Second Glow

Little sweetheart, for years I have had a little glass candleholder cup that is just the right size for a tea light that I keep burning before a picture of you amongst your things and the hundreds of other photos of you here at The Shrine. For a long time it was in front of a picture of you taken by your mom in that park in SF that is high up on a hill where The Cliff House can been seen (not in this picture, but when one climbs up there, like you and I used to do sometimes, taking sandwiches from Roxies and having a little picnic).

That picture it at the base of the big full length mirror that I bought for you and now sits on top of the red table at one edge in the back, in the corner of the room. After I got hit by the car and came home from the hospital it was hard to get back over there, so I took a different framed picture of you - one you took yourself and sent me from your room in Carmel when you were doing “The Blue Room” down there, your red hair cascading all over - and set it up on the other side of the room by the speaker on top of the bookshelf because it was easier to reach in my hobbled condition.

Even though I can get around better now, I still like having your eternal flame there. Every time I pass I see it burning and when the tea light goes out, I immediately light a new one. I buy bags of tea lights at Bed, Bath & Beyond - where we went with a shopping list you drew up once when you’d examined my lack of baking equipment and procured everything we’d need. They come 100 to a bag and every month or two I go and grab a couple. I keep your light burning. Sometimes, if I’m in another room, I’ll smell the candle burning out and run to light a new one.

Lately I noticed two things. One is that sometimes when I light a new candle, a little black wisp of smoke from the match will trail off into the air in a spectral shape like a little soot-covered angel floating above the proceedings, blessing all.

And the other is that when the tea light is first lit, its flame glows wildly and then calms down to a very dim incandescence, before slowly, ever so slowly, beginning to grow and illuminate your picture, your beautiful face, brilliantly.

I stand there ever so watchful and mindful and prayerful. It makes me slow down and think about things, think about you, listen for your close counsel and presence.

In that second glow of the candle, I am reminded that although I can’t reach out and touch you just now, as I long to and once did, that you are near, that you haven’t gone away. But that like the tea light that honors you, you will come again and forever in that second glow if I just quiet myself and wait patiently. I will see. I will find you. I will know.

In the second glow, I will know. With faith and all my love forever.

An Anniversary of sorts...

Little sweetheart, as I'm working on our book, I have several notebooks going all at the same time. I'll switch from one to another as detail memories and events from different periods, working ahead in long hand as I periodically transfer long passages to type, editing and rewriting as I go.

Often little notes scrawled on index cards or postcards will fall out of one of the notebooks - some scrap of info or an idea I had wanted to get down in a hurry and save so it would inspire a passage when I got back to it later.

Yesterday, I found one of these. A pink post it that says "First Reh Jan 29th". That was to remind me of something I've already written about but that I set aside for today because today is January 29th. The note is to remind me that rehearsals for Tir na nOg began on this day in 2008.

You and I had first met, little sweetheart, about two months earlier, at the first reading of the play and then when I came back to San Francisco for a workshop of my own play, Seven Pages Unsigned, you were there in the audience. I was so surprised and delighted to see you!

Now, on this day, eleven years ago, we sat next to each other (something that I believe you yourself arranged by re-arranging the name tags around the table) and began the journey that would seal our souls together as one forever.

It's a mix of snow and rain, wintry and gray and cold outside today, little sweetheart. And as I type this and try to work myself up to attempting a run along the Hudson before the temps truly drop into something Arctic, I try to quiet myself and listen for your eternal and celestial presence.

Please be as near to me, at my very elbow, as you were eleven years ago this morning. I need you more than ever. And always. With all my love...

Video for "Our Oneness Can Never Be Erased"

Little sweetheart, I've been a bit remiss in assembling videos for the new albums. I very much wanted to do some for SOMETIMES IN DREAMS, but events, including getting run over by a car, delayed my efforts.

Finally, there's the first of them completed. It's for "Our Oneness Can Never Be Erased" and is up on our YouTube channel and the Slugg Records website. It's also here below.

And, as ever, all for you, my gorgeous girl. Love you forever!

To Do

Sometimes, little sweetheart, I’m deeply affected by thoughts of things we talked about but were never able to do together. It makes missing you all the more painful.

I wrote something down yesterday, a little note to myself, as I work fitfully on our book. It says: “Told me you would sing me to sleep”.

I remembered you writing that to me in a email, I think. Maybe a text. I think an email. Quite early on. I remember you saying that you had a picnic hamper that you wanted to load up and take out for a day with me somewhere.

We did do things like this, maybe not precisely as imagined, and all of the regret may be informed by the news that your friend Danya is expecting a son later this year. Knowing that you wanted to raise a child with me and that we never got to do that is a kind of ache that I carry with me always.

Missing you in a thousand ways. A thousand thousand. Love you forever.

The Comfort of Ritual

I’ve been reading, little sweetheart, and looking at the illustrations of an artist and author who lost his wife to cancer just a little over a year ago. He has two little girls to raise in her absence and while their grief is palpable and ever-present, there is also a kind of faith and eternal love equally forefront in all his work, as he tells his story day to day.

One recent post that caught my eye was how he had come to enjoy cooking and how it provided a great feeling of comfort. His experience is a bit different than ours - his wife was the cook for many years and it’s only now that he’s taken up the mantel - but the feeling of comfort is the same.

One of my favorite things to do ever was to cook for you. One time when a friend was visiting you here and the two of you were going to go out for a drink for a couple of hours to catch up before returning home, I was just taking dessert out of the oven and putting dinner in. She just looked at you and said “You get to come home to this? You’re so lucky!”.

I think she was wrong, though - I’m the lucky one, little sweetheart. And cooking now, be it for Sylvia or for your parents when I visit them or even just most nights when I’m here on my own, reminds me so much of you, and cooking for you and sitting down with you and having dinner together.

So many of our rituals remain and they comfort me, little sweetheart, in knowing that you are nearer than I can imagine. With all my love forever. 

Angel Frequency (video)

We put together and released a video for "Angel Frequency" today, little sweetheart.

As we hear your voice rise and shimmer amongst the soundscape of low backing vocals, overtones of guitar and synth over atmospheric loops, I hope the visuals take us on the kind of journey I imagine - the one that brings me home to you in my dreams.

With all my love forever.

Serious Moonlight Sonatas

For the last several months, little sweetheart, one of our newest champions has been WFMU’s Carol Crow, who has featured us some her Sunday morning show “Serious Moonlight Sonatas” several times, including just a week or two ago when she premiered our song “Angel Frequency” from the new album Til Morning Is Nigh on the air. Today, she wrote a really lovely review of the album. It’s below.

And, as ever, all for you, little sweetheart - the guiding light and great blessing of my life. With all my love forever.

TIL MORNING IS NIGH - BIPOLAR EXPLORER: "Ethereal music that sends the listener up towards the heavens to sit aloft on the clouds above.  A melodic conversation of sound is taking place with gleaming angels shining in the bright blue sky, dulcet voices taking form and weaving their golden threads in and out of the musical expanse, as if taking their cue from the sun's warmth as it beams forth.  A cloud coolly passes overhead for a moment and upon its passage, we feel the heat once again and the sun's rays shine even brighter than before.  A truly ascendant album to be listened to any time of year." -Carol Crow, WFMU

2019

2019 has begun, little sweetheart, and I hope to set out on a better year than the one just concluded.

In 28 months we’ve released four length albums, including a double-album. I’ve an eye toward the next one, our 9th, already but I so very much want this to be the year that we publish the first book of memoirs. I mean for the writing of that to be my top goal and priority this year.

I’m still recovering from getting hit by the car eight months ago. I’m still in physical therapy. It’s still hard. But I’ll keep doing the work and hopefully get back to as close I can to before it all happened and move forward with grace and prayerfulness and our plans.

With all my love forever.