Little sweetheart, it’s New Year’s Eve. I’ve come up here to sit on your bed and write this before returning to talk to your mom and dad as we await midnight (I’m not too sure your dad will make it - he’s been on call at the hospital and barely slept in the last 24 hours.) Earlier tonight, I made beef stroganoff and salad and dessert. We walked outside - it’s incredibly warm and lovely - and the sky was amazing.
The moon is full and luminous and so bright it’s lighting the sky almost as if it were daylight. And it - the moon - is somehow magically floating as if it were in front of the clouds themselves. The clouds look as if they are passing behind the moon, not in front. And behind that, the corona itself, the sky is a bright blue. Truly as if it were day. It’s magic and it feels as if you are near, quite near, nearer than readily imaginable. And tonight, as there was also last night, there is a single unseen bird quietly, sweetly singing his song. A nightingale, perhaps?
It’s a warm and unusual and beautiful night. Full of magic and promise as a new year approaches. And I’ve come up to your room to tell you that I love you. That I’m so very grateful to and for you. And to ask you to please help and guide me. Please lead me the way I’m meant to go in these days I’ve left on earth, on these days - of unknown number to me - until I may join you and be with you forever in The Forever. In this year ahead, help me to best honor and follow you, little sweetheart. Help me to be the man you were molding. And take me to you the very moment heaven will allow. With all my love.
Sunday, December 31, 2017
Thursday, December 28, 2017
To Find You
I went up to Davis today, little sweetheart…
Is Davis north of here, actually? I have to think about that for a moment. It may be south. That would be fitting, tho’. You were forever calling things “up” or “down” exactly opposite of their direction north to south. It was one of those things, like dates and numbers, that just didn’t compute for you. Charmingly so. It makes me so very fond and sad to think of it now. Like most things, I suppose, honestly.
I drove up (or down or over or whatever it is) ostensibly to deliver copies of Sometimes in Dreams to KDVS. Gabe, the station’s Music Director, has office hours on Thursday and I wanted to get it to him and a couple of the DJ’s who liked and programmed Dream Together last year.
I stopped at the house first, planning to walk over. I often linger at the house. I remember so keenly the many wonderful times you and I spent there lovingly, gloriously on our own. The amazing birthday cupcakes you made for me one year and the DCfC show we went to that evening and then returning cuddled on the couch in our pjs. All the times together in the garden and walking around downtown hand in hand visiting little shops or having lunch or dinner and getting a movie to take home and watch curled up together. Waking in your pretty canopy bed, entwined and in the deepest love I’ve ever known. It was an oasis and ours.
Today, my little sweetheart, something just didn’t feel right at all. I felt like a stranger there and far far too far from you and the love that saved and change me. I didn’t linger. I couldn’t have been there more than a few minutes. I packed up, locked the door behind me and walked to campus.
And when I came back, I just got in the car and drove to the Nugget Market and bought flowers to take to the place where the Angel honors your memory.
I know you aren’t there, darling. Not tethered in the least, You simply alight to confirm me. And I felt that you did as it was there finally that I lingered, letting the daylight go out around me and the night come on before kissing your stone and telling you how very much I love you. I lay all the way down across the marble there and listen and talk quietly to you. And cry and cry and cry.
Honestly, little sweetheart, I found myself in despair as I wept and something made me say that “people are so mean”. I’m not sure where that hurt came from but I felt and articulated it and somehow unburdened it talking to you. I sometimes feel, as I sometimes did in life, that people are trying to take you away from me and I said that too, “they won’t let me have you.”
But I know better because you told me yourself that others don’t matter. You told me, in the words of one of the songs we so loved, that my love would be safe with you. I remember, can still feel, how you crawled into my lap and quieted me, kissed away my tears and said over and over “I promise. I promise!”.
I need only quiet myself, listen, remember, do my work, do our work. And you will be with me. Here and in just a little while, forever. Help me to know, my darling. I need you more than ever. With all my love.
Is Davis north of here, actually? I have to think about that for a moment. It may be south. That would be fitting, tho’. You were forever calling things “up” or “down” exactly opposite of their direction north to south. It was one of those things, like dates and numbers, that just didn’t compute for you. Charmingly so. It makes me so very fond and sad to think of it now. Like most things, I suppose, honestly.
I drove up (or down or over or whatever it is) ostensibly to deliver copies of Sometimes in Dreams to KDVS. Gabe, the station’s Music Director, has office hours on Thursday and I wanted to get it to him and a couple of the DJ’s who liked and programmed Dream Together last year.
I stopped at the house first, planning to walk over. I often linger at the house. I remember so keenly the many wonderful times you and I spent there lovingly, gloriously on our own. The amazing birthday cupcakes you made for me one year and the DCfC show we went to that evening and then returning cuddled on the couch in our pjs. All the times together in the garden and walking around downtown hand in hand visiting little shops or having lunch or dinner and getting a movie to take home and watch curled up together. Waking in your pretty canopy bed, entwined and in the deepest love I’ve ever known. It was an oasis and ours.
Today, my little sweetheart, something just didn’t feel right at all. I felt like a stranger there and far far too far from you and the love that saved and change me. I didn’t linger. I couldn’t have been there more than a few minutes. I packed up, locked the door behind me and walked to campus.
And when I came back, I just got in the car and drove to the Nugget Market and bought flowers to take to the place where the Angel honors your memory.
I know you aren’t there, darling. Not tethered in the least, You simply alight to confirm me. And I felt that you did as it was there finally that I lingered, letting the daylight go out around me and the night come on before kissing your stone and telling you how very much I love you. I lay all the way down across the marble there and listen and talk quietly to you. And cry and cry and cry.
Honestly, little sweetheart, I found myself in despair as I wept and something made me say that “people are so mean”. I’m not sure where that hurt came from but I felt and articulated it and somehow unburdened it talking to you. I sometimes feel, as I sometimes did in life, that people are trying to take you away from me and I said that too, “they won’t let me have you.”
But I know better because you told me yourself that others don’t matter. You told me, in the words of one of the songs we so loved, that my love would be safe with you. I remember, can still feel, how you crawled into my lap and quieted me, kissed away my tears and said over and over “I promise. I promise!”.
I need only quiet myself, listen, remember, do my work, do our work. And you will be with me. Here and in just a little while, forever. Help me to know, my darling. I need you more than ever. With all my love.
Wednesday, December 27, 2017
To Find My Way
Little sweetheart, a few advance copies of the new album arrived here in California late this afternoon and I set aside a few meant to go to radio stations here and back east and two for your parents, as well. Tonight, I sat with your mom in the front room where the Christmas tree is and we listened to Disc One together.
It’s a funny thing but I don’t usually listen much to the albums after they come out. So much vigilant listening goes on as I mix and hear playback of the masters. Somehow, months can go by before I hear something I was listening to so attentively just half a year before. Your mom had “Dream Together” on the other night, when we were waiting for the guys to deliver the tree we’d picked out and I’d forgotten how emotional it could make me feel. I stood there at the window looking out and just crying and crying as I heard “Dream 3” fill the room, longing for and missing you, heartbroken.
Tonight, that came up some too as I listened, as we listened together. I’m always a bit nervous as your mom listens for the first time but she seemed to really like it. It’s so very much for you.
I said something to Alex - that filmmaker at USC who’s doing the documentary about the us - when she asked me how it all felt. I said something about it being a culmination of all the work done beginning with the last two albums and she asked if they meant that this was the end of something. I told her right away that that was not what I meant. That maybe “culmination” was the wrong choice of word. That this album just took those elements of spoken word and dream pop to a more distilled manifestation. But perhaps there is something in it.
I don’t know, my darling. I’m kind of filled with sadness somehow, a bit inconsolable. I think the work is good and I’m pleased and relieved that your mom likes it (your dad hasn’t listened yet) but I feel a bit lost. I hope I can just keep it together and find my way, find you. I really want to very diligently (that word, again) work on the book after I return to New York. And I remember your impatience with life. I remember it with fondness and admiration. So much seems too distant now, too distant even here. I think writing may be the way to find it. The way to find my way. Do you know?
Please help lead and guide me there, won’t you, my darling? And take me to you the moment heaven will allow. With all my love forever.
It’s a funny thing but I don’t usually listen much to the albums after they come out. So much vigilant listening goes on as I mix and hear playback of the masters. Somehow, months can go by before I hear something I was listening to so attentively just half a year before. Your mom had “Dream Together” on the other night, when we were waiting for the guys to deliver the tree we’d picked out and I’d forgotten how emotional it could make me feel. I stood there at the window looking out and just crying and crying as I heard “Dream 3” fill the room, longing for and missing you, heartbroken.
Tonight, that came up some too as I listened, as we listened together. I’m always a bit nervous as your mom listens for the first time but she seemed to really like it. It’s so very much for you.
I said something to Alex - that filmmaker at USC who’s doing the documentary about the us - when she asked me how it all felt. I said something about it being a culmination of all the work done beginning with the last two albums and she asked if they meant that this was the end of something. I told her right away that that was not what I meant. That maybe “culmination” was the wrong choice of word. That this album just took those elements of spoken word and dream pop to a more distilled manifestation. But perhaps there is something in it.
I don’t know, my darling. I’m kind of filled with sadness somehow, a bit inconsolable. I think the work is good and I’m pleased and relieved that your mom likes it (your dad hasn’t listened yet) but I feel a bit lost. I hope I can just keep it together and find my way, find you. I really want to very diligently (that word, again) work on the book after I return to New York. And I remember your impatience with life. I remember it with fondness and admiration. So much seems too distant now, too distant even here. I think writing may be the way to find it. The way to find my way. Do you know?
Please help lead and guide me there, won’t you, my darling? And take me to you the moment heaven will allow. With all my love forever.
Monday, December 25, 2017
"Saving" Christmas...
Little sweetheart, it’s been quite a day, this Christmas Day.
Last night, we still had more than a few things to do to get ready. I had my presents all wrapped but we were still making little adjustments trimming the tree. Your dad was on call, so he got home a little late and had to leave early this morning. Before we went to bed we had the lovely tradition of getting our new pajamas. I love mine!
We went to bed not too late but your mom is such a perfectionist and so generous that she couldn’t help but stay up far too late working on everything. Your dad had to leave early for the OR and when I got up your Mom had only been asleep for a couple hours. We got a big turkey and lots of things to make dinner yesterday at the market but I didn’t want to start until we both were up. I went for run and when I came back I had several messages on my phone. Your dad was worried because he still at the hospital and your mom was a still asleep because she’d been working so hard all night. Your mom is so lovely, little sweetheart, and wants everything to be perfect and he was afraid she’d wake up in a panic. There wouldn’t be time to make such a big dinner before the kids got here.
But I had an idea - instead of trying to cook that enormous turkey in time, I could get together a big lasagna instead. I’d already made a pie. I told your dad that and he said to try that and to gently wake your mom and see if it was okay. I just told her I had things under control and not to worry and, incredibly… it worked.
So, I headed out to get what I need but… all the markets were closed. I couldn’t think what to do. Finally, I tried a Walgreen’s that was open. They had three jars of nice pasta sauce, so I grabbed those and went looking for cheese. They didn’t have parmesan or ricotta but they had those long mozzarella individually wrapped string cheese packages. I grabbed that and some shredded mixture and remembered that sometimes you can substitute cottage cheese for ricotta. They had one tub of low fat cottage cheese so I grabbed that too. They didn’t have the noodles but I thought if we had just 10 noodles in the pantry from last year, if your mom hadn’t thrown them out, I would be fine. I got to checkout and they told me they didn’t have any bags. So, I carried the whole things in a cart to the car and then brought the cart back. I tried to think where to go if we didn’t have noodles at home. I stopped back at the house first, tho’, to check and we had exactly 10!
There were lots of vegetables already because we had plans to roast them. I often sautee different vegetables but I used everything we had including parsnips that we were going to use with the mashed potatoes. I cut everything up fine and sautéed it all in olive oil. I added the red sauce and seasoning and got the noodles on, grated the cheese one string at a time (!) and made the layers and got it all in the oven. I made a salad and by the time everyone showed up, it was all ready. Your mom and dad didn’t get stressed and there was plenty to eat and I even had time for a shower - I’d been going since my run hours earlier. Your dad said later that I “saved Christmas”. I don’t know about.
I do know that you saved me and that while I’m still here waiting to join in The Forever, that I need to take the lessons of love you taught me and do my best to take care of our beloveds as best I can. When I do, I can feel you near me. And that’s what it’s all about, isn't it, little sweetheart? Happy Christmas, my darling. With all my love forever.
Last night, we still had more than a few things to do to get ready. I had my presents all wrapped but we were still making little adjustments trimming the tree. Your dad was on call, so he got home a little late and had to leave early this morning. Before we went to bed we had the lovely tradition of getting our new pajamas. I love mine!
We went to bed not too late but your mom is such a perfectionist and so generous that she couldn’t help but stay up far too late working on everything. Your dad had to leave early for the OR and when I got up your Mom had only been asleep for a couple hours. We got a big turkey and lots of things to make dinner yesterday at the market but I didn’t want to start until we both were up. I went for run and when I came back I had several messages on my phone. Your dad was worried because he still at the hospital and your mom was a still asleep because she’d been working so hard all night. Your mom is so lovely, little sweetheart, and wants everything to be perfect and he was afraid she’d wake up in a panic. There wouldn’t be time to make such a big dinner before the kids got here.
But I had an idea - instead of trying to cook that enormous turkey in time, I could get together a big lasagna instead. I’d already made a pie. I told your dad that and he said to try that and to gently wake your mom and see if it was okay. I just told her I had things under control and not to worry and, incredibly… it worked.
So, I headed out to get what I need but… all the markets were closed. I couldn’t think what to do. Finally, I tried a Walgreen’s that was open. They had three jars of nice pasta sauce, so I grabbed those and went looking for cheese. They didn’t have parmesan or ricotta but they had those long mozzarella individually wrapped string cheese packages. I grabbed that and some shredded mixture and remembered that sometimes you can substitute cottage cheese for ricotta. They had one tub of low fat cottage cheese so I grabbed that too. They didn’t have the noodles but I thought if we had just 10 noodles in the pantry from last year, if your mom hadn’t thrown them out, I would be fine. I got to checkout and they told me they didn’t have any bags. So, I carried the whole things in a cart to the car and then brought the cart back. I tried to think where to go if we didn’t have noodles at home. I stopped back at the house first, tho’, to check and we had exactly 10!
There were lots of vegetables already because we had plans to roast them. I often sautee different vegetables but I used everything we had including parsnips that we were going to use with the mashed potatoes. I cut everything up fine and sautéed it all in olive oil. I added the red sauce and seasoning and got the noodles on, grated the cheese one string at a time (!) and made the layers and got it all in the oven. I made a salad and by the time everyone showed up, it was all ready. Your mom and dad didn’t get stressed and there was plenty to eat and I even had time for a shower - I’d been going since my run hours earlier. Your dad said later that I “saved Christmas”. I don’t know about.
I do know that you saved me and that while I’m still here waiting to join in The Forever, that I need to take the lessons of love you taught me and do my best to take care of our beloveds as best I can. When I do, I can feel you near me. And that’s what it’s all about, isn't it, little sweetheart? Happy Christmas, my darling. With all my love forever.
Sunday, December 24, 2017
Christmas Eve Day
I'm sitting on your bed in your room at your parents house, little sweetheart and filled with thoughts of you. Your mom and I talked for long time last night, all about you, of course, and I went to bed with your things around me (not exactly unusual since it's that way at home too). This morning I heard a little bird singing sweetly outside the window and he awakened me. We've lots of little things to get done for Christmas - grocery shopping before it gets too late, trimming the rest of the tree, wrapping gifts - but I'm already thinking about the year coming to an end the start of a new one. May I do all I can to honor you and listen closely for your presence, instruction and guidance. I need you desperately. Perhaps more than ever. With all my love forever.
Saturday, December 16, 2017
Needing You
I feel so sad today, little sweetheart, and I'm not altogether sure why.
It's cold out and gets darker early -it's not even 3pm and it appears like dusk. The new album is in production and I've nothing more to work on it, just await its arrival from manufacturing. Christmas is coming and I'll be headed to see your parents next week.
I think maybe somehow all of these things together bring a kind of sadness and longing for you. However much I hope the new album is a wonderful tribute and brings you vividly to presence, it doesn't bring you here to my side or I to yours. It can't. Perhaps that's part of of my dark mood - that no matter what I do what want the most - just to be with you - I can't have or conjure.
In these moments I need to quiet myself, even crying, and try to do my best to honor you, to work at being the man you want me to be. That's all I can do really isn't it, little sweetheart? Just do the best I can and have faith.
I'm remembering right now something you used to say when we both would get upset. You'd tell me that we both couldn't fall apart at the same time! One of us would need to rally and be strong so the other could get on their feet. You didn't mean it always had to me, either. You were just saying, in your inimitable way, that we both needed to buck up and that we would if we helped each other. No one ever did that for me except you, little sweetheart. No one ever before or since.
Every day when I wake up after saying our prayer, I talk to you and ask that you be with me today, help me do the right thing and to take me to you the moment heaven will allow, because I don't like it here, I don't like it here at all without you and that I feel happy and that belong only when I am with you.
I need to listen for you and do the best that I can, don't I little sweetheart? Please help and guide me. I feel so lost today and I desperately miss and need your help and presence. Don't let me lose sight of this or lose faith that I will find you soon and forever.
I'm sad and lonely for you. Only you will do, as you said to me in one of your beautiful, generous, unafraid texts. I printed it and it hangs above my desk right here.
"Lovely you madly. There is no substitute. You are my treasure. Forever. ", it says.
Yes, my darling. Same. There is no substitute. Only you will do. Forever. Please take me there. With all my love.
It's cold out and gets darker early -it's not even 3pm and it appears like dusk. The new album is in production and I've nothing more to work on it, just await its arrival from manufacturing. Christmas is coming and I'll be headed to see your parents next week.
I think maybe somehow all of these things together bring a kind of sadness and longing for you. However much I hope the new album is a wonderful tribute and brings you vividly to presence, it doesn't bring you here to my side or I to yours. It can't. Perhaps that's part of of my dark mood - that no matter what I do what want the most - just to be with you - I can't have or conjure.
In these moments I need to quiet myself, even crying, and try to do my best to honor you, to work at being the man you want me to be. That's all I can do really isn't it, little sweetheart? Just do the best I can and have faith.
I'm remembering right now something you used to say when we both would get upset. You'd tell me that we both couldn't fall apart at the same time! One of us would need to rally and be strong so the other could get on their feet. You didn't mean it always had to me, either. You were just saying, in your inimitable way, that we both needed to buck up and that we would if we helped each other. No one ever did that for me except you, little sweetheart. No one ever before or since.
Every day when I wake up after saying our prayer, I talk to you and ask that you be with me today, help me do the right thing and to take me to you the moment heaven will allow, because I don't like it here, I don't like it here at all without you and that I feel happy and that belong only when I am with you.
I need to listen for you and do the best that I can, don't I little sweetheart? Please help and guide me. I feel so lost today and I desperately miss and need your help and presence. Don't let me lose sight of this or lose faith that I will find you soon and forever.
I'm sad and lonely for you. Only you will do, as you said to me in one of your beautiful, generous, unafraid texts. I printed it and it hangs above my desk right here.
"Lovely you madly. There is no substitute. You are my treasure. Forever. ", it says.
Yes, my darling. Same. There is no substitute. Only you will do. Forever. Please take me there. With all my love.
Saturday, December 9, 2017
The First Snow
We had our first snow today, little sweetheart.
I took a picture or two from the window and then ventured outside to take a few more. I was heading to the post office to mail a few Christmas cards - with the black and white photo of you and I together on the roof here during the first snow just before our first Christmas - it’s a card that I send out to a handful of friends (there seem to be fewer and fewer of them each year, sadly) annually.
Also in the outgoing mail today - a copy of our Christmas album to that new DJ, WFMU’s Samantha Simmons, who seems to have taken a liking to us.
Afterwards, I walked to the market to get a few things I needed to bake Christmas cookies and I took a picture of the playground there at W52nd and 10th covered in snow. When I got home, I went up to the roof and took a couple more.
I’d been thinking about it because I’d remembered, just a few days ago, that I had some film of last year’s blizzard, also from the roof. So, I edited that footage and dropped it over a bed of music - our version of “Emmanuel” from BPXmas - and made a music video. It’s here.
It’s getting close to Christmas, little sweetheart. And as you said in your beautiful letter to me on our very first one, “I am missing you.”
May our separation be a brief one, my darling girl. May it be only a preface to the Forever, where I long to be reunited with you in eternity. With all all all my love.
I took a picture or two from the window and then ventured outside to take a few more. I was heading to the post office to mail a few Christmas cards - with the black and white photo of you and I together on the roof here during the first snow just before our first Christmas - it’s a card that I send out to a handful of friends (there seem to be fewer and fewer of them each year, sadly) annually.
Also in the outgoing mail today - a copy of our Christmas album to that new DJ, WFMU’s Samantha Simmons, who seems to have taken a liking to us.
Afterwards, I walked to the market to get a few things I needed to bake Christmas cookies and I took a picture of the playground there at W52nd and 10th covered in snow. When I got home, I went up to the roof and took a couple more.
I’d been thinking about it because I’d remembered, just a few days ago, that I had some film of last year’s blizzard, also from the roof. So, I edited that footage and dropped it over a bed of music - our version of “Emmanuel” from BPXmas - and made a music video. It’s here.
It’s getting close to Christmas, little sweetheart. And as you said in your beautiful letter to me on our very first one, “I am missing you.”
May our separation be a brief one, my darling girl. May it be only a preface to the Forever, where I long to be reunited with you in eternity. With all all all my love.
Thursday, December 7, 2017
Our Avian Friends
Little sweetheart, the prettiest little bird alighted at the window this morning, just a couple of feet from my desk, where I was sitting here writing about you. He sang a little song and looked around, turned about, looked at me, before he finally flew off.
I’m so aware of our avian friends, now, my darling girl. There are a couple of spots along the river where I run that they seem to favor. One is just at the edge of the boat basin and a second is along the trail just past the footbridge. I always say, “hi, guys”, as I make my way past them and they lift as one in flight.
Sweet little birds gather in the trees inside the little garden at the rectory I’ve told you about, too. That little brick house where the nuns of Sacred Heart reside. I always stop there when I’m walking by to say our prayer for you, for us, and the sweet little birds flutter overhead and serenade me, often.
Another spot is the little grove of low bushy trees that line the concourse between buildings on the crossover between blocks at 66th and West End. I take the shortcut there on my way to the little church where I attend those Wednesday night candlelight meditation services. The birds swoop in and out of there, too, and there always seem to be a couple of them high up, as high up as can be, having a little chat, answering one another in super special birdcode.
I stop and listen there, too. I’m not in a hurry. I’m never in a hurry anymore, little sweetheart. Only to be with you again. Only when it’s my time. I hope it’s soon. As soon as today.
Meantime, I try my best to listen for you. I try my best to try my best. And our little avian friends seem to know. With all my love forever…
I’m so aware of our avian friends, now, my darling girl. There are a couple of spots along the river where I run that they seem to favor. One is just at the edge of the boat basin and a second is along the trail just past the footbridge. I always say, “hi, guys”, as I make my way past them and they lift as one in flight.
Sweet little birds gather in the trees inside the little garden at the rectory I’ve told you about, too. That little brick house where the nuns of Sacred Heart reside. I always stop there when I’m walking by to say our prayer for you, for us, and the sweet little birds flutter overhead and serenade me, often.
Another spot is the little grove of low bushy trees that line the concourse between buildings on the crossover between blocks at 66th and West End. I take the shortcut there on my way to the little church where I attend those Wednesday night candlelight meditation services. The birds swoop in and out of there, too, and there always seem to be a couple of them high up, as high up as can be, having a little chat, answering one another in super special birdcode.
I stop and listen there, too. I’m not in a hurry. I’m never in a hurry anymore, little sweetheart. Only to be with you again. Only when it’s my time. I hope it’s soon. As soon as today.
Meantime, I try my best to listen for you. I try my best to try my best. And our little avian friends seem to know. With all my love forever…
Monday, December 4, 2017
That Movie
Little sweetheart, I’m watching a Christmas movie. Can you guess which one? You used to tease me about this because I'd never seen the movie until you and I were visiting London several years after it came out and I happened upon it on telly (in the front room of Kris & Joy’s house in Kentish Town).
After that I bought the DVD and you would say "are you watching that movie AGAIN?!" But the thing that you don't know, my angel (or maybe you do- honestly, I think you know most everything) is that you cracked my chest open with your radiant love and left my heart so full I feel so much more and it can't be stopped, my darling girl.
I think The Guardian famously gave this film half a star. Not even one whole one. But I'm an easy mark for the sentimental. You found and loved me. And that makes all the difference.
Yes, I'm watching it again. And missing you. With all my love forever.
After that I bought the DVD and you would say "are you watching that movie AGAIN?!" But the thing that you don't know, my angel (or maybe you do- honestly, I think you know most everything) is that you cracked my chest open with your radiant love and left my heart so full I feel so much more and it can't be stopped, my darling girl.
I think The Guardian famously gave this film half a star. Not even one whole one. But I'm an easy mark for the sentimental. You found and loved me. And that makes all the difference.
Yes, I'm watching it again. And missing you. With all my love forever.
Friday, December 1, 2017
December 1st
Little sweetheart, on this day, exactly ten years ago, my life was changed utterly.
On this day ten years ago, I woke up early in the morning, before dawn, took the “E” train to JFK and flew across the country, arriving before lunch, to San Francisco to do a reading that afternoon at The Magic.
When folks from the theater, including our friend AD, Chris Smith, picked me up, they were enthusing rapturously about a young genius little whirlwind that had blown them away at the auditions and callbacks and who they’d hired to head the cast. When I sat down at the big table they’d set up on the stage of The Shepherd, the writer, company and cast gathered around, I came to understand they weren’t exaggerating.
During the act break, I found myself alone. Everyone had stepped into the outer hall of the lobby or all the way outdoors (The Magic is nestled into the Marina and it was a beautiful California day, sweeping vistas of both bridges in view). I was getting myself another cup of coffee when the aforementioned little genius whirlwind - you - made her way over to talk to me.
I wish like hell I could remember verbatim every word you said in those first moments but I think even at the time I might not have taken it in fully because I was too busy being taken in fully by you. At first sight, you were quite a first sight. Like something out of a Botticelli or maybe any one of those amazing heroines that Waterhouse painted. A red-headed angel with ivory skin so fair its purity was blinding. A classical beauty trying vainly to dress down and fit into these screwball times. Ariel in black yoga pants and a band t-shirt.
Aside from being completely knocked out by your breathtaking talent, I wondered how they were going to work out you being in rehearsals everyday. Had your high school principal signed on? It wasn’t until you shuffled over to talk to me (all things had to go like this - you always making the first move, the first kiss, wrestling me to the ground, because you always knew sooner, knew better, knew so much faster and more than I), it wasn’t until then that I knew you already had a diploma, three of them, including a Master’s Degree.
If I track it, I think that is what we talked about - London, New York - places we’d both called home. The coincidence of locations in common without knowing one another. Not then. Not yet. That was for now. That was for this moment - ten years ago on this very day - that you found me.
Later, we often called March 19th our anniversary because it was the moment we both knew unquestionably it was ours and that we were each others. But even before that night and everything leading up to it, my life, my heart, was utterly changed, little sweetheart, looking into your big beautiful blue eyes. Before I ever loved you romantically and forever (and like everything you knew better, sooner, faster than I could know myself) I loved and adored and wanted to protect and be near you. My heart recognized you right away and you came over and found me.
Ten years ago on this day, exactly, my life was changed utterly. Ten years ago today, little sweetheart, I met you. You found me. Find me again, won’t you, my darling girl? And take me where you are. Where I belong. Home.
With all my love forever.
On this day ten years ago, I woke up early in the morning, before dawn, took the “E” train to JFK and flew across the country, arriving before lunch, to San Francisco to do a reading that afternoon at The Magic.
When folks from the theater, including our friend AD, Chris Smith, picked me up, they were enthusing rapturously about a young genius little whirlwind that had blown them away at the auditions and callbacks and who they’d hired to head the cast. When I sat down at the big table they’d set up on the stage of The Shepherd, the writer, company and cast gathered around, I came to understand they weren’t exaggerating.
During the act break, I found myself alone. Everyone had stepped into the outer hall of the lobby or all the way outdoors (The Magic is nestled into the Marina and it was a beautiful California day, sweeping vistas of both bridges in view). I was getting myself another cup of coffee when the aforementioned little genius whirlwind - you - made her way over to talk to me.
I wish like hell I could remember verbatim every word you said in those first moments but I think even at the time I might not have taken it in fully because I was too busy being taken in fully by you. At first sight, you were quite a first sight. Like something out of a Botticelli or maybe any one of those amazing heroines that Waterhouse painted. A red-headed angel with ivory skin so fair its purity was blinding. A classical beauty trying vainly to dress down and fit into these screwball times. Ariel in black yoga pants and a band t-shirt.
Aside from being completely knocked out by your breathtaking talent, I wondered how they were going to work out you being in rehearsals everyday. Had your high school principal signed on? It wasn’t until you shuffled over to talk to me (all things had to go like this - you always making the first move, the first kiss, wrestling me to the ground, because you always knew sooner, knew better, knew so much faster and more than I), it wasn’t until then that I knew you already had a diploma, three of them, including a Master’s Degree.
If I track it, I think that is what we talked about - London, New York - places we’d both called home. The coincidence of locations in common without knowing one another. Not then. Not yet. That was for now. That was for this moment - ten years ago on this very day - that you found me.
Later, we often called March 19th our anniversary because it was the moment we both knew unquestionably it was ours and that we were each others. But even before that night and everything leading up to it, my life, my heart, was utterly changed, little sweetheart, looking into your big beautiful blue eyes. Before I ever loved you romantically and forever (and like everything you knew better, sooner, faster than I could know myself) I loved and adored and wanted to protect and be near you. My heart recognized you right away and you came over and found me.
Ten years ago on this day, exactly, my life was changed utterly. Ten years ago today, little sweetheart, I met you. You found me. Find me again, won’t you, my darling girl? And take me where you are. Where I belong. Home.
With all my love forever.
Monday, November 27, 2017
Flying
Little sweetheart, I had the most wonderful dream last night. I was with you. That’s always a wonderful thing. We were outside walking together you in front and I put my arms around you as you led the way. I think you were showing me something. A place you had been, maybe many times, maybe as a child, even. I’m not sure. But as we walked we got to… not a cliff, exactly, but what turned out to be the top of a very steep, very long hill. There was no way to go forward without picking up speed. So much speed that we’d most likely fall over and tumble down the test of it. And we did go faster and faster but instead of falling we began to fly. I just kept my arms around you as we left the ground. And we went a great expanse. We may have touched down once or twice, it was little like jumping as well as like flying, like gravity only lightly effected us, we could soar when we wanted and walk when not. And we did. We soared over the wide expanse of earth beneath us until, we came to a large body of water. Maybe a lake or more like a sea because there was water all the way past the horizon. And we flew together, my arms around you until we touched down on ground again. It was amazing and lovely. And you were a little surprised, you said, that I was so quiet. Not more excited. Isn’t that funny, little sweetheart? So like you. But I was! I was very excited, just marveling. And I told you so. I told that more than anything I just was so happy. So happy to be with you. And that I wanted to always. Always be with you. Yes. Forever. With all my love…
Thursday, November 23, 2017
Thanksgiving
Today is Thanksgiving, little sweetheart. I’m on my own, as I so often am. But I decided to cook anyway. It’s something I learned a couple of years ago - to try and mark special days like holidays even if I’m alone.
In advance of my birthday a couple of years ago, little sweetheart, I asked a few people if they’d like to come over. I’d cook and we’d hang out and maybe even the band would play. No one could make the time for me. It hurt my feelings a lot and I was very sad and upset the day before.
But that night I heard that someone I knew had passed away. Her shiva was the next morning, the morning of my birthday. I put on a suit and walked up there and it was kind of wonderful. Lots of people. Kids running around. A ton of good food. Even a mariachi band turned up. It was a lovely celebration of her life. And walking home later, I decided I would cook and bake a cake and play our songs and speak my words for you as I always do since the first time I did - on my birthday in 2011 when you were meant to be here with me but on what turned out to be the day of your memorial.
You told me that Thanksgiving was never a very big deal in your family. Both you and your father have birthdays - November 13 and 22, respectively - around that time and Christmas was always really the far more celebrated.
I used to go see my mom at Thanksgiving and she would come back to New York with me after and stay up at her favorite hotel, The Excelsior, for a full week after. In 2007, she did. And right after she left, I flew to San Francisco to do the first reading of Tir na nOg.
It was December 1. It was the day I met you.
On Thanksgiving today, little sweetheart, I’m on my own but I’m not entirely alone. I can feel your presence near. I can sense you. I made the potatoes and deviled eggs and that pie you like, last night before bed. And just now, I’ve gotten the turkey in and the dressing ready to go.
This morning as I was having my first cup of coffee and listening to the mastered version of disc one of the new album, a sweet little bird alighted right outside on the windowsill. Just two feet from my desk. I watched and listened to his charming song and I knew you were here.
Later, I’ll have a plate and say my thanks - for you. For you, the great gift of my life. For you. And I’ll say my always prayer that God keep you safe in His care and that, as soon as heaven will allow, to please let me come be with you again and forever.
I love you with all my heart and soul. Best friend. True Love. Soulmate. Partner. Little sweetheart. Always, my love. Always.
In advance of my birthday a couple of years ago, little sweetheart, I asked a few people if they’d like to come over. I’d cook and we’d hang out and maybe even the band would play. No one could make the time for me. It hurt my feelings a lot and I was very sad and upset the day before.
But that night I heard that someone I knew had passed away. Her shiva was the next morning, the morning of my birthday. I put on a suit and walked up there and it was kind of wonderful. Lots of people. Kids running around. A ton of good food. Even a mariachi band turned up. It was a lovely celebration of her life. And walking home later, I decided I would cook and bake a cake and play our songs and speak my words for you as I always do since the first time I did - on my birthday in 2011 when you were meant to be here with me but on what turned out to be the day of your memorial.
You told me that Thanksgiving was never a very big deal in your family. Both you and your father have birthdays - November 13 and 22, respectively - around that time and Christmas was always really the far more celebrated.
I used to go see my mom at Thanksgiving and she would come back to New York with me after and stay up at her favorite hotel, The Excelsior, for a full week after. In 2007, she did. And right after she left, I flew to San Francisco to do the first reading of Tir na nOg.
It was December 1. It was the day I met you.
On Thanksgiving today, little sweetheart, I’m on my own but I’m not entirely alone. I can feel your presence near. I can sense you. I made the potatoes and deviled eggs and that pie you like, last night before bed. And just now, I’ve gotten the turkey in and the dressing ready to go.
This morning as I was having my first cup of coffee and listening to the mastered version of disc one of the new album, a sweet little bird alighted right outside on the windowsill. Just two feet from my desk. I watched and listened to his charming song and I knew you were here.
Later, I’ll have a plate and say my thanks - for you. For you, the great gift of my life. For you. And I’ll say my always prayer that God keep you safe in His care and that, as soon as heaven will allow, to please let me come be with you again and forever.
I love you with all my heart and soul. Best friend. True Love. Soulmate. Partner. Little sweetheart. Always, my love. Always.
Friday, November 17, 2017
NPR's "On Being"
Little sweetheart, I’m sure I’ve told you about a program on NPR that I often listen to. It’s called On Being. It’s hosted by a woman named Krista Tippett who had a career I think in the diplomatic corps before changing direction and getting an advanced degree in Divinity and the starting this radio show with her editor and producer and co-founder, Trent Gilliss.
It’s really interesting. There’s usually one guest for the entire hour, someone from the arts, sometimes - a poet or novelist or musician - sometimes someone from the world of politics or journalism, sometimes someone from academia or of a religious order. And much of the discussion is about matters of faith and life and the nature of existence. That maybe sounds a bit grand but it’s not. It’s very intimate and revealing as well as being enlightening and thoughtful.
About two years ago, I actually met and spoke with Krista when she was here giving at talk at St John the Divine. I told her about you and gave her Of Love and Loss and she signed a copy of her book for your mom.
Since then, I’ve kept in touch with Trent, fitfully, sending updates - especially news of Electric Hymnal and a copy of it after its release. I was just writing him again a couple weeks ago when he wrote back to tell me that he’s stepping down from On Being. He put me in touch with a couple of his colleagues and I wrote to them.
One of them, Mariah Helgeson - a senior producer - wrote back to say it was great hearing from us and that she’d first heard about the band when we were featured on the On Being blog. What? Yeah.
Apparently, one of the digital producers wrote a little piece about you and I and the group when we released our Christmas album in 2015. Incredibly, I didn’t ever see it at the time. The link is below.
Isn’t that amazing, little sweetheart? I know how much you like NPR. And your mom and my mom! Hey, you’re on the radio again, little sweetheart. You’re on National Public Radio. With all my love forever.
https://onbeing.org/blog/reimagining-a-christmas-classic/
It’s really interesting. There’s usually one guest for the entire hour, someone from the arts, sometimes - a poet or novelist or musician - sometimes someone from the world of politics or journalism, sometimes someone from academia or of a religious order. And much of the discussion is about matters of faith and life and the nature of existence. That maybe sounds a bit grand but it’s not. It’s very intimate and revealing as well as being enlightening and thoughtful.
About two years ago, I actually met and spoke with Krista when she was here giving at talk at St John the Divine. I told her about you and gave her Of Love and Loss and she signed a copy of her book for your mom.
Since then, I’ve kept in touch with Trent, fitfully, sending updates - especially news of Electric Hymnal and a copy of it after its release. I was just writing him again a couple weeks ago when he wrote back to tell me that he’s stepping down from On Being. He put me in touch with a couple of his colleagues and I wrote to them.
One of them, Mariah Helgeson - a senior producer - wrote back to say it was great hearing from us and that she’d first heard about the band when we were featured on the On Being blog. What? Yeah.
Apparently, one of the digital producers wrote a little piece about you and I and the group when we released our Christmas album in 2015. Incredibly, I didn’t ever see it at the time. The link is below.
Isn’t that amazing, little sweetheart? I know how much you like NPR. And your mom and my mom! Hey, you’re on the radio again, little sweetheart. You’re on National Public Radio. With all my love forever.
https://onbeing.org/blog/reimagining-a-christmas-classic/
Wednesday, November 15, 2017
Other Mourners
Little sweetheart, I met a nice lady a little while ago at that candlelight meditation service I’ve told you about. She lost her husband three years ago and I think she first introduced herself after I read one of the poems I’d written for you and read it aloud in the service in March. Her late-husband and her son are both drummers. Her husband was also named Michael and he was mostly a classical drummer and percussionist, playing with all kinds of famous ensembles and symphonies.
A while back, just before the service takes a break for the months of July, August and September, resuming in October, I gave her a copy of Dream Together. She really liked it and seemed to find it especially resonant, as sometimes others who have suffered great loss only can.
Tonight we actually met up for an hour or two before Taize. We met up at that nice little diner I like to take you to - Cafe 82 - up on Broadway. She wanted to hear more about you and how we met. It was so good to talk at length about you. I love doing that. I feel so close to you when I do. She and her Michael were married for most 40 years. He passed away after a bout with cancer, sadly.
There’s something about talking to other people who know about this - what it is to lose the great love of their life and who have faith that they will be reunited, that their soulmate is still nearer than they can imagine, helping to guide and comfort them, as I know you are with me. They’re not so impatient for you to “get over” the loss or look for someone else. They get it. It’s nice when that happens.
I’m doing my best to find my way… in my best hours anyway, little sweetheart. Please help me to make that be more often than not. Please help me to quiet myself and listen for you. I know you’re there and only seek to help me. God bless you for that and for everything. I’m so grateful for you. With all my love forever.
A while back, just before the service takes a break for the months of July, August and September, resuming in October, I gave her a copy of Dream Together. She really liked it and seemed to find it especially resonant, as sometimes others who have suffered great loss only can.
Tonight we actually met up for an hour or two before Taize. We met up at that nice little diner I like to take you to - Cafe 82 - up on Broadway. She wanted to hear more about you and how we met. It was so good to talk at length about you. I love doing that. I feel so close to you when I do. She and her Michael were married for most 40 years. He passed away after a bout with cancer, sadly.
There’s something about talking to other people who know about this - what it is to lose the great love of their life and who have faith that they will be reunited, that their soulmate is still nearer than they can imagine, helping to guide and comfort them, as I know you are with me. They’re not so impatient for you to “get over” the loss or look for someone else. They get it. It’s nice when that happens.
I’m doing my best to find my way… in my best hours anyway, little sweetheart. Please help me to make that be more often than not. Please help me to quiet myself and listen for you. I know you’re there and only seek to help me. God bless you for that and for everything. I’m so grateful for you. With all my love forever.
Monday, November 13, 2017
To The Other Half Of The Sky - Bipolar Explorer
For your birthday, little sweetheart. Video for "To The Other Half of The Sky" from our sixth album, Dream Together. Love you forever.
November 13, 2017 - Part Two
November 13, 2017
My dearest darling Summer,
Happy Birthday, little sweetheart!
I’m thinking of you always and trying hard to be as good as the good you saw in me.
How I wish I could be with you today and everyday, make you a nice dinner and a cake - remember when I did for your birthday in Boston? - curl up on the sofa after and watch one of our stories together, give you a foot massage with that peppermint lotion that you like, and finally carry you sleepy to bed, fixing up a hot water bottle for you and cuddling together as you fall asleep on my shoulder (don’t forget your little ear pillow!) with your feet wrapped around my ankles. And to wake in the morning with you, bringing you kisses and your favorite mint tea and planning more adventures.
My angel, I ache for you and only want to be where you are. But I also know that you’re nearer than I can imagine and that I will indeed be with you again, soon and forever.
I love you with all my heart and soul and always will. You are my True Love, my soulmate, my partner - how my heart swelled with pride when you would call me that, call me your own! - my best friend, my conscience, my protector, my reason, my life, my everything.
On this day and every day you are in my every thought and constant prayers. I’m so very grateful to and for you. You. Are. And I love you forever.
Happy Birthday, my treasure. Happy Birthday, my little sweetheart. Happy Birthday, my love.
With all my love forever yours,
Michael
My dearest darling Summer,
Happy Birthday, little sweetheart!
I’m thinking of you always and trying hard to be as good as the good you saw in me.
How I wish I could be with you today and everyday, make you a nice dinner and a cake - remember when I did for your birthday in Boston? - curl up on the sofa after and watch one of our stories together, give you a foot massage with that peppermint lotion that you like, and finally carry you sleepy to bed, fixing up a hot water bottle for you and cuddling together as you fall asleep on my shoulder (don’t forget your little ear pillow!) with your feet wrapped around my ankles. And to wake in the morning with you, bringing you kisses and your favorite mint tea and planning more adventures.
My angel, I ache for you and only want to be where you are. But I also know that you’re nearer than I can imagine and that I will indeed be with you again, soon and forever.
I love you with all my heart and soul and always will. You are my True Love, my soulmate, my partner - how my heart swelled with pride when you would call me that, call me your own! - my best friend, my conscience, my protector, my reason, my life, my everything.
On this day and every day you are in my every thought and constant prayers. I’m so very grateful to and for you. You. Are. And I love you forever.
Happy Birthday, my treasure. Happy Birthday, my little sweetheart. Happy Birthday, my love.
With all my love forever yours,
Michael
November 13, 2017 - part one
It's your 38th Birthday, little sweetheart. The planets
crossed paths for you this morning. I suspect you had a front row seat
for that. Thinking of you always. Love you forever.
Sunday, November 12, 2017
Morning Sky
Early tomorrow morning on your 38th birthday, little sweetheart, Venus and Jupiter pass each other int heir orbits. I think I'll go up on the roof to say hello. Love you forever.
Wednesday, November 8, 2017
Colors
Getting close to final mixes before sending
disc one (its a double) of the new album, SOMETIMES IN DREAMS, to our
guy in Boston for mastering, little sweetheart. At this point, I adjourn
to the sofa and crank up the monitors. I usually turn on the visualizer
so the screen doesn't go into sleep mode and it's nice to have the
swirling graphics going by anyway. Tonight in one section as your vocals
were soaring, the screen, which never simply goes to a solid color, did
this for about 10 seconds. All purple. Your favorite color. I spoke
aloud to you. Joyously. There wasn't a single question but that you were
here listening and approving. Thank you, my angel. Love you forever.
Sunday, November 5, 2017
Just listen...
Birdsong above, heart shaped leaf below, as I walk so sad
and lonely. You're trying so hard to find me, aren't you, my angel? God
bless you. Please take me to you the moment heaven will allow.
Wednesday, November 1, 2017
All Saints & All Souls
So today, little sweetheart, is All Saints Day and tomorrow All Soul’s Day. Tonight is Wednesday, so there’s a Taize service at West End that I think will have some focus on the former and tomorrow I’m going to the Evensong at St. Thomas which has a Solemn Requiem. I want to say a little about all of this…
I was very intrigued to hear from one of nuns at the little rectory down on W51st - the one I pass almost every day and offer a prayer for you in the garden there where birds sweetly congregate, the residence of the order of the young women serving Sacred Heart just across the street, I often bring them something I’ve baked, treats like brownies or heart-shaped sugar cookies with pink frosting on Valentines Day.
Anyway, I happened by there with some goodies a few months ago and talked with one of the nuns about you and she asked if I was a Catholic. I said I wasn’t strictly so but that I often say Catholic prayers. She told me that she would pray for you and she also told me about The Communion of Saints. Catholics believe that The Saints intercede on our behalf and that we ask them to look after our beloveds, as I ask they do of you. I was very intrigued by the idea, so I also talked to that nice girl I’ve told you about at the little church (West End) where I go, Reverend Jes, and she said that Protestants have a similar idea but that it involves all those Great Souls, saints and others alike, who have passed and that we call them The Great Cloud of Witnesses. Unlike Catholics who believe that the Saints must intercede for us, Protestants believe we may make our prayers directly, which also explains a little of the different ideas of the two churches with priests on the one hand and ministers on the other.
They’re both beautiful ideas, lovely thoughts, I think, and I’m not so sure we need to choose between them or pit them one against the other.
I think when we talk of all this, when we talk of God and heaven and souls and saints and spirits and prayers what we’re doing is using all the words and language we have for things we simply can’t fully know or comprehend or truly describe because the things we’re speaking of are immortal and we are still on earth. That wonderful passage in Corinthians touches on it - “Now we see through a glass, darkly. Then, we shall see face to face. Our knowledge is imperfect now. Then, we will know even as we are known.”
We can’t comprehend the complexity of what we are more than our earthly selves, our bodies. But we can apprehend. It’s not a word we use in this context much in the modern era but it means a kind of knowing by a feeling. We can’t comprehend it with our mind but we can apprehend it by something more that stirs inside us. And that something more inside is really our essence, it is what we are and it is eternal. Just as I know, as I apprehend you are. You are eternal. You. Are.
When we talk of God, our uttering will be incomplete, miss the mark a bit. But the fact that we do speak and think and pray moves us toward that essence, moves us toward the eternal, I think.
I was watching that documentary about George Harrison again the other night, little sweetheart, and something he said struck me. It was how he was drawn to God after his first visit to India. He’d grown up Catholic but lapsed because it ceased to move him. But someone said something to him in India, something about you can’t simply blindly believe because you’re told to. You must have direct experience. And that experience, I think, my darling, is love.
It’s inside us and when we share it - as you told me you knew you born to - we feel it multiply and swell within us further, as if our chests might explode. Love is our direct experience of God, of what we can never quite adequately name or describe. But we apprehend. And our efforts, however childlike, if they come from within our hearts truly, should never be denigrated because they’re not sophisticated or perfect.
Our knowledge is imperfect now. It’s the impulse and the reaching beyond our grasp that’s the thing. The goodly thing. “There’s always time for a prayer”, I often say to myself now, little sweetheart. That and “calm down.” Ha! I must say that to myself a thousand times a day. I’m more than a little strange, a little lost, a little striving in your physical absence.
But I know that you are because I apprehend it and we have loved. We do love. I apprehend it still and I love you forever.
So, I’ll mix up the denominational devotions today and tomorrow and call on both the saints and directly beneath The Cloud of Witness. I’ll call for you and I’ll pray for your being safely in the care of God. Every day is good day for that, so why not redouble our efforts on a day designated just for that very thing? Isn’t that what we do on our secular holidays? We’re not only grateful on Thanksgiving. We don’t only shower our loved ones with gifts on their birthdays or at Christmas. But it’s another special day to share our love. And love is never redundant.
So, even though there’s so much I can’t yet know and some may say I’m doing it all wrong, I won’t let that stop me. I will call to you and call for you. And that is the important thing.
Didn’t you tell me the very thing yourself? What did you say to me, my darling?
“We falter blindly and strive endlessly. But wherever you are, whether you should be there or not and no matter who is present, know that you are a treasure in your own right. If the chest is buried, the key is lost or the map stolen, it doesn’t matter. It doesn’t change the fact that it’s inside you. I just see what’s there. You carry it with you. What’s hidden can always be found.”
Yes, my darling girl. You will find me, we will find each other again and soon and forever. With all my love….
I was very intrigued to hear from one of nuns at the little rectory down on W51st - the one I pass almost every day and offer a prayer for you in the garden there where birds sweetly congregate, the residence of the order of the young women serving Sacred Heart just across the street, I often bring them something I’ve baked, treats like brownies or heart-shaped sugar cookies with pink frosting on Valentines Day.
Anyway, I happened by there with some goodies a few months ago and talked with one of the nuns about you and she asked if I was a Catholic. I said I wasn’t strictly so but that I often say Catholic prayers. She told me that she would pray for you and she also told me about The Communion of Saints. Catholics believe that The Saints intercede on our behalf and that we ask them to look after our beloveds, as I ask they do of you. I was very intrigued by the idea, so I also talked to that nice girl I’ve told you about at the little church (West End) where I go, Reverend Jes, and she said that Protestants have a similar idea but that it involves all those Great Souls, saints and others alike, who have passed and that we call them The Great Cloud of Witnesses. Unlike Catholics who believe that the Saints must intercede for us, Protestants believe we may make our prayers directly, which also explains a little of the different ideas of the two churches with priests on the one hand and ministers on the other.
They’re both beautiful ideas, lovely thoughts, I think, and I’m not so sure we need to choose between them or pit them one against the other.
I think when we talk of all this, when we talk of God and heaven and souls and saints and spirits and prayers what we’re doing is using all the words and language we have for things we simply can’t fully know or comprehend or truly describe because the things we’re speaking of are immortal and we are still on earth. That wonderful passage in Corinthians touches on it - “Now we see through a glass, darkly. Then, we shall see face to face. Our knowledge is imperfect now. Then, we will know even as we are known.”
We can’t comprehend the complexity of what we are more than our earthly selves, our bodies. But we can apprehend. It’s not a word we use in this context much in the modern era but it means a kind of knowing by a feeling. We can’t comprehend it with our mind but we can apprehend it by something more that stirs inside us. And that something more inside is really our essence, it is what we are and it is eternal. Just as I know, as I apprehend you are. You are eternal. You. Are.
When we talk of God, our uttering will be incomplete, miss the mark a bit. But the fact that we do speak and think and pray moves us toward that essence, moves us toward the eternal, I think.
I was watching that documentary about George Harrison again the other night, little sweetheart, and something he said struck me. It was how he was drawn to God after his first visit to India. He’d grown up Catholic but lapsed because it ceased to move him. But someone said something to him in India, something about you can’t simply blindly believe because you’re told to. You must have direct experience. And that experience, I think, my darling, is love.
It’s inside us and when we share it - as you told me you knew you born to - we feel it multiply and swell within us further, as if our chests might explode. Love is our direct experience of God, of what we can never quite adequately name or describe. But we apprehend. And our efforts, however childlike, if they come from within our hearts truly, should never be denigrated because they’re not sophisticated or perfect.
Our knowledge is imperfect now. It’s the impulse and the reaching beyond our grasp that’s the thing. The goodly thing. “There’s always time for a prayer”, I often say to myself now, little sweetheart. That and “calm down.” Ha! I must say that to myself a thousand times a day. I’m more than a little strange, a little lost, a little striving in your physical absence.
But I know that you are because I apprehend it and we have loved. We do love. I apprehend it still and I love you forever.
So, I’ll mix up the denominational devotions today and tomorrow and call on both the saints and directly beneath The Cloud of Witness. I’ll call for you and I’ll pray for your being safely in the care of God. Every day is good day for that, so why not redouble our efforts on a day designated just for that very thing? Isn’t that what we do on our secular holidays? We’re not only grateful on Thanksgiving. We don’t only shower our loved ones with gifts on their birthdays or at Christmas. But it’s another special day to share our love. And love is never redundant.
So, even though there’s so much I can’t yet know and some may say I’m doing it all wrong, I won’t let that stop me. I will call to you and call for you. And that is the important thing.
Didn’t you tell me the very thing yourself? What did you say to me, my darling?
“We falter blindly and strive endlessly. But wherever you are, whether you should be there or not and no matter who is present, know that you are a treasure in your own right. If the chest is buried, the key is lost or the map stolen, it doesn’t matter. It doesn’t change the fact that it’s inside you. I just see what’s there. You carry it with you. What’s hidden can always be found.”
Yes, my darling girl. You will find me, we will find each other again and soon and forever. With all my love….
Tuesday, October 31, 2017
Halloween
Today is Halloween, little sweetheart. I think this might be your favorite holiday, no? Although, now that I think of it, I don’t think we ever spent Halloween together. Can that be right?
I remember one we were together around Halloween. We stopped by Danya’s house, her parents house, on the way to Davis. I remember it was at least around Halloween if not the day itself because they had Halloween candy. We were in the kitchen with her. She asked if we wanted some and before we could even reply said “of course you do.” It was night. I can’t even remember why we dropped in. It must’ve been early on because it was the first time I actually, finally met Danya after you had talked about her to me and me to her for some time.
I think it was the second Halloween after we met.
Because the first Halloween I think you would’ve been in Boston getting ready to do Rock n Roll at The Huntington. I was headed there next, right after Election Night, to be with you over the week of your birthday on November 13.
On Halloween, I was on my way back to New York after a week in LA where a little theater company had been doing two of my plays. We talked everyday as you were a bit bemused that I was in California but not with you (although I had just been - I’d come to see R&R at The Geary, several times, and we’d been together) and you were trying to figure out what to send ahead to Boston and what to bring on the plane with you.
I remember flying out of Burbank and that it was Halloween because all of the Jet Blue crew and staff were in costume. Everyone was in great spirits not only for the holiday but I think because we could feel already that Obama was going to win and that things would get better.
They already had - you had found me.
It’s Halloween and I’m think of you, little sweetheart. I’ve been mixing the new album all day. Tomorrow is All Saints Day and the next day All Soul’s. I’ve much to say about that, too. Many prayers and thoughts and all my love. So, more on that tomorrow.
And tonight? May you find me in dreams and take me to you the moment heaven will allow. With all my love forever.
I remember one we were together around Halloween. We stopped by Danya’s house, her parents house, on the way to Davis. I remember it was at least around Halloween if not the day itself because they had Halloween candy. We were in the kitchen with her. She asked if we wanted some and before we could even reply said “of course you do.” It was night. I can’t even remember why we dropped in. It must’ve been early on because it was the first time I actually, finally met Danya after you had talked about her to me and me to her for some time.
I think it was the second Halloween after we met.
Because the first Halloween I think you would’ve been in Boston getting ready to do Rock n Roll at The Huntington. I was headed there next, right after Election Night, to be with you over the week of your birthday on November 13.
On Halloween, I was on my way back to New York after a week in LA where a little theater company had been doing two of my plays. We talked everyday as you were a bit bemused that I was in California but not with you (although I had just been - I’d come to see R&R at The Geary, several times, and we’d been together) and you were trying to figure out what to send ahead to Boston and what to bring on the plane with you.
I remember flying out of Burbank and that it was Halloween because all of the Jet Blue crew and staff were in costume. Everyone was in great spirits not only for the holiday but I think because we could feel already that Obama was going to win and that things would get better.
They already had - you had found me.
It’s Halloween and I’m think of you, little sweetheart. I’ve been mixing the new album all day. Tomorrow is All Saints Day and the next day All Soul’s. I’ve much to say about that, too. Many prayers and thoughts and all my love. So, more on that tomorrow.
And tonight? May you find me in dreams and take me to you the moment heaven will allow. With all my love forever.
Sunday, October 29, 2017
The Rains
Little sweetheart, we had incredibly hard rain today all day and into the night. For much of the spring there was a leak in the ceiling in the bedroom…right over your spot in bed! I moved the entire bed and all of your stuff, of course, into an entirely new position for months. The roofer couldn’t get it right, so I didn’t want to take any chances. They finally changed roofers and it got sorted but I waited through several rains until I was sure before I moved everything back.
Today though, it started leaking in an entirely different place in the front room - where all the guitars and amps and computer and everything is. And lots of your pictures. I got so upset and worried. I moved things and I even went up on the roof in the rain to try to see if there was anything I could do.
On top of all that, I was very disappointed about something today. Something I was looking forward to and had been promised but didn’t happen. I got very upset - anxious and worried and angry and resentful. And then I started to cry.
But that was a good thing. I started to cry as I looked at a pretty picture of you, little sweetheart. And I started to talk to myself, say things that I know you would tell me. I told myself just to be grateful for you - for my sweetheart. And for your mom and dad. And for faith that reassures me that I will be with you again and forever. And to just concentrate on the important things - being a good person, doing my work, our work, and finding ways to be kind.
I said all this out loud as my tears began to subside and I got up to move another picture of yours to safety. And after I sat it down on a music stand safe and sound, I went over to where my phone was charging and there was an email from the person who had disappointed me. A lovely message apologizing for forgetting to do the thing they promised and vowing to make it up. I heard you tell me “see?”
Yes, I do, little sweetheart. Whenever I get upset I need to quiet myself and just listen for you. You always make everything better. Thank you, my true love.
Today though, it started leaking in an entirely different place in the front room - where all the guitars and amps and computer and everything is. And lots of your pictures. I got so upset and worried. I moved things and I even went up on the roof in the rain to try to see if there was anything I could do.
On top of all that, I was very disappointed about something today. Something I was looking forward to and had been promised but didn’t happen. I got very upset - anxious and worried and angry and resentful. And then I started to cry.
But that was a good thing. I started to cry as I looked at a pretty picture of you, little sweetheart. And I started to talk to myself, say things that I know you would tell me. I told myself just to be grateful for you - for my sweetheart. And for your mom and dad. And for faith that reassures me that I will be with you again and forever. And to just concentrate on the important things - being a good person, doing my work, our work, and finding ways to be kind.
I said all this out loud as my tears began to subside and I got up to move another picture of yours to safety. And after I sat it down on a music stand safe and sound, I went over to where my phone was charging and there was an email from the person who had disappointed me. A lovely message apologizing for forgetting to do the thing they promised and vowing to make it up. I heard you tell me “see?”
Yes, I do, little sweetheart. Whenever I get upset I need to quiet myself and just listen for you. You always make everything better. Thank you, my true love.
Thursday, October 26, 2017
Five Years Ago Today
Five years ago today, little sweetheart, we released the double-album Of Love and Loss. It was the first of these records that I will go on making, of, for and about you.
On this day that it came out, the band assembled downtown at a little club (that sadly, is no more) called Zirzamin and played the entire album in its sequence and entirety twice. Once at 7pm and again at 9pm. I felt your presence throughout, little sweetheart.
And afterwards, we drove back here to the studio, through the heart of the city, with the top down on an unseasonably warm night, the Friday before Halloween, lots of people in costume already. We loaded the gear back up the stairs here to the studio, then got sandwiches and drinks and watched A Hard Day’s Night together.
After it finished, we were still buzzing from the amazing night and we went up on the roof in the pre-dawn hours, looked skyward and I spoke to you.
Today, all day, I’ve been working on the new album, Sometimes in Dreams, that revisits and adds new music, narrative and context to the songs from that first album. You’re in my heart, as always, and your enchanting vocals fill the air here in the studio. I feel close to you and I am grateful. Grateful to and for you - the love and reason of my life. I will always always be yours. With all my love forever.
On this day that it came out, the band assembled downtown at a little club (that sadly, is no more) called Zirzamin and played the entire album in its sequence and entirety twice. Once at 7pm and again at 9pm. I felt your presence throughout, little sweetheart.
And afterwards, we drove back here to the studio, through the heart of the city, with the top down on an unseasonably warm night, the Friday before Halloween, lots of people in costume already. We loaded the gear back up the stairs here to the studio, then got sandwiches and drinks and watched A Hard Day’s Night together.
After it finished, we were still buzzing from the amazing night and we went up on the roof in the pre-dawn hours, looked skyward and I spoke to you.
Today, all day, I’ve been working on the new album, Sometimes in Dreams, that revisits and adds new music, narrative and context to the songs from that first album. You’re in my heart, as always, and your enchanting vocals fill the air here in the studio. I feel close to you and I am grateful. Grateful to and for you - the love and reason of my life. I will always always be yours. With all my love forever.
Thursday, October 19, 2017
A Vision
Little sweetheart, quite a while ago, really just shortly after your tragic passing, a friend of ours told me a story. She’d been out to Montauk with some friends and was driving back along the ocean after a long weekend. It was early in the morning and she hadn’t really been to bed, hadn’t been to sleep. So, she qualified all of what I’m about to tell you with that. Not that it’s so unbelievable but that perhaps, like a shaman, one needs to be in something of a slightly altered state to see things that are really there but we miss somehow in our mortal, mundane, unopened eyes.
She told me all this, as I say, quite a while ago. And I wasn’t quite sure if I’d remembered it all correctly, so I wrote to her and asked. Even my asking was a while ago. Almost a year ago. But something made me think of it again today because even though I’m still at work on the new album, I already have an idea for the next one (!) and it relates to this story, this vision. I dug through my emails and couldn’t find it, so I looked through my texts and then found it there. I wrote her last year on your birthday (which is coming up again, of course, next month) - that’s how long ago it was! Anyway, here’s what she said:
“Yes that's right. Thanks for the email too. Yes it was the clouds at dawn, I saw faces of bearded wise men in back, then marching soldiers in front of them, and in front of them young women running towards the rising sun in the east as though they were going to splay themselves on the ocean just as the sun would hit it. I spotted summer first then the whole scene unfolded backwards as we kept driving. They were slightly pink from the dawn and summer was in the front, happy, beaming, beautiful. I thought, of course that's what spirits would do! Take the form of clouds and greet the rising sun at the ocean. And something summer would jump at. Literally. And it was summertime. She looked so happy and free. Happy Birthday Summer.”
Yes, little sweetheart, Happy Almost Birthday. And this story, this vision, is coming strongly to mind. I will write more. And I pray and hope most fervently that it will help bring me to and find you. With all my love forever.
She told me all this, as I say, quite a while ago. And I wasn’t quite sure if I’d remembered it all correctly, so I wrote to her and asked. Even my asking was a while ago. Almost a year ago. But something made me think of it again today because even though I’m still at work on the new album, I already have an idea for the next one (!) and it relates to this story, this vision. I dug through my emails and couldn’t find it, so I looked through my texts and then found it there. I wrote her last year on your birthday (which is coming up again, of course, next month) - that’s how long ago it was! Anyway, here’s what she said:
“Yes that's right. Thanks for the email too. Yes it was the clouds at dawn, I saw faces of bearded wise men in back, then marching soldiers in front of them, and in front of them young women running towards the rising sun in the east as though they were going to splay themselves on the ocean just as the sun would hit it. I spotted summer first then the whole scene unfolded backwards as we kept driving. They were slightly pink from the dawn and summer was in the front, happy, beaming, beautiful. I thought, of course that's what spirits would do! Take the form of clouds and greet the rising sun at the ocean. And something summer would jump at. Literally. And it was summertime. She looked so happy and free. Happy Birthday Summer.”
Yes, little sweetheart, Happy Almost Birthday. And this story, this vision, is coming strongly to mind. I will write more. And I pray and hope most fervently that it will help bring me to and find you. With all my love forever.
Wednesday, October 18, 2017
In Our Hearts
Little sweetheart, tonight I went up to that little church I’ve told you about. On Wednesday nights they have that candlelight meditation service. There’s music and spoken word and a long silence at its center and the sanctuary is lit almost solely by candles. It was lovely tonight to sit quietly and to sing the little chants and say our prayer, my prayer for you and for guidance and to be delivered back to your side forever.
Near the end tonight was a little responsive prayer - one voice takes part of it and then everyone joins in in unison at others. One of unison phrases was so resonant to me, I circled it in the bulletin and brought it home, so I could write to you about it now. This is it, first the call and then the response:
Call: God of our mixed-up, tragic, aspiring, doubting and insurgent lives…
Response: Help us to be as good as in our hearts we have always wanted to be.
This is so perfect for me, my darling.
I’m almost always glad I take the long walk up there and back on Wednesday nights and have that quiet hour to calm me and think and pray for you and guidance and to return to your side. I still make so many mistakes, have so many false starts, fall prey to far too many distractions. But it is you who always redeem me. May I be worthy of you, my darling.
Please please help me to be as good as in my heart you have seen and can make me, because it’s what more than anything - to honor and be the person you believed and were (and still are!) making me grow and become. With a grateful spirit and all my love forever.
Near the end tonight was a little responsive prayer - one voice takes part of it and then everyone joins in in unison at others. One of unison phrases was so resonant to me, I circled it in the bulletin and brought it home, so I could write to you about it now. This is it, first the call and then the response:
Call: God of our mixed-up, tragic, aspiring, doubting and insurgent lives…
Response: Help us to be as good as in our hearts we have always wanted to be.
This is so perfect for me, my darling.
I’m almost always glad I take the long walk up there and back on Wednesday nights and have that quiet hour to calm me and think and pray for you and guidance and to return to your side. I still make so many mistakes, have so many false starts, fall prey to far too many distractions. But it is you who always redeem me. May I be worthy of you, my darling.
Please please help me to be as good as in my heart you have seen and can make me, because it’s what more than anything - to honor and be the person you believed and were (and still are!) making me grow and become. With a grateful spirit and all my love forever.
Tuesday, October 17, 2017
5:24 am
Little sweetheart, I love it when things happen unexpectedly and bring me such a strong sense and memory and awareness of you. Often, it’s a sensory thing - I’ll inexplicably find your scent in the air as I turn a corner even though no one is walking by. Or, feeling sad or angry or confused, a little bird will began to sing or a butterfly flutter before me and I know you’re doing your best to reach and calm me.
This morning, very early this morning, while it was still dark and well before I was ready to get up, I stirred. I kinda had to pee, to be honest! But it reminded me, delightfully, of how you would often get up in the middle of the night to do so. You’d stir and crawl over me on your way out of bed and sometimes, often, I’d capture you in my arms and kiss you before letting you go and whispering “don’t go too far away” or “come right back”.
This morning before dawn, I got up like that, but first, as I often do, went to the red table shrine and made sure your candle was lit. After lighting a fresh tea light there and placing it back before your picture (one of the hundreds), I stopped in the kitchen and poured myself a glass of water.
I almost never do that in the middle of the night but it’s something that you would do and I could feel you telling me to. As I stood there, just as I’ve watched you do so many times, I slowly drank the water and felt so very close to you. In that quiet hour, doing as you do, as you would have me do. I could feel myself calm and grounded and near you. And when I returned to bed and curled up next to your place there, I spoke quietly to you and slept well, feeling you near.
Thank you, my angel. Please come collect me as soon as heaven will allow. I hope it’s soon. With all my love forever.
This morning, very early this morning, while it was still dark and well before I was ready to get up, I stirred. I kinda had to pee, to be honest! But it reminded me, delightfully, of how you would often get up in the middle of the night to do so. You’d stir and crawl over me on your way out of bed and sometimes, often, I’d capture you in my arms and kiss you before letting you go and whispering “don’t go too far away” or “come right back”.
This morning before dawn, I got up like that, but first, as I often do, went to the red table shrine and made sure your candle was lit. After lighting a fresh tea light there and placing it back before your picture (one of the hundreds), I stopped in the kitchen and poured myself a glass of water.
I almost never do that in the middle of the night but it’s something that you would do and I could feel you telling me to. As I stood there, just as I’ve watched you do so many times, I slowly drank the water and felt so very close to you. In that quiet hour, doing as you do, as you would have me do. I could feel myself calm and grounded and near you. And when I returned to bed and curled up next to your place there, I spoke quietly to you and slept well, feeling you near.
Thank you, my angel. Please come collect me as soon as heaven will allow. I hope it’s soon. With all my love forever.
Thursday, October 12, 2017
You & Me (new dream song)
Little sweetheart, last night into this morning I had a dream. And although I can’t fully or well remember it, there was a song and I as my eye fluttered awake, I quickly grabbed my phone from the side of the bed and sang all I could into it. The melody and some of the words stayed with me long enough to get them down, its refrain the words “you and me”.
My darling darling sweetheart, I know that it is you visiting in dreams that brings me this music. I’ve lost a few in the last month or so, not waking quickly enough to recognize the phenomenon. Usually it’s a song on there radio in a dream or one that we hear other’s singing and I don’t always wake fast enough to realize that it’s not a known song but something that you and I are writing in the dream right that moment!
I’m so very grateful that this one came through and I got some of it into a recording. I’m in the middle of mixing the new album right now, so I’m not exactly in composing mode but I already have an idea for the album after this and I think that’s why you sent this to me.
Help me to listen diligently, my angel. Help me to hear and heed you. And most of all, oh my love, how very grateful I am that you keep me near you. Thank you, little sweetheart.
And I so often said, even if you were only going into the next room for a glass of water or just shifting your weight slightly next to me on the bed - don’t go too far away. Please, my darling, don’t go too far away. With all my love forever.
My darling darling sweetheart, I know that it is you visiting in dreams that brings me this music. I’ve lost a few in the last month or so, not waking quickly enough to recognize the phenomenon. Usually it’s a song on there radio in a dream or one that we hear other’s singing and I don’t always wake fast enough to realize that it’s not a known song but something that you and I are writing in the dream right that moment!
I’m so very grateful that this one came through and I got some of it into a recording. I’m in the middle of mixing the new album right now, so I’m not exactly in composing mode but I already have an idea for the album after this and I think that’s why you sent this to me.
Help me to listen diligently, my angel. Help me to hear and heed you. And most of all, oh my love, how very grateful I am that you keep me near you. Thank you, little sweetheart.
And I so often said, even if you were only going into the next room for a glass of water or just shifting your weight slightly next to me on the bed - don’t go too far away. Please, my darling, don’t go too far away. With all my love forever.
Wednesday, October 11, 2017
Calistoga and the fires
Little sweetheart, there are terrible wildfires spreading all through California and today I got an alert on my phone that the beautiful little village, Calistoga, where I took you for your 31st birthday was evacuated.
Known for its hot springs, we drove there from SF the morning of the 13th and checked-in to a nice little hotel before trying out a few of the pools, like Goldilocks - this one too hot, this one just right. You had your enormous black sunhat perched on your head as we took a dip in outdoor one there and you wrapped yourself around me as I carried you across its length, the water coming up to my chin. Later, we went out to dinner at the lovely Calistoga Inn which had a restaurant and brewery (the latter, admitted, I sampled because you'd told me it was alright as long as I was with you, I should only drink when I was happy and how true - I could only ever be happy at your side). Passing through the lobby and peaking upstairs at the cozy furnishings and quaint decor we made a note to stay there the next time. And we took a walk through the sweet little main street. The next morning we'd booked you a massage - a whole hour and a half! - and I waited at a charming little coffee place writing in my notebook.
I so hope everyone in Calistoga is okay, my darling. And I pray that the sweet little village itself that holds such lovely memories of my time with you, our times together, is spared and remains as it was.
Known for its hot springs, we drove there from SF the morning of the 13th and checked-in to a nice little hotel before trying out a few of the pools, like Goldilocks - this one too hot, this one just right. You had your enormous black sunhat perched on your head as we took a dip in outdoor one there and you wrapped yourself around me as I carried you across its length, the water coming up to my chin. Later, we went out to dinner at the lovely Calistoga Inn which had a restaurant and brewery (the latter, admitted, I sampled because you'd told me it was alright as long as I was with you, I should only drink when I was happy and how true - I could only ever be happy at your side). Passing through the lobby and peaking upstairs at the cozy furnishings and quaint decor we made a note to stay there the next time. And we took a walk through the sweet little main street. The next morning we'd booked you a massage - a whole hour and a half! - and I waited at a charming little coffee place writing in my notebook.
I so hope everyone in Calistoga is okay, my darling. And I pray that the sweet little village itself that holds such lovely memories of my time with you, our times together, is spared and remains as it was.
Saturday, October 7, 2017
Summerlight
Little sweetheart, one of the most comforting things in my sadness is to have all the many wonderful pictures of you here all around me, covering nearly every space of wall and desk and mantel. It’s such a comfort to have my eye fall upon you wherever I might turn my gaze. And sometimes, often magically, a light will fall upon one of them, upon you, when the sun finds its way through the blinds or through some sliver in the clouds.
The other day came just such a moment.
High up almost directly at eye level to the right when I sit here at my desk are several photos of you perched atop the tower of sound equipment. Among those are the mini-poster collage of photos of you from the Of Love and Loss album, the back cover photo from BPXmas of you in your winter coat and hat on the roof, a photo of you leaning against the fridge in the kitchen and a note to myself (something you said to guide me) taped it the bottom of its frame, a lovely full face picture of you with your pretty red hair down and framing your face again with a note taped to the bottom (“It is she Love has destined for you!”) that I saw once walking home past Lincoln Center when the opera was being broadcast outside with subtitles and in the middle a lovely picture of you I took while we rode a London bus together.
Late yesterday afternoon as the sun began to move from east to west over the building, the light pinpointed its way through the blinds illuminating this photo from behind and casting the most incredible light framing your face through the picture.
It was, as I say, a back light, but it raised your features and your eyes making you glow. This magic light hit nothing else - only you and from behind and perfectly making you the sole focus of the room.
In moments like these I know there are so many things beyond my mortal comprehension and I know you are doing your best to let me know you are near me, far nearer than I can imagine. Thank you, my angel. May I do in all things my best to honor and hear you. I love you with all my heart and soul and pray so very fervently to be what you want and desire of me. Please take me to you the moment that heaven will allow. Oh, my bright, wonderful angel!
The other day came just such a moment.
High up almost directly at eye level to the right when I sit here at my desk are several photos of you perched atop the tower of sound equipment. Among those are the mini-poster collage of photos of you from the Of Love and Loss album, the back cover photo from BPXmas of you in your winter coat and hat on the roof, a photo of you leaning against the fridge in the kitchen and a note to myself (something you said to guide me) taped it the bottom of its frame, a lovely full face picture of you with your pretty red hair down and framing your face again with a note taped to the bottom (“It is she Love has destined for you!”) that I saw once walking home past Lincoln Center when the opera was being broadcast outside with subtitles and in the middle a lovely picture of you I took while we rode a London bus together.
Late yesterday afternoon as the sun began to move from east to west over the building, the light pinpointed its way through the blinds illuminating this photo from behind and casting the most incredible light framing your face through the picture.
It was, as I say, a back light, but it raised your features and your eyes making you glow. This magic light hit nothing else - only you and from behind and perfectly making you the sole focus of the room.
In moments like these I know there are so many things beyond my mortal comprehension and I know you are doing your best to let me know you are near me, far nearer than I can imagine. Thank you, my angel. May I do in all things my best to honor and hear you. I love you with all my heart and soul and pray so very fervently to be what you want and desire of me. Please take me to you the moment that heaven will allow. Oh, my bright, wonderful angel!
Thursday, October 5, 2017
First Taize Back
Little sweetheart, last night was the first night of the new season of “Taize” - that candlelight meditation service that’s held on Wednesday nights at that little church on the Upper West Side I told you about. It’s what gave me the idea for our album, Electric Hymnal, remember? They take off from the end of June until the beginning of October, so last night was when it resumed.
I sat in the spot I like, a little corner aisle seat, and read through the bulletin which details the order of the service, which chants are sung, the prayers and poetry and readings and reflection. I was asked to read one myself - the responsive prayer near the end of the service. And it was good to hear and sing the familiar chants. I usually do harmonies, ones called to mind over time, some of which made their way onto the album itself when we did it.
At the center, of course, is the long silent mediation and the opportunity to come forward, little a candle and say a personal prayer. I always light a candle and say ours, little sweetheart, praying for your safe-keeping in The Forever and my fervent wish to join you as soon as heaven will allow. At that part of the service, the sanctuary, already only dimly lit, is illuminated only by candles - those on and around the alter and the little votives that we come forward to light for our prayers, for our beloveds, for you.
It’s an important part of my week - quietly praying and chanting and sending my thoughts to you. I’m so glad its resumed. I feel very close to you and that is always my desire. It’s what guides me.
Please be with me today, won’t you, my angel? And take me to you just as soon as that may be. With all my love forever.
I sat in the spot I like, a little corner aisle seat, and read through the bulletin which details the order of the service, which chants are sung, the prayers and poetry and readings and reflection. I was asked to read one myself - the responsive prayer near the end of the service. And it was good to hear and sing the familiar chants. I usually do harmonies, ones called to mind over time, some of which made their way onto the album itself when we did it.
At the center, of course, is the long silent mediation and the opportunity to come forward, little a candle and say a personal prayer. I always light a candle and say ours, little sweetheart, praying for your safe-keeping in The Forever and my fervent wish to join you as soon as heaven will allow. At that part of the service, the sanctuary, already only dimly lit, is illuminated only by candles - those on and around the alter and the little votives that we come forward to light for our prayers, for our beloveds, for you.
It’s an important part of my week - quietly praying and chanting and sending my thoughts to you. I’m so glad its resumed. I feel very close to you and that is always my desire. It’s what guides me.
Please be with me today, won’t you, my angel? And take me to you just as soon as that may be. With all my love forever.
Tuesday, October 3, 2017
October
It’s a new month, little sweetheart, and always a good time to look forward to making good.
I feel as if I’ve lost a bit of steam and focus in these last weeks. I think was feeling a little overwhelmed and it made me step away from my resolve. Please help me to hang in there and just take one day at a time, my angel. I know if I just keep building every day, even a little, I’ll be moving in the right direction and cumulatively. I know there’s something true sometimes in stepping away from a large endeavor - it has to come forward in its own time and we need to breathe and have patience. But tarrying too long we can become disconnected, lose the thread.
Please help me to know the difference, my darling. And to not be afraid. Help me to be as courageous as you always are, Great Soul. May I listen for and heed you in all things. With all my love forever.
I feel as if I’ve lost a bit of steam and focus in these last weeks. I think was feeling a little overwhelmed and it made me step away from my resolve. Please help me to hang in there and just take one day at a time, my angel. I know if I just keep building every day, even a little, I’ll be moving in the right direction and cumulatively. I know there’s something true sometimes in stepping away from a large endeavor - it has to come forward in its own time and we need to breathe and have patience. But tarrying too long we can become disconnected, lose the thread.
Please help me to know the difference, my darling. And to not be afraid. Help me to be as courageous as you always are, Great Soul. May I listen for and heed you in all things. With all my love forever.
Monday, October 2, 2017
Assurance
Little sweetheart, I saw this poem yesterday and it made me so grateful. It's a new month (more about that later) and a new week and I want to redouble my efforts to quiet myself and listen for you, to find you and be with you soon in the Forever and to spend the intervening time being kind and mindful and writing for you, of you, about you. I love you with all my heart and soul. Here's the poem that so moved me:
“Last night I slept, and when I woke her kiss
Still floated on my lips. For we had strayed
Together in my dream, through some dim glade,
Where the shy moonbeams scarce dared light our bliss.
The air was dank with dew, between the trees,
The hidden glow-worms kindled and were spent.
Cheek pressed to cheek, the cool, the hot night-breeze
Mingled our hair, our breath, and came and went,
As sporting with our passion. Low and deep
Spake in mine ear her voice: “And didst thou dream,
This could be buried? This could be sleep?
And love be thrall to death! Nay, whatso seem,
Have faith, dear heart; this is the thing that is!”
Thereon I woke, and on my lips her kiss.”
Still floated on my lips. For we had strayed
Together in my dream, through some dim glade,
Where the shy moonbeams scarce dared light our bliss.
The air was dank with dew, between the trees,
The hidden glow-worms kindled and were spent.
Cheek pressed to cheek, the cool, the hot night-breeze
Mingled our hair, our breath, and came and went,
As sporting with our passion. Low and deep
Spake in mine ear her voice: “And didst thou dream,
This could be buried? This could be sleep?
And love be thrall to death! Nay, whatso seem,
Have faith, dear heart; this is the thing that is!”
Thereon I woke, and on my lips her kiss.”
| — | Emma Lazarus, Assurance |
Wednesday, September 27, 2017
Open Water Ahead
I had a dream this morning, little sweetheart, just before I woke, that your dad and I were on a boat - not the boat he has but another, something more like a motorized raft that was flat and open at the ends so that water could come over and on board. He was driving and we were in open water. I'm not sure who all was on board, maybe everyone, but he was at the wheel and all was so well, even with the water coming on, that I was asleep.
When I woke (on the boat, still in the dream) some of our things - sunglasses, water bottles, my hat, were sliding off the edge. I tried to grab them before they fell out and I caught most of it except my hat which went rushing away behind us.
But your dad told me not to worry, he knew exactly where it was and we would pick it up on our way back. That he knew it would still be there. And we continued on in open water toward the horizon. He knew where we were going and how to return. The sun was setting, so he wanted to reach this spot before we turned around.
I texted your dad this morning and told him all this and he said he wished he could take us back to that spot, thinking, I think, that where the hat was was where you were. But I told him he knew the way. And that I thought he was so determined to carry on because he was going to pick up passengers - you and your brother Jesse on the way.
When I woke (on the boat, still in the dream) some of our things - sunglasses, water bottles, my hat, were sliding off the edge. I tried to grab them before they fell out and I caught most of it except my hat which went rushing away behind us.
But your dad told me not to worry, he knew exactly where it was and we would pick it up on our way back. That he knew it would still be there. And we continued on in open water toward the horizon. He knew where we were going and how to return. The sun was setting, so he wanted to reach this spot before we turned around.
I texted your dad this morning and told him all this and he said he wished he could take us back to that spot, thinking, I think, that where the hat was was where you were. But I told him he knew the way. And that I thought he was so determined to carry on because he was going to pick up passengers - you and your brother Jesse on the way.
Tuesday, September 26, 2017
Chritmas Memories
Little sweetheart, I’m thinking today, remembering our last Christmas. I wanted, as I always did, to get you something nice from our London friend’s jewelry store in Oxford Circus. I had a thought to get you a silver charm bracelet with a couple of inaugural charms but it was taking forever for it to arrive and I wasn’t at all sure it would make to California in time for the holiday.
So, I also, as ever, was keeping lookout to see what might be catching your eye in the days leading up or any kind of clue. You mentioned something about wishing you had a nice angora sweater. It was only something in passing. Maybe you had a bit of a chill or perhaps we saw a girl in one that you fancied. Anyway, I immediately got in touch with your best friend Danya to see if she knew where I could find you one. She pointed me to some retailer, I can’t remember now who, and I got you a pink one in small. I gave it to you on Christmas day and you loved it. Far more than the charm bracelet, actually, when it finally did turn up.
We were also working very intently on the band’s new EP at the time and you had begun to write songs yourself. You had begun asking me what instrument you should get, you wanted to learn to play something but you weren’t interested in guitar or bass. I really liked the idea of you playing a small drum kit, standing up like Mimi from Low. And I also told you about vibes - an idea you liked a lot until we saw how expensive they are and not exactly super portable.
You wound up getting a keyboard. A neat one, a Privia. It had a gig bag case with wheels - you could zip the keyboard up in it, turn it on one end and drag it away. You had that well before Christmas. I think your mom got it for you, and you’d already written two songs on it. You set it up on the kitchen table at your parents house over the holidays it retained place of pride there throughout. You’d sit behind it and play and sing. Sometimes when we were there on our own, I’d plug my practice electric into a little 9 volt amp and we’d play together.
One thing I thought about and really wish I’d done was to get you a microphone for Christmas, too. Maybe you could plug it into an amp or use it with an interface on your MacBook Air or have it when we were in a practice space or here in the studio through the band’s PA. Mostly, it was just for you to have and it to be yours. I think the practicality of it was why I didn’t get it for you - I wasn’t sure how you’d immediately use it. But I regret now not just getting it for you as a gesture. One of the things on your list to your dad was a loop station and he got it for you. Your thought about that - because I’d told you about it - was to use it purely for vocals so you could sing harmonies with yourself. I think we’d have needed a USB mic for that but regardless I wish I’d gotten you the Shure 58.
You sure did look good - and happy! - in that little pink angora sweater, though. With all my love forever….
So, I also, as ever, was keeping lookout to see what might be catching your eye in the days leading up or any kind of clue. You mentioned something about wishing you had a nice angora sweater. It was only something in passing. Maybe you had a bit of a chill or perhaps we saw a girl in one that you fancied. Anyway, I immediately got in touch with your best friend Danya to see if she knew where I could find you one. She pointed me to some retailer, I can’t remember now who, and I got you a pink one in small. I gave it to you on Christmas day and you loved it. Far more than the charm bracelet, actually, when it finally did turn up.
We were also working very intently on the band’s new EP at the time and you had begun to write songs yourself. You had begun asking me what instrument you should get, you wanted to learn to play something but you weren’t interested in guitar or bass. I really liked the idea of you playing a small drum kit, standing up like Mimi from Low. And I also told you about vibes - an idea you liked a lot until we saw how expensive they are and not exactly super portable.
You wound up getting a keyboard. A neat one, a Privia. It had a gig bag case with wheels - you could zip the keyboard up in it, turn it on one end and drag it away. You had that well before Christmas. I think your mom got it for you, and you’d already written two songs on it. You set it up on the kitchen table at your parents house over the holidays it retained place of pride there throughout. You’d sit behind it and play and sing. Sometimes when we were there on our own, I’d plug my practice electric into a little 9 volt amp and we’d play together.
One thing I thought about and really wish I’d done was to get you a microphone for Christmas, too. Maybe you could plug it into an amp or use it with an interface on your MacBook Air or have it when we were in a practice space or here in the studio through the band’s PA. Mostly, it was just for you to have and it to be yours. I think the practicality of it was why I didn’t get it for you - I wasn’t sure how you’d immediately use it. But I regret now not just getting it for you as a gesture. One of the things on your list to your dad was a loop station and he got it for you. Your thought about that - because I’d told you about it - was to use it purely for vocals so you could sing harmonies with yourself. I think we’d have needed a USB mic for that but regardless I wish I’d gotten you the Shure 58.
You sure did look good - and happy! - in that little pink angora sweater, though. With all my love forever….
Saturday, September 23, 2017
Theatre Dreams
I had a dream last night little sweetheart. I was doing a play somewhere. Somewhere familiar from my past, as if I’d been there before. A little bit like DC, I think. The important thing is tho, that it was a play of Tom Stoppard’s and he was there. I think we might’ve been rehearsing and there was a break. I was alone with him in a room, kind of more like a hall. It was quiet and dark as if we’d left the theatre itself and were keeping our voices down and wandering alone with our thoughts when we found ourselves there together. And… I reminded him about you. I spoke your name. I told him how much you loved doing “Rock n Roll”. We hugged and I cried. “She loved you”, I said. And I told him how much I loved and missed you. It was kind of wonderful. It reminded me of your story of him backstage in Boston. Like he was on the other side of a fence or something, came back to talk to you. I love it when you’re in my dreams in any way at all. I brings me near you.
Friday, September 22, 2017
Inside The Sadness
Little sweetheart, I’m trying to push through something and I think I’m hitting upon an idea - one I’ve known in my heart but I need to fully integrate.
It’s that it’s okay, more than okay, to be sad. How could I not be? But that further still, if I can go deeper, sitting in that sadness and taking it all onboard, drilling down and living it in without fear, that I will find something there, find you. Find my way to you and where you are.
The words that came to me and that I spoke aloud just now were this: “inside the sadness is a secret”.
Help me have strength and faith, little sweetheart, to hold my sadness without distraction and get to the place you’ve prepared for me. With faith and love I know you will find me, we will find each other. Help me be as courageous as you, my love. Help me find you. With all my love forever.
It’s that it’s okay, more than okay, to be sad. How could I not be? But that further still, if I can go deeper, sitting in that sadness and taking it all onboard, drilling down and living it in without fear, that I will find something there, find you. Find my way to you and where you are.
The words that came to me and that I spoke aloud just now were this: “inside the sadness is a secret”.
Help me have strength and faith, little sweetheart, to hold my sadness without distraction and get to the place you’ve prepared for me. With faith and love I know you will find me, we will find each other. Help me be as courageous as you, my love. Help me find you. With all my love forever.
Thursday, September 21, 2017
And When I Wake
Little sweetheart, often I fall asleep listening to an online radio station - SOMA-fm - based in our one-time home of San Francisco. They have several stations each dedicated to a genre. I like the Ambient one. It’s called Drone Zone. I’ll put it on in the background on my iPad next to the bed and it will play through the night.
Sometimes something will awaken me and I’ll be so taken with it that I’ll make a note of who it is and then look them up in the morning. That’s how I found Bass Communion’s Ghosts on Magnetic Tape and Chris Russell’s Adoration.
This morning when I awoke something lovely was playing. I looked over and it said This Summer Night.
May you always be near me, little sweetheart. Please guide me through the day and soon back to your side forever. All my love…
Sometimes something will awaken me and I’ll be so taken with it that I’ll make a note of who it is and then look them up in the morning. That’s how I found Bass Communion’s Ghosts on Magnetic Tape and Chris Russell’s Adoration.
This morning when I awoke something lovely was playing. I looked over and it said This Summer Night.
May you always be near me, little sweetheart. Please guide me through the day and soon back to your side forever. All my love…
Tuesday, September 19, 2017
Great Soul
Little sweetheart, I’m having difficulties. But you are the blessing of my life, even in my distraction and despair.
On Sunday, as I told you, I went up to that little church at West End and W77th St. The sermon was very interesting because one of the things he talked about was the scholarly origin of the Seven Deadly Sins. That it wasn’t set out as a fire and brimstone tract to excoriate us, even though it became appropriated and synonymous with that. It was really an attempt to identify what gets in our way habitually and how to free ourselves of what’s preventing us from being whole. He cited the word “pusillanimous”. A rather rare word to most people although as a couple of old theatre types like yourself and I, I think we’d recall its centrality to a speech in John Osborne’s “Look Back in Anger”.
What I didn’t know and what Osborne fails to share is that the Latin origin of the word is really something quite different from the modern, albeit rare, usage. It literally means “smallness of spirit”. The diminishing of our soul. And when we let things habitually sap this spirit that is not only inside but is the very essence of who and what we are - our very soul - we shrink and become lesser, less than what and who we truly are.
Little sweetheart, that happens to me. I get wrapped up in bad things, soul diminishing habits that keep me from hearing and heeding and following you and it makes me ache with longing and regret. Over and over I seem to keep banging up against the same pusillanimous walls. At least I ultimately recognize them and straighten myself out, get back on track, but how I wish I would just break the spell.
The thing I want to say that fills me with both regret and ultimately gratitude, is that you keep coming to me even as I fail. Last night you came to me in a dream that I can’t, sadly, so very sadly, recall nearly as well as I would like and need to. But the thing I do remember was that you were frustrated with me because you were trying to tell me something but I was distracted. Like checking emails or looking to see if I had a message or something. That fills me with regret. It’s enough to make me despair at my stupidity - that you would come to me in dreams but I would be too distracted (With what?! What could be more important than you?!) to heed or give you full attention.
But the hopeful part is that you were there. You did come for me. And though the day which also was filled with stupid distraction and no one’s fault but my own, that you kept on finding me. You were there at eleven eleven. And in birdsong and butterflies on my run. And my eye fell upon your picture at a crucial time and your words at another.
You don’t give up on me even when I’m not at my best. The very way you’d never give up on me in life. Indeed, in the moments I most needed you - even the ones against my stupid will - you never walked away or ever threatened to. You made your presence even more and greater known.
You are the exact opposite of pusillanimous because you are the greatest, fiercest, stoutest, most courageous spirit of all. You are The Great Soul.
Little sweetheart, I am so so sorry for all my mistakes. And eternally (literally) grateful for you and your resolutely never giving up on me. Thank you, my love. My I heed and follow and be worthy of you. This is my prayer. And I love you forever.
On Sunday, as I told you, I went up to that little church at West End and W77th St. The sermon was very interesting because one of the things he talked about was the scholarly origin of the Seven Deadly Sins. That it wasn’t set out as a fire and brimstone tract to excoriate us, even though it became appropriated and synonymous with that. It was really an attempt to identify what gets in our way habitually and how to free ourselves of what’s preventing us from being whole. He cited the word “pusillanimous”. A rather rare word to most people although as a couple of old theatre types like yourself and I, I think we’d recall its centrality to a speech in John Osborne’s “Look Back in Anger”.
What I didn’t know and what Osborne fails to share is that the Latin origin of the word is really something quite different from the modern, albeit rare, usage. It literally means “smallness of spirit”. The diminishing of our soul. And when we let things habitually sap this spirit that is not only inside but is the very essence of who and what we are - our very soul - we shrink and become lesser, less than what and who we truly are.
Little sweetheart, that happens to me. I get wrapped up in bad things, soul diminishing habits that keep me from hearing and heeding and following you and it makes me ache with longing and regret. Over and over I seem to keep banging up against the same pusillanimous walls. At least I ultimately recognize them and straighten myself out, get back on track, but how I wish I would just break the spell.
The thing I want to say that fills me with both regret and ultimately gratitude, is that you keep coming to me even as I fail. Last night you came to me in a dream that I can’t, sadly, so very sadly, recall nearly as well as I would like and need to. But the thing I do remember was that you were frustrated with me because you were trying to tell me something but I was distracted. Like checking emails or looking to see if I had a message or something. That fills me with regret. It’s enough to make me despair at my stupidity - that you would come to me in dreams but I would be too distracted (With what?! What could be more important than you?!) to heed or give you full attention.
But the hopeful part is that you were there. You did come for me. And though the day which also was filled with stupid distraction and no one’s fault but my own, that you kept on finding me. You were there at eleven eleven. And in birdsong and butterflies on my run. And my eye fell upon your picture at a crucial time and your words at another.
You don’t give up on me even when I’m not at my best. The very way you’d never give up on me in life. Indeed, in the moments I most needed you - even the ones against my stupid will - you never walked away or ever threatened to. You made your presence even more and greater known.
You are the exact opposite of pusillanimous because you are the greatest, fiercest, stoutest, most courageous spirit of all. You are The Great Soul.
Little sweetheart, I am so so sorry for all my mistakes. And eternally (literally) grateful for you and your resolutely never giving up on me. Thank you, my love. My I heed and follow and be worthy of you. This is my prayer. And I love you forever.
Sunday, September 17, 2017
Find Ways
Little sweetheart, I found myself hearing something that I think you meant for me. It was this: “find ways to be kind”.
You are the example and embodiment of kindness, my little sweetheart. So filled with empathy and love and acting always to bring others to a place of safety and assurance. You found and saved me, after all. And even if I’m very nearly completely broken again in your absence, it is in these moments when I remember your great goodness or quiet myself enough to hear you that I can feel again your healing power. And when I act accordingly, when I do find ways to be kind to others, I sense your presence. May I always do so, my love, until we are reunited in The Forever.
Today, as I walked up to that little church I told you about, I resolved to write that very thing down as my offered prayer request. I always write and pray for you and for your guidance and my delivery home to you in The Beautiful New Place.
Today I added this: “let me know that when I hear whispered words like these: “find ways to be kind” - that it is her (your) voice encouraging and guiding me. And that we will be together again and forever in just the blink of an eye.”
I needed to have that said aloud, little sweetheart, because I needed to testify. I needed to testify to your great goodness and commit myself to honoring and following you. You are my North Star. You are my conscience. You are my True One. Love you forever.
You are the example and embodiment of kindness, my little sweetheart. So filled with empathy and love and acting always to bring others to a place of safety and assurance. You found and saved me, after all. And even if I’m very nearly completely broken again in your absence, it is in these moments when I remember your great goodness or quiet myself enough to hear you that I can feel again your healing power. And when I act accordingly, when I do find ways to be kind to others, I sense your presence. May I always do so, my love, until we are reunited in The Forever.
Today, as I walked up to that little church I told you about, I resolved to write that very thing down as my offered prayer request. I always write and pray for you and for your guidance and my delivery home to you in The Beautiful New Place.
Today I added this: “let me know that when I hear whispered words like these: “find ways to be kind” - that it is her (your) voice encouraging and guiding me. And that we will be together again and forever in just the blink of an eye.”
I needed to have that said aloud, little sweetheart, because I needed to testify. I needed to testify to your great goodness and commit myself to honoring and following you. You are my North Star. You are my conscience. You are my True One. Love you forever.
Wednesday, September 6, 2017
God Bless
Little sweetheart, I got the sad news tonight from your mom that Bogie, one of their sweet little kitties, passed away last night after getting run over by a car in front of the house. Bogie and his buddy Ilsa are two kittens your mom got a few years ago after Lucky passed away and Luke disappeared. They were very different - Bogie quite friendly, Ilsa a bit more skittish - but loved playing together.
I think Bogie was maybe my favorite cat ever. The first time I met him, when I had come out to California super-secret awaiting your Dad's surprise birthday party, as I drove up in the rental car, Bogie came walking right up to meet me. He'd often follow me around. Your mom usually has me stay in your room when I visit (which I love and honor) and Bogie would jump right up on the bed when I was in there. Often, if the door was closed, I'd find him right outside waiting for me. Or if I wasn't sure where he was, I'd look under the bed, because he liked to sneak in and hide there, so he could surprise me. After my morning run, I'd take Gidget for a walk in the orchard and Bogie would follow along too. And at night when your mom and dad and I would watch a story from the couch, Bogie would jump right up into my lap. Sometimes he'd jump up right behind my head and crawl down over my shoulder. After I came home to New York in January, your dad texted me to say that Bogie had been sitting all night in my spot on the couch waiting for me to pet him. He was an awfully good little fella, sweetheart.
I always miss you but I often feel it even more keenly when I'm in California and with your folks. It seemed like Bogie was very attune to that and keeping me company. Remember how I told you a few days ago that I found a sweet little bird that'd passed away on the sidewalk and that I carried him to a flowerbed and found myself saying "God bless your soul?" I'm thinking that about that again, that we are all God's creatures and that in the same way I think you sometimes help me by getting my attention with birdsong or maybe even little Bogie.
I suspect you and he may already have gotten to know each other. Can't wait to be with you both. With all my love forever.
I think Bogie was maybe my favorite cat ever. The first time I met him, when I had come out to California super-secret awaiting your Dad's surprise birthday party, as I drove up in the rental car, Bogie came walking right up to meet me. He'd often follow me around. Your mom usually has me stay in your room when I visit (which I love and honor) and Bogie would jump right up on the bed when I was in there. Often, if the door was closed, I'd find him right outside waiting for me. Or if I wasn't sure where he was, I'd look under the bed, because he liked to sneak in and hide there, so he could surprise me. After my morning run, I'd take Gidget for a walk in the orchard and Bogie would follow along too. And at night when your mom and dad and I would watch a story from the couch, Bogie would jump right up into my lap. Sometimes he'd jump up right behind my head and crawl down over my shoulder. After I came home to New York in January, your dad texted me to say that Bogie had been sitting all night in my spot on the couch waiting for me to pet him. He was an awfully good little fella, sweetheart.
I always miss you but I often feel it even more keenly when I'm in California and with your folks. It seemed like Bogie was very attune to that and keeping me company. Remember how I told you a few days ago that I found a sweet little bird that'd passed away on the sidewalk and that I carried him to a flowerbed and found myself saying "God bless your soul?" I'm thinking that about that again, that we are all God's creatures and that in the same way I think you sometimes help me by getting my attention with birdsong or maybe even little Bogie.
I suspect you and he may already have gotten to know each other. Can't wait to be with you both. With all my love forever.
Tuesday, September 5, 2017
The Return
It's September, little sweetheart. Yesterday was Labor Day. It's already cooling off and feeling like autumn. And I have this feeling - don't we often? - that this time of year brings into focus all we need to accomplish, all our goals, and a resolution to work diligently toward achieving them. A kind of "back-to-school" vibe, right?
Let me take up that banner, little sweetheart, as I strive to honor and listen for you. Let me keep working and writing and recording and doing all the things I know to keep the flame alive and to be a better person, the kind of person you were helping and still are helping me to become. And may I dig deep in faith to know that I will be with you again and forever in just the blink of an eye.
You are my reason, my conscience, my soul's mate, my everything. God bless you and keep you, my love. Please come for me soon. With all my love.
Let me take up that banner, little sweetheart, as I strive to honor and listen for you. Let me keep working and writing and recording and doing all the things I know to keep the flame alive and to be a better person, the kind of person you were helping and still are helping me to become. And may I dig deep in faith to know that I will be with you again and forever in just the blink of an eye.
You are my reason, my conscience, my soul's mate, my everything. God bless you and keep you, my love. Please come for me soon. With all my love.
Thursday, August 31, 2017
Everything Hurts
Little sweetheart, I sometimes wonder if mornings will ever ache less than they do and have every single morning since your tragic passing. I open my eyes and simply despair each day. I try to quiet myself and say our prayer and then turn to your side of the bed and quietly talk to you, softly touching your things there. Telling you how much I love you and asking you to be with me and take me to you as soon as heaven will allow.
Every morning I say these words to you, that I don't like it here without you and only want to be with you. This morning, even before those words, I found myself saying this: "nothing works and everything hurts".
So very often, little sweetheart, I simply don't know what to do. But I say our prayer and kiss your pictures good morning and make coffee and try to go about the day - writing for you, writing about you, writing to you. Working on the new album. This morning I also wrote a letter to your mom. I bought her a book I know she wants. I got it yesterday at The Strand and I'm sending it all off to her this afternoon.
I'll do my work and little errands and go for a run and make myself dinner and fall away to sleep again tonight. I just wish you would come for me in my sleep and take me to you. I don't like it here without you. I don't like it here at all. I miss and need and long for you. Please, please come soon.
With all my love forever.
Every morning I say these words to you, that I don't like it here without you and only want to be with you. This morning, even before those words, I found myself saying this: "nothing works and everything hurts".
So very often, little sweetheart, I simply don't know what to do. But I say our prayer and kiss your pictures good morning and make coffee and try to go about the day - writing for you, writing about you, writing to you. Working on the new album. This morning I also wrote a letter to your mom. I bought her a book I know she wants. I got it yesterday at The Strand and I'm sending it all off to her this afternoon.
I'll do my work and little errands and go for a run and make myself dinner and fall away to sleep again tonight. I just wish you would come for me in my sleep and take me to you. I don't like it here without you. I don't like it here at all. I miss and need and long for you. Please, please come soon.
With all my love forever.
Monday, August 28, 2017
Just an Hiatus
Little sweetheart, walking home yesterday I saw this sign about a class being on break over the season. "On Summer Hiatus" it said. And that's how I should think of this, too, isn't it, my love? You're just a little ways away. We're just a heartbeat apart. It's just a Summer Hiatus. And I'll be with you soon, again and forever in just the blink of an eye. Isn't that right? I just need to quiet myself and do good things while I'm waiting, things that will make you proud of me and keep your spirit close. And soon, so very soon, I'll be back at your side. Isn't that so, my darling? With all my love forever.
Sunday, August 27, 2017
God Bless Your Soul
Little sweetheart, this morning on the way to that little church I’ve told you about, I found a pretty little bird passed away on the middle of the sidewalk. It was up around W.71st Street on West End Avenue. A lot of people were out with their kids and strollers and dogs and I walked past at first because I was late. But I turned back about a block later.
I found a soft little piece of wax paper and carefully picked him up. He didn’t look injured or hurt at all. His feathers were still very beautiful. It was almost as if he were sleeping. Anyway, I gently picked him up and carried him over to an nearby flower bed. And I found myself saving quietly “God bless your soul.”
And that’s right, isn’t it, little sweetheart? We’re all God’s creatures, aren't we? The lovely birds that sing so sweetly and remind me you are nearer than I can imagine, they are among us and souled as as we.
God bless your soul, my darling. And God bless the soul of our little friend, I hope he sings to you today in The Forever. And I hope you might take me to you just as soon as heaven will allow.
With all my love forever.
I found a soft little piece of wax paper and carefully picked him up. He didn’t look injured or hurt at all. His feathers were still very beautiful. It was almost as if he were sleeping. Anyway, I gently picked him up and carried him over to an nearby flower bed. And I found myself saving quietly “God bless your soul.”
And that’s right, isn’t it, little sweetheart? We’re all God’s creatures, aren't we? The lovely birds that sing so sweetly and remind me you are nearer than I can imagine, they are among us and souled as as we.
God bless your soul, my darling. And God bless the soul of our little friend, I hope he sings to you today in The Forever. And I hope you might take me to you just as soon as heaven will allow.
With all my love forever.
Thursday, August 24, 2017
Driving Dream
Another dream last night, little sweetheart, that I begin both to recognize as recurrent and understand what it meant to tell me.
You and I are together in a big car, like an SUV, like the Rendezvous, perhaps. I’m driving but we’re both in the back. Like all the way in the back in the third seat. As far away from the steering wheel and brakes and accelerator as one can get and still be inside the car. We’re driving or I’m driving and you’re riding next to me and we’re hurtling along. And not like on some easy, abandoned stretch of road. We’re on a highway or the freeway with lots of traffic and we’re going fast.
I realize that this is a recurring dream not only because I just told you about another one similar to it when I dreamt I was with your brother Jesse, but because it’s an anxiety that is familiar from other dreams. I realize I have it a lot - driving at high speed impaired either because I can’t see where I’m going or because, like this, I’m far away from the wheel. It’s really a familiar anxiety. One of those that comes from dreams and still has you wound up after you wake but forgotten and unnamed.
Anyway, we’re speeding down the freeway and I’m feeling out of control and wondering how I got here, reaching over the seats to steer but afraid I’ll have to let go to actually move up and sit in front. And you’re at my side in the back but not at all worried. You’re quite calm. And that’s helping me.
Which is something I remember and recognize about being with you in life. Not that you never got upset or we never argued or something but just in the important times you were always there helping me. And in another thousand circumstances where I’d immediately start tensing up because anybody else I’d ever known would start yelling at me or blaming or something, you wouldn’t. You’d help and not get upset. You were kind and supportive and just with me when things mattered most. Unlike the others - everyone of them with one foot out the door at all times and ever keen to remind me - yours was not a fickle love.
And in the dream, your calm demeanor is what helped me, helped us. Presently, we were approaching a fork in the highway where we had to either continue on or veer off on an exit ramp. You thought we should make the turn, so that’s what we did, we took the exit ramp. And somehow we wound up inside the subway. Like drove down the stairs and onto the platform. Drove where cars aren’t supposed to be.
There was a a policeman on the platform but he wasn’t angry with us. He just directed us to turn left and we wound up in a much bigger expanse - like a concourse. Kind of like Grand Central but I think we were actually in Boston. Maybe it was the concourse at South Station.
We’d slowed down by then, just crawling along as if we were looking for a place to park. Not out of control or anything. And nobody seemed too bothered. Then you very calmly asked if we could stop so you could get us something to eat. I think maybe you’d seen a place that had frozen yogurt. Ha! So very like you, my little sweetheart. I pulled over and you said you’d bring me back something.
So, I waited for you. And now I see that’s the other part. What I’m supposed to understand.
It’s all about faith. Even when I’m hurtling through life feeling lost and out of control because I don’t have you here to help and guide and direct me, I just need to listen. Because you are here. Closer than I can imagine. Even if I can’t see or control things, you are near, you are at my side if I just quiet myself, I’ll hear you. And you are calm and with me and guiding me safely where I , where we, need to go. And if I just wait patiently like you told me to, you’ll be back in just a minute with something good for us both that we can share. I don’t have to worry. I just need to have faith. I just need like always to believe in you. And I do.
You and I are together in a big car, like an SUV, like the Rendezvous, perhaps. I’m driving but we’re both in the back. Like all the way in the back in the third seat. As far away from the steering wheel and brakes and accelerator as one can get and still be inside the car. We’re driving or I’m driving and you’re riding next to me and we’re hurtling along. And not like on some easy, abandoned stretch of road. We’re on a highway or the freeway with lots of traffic and we’re going fast.
I realize that this is a recurring dream not only because I just told you about another one similar to it when I dreamt I was with your brother Jesse, but because it’s an anxiety that is familiar from other dreams. I realize I have it a lot - driving at high speed impaired either because I can’t see where I’m going or because, like this, I’m far away from the wheel. It’s really a familiar anxiety. One of those that comes from dreams and still has you wound up after you wake but forgotten and unnamed.
Anyway, we’re speeding down the freeway and I’m feeling out of control and wondering how I got here, reaching over the seats to steer but afraid I’ll have to let go to actually move up and sit in front. And you’re at my side in the back but not at all worried. You’re quite calm. And that’s helping me.
Which is something I remember and recognize about being with you in life. Not that you never got upset or we never argued or something but just in the important times you were always there helping me. And in another thousand circumstances where I’d immediately start tensing up because anybody else I’d ever known would start yelling at me or blaming or something, you wouldn’t. You’d help and not get upset. You were kind and supportive and just with me when things mattered most. Unlike the others - everyone of them with one foot out the door at all times and ever keen to remind me - yours was not a fickle love.
And in the dream, your calm demeanor is what helped me, helped us. Presently, we were approaching a fork in the highway where we had to either continue on or veer off on an exit ramp. You thought we should make the turn, so that’s what we did, we took the exit ramp. And somehow we wound up inside the subway. Like drove down the stairs and onto the platform. Drove where cars aren’t supposed to be.
There was a a policeman on the platform but he wasn’t angry with us. He just directed us to turn left and we wound up in a much bigger expanse - like a concourse. Kind of like Grand Central but I think we were actually in Boston. Maybe it was the concourse at South Station.
We’d slowed down by then, just crawling along as if we were looking for a place to park. Not out of control or anything. And nobody seemed too bothered. Then you very calmly asked if we could stop so you could get us something to eat. I think maybe you’d seen a place that had frozen yogurt. Ha! So very like you, my little sweetheart. I pulled over and you said you’d bring me back something.
So, I waited for you. And now I see that’s the other part. What I’m supposed to understand.
It’s all about faith. Even when I’m hurtling through life feeling lost and out of control because I don’t have you here to help and guide and direct me, I just need to listen. Because you are here. Closer than I can imagine. Even if I can’t see or control things, you are near, you are at my side if I just quiet myself, I’ll hear you. And you are calm and with me and guiding me safely where I , where we, need to go. And if I just wait patiently like you told me to, you’ll be back in just a minute with something good for us both that we can share. I don’t have to worry. I just need to have faith. I just need like always to believe in you. And I do.
Thursday, August 17, 2017
Surprise!
Little sweetheart, I just saw this picture of us in London, last night of our first visit there together.
I had to meet up with some RADA folks and you were meeting me back in Kentish Town at The Boston Arms. I called you on my English cellphone just before I got on the Tube. Although you weren't much a drinker, usually, that night you were already a couple of cocktails in and finding yourself very popular, you told me, with the regulars, mostly silver haired Irish pensioners. You commandeered a booth and this is how you greeted me. With our hosts, we made something of a night of it, winding up later at The Star, remember?
Help me find my way to where you are, won't you, little sweetheart? Save me a seat next to you. Love you forever.
I had to meet up with some RADA folks and you were meeting me back in Kentish Town at The Boston Arms. I called you on my English cellphone just before I got on the Tube. Although you weren't much a drinker, usually, that night you were already a couple of cocktails in and finding yourself very popular, you told me, with the regulars, mostly silver haired Irish pensioners. You commandeered a booth and this is how you greeted me. With our hosts, we made something of a night of it, winding up later at The Star, remember?
Help me find my way to where you are, won't you, little sweetheart? Save me a seat next to you. Love you forever.
Wednesday, August 16, 2017
Your Mom's Birthday
Today is your Mom’s birthday, little sweetheart. I have it circled on the calendar and I think it’s very likely that I am more excited about it than she.
I love your parents, little sweetheart. They are so very dear to me. And I think doubly so because when I do things for them it reminds me of the joy I had in doing little things for you. Cooking for you or surprising you with a gift. Maybe noticing how some little something caught your eye and making a note of it so I could get it and give it to you right away.
There’s a beautiful catalogue that your Mom has gotten for years and that I saw early on when I was visiting them quite a while ago. I got myself on their mailing list and I often look for things there I think she might like. It’s a kind of vintage Victorian sundries catalogue filled with little antiquities and beautiful prints here all the girls look like you as if you’d just stepped out of the late 1800’s.
I got her what looks to be a pretty painting of a kind of angel/siren keeping watch on a distant shore, a lute by her side. And it’s also lighted - it has a little lamp behind the canvas. I also got her a DVD of that movie I told you about, that documentary about Peter Bogdanovich. And I found a beautiful card, a New Yorker cover that’s an illustration of a girl whose red tresses are a kaleidoscope of monarch butterflies. It’s magical and so very much looks like you. So does the angel, of course. I wrote her a long letter, too and put it inside. And there’s a lovely company I found called Bake Me A Wish, that makes and delivered birthday cakes via UPS overnight packed in dry ice to keep them fresh. If I’m not in California to make your parents a cake on their birthday, I always send one - chocolate for your dad, vanilla bean, like this one, for your mom.
I’m going to give her call in an hour or so after I know she’s around and sing her Happy Birthday.
All these things make me feel so very close to you, my love. You are Goodness itself and when I act in kindness and love I feel your presence double fold. All redounds to you. With all my love forever.
I love your parents, little sweetheart. They are so very dear to me. And I think doubly so because when I do things for them it reminds me of the joy I had in doing little things for you. Cooking for you or surprising you with a gift. Maybe noticing how some little something caught your eye and making a note of it so I could get it and give it to you right away.
There’s a beautiful catalogue that your Mom has gotten for years and that I saw early on when I was visiting them quite a while ago. I got myself on their mailing list and I often look for things there I think she might like. It’s a kind of vintage Victorian sundries catalogue filled with little antiquities and beautiful prints here all the girls look like you as if you’d just stepped out of the late 1800’s.
I got her what looks to be a pretty painting of a kind of angel/siren keeping watch on a distant shore, a lute by her side. And it’s also lighted - it has a little lamp behind the canvas. I also got her a DVD of that movie I told you about, that documentary about Peter Bogdanovich. And I found a beautiful card, a New Yorker cover that’s an illustration of a girl whose red tresses are a kaleidoscope of monarch butterflies. It’s magical and so very much looks like you. So does the angel, of course. I wrote her a long letter, too and put it inside. And there’s a lovely company I found called Bake Me A Wish, that makes and delivered birthday cakes via UPS overnight packed in dry ice to keep them fresh. If I’m not in California to make your parents a cake on their birthday, I always send one - chocolate for your dad, vanilla bean, like this one, for your mom.
I’m going to give her call in an hour or so after I know she’s around and sing her Happy Birthday.
All these things make me feel so very close to you, my love. You are Goodness itself and when I act in kindness and love I feel your presence double fold. All redounds to you. With all my love forever.
Tuesday, August 15, 2017
Lost
Little sweetheart, I’m running aground again. So badly. So badly, I couldn’t even speak of it until now when I think, I hope, I’m finally turning a corner.
Sometimes, my darling, I’m just plunged into despair. Even, maybe especially, in moments when just before I seemed to have gotten myself together. I’m not drinking or about to hurt myself but I just lapse into other, slightly less mortal but altogether unhappy habits, simply out of loneliness and emptiness and a feeling there’s no where it turn.
And I know that’s not true! In my better moments, I do know exactly where to turn - to you. To simply quiet myself and listen. You’ll find me there, won’t you?
Please help me to remember that, little sweetheart. Please help me to go on past the darkest moments when I’m so overwhelmed by my grief and solitude and hopelessness and to know it’s okay to feel this awful because it is awful. But it’s not the end. You stand at the other side of this divide and will catch me when I fall. I just need to push through, have faith.
It’s hard. It’s supposed to be hard. How could it not be?! But your shining soul, your infinite goodness remains. Please help me remember that, little sweetheart. Even if I need to crumple in a heap to the floor and lay there weeping, help me to pass through, feeling all of it, to the other side and find you. You are my light. I love you with all my heart and soul.
Please help me to do better. For you. For us both. With all my love forever. Unto The Forever…
Sometimes, my darling, I’m just plunged into despair. Even, maybe especially, in moments when just before I seemed to have gotten myself together. I’m not drinking or about to hurt myself but I just lapse into other, slightly less mortal but altogether unhappy habits, simply out of loneliness and emptiness and a feeling there’s no where it turn.
And I know that’s not true! In my better moments, I do know exactly where to turn - to you. To simply quiet myself and listen. You’ll find me there, won’t you?
Please help me to remember that, little sweetheart. Please help me to go on past the darkest moments when I’m so overwhelmed by my grief and solitude and hopelessness and to know it’s okay to feel this awful because it is awful. But it’s not the end. You stand at the other side of this divide and will catch me when I fall. I just need to push through, have faith.
It’s hard. It’s supposed to be hard. How could it not be?! But your shining soul, your infinite goodness remains. Please help me remember that, little sweetheart. Even if I need to crumple in a heap to the floor and lay there weeping, help me to pass through, feeling all of it, to the other side and find you. You are my light. I love you with all my heart and soul.
Please help me to do better. For you. For us both. With all my love forever. Unto The Forever…
Tuesday, August 8, 2017
Running Out of Pens
Little sweetheart, the last thing I want to do is jinx this by speaking of it too soon but I’ve been on a writing jag, of late. That’s why I’ve been posting here slightly less frequently the last week or two. I’ve actually been writing of and to you even more, not less! Just all in a torrent that is finally breaking through. I had to be more notebooks and I keep running out of pens. It’s a good feeling but there’s lots of work to do. There are worries that this work will kill me but I’m ready to go anytime. I know the euphoria may well turn to despair. I love feeling so close to you and remembering things but know from experience how those feelings can turn into a riptide, undertow of grief in the blink of an eye. I know those moments will come and I will have to lay down and take them. But please help me to rise and again, after, and to have the courage to continue. Please be with me, my darling. Please help me to honor and conjure you. And take me to you the moment Heaven will allow.
Sunday, August 6, 2017
Just Like Waiting For The Bus...
Little sweetheart, it's a new month. I guess it has been all week.
I'm trying my best to be quiet and listen for you. I know you try to find and comfort and encourage me in every way you can and know how. It's hard because you are eternal and I'm still stuck in the mortal world. I say it every morning when I wake - I don't like it here without you, please take me to you. I just want to pass through death to the other side and be with you always.
While I'm here, I just want to honor and feel as close as possible now to you. Remember I told you after my mom died - I remember exactly where we were, I was driving her car up the big hill in the little town where she had lived, to pick up the suit and dress you and I had brought for her funeral - I told you that with my mom now gone, I knew that I had, more than anything, to be with you as much as possible. However that needed to be, even if it was flying out to see you every weekend (like a congressman going home to his district) until you could move to New York. Whatever it might be, I needed to be near you, with you, now, always. It just seems the cruelest thing that only ten months later, you too passed.
Little sweetheart, it's a new month. I don't want any more time on this earth without you. But if I must be here, if I must wait, then I want to use the time as best I can and in a way that pleases and makes you proud.
I've been working both on the book and on the new album. The last week or so I've been mostly tracking bass on the songs and adding some other guitar and vocal parts, but mostly I'm in the bass phase. This computer is getting full. I need to upgrade its hard drive, so I'm trying to get to a place with progress on the album that I can be okay leaving off for a week while the MacBook Pro is in the shop getting the upgrade. I bought a keyboard for my iPad, so that during that week, probably this coming one, I can turn my full attention to the book and type up the entire chapter I've just written out by hand in my notebook, filling it. I'll also burn playlists to disc of the album in progress, so that I can work out and practice more vocal and instrumental parts, so I'm ready to resume recording when I get the laptop back.
Please help and be with me, won't you, my darling? I need you more than ever. And if it's time to fly to you - perfect! All this is just to keep me doing the right thing while I wait for you. I thought about it the other day when I was out for a walk. I said it aloud (I talk to myself a lot now and also to you): I just need to think of my life now as if I'm simply waiting for the bus. The bus that will take me to you. It'll be here soon enough. I needn't get anxious or upset. I need to just wait patiently and know you will come for me.
While I wait, these are some good things to do, I think. Let me know, won't you little sweetheart? Let me know your will so that I might follow. Always. Always. With all my love forever.
I'm trying my best to be quiet and listen for you. I know you try to find and comfort and encourage me in every way you can and know how. It's hard because you are eternal and I'm still stuck in the mortal world. I say it every morning when I wake - I don't like it here without you, please take me to you. I just want to pass through death to the other side and be with you always.
While I'm here, I just want to honor and feel as close as possible now to you. Remember I told you after my mom died - I remember exactly where we were, I was driving her car up the big hill in the little town where she had lived, to pick up the suit and dress you and I had brought for her funeral - I told you that with my mom now gone, I knew that I had, more than anything, to be with you as much as possible. However that needed to be, even if it was flying out to see you every weekend (like a congressman going home to his district) until you could move to New York. Whatever it might be, I needed to be near you, with you, now, always. It just seems the cruelest thing that only ten months later, you too passed.
Little sweetheart, it's a new month. I don't want any more time on this earth without you. But if I must be here, if I must wait, then I want to use the time as best I can and in a way that pleases and makes you proud.
I've been working both on the book and on the new album. The last week or so I've been mostly tracking bass on the songs and adding some other guitar and vocal parts, but mostly I'm in the bass phase. This computer is getting full. I need to upgrade its hard drive, so I'm trying to get to a place with progress on the album that I can be okay leaving off for a week while the MacBook Pro is in the shop getting the upgrade. I bought a keyboard for my iPad, so that during that week, probably this coming one, I can turn my full attention to the book and type up the entire chapter I've just written out by hand in my notebook, filling it. I'll also burn playlists to disc of the album in progress, so that I can work out and practice more vocal and instrumental parts, so I'm ready to resume recording when I get the laptop back.
Please help and be with me, won't you, my darling? I need you more than ever. And if it's time to fly to you - perfect! All this is just to keep me doing the right thing while I wait for you. I thought about it the other day when I was out for a walk. I said it aloud (I talk to myself a lot now and also to you): I just need to think of my life now as if I'm simply waiting for the bus. The bus that will take me to you. It'll be here soon enough. I needn't get anxious or upset. I need to just wait patiently and know you will come for me.
While I wait, these are some good things to do, I think. Let me know, won't you little sweetheart? Let me know your will so that I might follow. Always. Always. With all my love forever.
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