Throw Back Black n White

A favorite newly found picture of you here, little sweetheart, taken with one of those disposable black & white cameras I used to keep handy in the pre-iPhone days. You're in your PJs sitting at my desk. Love you forever.

Flag Day 2024

Little sweetheart, today is a funny little holiday called Flag Day. I always used to see it on the calendar and joke about it but it's kind of neat in its timing - almost the midpoint of the year. I guess the Summer Solstice is more like it but it's halfway through the sixth month. 

Anyway, I wrote a song called "Flag Day", as you'll remember, that year I was out in the Bay Area. You immediately came up with the backing vocals and later that year we recorded it for what was meant to be our first EP but wound up becoming Of Love and Loss. A few years later, re-imagining the songs from that album and including new spoken word narrative and underscoring, we released Sometimes in Dreams. This is that album's version - the Summer Dream version and below is the video for it. 

Thinking of you on this day and everyday. With all my love forever...

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....

For You, Little Sweetheart, Forever

Words for, of and about you, my little sweetheart. Forever. Love you forever. 

The Choral Text Passage

To The Other Half of The Sky

 

Thirteen

Thirteen years, my little sweetheart. Thinking of you - the other half of my soul - on this day and every day. And knowing in my heart that we will be together again and forever in the blink of an eye. With all my love forever.

 

Today - Nov 13th

 Happy Birthday, little sweetheart. I love you so very much and forever.