The Work and the Love Goes On!

Little sweetheart, I feel sad and disappointed in myself that I have not been posting here as regularly as I used to do. But don't imagine for a minute that you are not in my every thought because you are! One thing that has happened of late is that I have been made much more progress in writing our book. Every day that I have not posted here I have been telling our story in the Summerlove book as it grows to some great length (it's well over 700 pages at the moment). Our music goes forward, too. I'm working on our 13th album right now. All this to say that there's so much to say! I hope and will endeavor to return to this page more often through the autumn, as I also hope to keep pushing through with the book and our next album. I love you with all my heart and forever.

A Visitation

Little sweetheart, we were invited of late to contribute a track and some words to a really wonderful program in Italy - Silent Radio. Its host, Tiberio Faedi, has become a dear friend and advocate of ours - he interviewed me a year or two ago and has devoted a couple of full two hour editions of his show to our most recent albums, In The Hours Left Until Dawn and Memories of the Sky. 

Anyway, the show takes a hiatus from early August until early in the fall and he invites guests as part of each season's finale. We were on with a track from Memories of the Sky, "Hold My Soul", and I said a few words of introduction, largely about you, of course, at the top. Later, a listener in Mexico City wrote to me to say this:

"Ciao Michael, I don’t want to sound weird, but I just wanted to tell you that while you were remembering Summer on silent radio, a hummingbird flew into my office. And the amazing thing is that here in Mexico City it’s the rainy season, so you usually don’t see them at all until September. I find it amazing. Sending hugs, and thank you for your music"

You are my miracle girl, little sweetheart, and always will be. 

On Good Friday

Little sweetheart, it's Good Friday. I think of you so much all of time, of course, but Holy Week is an occasion that helps bring focus to my faith and knowing that you will find me soon and forever. A few years ago I was invited to compose and deliver remarks for a Good Friday service at West End Collegiate in NYC. The church actually recorded the service and those remarks - very much about you - are below. With all my love my forever. 

On This Day and Every Day

 Thinking of you on this day and every day, my little sweetheart. With all my love forever. 

 

February 14th. Again.

It's Valentines Day, little sweetheart. I sent you and your mom flowers like I do every year. I wrote this morning - I'm at a part in the book where you and I just went to Shakespeare in the Park one warm August night. I went for a run. 

A week or so ago, I thought to buy a couple of CDs of DCfC. They were, of course, one of the most important bands to us and we discovered them together. I remember all that music and had it in mp3's on my old laptop. It's been impossible for me to listen to them for years, little sweetheart, because I just start weeping, longing for you. Ben Gibbard wrote the theme song to a new show that's on Apple TV - "Shrinking" - and the first time I heard his voice I started crying. That was just three weeks ago, so I should've known.  

Anyway, I put on one of the albums, Plans, tonight. And it sure hasn't changed. I cried and cried and I've barely pulled myself together enough to write this to you, now. 

I remember that you had such a sense of your own mortality having grown up with Type 1 diabetes. And that even after your surgeries, just months before we met and fell in love, that you still thought you would pass before me. I remember you telling me once - in your famous blue Prius, en route to Andronico's on a grocery run - that you wanted me to speak at your funeral and to listen to our music and remember you. I started crying when you said that and between sobs. whimpered "but I don't want you to die before me". You reached for my hand and quieted me down until you could pull into the parking lot and hold me. 

As for what you asked - I did, of course and incredibly, manage to speak at your memorial but the second thing is still very hard, little sweetheart. And it's tricky - some of the lyrics are almost prescient. That's probably why you loved them. 

My heart is full tonight, little sweetheart. Breaking but also grateful. God, how I love you. Forever.    

The Beatles

Watching something tonight, little sweetheart, about The Beatles and remembering that shortly after we first met - during rehearsals for Tir na nOg at The Magic in San Francisco - that I happened to mention that I liked The Beatles. The next day you came to rehearsal with your box set DVD copy of The Beatles Anthology. Most people, including me, had only seen the vastly edited US version of it on TV. It was an incredibly lovely thing to do. 

And a couple weeks later, when you invited everyone to your apartment for a party - your wonderful "Cupcakes & Cocktails" party - you made me feel so at home. I was a little upset with the cast because most of then didn't show up and you had gone to such trouble, but you looked after me. I didn't drink then but you poured me a glass of milk (!) and served me some amazing cupcakes and sat down on the couch with me all night, kind of carving out a little space for you & I. And you put The Beatles on the stereo and kept them on because you knew we both liked them. 

When it was time to leave, because the theatre was putting me up way across town, I was borrowing a car, and I didn't know my way around, you gave me your GPS device. You'd already led me into your underground parking space and now you made sure I got safely home. Once I did arrive back in Bernal Heights, you texted me - one of our first texts -  to say that you'd meant to send me home with more cupcakes and that you'd baked the chocolate ones especially for me. It was our beginning. 

Thinking of all that tonight and saying our prayer. Love you forever.  

Something I Saw Today

Little sweetheart, I saw a lovely piece of writing today. Science-based but also faith-assuring, I think it's for us both: 

"For the rest, Science tell us that nothing ever dies but only changes. That time itself does not pass but curves around us. And that the past and the future are together at our side forever.