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…

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.

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/

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.

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

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.

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.

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. 

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.

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….