Our Morning Bird

Little sweetheart, I think I’ve told you how much I’ve come to be enchanted by birdsong and look forward to seeing the beautiful sparrows and starlings and magical cardinals when I’m running or out for a long walk. Once last summertime, I ventured into the northernmost part of Riverside Park and saw several cardinals, one after the other, singing sweetly to one another. When I got home I excited wrote down “Saw a cardinal today!” and attached the note to the door to remind me that there’s always something to be grateful for - you! 

Sometimes a little avian friend will perch just outside the window and I’ll see and hear him as I sit here working at my desk. I’ll go quiet and move gently toward the blinds, careful not to startle him, as I try to get a better look. 

For the last little while, still in bed in the early mornings just after daybreak, I’ll hear a little friend chirping sweetly, excitedly, with musical trills and happy whistles. But I can never see him! I think he favors a place just under the housing for the air conditioner outside. I think he’s made himself a little home just under the sheath there, protected against the elements, and alights to sing his morning song. 

I read somewhere that birds call to one another like that in the morning to let their partners know that they got through the night safely and are here, ready to join the day. I think that’s especially sweet and altogether resonant. 

I hear and feel your own presence often in birdsong, my little sweetheart, and it its this that is such a blessing to me. I know you see and hear and seek to guide me. I have faith! And I love you with all my heart and soul. Forever! Forever!

Honored and Grateful

Little sweetheart, we were terribly excited to discover that we were on WFMU’s great, long-running experimental radio program, Strength Through Failure, today. Indeed, we opened the show!!! 

The host (who goes by the semi-ironic pseudonym of “Fabio”) chose the track “The Dark Outside, The Light Within” from our new album, our 10th - Forests, Voices, Coastlines, Dreams: Recordings for The Dark Outside. 

We’ve been listening to this program, literally for decades, so it’s an incredible honor. The link to the show in its entirety follows here. 

Listen, little sweetheart - you’re on the radio!!!

Feb 14th

It’s Valentines Day, little sweetheart! I made those sugar cookies that you like using the heart shaped cookie cutters and frosted with pink icing. Sometimes I take a few over to the rectory at Sacred Heart but it still feels too close to the pandemic to be wandering over with homemade treats, however well intended. I did send flowers for both you and your mom and I think they got there safely. I’m keeping an eye out online for delivery confirmation! 

All this really just to say, I’m thinking of you, my love, on this day and every day. 

With all my love forever.

"Forests" charting!

Little sweetheart, there’s continued to be a groundswell of support for the new album - Forests, Voices, Coastlines, Dreams - as it has made the Heavily Played Albums charts of both WFMU and California’s KFJC, where it has charted just this week at 31. 

Listen, little sweetheart - you’re on the radio!!

 

Ash Wednesday (2022)

Little sweetheart, today is the first day of Lent - Ash Wednesday. These days of observation - especially Holy Week, which marks the end of Lent and continues on to Easter - have become increasingly important to me over the years. 

Ash Wednesday wasn’t something I knew well growing up. It was only after I found that little church up on West End Avenue and regularly attended their Ash Wednesday service that I came to understand its importance, feel its weight, find it resonant in strengthening my faith. And of course, there was the awful and surreal vision of seeing early morning visitors and healthcare personnel arriving with their foreheads marked by ash in the corridors of SF General the morning after your accident eleven years ago. That realization that Tuesday night had become Wednesday morning and indeed was Ash Wednesday itself, remains seared into my memory. 

It’s terribly sad, little sweetheart, but also underscores my belief that there is so much more beyond what, merely mortal, I can perceive with my senses. I know you see all. That you see me and do your best to comfort and guide me. Maybe the most important thing I routinely speak of in my prayers is a wish that I listen ever more closely for your voice and guidance. This day is a very good one to remind me of that. 

With all my love forever.

CAMP Radio Show #2

Little sweetheart, the second episode of our show for France’s CAMP Radio - Bipolar Explorer’s “The Other Room” - has aired and is now up on the station’s MixCloud. It’s actually charted in the Top 100 (at 73rd) in the global experimental charts. 

As ever, it’s an hour of experimental and ambient music, field recordings and otherness. Link here.  

 I love you!!