Last fall I saw Jon Collin––a beautiful improv guitar artist––perform in a groovy vintage clothing store in Charlottesville. Hearing him live was an alchemical experience. I wrote a bit of a review here. The review is a kind of poem, too.
One spring evening I found myself listening to his recordings all night. His music brought the magic and l wrote a poem. While playing one of his pieces, I read my new poem, and recorded it. When I listened after, it seemed the words and the music fell together just right.
As I continue to try to be bolder in 2018, I'd like to share this. I didn't want to post just a sound file however, so I looked for a video that might work. The video I came to is nine years old. It's a bit random but I think it works ok.
So here it is, The Fool, set to Smoke and Wind by Jon Collin.
Dear Blog, I don't write to you like I used to. I have fallen out of time and you have not been my priority.
But also, I don't know how to write about all the stuff.
Occasionally I search you for a memory or reference or picture or song.
And once in a while you are an appealing canvas for the salty stream, the shapeless tumble that appoints language.
It rained really a lot yesterday. I was driving home when the sky broke on the windshield and all spigots gushed.
The moist constant was not helpful in my attempt to find mooring.
But today in the pause I am trying to grasp something solid.
What truths are at hand?
There is so much horror that I'm finding myself sewing a quilt buffer––not inactive, but cushioned. A quiet containment.
But also, the panic meter is swinging high. Things that help me: * music * making things * remembering to breathe * meeting new people and hearing their stories * my young son's frequent hugs * all aspects of the taco * loving * vices
Things that trouble me:
* racism * false binaries * the patriarchy * the founding of our nation * homelessness * capitalism * cruelty * ego These are not complete lists.
Neither include my shadow world––The things that trouble me about me. Sorting through this is about sorting through privilege and conditioning, wounds and longings. Distilling experience. Deciphering wrong turns. My pile of thread and rock and papyrus and rust.
And then there is the lack of sorting. A locked gate on deep growth because of fragility or fear. Because there is a shortfall in energy. Because there is an over-abundance of distraction.
Or perhaps because there is a lack of awareness that an audit is essential.
It rained really a lot
yesterday.
I was at home when my heart opened in the evaporating steam and I started to sort through the saturated shale.
Last year at this time my Mother crossed the veil.
Today has been marked by that day leading to her death, which
is somewhat conflated with the days that preceded it, as the week itself was a
kind of trance.
Today is a brand-new day. Exceptional and not so, in so many
big and small ways.
In the morning, I joined community members in the court house
to support other community members who confronted nazism in 2017. My head is
spinning as I integrate the experience, but my heart has grown. Midday I bought
flowers and a small wreath to decorate my mother’s grave. In the late
afternoon, I enjoyed an African dance workout, where a half dozen drummers laid
the rhythm and I struggled to find mine. In the evening, I observed some
excellent art exhibits in the galleries, heard sacred singing, and spent time with
friends and family. When I got home I fell into a deep sleep on the couch and
woke shortly before the exact time of my mother’s passing.
So once again I am in a place of no-time.
Many, if not most of us, experience these anniversaries of a
loved one’s passing. Perhaps we were there with them, if not physically, then
in so many emotional ways, positive and negative.
My mother is gone. She passed one year ago on Feb 3, shortly
after 1am. She wanted to wait until the 3rd of the month because
that is when her social security check drops into her bank account. This is a small thing we giggle about.
My mother became non-verbal about four days before she
passed. I had spent long stretches of time at the Hospice House for two
months, but in this last week, I kept vigil in that padded realm of whispers.
It was safe in there, and warm, and so very beautiful. And there was the daily
embrace of exceptional nurses, and chaplains, and social workers, and aids. They
were a supportive family for a short period of time.
That's not to say there weren't less gentle hands in the mix.
Once my mother said, “If you are going to die in hospice, don’t die during the
night shift.” But overall, my mother couldn't have passed in better care. It's
where she wanted to be. And I am deeply grateful.
On the day of Feb 2, 2017, she lay in stillness, with mildly
labored breathing. I remained at her side, studying her, caressing her at
times, but my relationship with my mother was never one of much physical
affection. I held space with her, which is what she wanted most from me––being
there. I probably ate lunch in the hospice dining room, where food was
sometimes shared with other families and the workers.
This was important to my mom––that we share food. The week
before she passed she insisted we buy eight rotisserie chickens for the hospice
staff. We fed the whole house and its patients for days with that meal. Over
the holidays, she contributed several Panettone Cakes. On February 2nd, I
may have contributed some Greek delicacies: Grape Leaves and Hummus and
Teropita. The staff appreciated my mother’s generosity with food, and in turn
mine, which was a theme of our lives, really.
On February 2nd, the nurses thought my mother had
a couple of days yet. But I kept watch into the night. My friend Megan came by
to keep me company, the only friend who had stepped into my mother’s death
chamber. She held space with me there for some time, and then we walked the
three blocks to the Tin Whistle pub, where I enjoyed a stiff drink, and the
sense of being alive. It was cold and cozy and surreal.
When I returned to the hospice house, the night nurse told me
she felt certain my mother would make it to morning. I was trying to decide
whether to stay or go home to sleep in my own bed. As I was considering my
options, my mother moved for the first time in hours, days really, stretching
her arms in a downward struggle that implied discomfort. She was clearly
distressed, reaching. I asked a nurse if she could turn her, or try to
troubleshoot her discomfort, but the nurse said they had just attended to her,
and that she was fine. I decided in that moment to stay the night, prompting the nurse to
come in and adjust her, and up her morphine. My mother had refused the morphine
until the very end. On this day, her dose was high.
A lot of people have exceptional stories of a loved ones
passing. A last word. A moment of sublime contact. A very strong sign. Some
people crawl into to bed with their loved one and hold them. But I sat by my
mother’s side in an easy chair watching her intermittently while watching late
night tv. I assumed we had a morning ahead of us, perhaps a day. Shortly after
Seth Meyers’ sketch, A closer look,
which lambasts Trump with comedic investigative journalism––something my mother
loved––I dozed off a bit. I woke to the nurse saying, “Zoe, she is gone.” Just like that. As I fell into a sleep beside her, she took
her final breath. Seamless. No drama.
The moment of finding her gone was a terrible one. No poetic
words can really describe that sensation of sitting beside my mother’s empty
body, turning skeletal before my very eyes. It was entirely expected, yet not.
Wasn’t she going to make it until morning? Weren’t there yet more signs we were
waiting for? The nurses were apologetic, saying they truly thought she had
longer. But the moment had come and gone like a leaf falling. She had drifted
away and settled into a place I can hardly imagine, that I have no strong
spiritual or religious or cultural preconceptions of. A dark and empty space,
that I can illustrate with light and liberation and a great winged flight. The funeral home attendants wheeled the husk of my mother’s
diminished body away under a bright red blanket. I packed all her things, all
the tidy clothes she brought to hospice but never wore, her cologne, her under
garments, her big thick robe stained with food and medicine, her bible, and
Greek Orthodox icons. I packed them carefully with my tears, and loaded them
into the car. I drove away from death and into life under the great star of
memory, which sheds an illuminating light on the relationship I had, and continue
to have, with my mother. RIP Tatiana Efthyvoulou 9.27.31 – 2.3.17
It's New Years Eve! Time for a final December Songs 2017. And I am so very glad I found a recording of Devon Sproule's new song, "Turn Back to Love." The first time I heard her sing this––I believe it was at a recent show at the Batesville Market––I found tears streaming down my face and had to choke back audible sobs.
I’ve got someone
new, you may have heard.
She’s hanging on
my every word.
I’m becoming the
master decoder.
So much to see, so
much to show her.
Are you making it
safe and OK?
Are you shrugging
and turning away?
She wrote it after the events of our Charlottesville Summer and every word of it goes straight to the heart: as a mother, as a community member who was present at the events of July 8 & August 12, as a citizen striving for systemic change, as a human who loves.
What am I gonna
say, when she asks what I did?
Devon is so generous, not only can you listen to her new song here, you can also download it. There is no video as of yet, just her beautiful voice and deeply moving lyrics. I take these words and this experience into 2018, knowing that all that has passed in 2017 is a dangerous, frightening, but enlightening springboard toward change. May 2018 be a very different year for all of us, where we "turn back to love."
And while you're here, check out this awesome Wes Swing video (another magical musician I saw for the first time this year) with a cameo by Devon Sproule.
I'd like to feature Steve Gunn because he is one of my very favorite musicians of late. I saw him in June with Lee Ranaldo and Meg Baird and aside from being incredibly talented, he has a very authentic and humble quality. Here is Way out Weather, a video that features some Buddhist imagery as we approach 2018.
Another awesome talent I got to see in the very intimate setting of Low Vintage was Glenn Jones. Here is someone I could spend an entire Saturday listening to, fire in the wood stove, mug of hot tea on the table, notebook in hand, gazing out the window at the snow or rain or sunbeams falling. So very grateful for this sound.
Also, I mentioned Meg Baird in an earlier post. Glenn Jones sometimes performs with her sister, Laura Baird.
I've fallen behind again. One of my December Songs must be dedicated to Adam Ostrar, who is one of several amazing performers I caught at Low Vintage this autumn. A modern troubadour of celestial song, and excellent guitar player, his was another intimate show that transported me to a quiet healing space. His new album, Brawls in the Briar, is masterful. Warlock is a favorite, with a quiet work-of-art video.
Spare Me also is lovely, and another excellent video.
Enemy pulls you into it's plodding rhythm and wraps you in poetry. And then it enters some excellent sonic weirdness.
I found myself being pulled toward "Mutual Benefit." Their music is like a great massage. Sit back and let it uncoil your tension. Visualize a breathing planet. Watch the breeze send a ripple through oatstraw. Street light and the snowy dusk.
I heard this Peter Tosh song on Reggae Vibrations, another favorite WTJU show, while I was loading presents under the Christmas Tree (I was streaming the show from the archives as I'd missed its actual air time). It brought an introspective atmosphere to the culmination of consumerism and stress that surrounds Christmas, inviting reflection and prayer in my moment of privilege as I distributed our gifts. This holiday plays an unsteady rhythm across a variety of families and individuals, christian and not, and has deeply harmful and meaningful affects, alike. I've centered myself on the idea of Solstice––the growth of the light in the darkest season––and a time to refill the coffers, if possible. But I always feel conflicted about perpetuating the materialism and am keenly aware of the impact: the bar set too high for so many by the privilege of a few, the back breaking grind on workers, the heart breaking reality for those who can barely manage the day to day, let alone some big cultural spending event, the anxiety for those who are trying to maintain family tradition but not go overboard or off balance. The aesthetic of Christmas is everywhere, flashing in the faces of a huge percentage of people who have no cultural or religious or personal or familial connection to the tradition. The season can bring people together yet finds people at their loneliest. This song, the cadence of it, the commitment to an enlightened spiritualism, ripped me open a little. I'm grateful. This day is a heart beat that we all share, regardless of what we might have or have not, do or do not. May we bonded in one love. Creation by Peter Tosh
What would December Songs be without a version of Joni Mitchell's, River? Yes, Joni is another she-hero, though it seems, realistically, attending a performance is one thing on my bucket list I won't get to tick off. I have seen Beth Orton perform, however, both in San Francisco and Charlottesville. I've learned that if people don't like Beth Orton's voice, they hate it. But I'm cool with it. And she does a pretty sweet version of River, I must say.
I'm not a huge Sarah McLachlan fan, but her version of River is quite lovely.
And here's the real deal, untouchable really, a version of River live by Joni Mitchell. Her intro is so sweet.
The vast majority of my music discoveries are made through listening to the rock programming at local awesome college radio station, WTJU. That's where I learned about this compilation of lost psychedelia, Feel the Music, based on a book of the same title, by Paul Major. Enjoy Blue Lightning, by Joint Effort. Seems like their album, Two Sided Country Blues, recorded in 1971, may be worth a listen as well.
Happy Solstice! I heard this song on the radio yesterday, and it seemed the perfect balance of darkness and light. I wanted to share it on Solstice. Haunting and beautiful. May the light––and love––prevail. Blow Northern Wind by the Mediaeval Baebes.
And while we're at it, this one is pretty cool. Veni Veni Bella
It's hard to know where to begin with PJ Harvey, because she is always awesome. I came across this video, and aside from it being a kick-ass song, I thought this performance a good example of her elf-goddess-diva energy. Plus you get to meet her band. To Bring You My Love
This is also pretty sweet, PJ with Nick Cave, another favorite artist.
And this. She can rock the short dress like no other.
Pretty much everything that Mavis Staples does is outstanding. And I really love the various collaborations she does. This is a Gorillaz song featuring Pusha T and Mavis. So much passion and energy and inspiration. I remember seeing it on the Late Show with Stephen Colbert and being wowed!
Here is Let me Out
Here is something cool too, Mavis with Chuck D, Give We the Pride
And another awesome collaboration, this one with Jeff Tweedy. Showing up quite recently on Colbert yet again, here is Build a Bridge
I'm not sure where I was when this Beck song, Debra, was released many years ago––in a cave nursing my little daughter perhaps? It came on the radio recently and I was all like, WHO is this? I was fairly blown away when I learned it was Beck. It's a ridiculous song, lyrically. But musically, it's amazing, and a great example of Beck's range of talent! Check out this live version with Beck, ever the showman, sliding around the stage and throwing his mic about.
And since surely you'll want to hear it again, might as well listen to the studio version.
I heard Greek electronic musician, Lena Platonos, recently on WTJU radio show, Radio Freedonia. I love the hypnotic quality of this song, but also, admittedly, I was pretty stoked to be hearing the Greek language on American Radio. She has a sort of spoken word style that really highlights the language. Here is Bloody Shadows From Afar. This version is an update of an earlier more minimal version.
I wanted to include this one as it one Best Music Video Award at Cyprus
International Film Festival in 2009. Bonus: It includes subtitles.
This one, called Witches, has an awesome creepy quality. I think the video is recording of a tv screen.
December Songs 14 is by Nay Nichelle, who moved to Charlottesville about two or so years ago from South Carolina. This is a highly meaningful song and video, especially with all that is going on Cville currently. Guest appearing in the video is Charlottesville's vice mayor, Wes Bellamy.
A small write up says that Nay Nichelle got her start through a viral Adele parody! I wish her luck and hope her audience continues to grow!
December Songs 13 is a band that I saw for the first time this past year at Festy, Elephant Revival, and their song Petals. It's a great song and magnificent video!
I've been a Kurt Vile fan for a while now, but am pretty stoked about his collaboration with Courtney Barnett. I really like this cozy little tune called Continental Breakfast. I could watch the video over and over again what with all the smiles and kids and pretty spaces and images of friendship & domestic bliss.
This is also a great little concert in which they perform songs from their album Lotta Sea Lice.
Make sure that you listen to the end so that you can catch their incredibly sweet cover of the song Untogether by Belly. Here is the original version. Followed by another version by Kurt and Courtney.
Last night I was lucky enough to see David Rawlings and Gillian Welch and band at the Jefferson Theater with a dear friend. It was yet another profound musical moment in a year of many. It afforded me time to stomp off some sadness about my stepmother's passing, and also think about my daughter, so far away in Kathmandu, and tomorrow, boarding a flight to India. Life Cycles. Passages. Poetry.
Seeing Gillian Welch was a major check off the bucket list, of course. She has been a long time favorite and this was my first time seeing her live. So joyful! "I Hear Them All" really spoke to me, though I would say each song did! But something about this felt more personal after the events of our Charlottesville summer. The version below is a bit different, as last night they had a violinist, another guitarist, and a stand up bass player. But this too is a truly beautiful version. It's a cover of an Old Crow Medicine Show song, and of course, Woody Guthrie.
I hear the crying
of the hungry in the deserts where they're wandering.
Hear them crying
out for heaven's own benevolence upon them.
Hear destructive
power prevailing, I hear fools falsely hailing.
To the crooked
wits of tyrants when they call.
I hear them all
I hear them all
I hear them all
I hear the sounds
of tearing pages and the roar of burning paper.
All the crimes in
acquisitions turn to air and ash and vapor.
And the rattle of
the shackle far beyond emancipators.
And the loneliest
who gather in their stalls.
I hear them all
I hear them all
I hear them all
So while you sit
and whistle Dixie with your money and your power.
I can hear the
flowers a-growin' in the rubble of the towers.
I hear leaders
quit their lying
I hear babies quit
their crying.
I hear soldiers
quit their dying, one and all.
I hear them all
I hear them all
I hear them all
I hear the tender
words from Zion, I hear Noah's waterfall.
Hear the gentle
lamb of Judah sleeping at the feet of Buddha.
And the prophets
from Elijah to the old Paiute Wovoka.
Take their places
at the table when they're called.
