present on her face. She wanted everyone to remember, so she wouldn’t pretend.”

   Now I understand what the fuss is all about. Mona Lisa is the patron saint of honest, resolute, fully human women—women who feel and who know. She is saying for us:

   Don’t tell me to smile.

   I will not be pleasant.

   Even trapped here, inside two dimensions, you will see the truth.

   You will see my life’s brutal and beautiful right here on my face.

   The world will not be able to stop staring.


SONG:  Mona Lisas and Mad Hatters by Elton John (everybody knows his version, so here's a cool cover by the Indigo Girls...  :-)

BOOK:  Katie and the Mona Lisa by James Mayhew

POEM:  The Aerodynamics by Rick Bursky

The night she walked to the house
she held a string; on the other end,
fifty-three feet in the air, a kite.
Wind provided the aerodynamics.
Does every collaboration
need to be explained?
She tied the string to the mailbox
left the kite to float until morning.
Every night this happens.
She sleeps, I listen, darkness
slides through us both.

The next morning
the string still curved into the sky
but the kite was gone.
This was the morning
newspapers announced
the Mona Lisa was stolen***.
This was the morning
it snowed in Los Angeles,
the morning I wore gloves
to pull from the sky
fifty-three feet of frozen string.

***From The Writer's Almanac:  On August 21, 1911 the Mona Lisa was stolen from the Louvre Museum in Paris, France. The theft was pulled off so well that no one even noticed.

The next day, an artist named Louis Béroud went to the Louvre, intending to paint a girl doing her hair in the reflection from the pane of glass in front of the Mona Lisa. He wanted his painting to be a commentary on the debate around putting glass in front of paintings in the Louvre.

But when he got to the wall where the painting usually hung, it wasn't there. He asked the guards, and they said it was probably being photographed. But it wasn't with the photographers. The director of the museum, Théophile Homolle, was out of town — a man who had said the year before, "Steal the Mona Lisa?You might as well pretend that one could steal the towers of the Cathedral of Notre Dame." Finally, museum officials got together and the police were called in, and everyone realized that the Mona Lisa was really gone.

The Louvre was shut down for a week to search every inch of it for the missing painting — since the Louvre takes up 49 acres, it was no easy task. But all they found was the frame and piece of glass.

More than two years later, in Italy, the thief contacted an art dealer and offered to sell him the Mona Lisa for $100,000. The art dealer met him, along with the director of the Uffizi Gallery in Florence. The thief, Vincenzo Peruggia, explained that all he wanted was to return the Mona Lisa to Italy where it belonged. He said he would sell it as long as the men promised to hang it at the Uffizi and not let it go back to Paris. Peruggia was, of course, arrested, and the Mona Lisa was sent back to the Louvre … but not until it went on a tour across Italy.

QUOTE:  "Is the Mona Lisa an 'accurate' representation of the actual human model for the painting? Who knows? Who cares? It's a great piece of art. It moves us. It makes us wonder, makes us gape - finally makes us look inward at ourselves." ~ Tim O'Brien

Pie for Breakfast (Ellis Delaney)

[thanks to PeterF for this wonderful graphic!]

It is Memorial Day, a federal holiday in the United States for honoring and mourning military personnel who have died while serving in the United States Armed Forces. I should be using In Flanders Fields (which I recall memorizing in sixth grade) as today's poem. Thank you for your service... ❤

Obviously, no picnics are happening, both because of the coronavirus as well as the torrential downpours experienced today and yesterday.  I continue to be in hibernation mode, segueing from this weekend's Sex and The City marathon to The Starless Sea novel, which still captivates.  We were supposed to have a family meet-up this morning and now, instead, hubby and I will pop over to the Hollybrook library (like I need more books, right?), which re-opens today.  One person at a time. Understood.  One of us will browse, while the other stands in the doorway, then switch...  :-)

Had the most wonderful experience Saturday night, when I was invited by my long-time friend BrianW (The Breadman!) to a Virtual Campfire of Camp Jews Don't Camp (his tribe in real-life every year at the Kerrville Folk Festival, which normally begins every Memorial Day weekend and goes on for 18 days).  What?!?  Yes!  I went once, in 1999 (with BW), only for the weekend, and the memories are forever warm and vivid.

So, Brian and a few friends organized an event on Zoom, from 10 p.m. to after midnight, one tune per person, just like a song circle, which takes place post-festival until the wee hours.  I was mostly there for those whose music I've loved and admired for decades:  Eric Schwartz, Annie Wenz, Eric Gerber, Ellis Delaney, Cliff Eberhardt, David LaMotte, Chris Chandler, Dan Pelletier, Chuck Brodsky, Gina Forsyth, Gregg Cagno... and semi-newbies Kirsten Maxwell, Kora Feder, Scott Cook, Louise Mosrie, Shanna in a Dress.  The songs pendulumed between hilarious and heartwarming, and I finally broke my two-month non-drinking streak with some hibiscus-cucumber sparkling sake I had in the fridge (hey, I wasn't alone, right?).  The entire evening was positively (on so many levels) soul-filling, and Brian did such a great job coordinating and emceeing.  I was so wired that, when I finally opted out about 1 a.m., I staying up for another two hours watching the aforementioned SATC marathon (the second-time-around Aidan years:  "you broke my heart!!!").

Speaking of Ellis, before she sang the subject song (my new sig line)...

"strange days we're living in, 
like some kind of dream
we've got the world in our pocket, 
popping up on little screens
I've got a distracted mind, 
wrapped up in a restless heart
how do we break free to see the lighter side 
of the way things are?"

...she related it to the times we were in, stating that people were baking now more than ever.  Oooh, pie!  This recipe sounds yum, and easily veganized...  :-)


SONG:  Pie for Breakfast by Ellis Delaney

BOOK:  Stumbling on Happiness by Daniel Gilbert

POEM:  Self by James Oppenheim

Once I freed myself of my duties to tasks and people and went down to the cleansing sea...
The air was like wine to my spirit,
The sky bathed my eyes with infinity,
The sun followed me, casting golden snares on the tide,
And the ocean—masses of molten surfaces, faintly
      gray-blue—sang to my heart...

Then I found myself, all here in the body and brain, and all there on the shore:
Content to be myself: free, and strong, and enlarged:
Then I knew the depths of myself were the depths of space.
And all living beings were of those depths (my brothers and sisters)
And that by going inward and away from duties, cities, street-cars and greetings,
I was dipping behind all surfaces, piercing cities and people,
And entering in and possessing them, more than a brother,
The surge of all life in them and in me...

So I swore I would be myself (there by the ocean)
And I swore I would cease to neglect myself, but would take myself as my mate,
Solemn marriage and deep: midnights of thought to be:
Long mornings of sacred communion, and twilights of talk,
Myself and I, long parted, clasping and married till death.

QUOTE:  "The only cure I have ever known for fear and doubt and loneliness is an immense love of self." ~ Alison Malee