About May 23

Little sweetheart, my mom died on this day 14 years ago. I've been thinking about it, of course - how you helped me and how cruel it was to lose you, too, just 10 months later. 

My little sweetheart, I don't post here enough - I'm working on our book and our music, but I'm tortured by the idea that I have not kept up this blog, too. I resolve to do better. In all things. 

Below are my notes about my mom. Love you forever. 

MAY 23rd, 2010:
14 years ago I was in London when I got the news, by email in the middle of the night, that my Mom had died.

I'd been up late, excited about starting rehearsals in the morning at The Finborough Theatre. Wilson Milam was directing my play "Seven Pages Unsigned" to help kickoff the theatre's 30th anniversary series - The Vibrant Festival. I'd only just arrived in London the day before. We - Wilson, I and the play - were featured in TimeOut and I sent the link to my mom. It was one of the last emails I ever sent to her.

I was still sending rewrites to Wilson and the actors that night because that was very much Wilson & me, changes right up to curtain - I had his new notes and had been writing all day. Summer was marked for the play, too - she'd read in Seattle and NYC, where we hoped to stage productions but she couldn't make this trip. It was still her part, wherever it finally went up and she knew that. No full production was going up without her - bottom line, understood. But this was a great development opportunity for Wilson and I to work on the play. And all three of us loved The Finbourough. Summer was keen to hear how it all went. And we had plans in NYC as soon as I got back in June - recording sessions for the new BPX record in Brooklyn.
 

Wilson and I cast a mostly RADA-centric cast, several of whom had been in my play DC at RADA two seasons before.

I was staying at my lifelong friends Binky St Joy and Kris's flat in Kentish Town. They were up in Wales for a few days but coming back for Vibrant. I'd see them in a day or two. I was alone in the flat and remember emailing and I think even texting Wilson (on my bottom-of-the-line free with a cell-plan VodaFone- Summer got one, too, from Orange, when we were last in London together, a few months before -we had to remember to pack and charge them the moment we got to England!) as we chatted about the play before I finally went to bed. There was a documentary about "Exile on Main Street" on Channel 4 and he was watching it, too, a huge Stones fan.
I finally went to bed and tried to sleep for a few hours, over-excited about the first day of rehearsal in the morning. I put Radio 4 on my MacBook and tried to get some rest. I slept fitfully, waking at some point and decided to check email.

My brother had written me in all caps: EMERGENCY! YOU MUST COME HOME NOW! Puzzled, I wrote back that it was after 2am, I was in London and what was up? Was Mom okay? "NO! COME HOME!" was the answer.

I couldn't call out on the landline because I didn't know how, so I woke Joy and Kris in Wales, dialing out on my UK cell to ask, saying I thought my mom was in hospital or perhaps, unthinkably, dead. I guess Joy told me how to dial out to the US. I don't remember but she must have. I don't remember talking to my brother but I must have. I do remember calling Summer and getting her voicemail. It was still early evening in SF and I didn't hear back for half an hour - she'd been at the theatre.

I think I've said the rest before - I told her the news and she immediately burst into tears and then told me to get on Skype. I did and there was my little sweetheart, the love of my life - thank god she and Mom got to know one another! "I want to see you drink an entire glass of water", she said, eventually. "And try to sleep. My mom is here with me and we will get you on a flight home. Sleep and I will watch you, I will watch you while you sleep", she said, my laptop remaining open.

Summer and Linda got me a flight and even booked a car to take me to Heathrow in the morning, a few hours away. At the airport, I texted Wilson - they'd stage the play without me - and wrote my mom's eulogy. Summer flew herself to Detroit. She and Linda had got me to JFK and I'd fly again the next morning- Summer wrote me, while I was in flight - to Detroit Metro to meet her.
She had brought my suit, hanging in her closet in SF. She slept that night in the airport, making friends with everyone working the overnight shift. When I saw her, I ran to her. I always did but this time remains especially burned into memory. I saw her before she saw me. I gathered her in my arms.

She'd brought a purple dress and my suit and we took them to the only drying cleaning place in town for a press. Later that day after my brother arrived and we talked, it was clear that he had no idea what to do. Summer was on it. My mom had a cottage on Lake Leeanne. She had hoped I would bring Summer out to see it and we thought that we would but, we ran out of time. I drove her out to see it. Summer loved the cottage. I imagined how much my Mom would've loved to see her there and pictured her any minute coming out of the house with a tray - "how about some root beer floats?" When we drove back, I saw an ice cream stand and took Summer for that very thing. That was the first day.

Summer was with me for the entire week as we planned my mom's funeral. I could not have done a thing without her. Her love was/is like the fucking sun. She saved me. My mom, more than anyone saw and knew that.

10 months later, Summer herself unbelievably, tragically passed.

I wasn't over my mom's death, honestly, when the second tragedy wiped out everything.
I once nearly drowned in the Atlantic. The first wave knocked me down but subsequent ones hit me with more force, making it impossible to see the surface and drawing me out to sea, toward my death. When I emerged, no one on the shore noticed, as if it hadn't happened.
I dunno. I guess your parents are meant to proceed you in death.

I don't think I was quite done mourning - I'm sorry, Mom - but losing Summer... what can I say? It was, it is, too much.

I miss my mom. I miss my little sweetheart. Love you both forever. Grief is the price we pay for love, yes?

Thank god for you both. And I know I will see you again - Faith! - soon and forever.

With love & faith....

London Radio

Little sweetheart, we’ve been getting some really nice airplay over the last couple of years in the UK, especially via a London station that our friend Kris turned you and I on to - Resonance-FM. Remember listening to it in the kitchen at their flat in North London? 

Kris always thought our stuff would be good on some of their programming and a few years ago we reached out to them, around the time of Dream Together, I think. Four or five shows at the station have now become friends of ours, little sweetheart. Two shows with the word “sonic” in their titles - Sonic Imperfections (mostly experimental music) and Sonic Tapestries (mostly ambient music) are among them. Also, The Sound Projector - which is a show curated by the editor of the music zine of the same name and the storied experimental music group, Soviet France, who have a weekly show on Saturday night called “A Duck in a Tree”. 

All have previewed and/or premiered tracks from the upcoming album this month, little sweetheart, and another favorite, Fog Cast, devoted half the program to their own preview tonight. 

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

Best of 2021

Little sweetheart, we’ve been featured on a wonderful Year End program tonight. 

Resonance-FM (London)’s Fog Cast have been advocates of our work for the last couple of years. Deux Anges was among their Best Albums of the Year in 2020, and they devoted half an hour to Forests just before it came out on December 1. 

Tonight, Robin was doing his year end show and “Prayers Within a Cathedral of Trees” - the closing track from the new album - began the show’s last half hour. The show is up now in its entirety on MixCloud here. 

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

May 23

Little sweetheart, eleven years ago today, I learned that my mom had died. 

I was in London for the Finborough Theatre production of my play Seven Pages Unsigned. I’d just arrived two days before. Rehearsals were to begin in the morning and I was too excited to sleep, so at about 4am, I checked my email and I had one subject-lined “EMERGENCY - YOU MUST COME HOME” in all caps. 

I couldn’t dial out internationally because I didn’t know how and I was alone. I feared the worst and called the friend’s - Kris & Joy - whose flat I was staying at while they were on holiday in Wales. Joy told me how to dial out, I called and got the news. 

Then, I called you in San Francisco. When I told you, you burst into tears and then told me to get on Skype so you could see and help me. You and your mom arranged fights for me to return and even a car service from North London to Heathrow. 

While I was flying back to New York, heartbroken, you packed up one of my suits that was hanging in your closet, and got on a plane to meet me in Detroit. When I landed at JFK, you told me to go home to my apartment, sleep and get on a flight the next morning. You spent the night, all night, at Detroit Metro, waiting for me to arrive. 

When I saw you, I ran to you and you took me in your arms. Your arms, that held me up all that week through everything as I buried my mother. 

Ten months later, I would lose you, too. 

You did so much for me, little sweetheart, but this act of love and kindness may have been the most incredible. 

I will love you forever. I miss you terribly. And I pray with faith that I will be with you again, forever and soon. 

With all my love.

Words from London

Little sweetheart, Deux Anges was given the most lovely review recently in the UK’s rather legendary music zine, “The Sound Projector”. I think I forgot to mention it here. 

Written by its editor and founder, Ed Pinsent, it's very thoughtful and fulsome in its praise but I think what I liked most about it was how he recognized you, little sweetheart, as the very center and soul of the band, saying: "the (absent) main member of the band is Summer Serafin. This was Michael’s partner who died nine years ago, and since then it’s been Michael’s mission to keep the project (and her memory) alive, mainly by drawing on his personal archive of recordings of Summer’s vocal tracks..."

A further excerpt is below. As ever, little sweetheart, it’s all for you. With all my love forever.

"The group continue to deliver their unique brand of very understated guitar-pop with subdued vocals, hazy ambient melodies, spoken (or rather whispered) word recits, instrumentals - some enhanced with field recordings. All of 'Deux Anges' is steeped in a very wistful melancholy, a poignant longing. Lyrics emerge as a form of prayer and we continue to find allusions to the afterlife, heaven, angels, mortality, ghosts, miracles… and compassion, empathy, and hope. At two CDs and three hours, there’s also a lot of it to listen to, but BPX never outstay their welcome with their unassuming tone and the gentle, lulling pull of their mesmerizing songs."
-The Sound Projector (UK), Ed Pinsent, Editor

Finding The Way

Did I ever tell you, little sweetheart, that when I was still doing theatre there were a handful of experiences that had been most meaningful to me? As a playwright I think the London productions of District of Columbia, Seven Pages Unsigned and Detail  - at RADA, The Finborough and The Gielgud - were all especially fulfilling. And as an actor (aside from TV and film work, just theater now I’m mentioning), I think playing the lead in John Byrne’s Slab Boys Trilogy in its US premiere in DC and my very first job (at 18!) playing Jesus in Godspell in summer stock were the most important. 

Even if theaters and especially acting wasn’t something I wanted to do to the end of my days, all of these experiences helped me become an artist by giving me a vessel that I could pour truthful expression into. I think a life in the arts, if truthfully pursued (not nakedly ambitious), leads one to to a purer and purer distillation of one’s artistic expression, little sweetheart. Without rejecting the past, we can see how it helped us continue to refine and evolve and increasingly make art that is truly one’s own deepest expression. 

Everything I do is for you, little sweetheart. That’s what guides me. That’s why I say you are my conscience. So writing and composing and recording, releasing albums and publishing works has a purity of mission. Do you know? I know you do. 

A year or two ago, it struck me how much Godspell had meant to me, coming so early in my life, and yesterday, on Easter Monday, little sweetheart, I watched the film adaptation (1973). Much of the cast is from the original off-Broadway production at The Cherry Lane, with a few notable members from the very famous Toronto production. 

One of the actors, also from New York but not in the original production is the late Lynne Thigpen. She’s absolutely wonderful (they all are) and I can’t help thinking about her because I got to meet her once, little sweetheart, and she was incredibly kind to me. 

My friend, the late Curt Dempster, who founded the Ensemble Studio Theatre had asked me to speak on behalf of the company at a luncheon for the American Theater Wing - kind of New York’s main theatre institution, they give charitable grants to artists and are mostly known for being behind the Tony Awards. I wrote and gave a speech very much about creativity and the importance of being allowed to fail. It was something I believed EST was committed to - giving artists a home where they could attempt things and grow without commercial pressure. EST was part of the non-commercial side of New York theater. Off-Broadway was originally a response to the commerciality of Broadway itself. 

Needless to say, The Theatre Wing wasn’t all non-commercial. So, the speech was somewhat coolly received. Except by Lynne who had introduced me before and shook my hand after looking me in the eye intently and empathetically. It was the year District of Columbia was first produced in New York, that’s why Curt asked me to speak and that production was also rather coolly received until year’s end when TimeOut famously called it "overlooked" and first Boston’s Huntington and then London’s RADA staged productions. 

Tragically, Lynne died just three years later. I never got to see her again to thank her. 

All this must seem very rambling, little sweetheart, but I wanted to tell you. It’s all on my mind tonight, at the end of Holy Week, and thinking so very much of you. With all my love.    

Live in London

Little sweetheart, remember I told you how we suddenly piqued the interest of Max Reinhardt - the former host of BBC 3’s Late Junction, who’s now over on London’s Soho Radio? He played “Infinity Hall” from the new album on his Best of 2020 show last month and then another track, “Snowfall” on Christmas Day. 

Well, last night he sent me a message on Twitter asking if I could do a live phone interview with him on the air this morning about 8am our time. He wanted to talk both about music and to have someone on from the US to talk about the rather shocking attack on the Capitol two days ago. 

So, I set an alarm - that’s early for you & me, right, little sweetheart?! - and was on my second cup of coffee by the time he called. I think the on air stuff went fine. Sylvia said it was like hearing me on MSNBC - ha! 

But I think my favorite part was all the off air stuff. Between segments, as Max was playing tracks (he asked for two musical suggestions of other artists - I picked Swartz et’s “Nighttide” and a really great Iranian ambient artist named Siavash Amini - we chatted. I got to tell him how much we’ve loved his shows over the years and he said really nice things about our work, too. He’s actually living in Oxford where you went to school. He asked what track he should play of ours but I left it up to him. 

He picked “Flag Day (Summer Dream Version)” from Sometimes in Dreams and I said that was a great idea since you are featured so prominently, little sweetheart! And that’s how the show ended - with your soaring vocals. 

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

Christmas Night

Little sweetheart, night has fallen here. It gets dark so much earlier this time of year - it’s only a little after 4pm. 

Because we can’t travel and I couldn’t be with your parents this year, I sent their gifts out to them in advance for them to open on the day. Your mom just texted me the loveliest message, including a picture of the three little things I got her. 

I think her one of her favorites are the four little figurines of cardinals I found at Victoria Trading Company. Cardinals are such magical little creatures and legend has it that when you see one, it means someone very dear to you who has passed on has come to visit you. Remember, I was telling you about that just a few weeks ago here? You mom really liked the little cardinals, sweetheart. 

And the other thing that I  think was her favorite was the new charm I gave her for her charm bracelet. Did I ever tell you this, little sweetheart? Remember at our last Christmas together, I got you several presents? I think your favorite was that pink angora sweater from Victoria’s Secret. But I also got one of Joy’s famous silver charm bracelets with two charms to start your collection. You liked the bracelet but you were very honest - you weren’t crazy about one of the charms I had picked out! Ha! It was a high heeled shoe. You actually went online to Joy’s site and found several more you liked better. Since Joy offered to exchange the charms if I sent them back to her in London, we thought we’d send the whole bracelet too so she could affix the new charms. 

Tragically, we never got to do that. But I still had the bracelet and the next year for Christmas, I decided to give it to your mom, so I could give her a new charm to add each year and - like with everything - in memory of you, my sweet girl. 

All the charms she has so far are sterling silver but this one adds a little bit of color - it’s a frosted cupcake! And your mom absolutely loves it. It’s very cute and, of course, puts one in mind of you and your famous cupcakes - how you loved baking and frosting incredibly complicated cupcakes! - immediately. 

Christmasses are hard, little sweetheart, honestly - I miss you so. But doing things in remembrance seems to bring you somehow closer on the day. 

Please be with me tonight, won’t you, my angel? And take me to you the moment heaven will allow. With all my love at Christmas - and always!
 

London Memories

June is drawing to a close, little sweetheart, and a flood of memories of our times together is washing over me.

Next month, I know I’ll be thinking especially of our trip with your family up the Oregon coast over the July 4th weekend. And just now, I’m thinking about our first trip to London together.

I was already there and you flew in a few days later, on your way to a wedding later that week down in Bournemouth and then coming back to London to stay on for another week or so, I asked Joy if you could stay there with me and she of course said yes. I’d had her make a set of silver rings for you, the twin to mine, to give to you as soon as you arrived.

And we spent the days together traveling around by Tube and by foot, down to The South Bank to see shows at The National and The Globe, having ice cream and walking hand in hand along the Thames, visiting the Tate and walking over the “Wobbly” bridge to St Paul’s. We went to Covent Garden and got tickets for a show at The Donmar and found the dance studio were you took classes when you lived there after Oxford.

We got late night groceries from the Sainsbury’s and took the train back to Kentish Town where I made dinner and a crumble for you. We slept together on the little trundle bed in the guest room and went for long walks on the Hampstead Heath.

They were some of the best days of my life and one night walking back across Tower Bridge I was so overwhelmed I started to cry. You just held me in your arms and said it was okay, and told me “don’t start missing me, yet - I’m right here”. 

Yes, my darling girl, yes. I know you are. I know you are right here, closer than I can even imagine. How I love you! Forever! Forever.

eleven:eleven

Endeavoring, as I said, little sweetheart, to do our work with greater vigor and energy and even as I work on both the book and our 9th album, another special project has come up.

For the second year in a row we’ve been invited to contribute a new work for the experimental radio event The Dark Outside in London.

It’s due mid month and Sylvia & I have just finished tracking it, your vocals very much leading the way. I’m working on the final mix now before sending it up to Boston for mastering and them on to London for the festival itself.

It’s called eleven:eleven - named for that special time of day when we are told our angels are often most close.

As ever, it’s all for you, my gorgeous girl. Soon and again I can say “listen, little sweetheart - you’re on the radio!”.

With all my love forever.

Soaring! Ascension!

Little sweetheart, we got a surprise tonight. We thought the guys from the London radio show, Sonic Imperfections, on Resonance FM were going to play a track or two from Sometimes in Dreams, and we are assured that they will be in an upcoming program, but instead they played the closing track from our album, Dream Together - "To The Other Half of the Sky".

It's one of our most personal songs, little sweetheart, and nearly eleven minutes long. It took up quite a chunk of their broadcast. They said incredibly lovely things, too, calling it their favorite and saying it had been on their turntable at home for months.

One of the things that's so powerful about it, of course, is you, little sweetheart. Your soaring vocals, solo, open and close the song that builds and builds and builds and then slowly unwinds, ascending. Below is the video we assembled for it, for you.

I need you more than ever. With all my love...

Resonance FM - London

Little sweetheart, just got word - more London news - that we will be featured on London radio again this coming Monday June 24th. Back on London’s great Resonance FM.

Their experimental/post-rock program Sonic Imperfections will be featuring tracks from last year’s double-album, our 7th, Sometimes in Dreams.

The live broadcast goes out Monday night at 10pm UK time but it will also be archived and listenable on the station’s MixCloud. I’ll post that info after air.

You’re on the radio, little sweetheart - in London! Love you forever.

On A Night Such As This

Little sweetheart, with London so in mind from both remembrances of our travels together and the current goings on there with the band, I’m reminded just now of a wonderful photo that Joy took of us your last night in Kentish Town.

We’re at The Boston Arms up near Tufnell Park and she snapped a shot just after I arrived, sliding into the booth with you and you, a bit tipsy on gin and tonics, gave me a big kiss.

What a lovely memory. What a wonderful picture. Love you forever.

Dark Outside

Little sweetheart, one of the upcoming London things is something Sylvia actually came across and let me know of. An experimental radio project in tandem with the London Borough of Culture is broadcasting a night of music - 24 hours - over the Summer Solstice and looking for unreleased material to premiere during the event.

It won’t be streamed or archived. You have to actually be within the transmission range of London’s 87.7fm. And the whole thing is coming from the woods of Waltham Forest. You would love this, little sweetheart! I wish we could actually attend.

But even though we won’t be there in person, I did compose, record, mix and submit a piece to be part of it. It’ll go out over the air sometime during the broadcast overnight on June 20th. It’s an exclusive for the project which is called The Dark Outside but we thinking of maybe releasing it later as a digital single, a limited release, possibly on Bandcamp.

As ever, one of your soaring archived vocals is at the center of the piece. You’re on the radio, little sweetheart, in a forest! With all my love forever…

London (Keeps) Calling

Little sweetheart, just after the news I was telling you a few days ago, we had occasion to hear about a couple of other London-centric things regarding the band, which I’ll tell you about in due course, of course!

But I’m also thinking how very fitting it is both because 11 years ago about this time is when you and I were first in London together and coincidentally I’ve been writing about that very trip at this point in the book over the last several days.


I won’t repeat everything there here but I am reminded, it’s so fresh in the memory, how wonderful it was to be there with you, walking around and visiting old haunts that had been my own and I so wanted to share.

On one of those many nights, walking along the Thames hand in hand, it struck me how terribly lonely I had been, maybe for my entire life until there was you. And coupled with the overwhelming feeling of love, holding your hand as we crossed the bridge I began to cry. And you held me and said, so very kindly, so very gently, so very wisely, “don’t start missing me yet, I’m right here”.

Yes, my little sweetheart. Quite right. I know you are. Closer than I can imagine. With all my love forever.

From London tonight...

Little sweetheart, we've gotten news of quite a lovely review of our album, Til Morning Is Nigh, from London tonight. The review is by Ed Pinsent -  the editor of the long-running UK music zine, The Sound Projector and presenter of the Friday night radio show of the same name on London's Resonance FM. An excerpt below. As always, for you, little sweetheart. All for you.

(excerpt):
NATIVITY GIFT
Bipolar Explorer - "Til Morning Is Nigh" (Slugg Records)
Review by Ed Pinsent, Editor

An unusual and touching album of songs and spoken word from Bipolar Explorer, a band in NYC calling themselves a “dreampop trio”…Til Morning Is Nigh: A Dream Of Christmas (SLUGG RECORDS) offers their versions of various old and obscure carols and Christmas songs from England and France, all sung in an extremely low-key DIY fashion not too far apart from the school of Sebadoh.
 
I’ve never been keen on the term “shoegaze” for this sort of introverted music, but Bipolar Explorer happily embrace it and wear it as a badge of pride. The album is interspersed with spoken word elements and recitation, all in French, all similarly unassuming – telling the Christmas story, in tones that are reassuring and sincere. The entire album is programmed to “segue”, meaning all 23 tracks are delivered in a continuous rush, and the aim is to create an impression of a radio broadcast “drifting over the late night airwaves”.
 
By now you may have formed an impression of the romantic and poetical sensibilities of Michael Serafin-Wells and Summer Serafin, plus their French protégé Sylvia Solanas (who joins them) with this new record that beguiles rather than overwhelms the listener.
 
Enchanted by dreams and dream-worlds, the themes of the oneiric life of slumberland and night visions regularly surface in their work. Indeed the album before this was called Sometimes In Dreams.
 
There’s a tragic dimension to the band’s history too, since band member Summer Serafin passed away in 2011, leaving partner Michael to carry on the project; and he’s pretty dedicated to preserving her memory, through photographs and texts – and even recordings of her voice, which continue to appear; she’s on this record.  He bears this tragedy with humility and acceptance.
 
Maybe tragedy is one of the hallmarks of Bipolar Explorer’s music; Michael himself nearly joined the angelic choir recently, suffering heart failure outside the hospital he’d just been released from, after being hit by a car.
 
Let’s hope he sticks around long enough to keep making music, as this album is a tiny gem; its simplicity can’t help but win you over, and its sincerity pours out of every moment. The record becomes mesmerizing and fascinating through repetition. In sum, voices, instruments and production all come together with lashings of heart and soul.
 
Intended to be heard all the year round, but now I’m looking forward to playing it at Christmas.
 
-Ed Pinsent
Editor, The Sound Projector - London



(Article in full here)

Something About England...

For some reason, little sweetheart, England has been on mind of late. Maybe it’s because you and I both had such a history there - you going to grad school at Oxford and my work in the theatre in London - before our visits there together. Indeed, the last time I was there, you were at any side.

Perhaps because I’m in the midst of writing about some of that just now as I work on the first book, it’s coming to mind more and more.

I know much has changed there and it’s still almost unimaginable for me to think of going without you, but it’s all very much on my mind, somehow.

I’ll listen ever more closely, little sweetheart. Perhaps you’ll tell me why. With all my love forever.

April (one)

It's a new month, little sweetheart- April - the month of my birth, full of memories and milestones and thoughts about the miracle that is you.

I remember the beautiful gift you sent me that first year just after I'd returned to New York and how excited I was when you called to say you were coming here for your first visit.

I remember how the very next year, on this very day, the first, that I awaited a flight myself in the early morning light that would take me to you. I'd been in San Francisco, then, most of the early part of the year but returned for a week to New York to deal with a few things before flying back. I remember waiting to board, watching President Obama on the TV overhead meeting the Prime Minister in London. I remember reading your early morning texts telling me that you would meet me at SFO when I arrived and that you were "too excited to sleep" that night.

April is full of other memories, too, some quite sad and others simply tragic. But I'm trying my best to hold on to hope and the love you illuminated my lonely life with. I'm so very grateful for you, my gorgeous girl.

Please be with me today, help and guide and take me to you just as soon as heaven will allow. With all my love forever.

Live in London

Little sweetheart, for a little girl who dreamed of working in England, who grew up and studied there and lived in London for a short time after, I thought you'd be pleased to know you were on the radio live on London's Resonance FM tonight.

The band made its London radio debut over the course of the weekend, featured on shows both Friday night and this evening, your soaring vocals floating above the guitars on "View" and your speaking voice weaving through the instrumental "Thirteen", every note, every word about and for you.

It's a bit of a milestone for us both, little sweetheart - don't you think? - finding our way to the airwaves in London, at last. Friday's show featured two tracks from our latest, Til Morning Is Nigh and tonight's presented ones from Dream Together. Both hosts had very kind words for us and it was really quite thrilling, but I think I was especially moved hearing "Thirteen", because it had been a while since I had. It made me think so very deeply about you and I just sat here and cried and cried.

I know you're much nearer than I can even imagine and for that, as I am for every way in which you've touched and graced and blessed my life, I am so very very grateful. With all my love forever.

Together in the Meadow

In keeping with that idea I talked about, little sweetheart, to post a picture and tell a little story from our trip to Ireland, here's one from the very first day.

We had to get up awfully early in the morning - seems like it was around 4:30AM! - to go to Gatwick airport and fly to Cork. Then we got in a rental car and drove up the West Coast of Ireland until we got to the little village of Kilcrohane, where we were staying. By the time you and I got to our room, you flung yourself across the bed (I've got a picture of that too!) exhausted. Nap time! We lay down together for a little while before rallying, having a cup of tea in the nice little kitchen looking out at the bay.

Kilcrohane is at the end of Sheep's Head Peninsula, Bantry Bay on one side and the Atlantic opening up at its edge. We could see the bay in the near distance from the kitchen window, so we headed out on a walk, through the garden and out into a meadow beyond. That's where Joy snapped this picture of us.

You look so at home and I am, as ever, grateful to have you in my arms. With all my love forever...