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! 

Christmas Cards

Little sweetheart, we got the loveliest holiday card in the mail today! It's from our friend, your childhood primary schoolmate, Liz. 

She's an illustrator and in the past she's sent me some lovely drawings - almost like chapters of a graphic novel - of your mutual adventures as children, always with you as the heroine, of course! She loves you! And so do I! 

Here's a picture of the card with her drawing of us and her thoughtful greeting inside. 

Merry Christmas, little sweetheart!   

Don't Open til December 25

It’s Christmas Day, little sweetheart. It’s a bit rainy and unseasonably warm outside. I’m making a little dinner later, I’ll roast a chicken. 

Even though it’s a bit too warm today to be wearing it, I have right here beside me your first Christmas gift to me - the lovely blue and grey scarf you knitted for me, working on it daily, all during the Boston run of Rock n Roll. 

The words you wrote you me that Christmas remain with me always, too - the card itself framed and hanging on the wall in the red table room, a copy or two of it hanging over my desk and magnet-ed to the inside front door, and its last lines tattooed in your handwriting on my right forearm. 

Also, here, below, let me repeat them. I think somehow, little sweetheart, you knew you would need to give me instructions on how to carry on, something to hold to my heart and know that you would always be with me even if we were separated by mortality and the physical world. You gave me that not just with these words below but every day, with the great gift of your love. I’m so forever grateful. 

Merry Christmas, little sweetheart.

My Dearest Michael,
 

I’ve been working on this in the green room and backstage since we came to Boston. I’d drape it around my neck to keep warm while knitting in the dark of the freezing wings. The cast is decisively in favor of the striped color combination.
 

It’s Christmas day, and I’m wearing my pajamas. I’m in my P.J.’s even if you’re reading this when the sun has set. Ryan is making another bourbon and coke even if you’re reading this as the sun rises. My Dad is reading aloud shocking statistics about religion or politics, my Mom is spraying perfume on the dog, and me...? I am missing you. Maybe one day we’ll spend Christmas together.
 

Coy says “You are where you’re meant to be”, and while I like that idea, I know, far too well, what it feels like to be in a world where everything feels wrong – where everything is wrong. You have also been to that place. And as the world spins on its own axis, people are lost in their own needs and trials. We falter blindly, and strive endlessly. But no matter where 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.
 

I love you.

 

Your Gingersnap,


Summer


Silent-ish Night

Little sweetheart, it’s Christmas Eve. I have such memories of this night of the year going all the way back to my childhood and forward to those with you and now muddling through on any own. 

I remember a choir concert I was in one year in high school, given at the local college. It was dark early, as it is this time of the season, and as I drove home I found and listened to a show of early music on public radio. I liked it so much I turned it on in my bedroom after I got home. My room was in the basement of the house and somehow it felt very much like I was on my own. Almost grown. 

A year or two later I was singing with another ensemble, one that performed Handel’s Messiah every Christmas Eve in the rotunda at the art museum. There was an incredible snowstorm going outside but our London friend, Kris, drove all the way down to see it and then I went with him after back up the snowy roads to where he was at Uni. 

All through my childhood my grandmother, my mom’s mom, would make these special Christmas Eve sandwiches. She had an old hand crank meat grinder, and she would grind fresh bologna and mix it with herbs and things to make this sandwich spread that she would spoon onto hamburg buns, open-faced, and then toast in the broiler. In later years, my mom found a deli that made something similar, so she didn’t have to go through the entire byzantine process - you couldn’t find fresh bologna in stores anymore, anyway, only the prepackaged luncheon meat slices. 

I haven’t had a culinary tradition like that since my mom passed away, little sweetheart, but tonight I made a Christmas Eve quiche. It was Sylvia’s idea and a good one! I sautéed red bell peppers in olive oil, steamed some broccoli and then added them with sharp cheddar, sour cream, heavy cream, flour and eggs, garnished with lemon pepper, and put it in the oven for a little less than an hour. I think you’d like it! 

My favorite memories of Christmas and Christmas Eve are with you, of course, little sweetheart. Coming home from the movies and settling into the living room around the Christmas tree where your mom has left a package for each of us with new pajamas and slippers. Changing into them and wearing them all through the night and all day on Christmas, itself. If we forgot something at the store, we wouldn’t even change out of them - just throw on a coat and drive over to whatever was open, usually for extra eggnog, right? 

It’s quiet here tonight, little sweetheart. I’m listening to BBC 4’s Christmas Eve broadcast and my thoughts are, as ever, of and with you. With all my love…

Snow Swept

Little sweetheart, thinking today of that late December afternoon years ago when we looked outside to see it snowing lightly, quickly got dressed and headed up to the roof as the snowflakes dusted everything around us, the sun dipping to the horizon as we looked west. Love you forever.

Robins in the Wreaths

Little sweetheart, for years there was this building next to the Sacred Heart rectory on W51st Street that was covered in scaffolding. More than that, it was encased, it seemed - like a wooden box had been built over it hiding whatever renovations were underway from prying eyes. For years, I say. Like at least 5. 

One day late last spring all of that came down and you could start to see the renovated building - a three story brownstone - and even its interior through the windows. It looked amazing. One day I met the owner, Casey, a young woman with a toddler and a dog, outside the building and we hit it off. She’s super nice. Later I met her husband and her eldest boy, I think he’s about six or seven. 

One of the things that I’ve loved about walking past the house is how she’s decorated it festively over every holiday. It was amazing on Halloween with cobwebs and pumpkins and everything. And just now, for Christmas, it looks absolutely beautiful. There are lights - simple, pretty white strands - at night, and by day it’s just awash in pine and red ribbons. There are wreaths and the front stairwell wrapped in thick, beautiful pine branches all the way up. 

I was coming back from my run and there was a robin perched in the midst of it all. He didn’t even flinch when I approached. I think he thought he was a in a forest! And then when he flew up a bit higher, I could see there were yet more birds, a couple more robins and a handful of sparrows, also nesting within. The first robin hadn’t flown higher so much to get away from me than to have a bit of lunch - Casey had weaved holly within the pine branches and our robin was feasting on a couple of little red berries hanging there! 

It was absolutely magical, little sweetheart. I couldn’t wait to get home and tell you! 

With all my love.   

That movie... again?!

Little sweetheart, one of the things I’m doing through this week leading up to Saturday is watching some of our collections of Christmas movies. One of them that always makes me think of you is "Love, Actually". Not because it was one of your favorites but because I had never seen it before you and I met and then that first trip we took to England together I finally saw it on TV. 

Later after we got back and between me joining you in San Francisco or you coming back here to New York, we were on the phone one night. You had called and when I picked up you could hear the tv on in the background. You recognized what was playing instantly. 

"Are you watching that movie... again?!", you asked both incredulous and amused, knowing me so well. Yes, I had to admit, I’d bought it on DVD, even though it was July or something. 

I don’t know what it was that had so captured me, little sweetheart, but I suspect it was simply you. The way you had come into my life and opened my heart - like The Grinch’s growing three sizes that day - I was more vulnerable to the heartfelt, if you know what I mean. 

I know you do. And I’m so very grateful.

Christmas Week

Little sweetheart, it’s Christmas Week - the week leading up to the holidays which this year falls on a Saturday. Christmas Day actually is, like the song says, the first day of Christmas - we’ve been in Advent all this time prior, since December 1- and I like hanging on to and observing these twelve days and nights right up to Epiphany. Often, I make a last batch of Christmas cookies on Epiphany! 

I can’t help but think of you so deeply this week, little sweetheart, and how much you loved Christmas. One of the first things you said to me was how you wanted to spend Christmases together. It’s hard not to mourn our not having had more of them but I think I treasure even these ones alone now all the more because I had even one with you. 

You fill my heart with light, with love, and if I quiet myself, find ways to be kind, to be good, I will find you there, again and again, closer, always, than I can even imagine. 

Merry Christmas, little sweetheart.

Still There! Always...

Little sweetheart, we were delightfully surprised this morning! 

On Fridays even before I get up, I try to tune in to London’s Soho Radio to hear the great Max Reinhardt’s show. It's on in the early afternoon in the UK but because of the time difference, starts here at 8AM. He usually plays a set of music during the first hour and then has a guest or two for the second and third hours of the show. 

He was doing his back announce before cueing up the last song prior to his first guest and he started talking about us! He wound up saying the most wonderful things about the new album - Forests, Voices, Coastlines, Dreams - and about our work, little sweetheart. Then, he played the last track - quite a long track - from the album, “Prayers Within A Cathedral of Trees”, before coming back to say a bit more. 

It was all incredibly nice and we’re exceedingly grateful but I think the thing that struck me the most was how well he understood how very much this is, as I often say, of, for and about you. Max has said before of us that we are “liminal” - sort of meaning that the music inhabits this place between worlds, and when he named each of us - you, Sylvia and I - he began, as we always do, with you. 

He said your name and then before he continued he paused and said with some emphasis - “who’s still there” . 

It struck me so, little sweetheart. Because you are. I know it. I felt. I believe it. It really is all for you. With all my love…
 

In Dreams... and snow

Little sweetheart, you were in my dreams last night! In fact, you’ve been a regular visitor the last several nights now that I think about it and remember! I always feel so grateful after and it helps me so, little sweetheart, because it feels like I’m doing better when you visit me in dreams, like maybe I’m doing things well and right.

Settings, like the actual location that is the backdrop of a dream, can sometimes be mysteriously unknowable and altogether minutely detailed at the same time, don’t you think, little sweetheart? Sometimes I’ll be in a place that I seem to know quite well in the dream but outside of it, like when I wake up and try to recall, isn’t someplace I’ve ever known or even seen at all. This was one of those.

You and I were in a big, old, beautiful, many-storied house. There were other people there, too - I’m not sure who all, maybe your mom and dad - through some of the other rooms. One thing I do remember was that our London friend, Kris, was there.

You and I were going from room to room, just in the course of our day and getting things done, and I had a snowball in my hand. It wasn’t melting or anything and I wasn’t about to throw it, I was just carrying it like one might carry a book or something from room to room, not even remembering I had it in my hands. Finally you pointed it out to me. I hadn’t even seemed, quite absentmindedly, to notice.

“Where did you get the snowball?", you asked. And “do you wanna set it down somewhere, like in the  freezer or something?”

I have no idea what it might have meant, little sweetheart. I need you to tell me! Ha! Can you please visit me again tonight and explain?

With all my love…

"Forests" Release

Today, little sweetheart, the new album is released. It’s our 10th. It's called Forests, Voices, Coastlines, Dreams and is a collection of the seven tracks we recorded for that UK-based experimental radio project, The Dark Outside. 

It’s already had some very nice advance radio play, beginning with NorCal’s KFJC and continuing on with several shows on WFMU, London’s Resonance-FM, Germany’s TFSC and France’s CAMP, among others. It’s kind of exclusively the more experimental side of our stuff but, as always, finds your soaring vocals weaving throughout. 

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

Xmas Cookies

Little sweetheart, it’s been a kind of tradition to get up the date after Thanksgiving and make the first batch of Christmas cookies of the season. I used to always do that with my mom when I went home to visit. But I got my booster shot on Friday and have been laying low until just this morning. I’m on it, now, though! 

It always takes me until about the end of the first batch to really get them right - the last couple of cookie sheets worth are usually the best dozen or so. I miss doing them with my mom and I miss doing them for you. But it’s good tradition to continue. I listen to a Christmas playlist - as couples of shows I recorded off BBC Radio 4 over 15 years ago and just have it for a couple of hours. 

You’re certainly and as ever in my thoughts, in my heart, and, I know - nearer than I can imagine. With love at Christmastime…
 

The Day Before

Tomorrow is Thanksgiving, little sweetheart, and even though I’m not traveling we will cook and have a meal. We’ll get the turkey in the oven around noon and meantime I’ve made a few things ahead of time, tonight - the potatoes, that cold pie you like, and deviled eggs settled into that lovely little dish your mom got for us one year. 

However difficult things can be and have been, I’m always so very thankful for you, little sweetheart. You’re very much in my heart. How I love you!

About Today

Little sweetheart, today is your dad’s birthday. I haven’t been anywhere in almost two years, no traveling, no flying, because of the pandemic, so it’s been that long since I’ve seen either your mom or your dad but we talk, and especially text, often.

Just like I so loved cooking for you, I love cooking and baking for them when I visit, and a couple of times I’ve been there for birthdays, so I could make a cake. When I can't be there, I've found a place that makes nice cakes and things and they ship them fresh by UPS Next Day Air packed in dry ice. Your dad likes chocolate, so that’s what I got him. It arrived safely, I learned, yesterday, so hopefully he’s enjoying it now. 

Thinking of you, as always - we all are are. With all my love…

Meet Up

Little sweetheart, we finally met Irene Trudel last night! Irene was one of our earliest champions, you may remember, playing tracks from Of Love and Loss and then especially BPXmas and Angels contemporaneous with their releases and has continued to be a great advocate and friend right up to the present day. 

Sylvia arrived from France (finally, after 20 months!) just about a week ago and she saw that a musician we really like - Maria Nadler - was playing a show downtown at LPR. Irene spoke about it on her show, too, so we got tickets and made plans to meet up with Irene and her husband Peter before the show, since they were going, too. 

I hadn’t been to a show since the pandemic began, so it all was a a bit surreal - I think for many of us, it was - but it was an amazing night, and so good to finally meet Irene and Peter. She’s already been on the air this morning and a played a track from the upcoming album as well as some of the things we heard last night, both from Marissa Nadler and the two support acts that proceeded here. 

It feels like things are maybe starting to get a bit closer to normal. And it feels like you yourself are very close, too. With all my love…

Nov 13th

My dear dearest little sweetheart, HAPPY BIRTHDAY! I'm so grateful for you. You are in my every thought. You are my reason, my conscience, my everything. With all my love forever.

 

 

Penny Lane

Little sweetheart, for the last few nights before I go to to sleep I've been watching a short video- well, two of them - on YouTube. They're both performances of "Penny Lane". One by Paul and his band closing a show eleven years ago and the other Elvis Costello with Paul's band performing at the White House For President Obama on a night celebrating him (with him in attendance). 

I think what I found so resonant at first was how incredibly happy, delirious, delighted the audience - a cross section of generations - was in the first video and although the second was a much smaller, select crowd and the performance more intimate, the sense of joy every bit as palpable. 

And, of course, hearing Beatles songs always brings you to mind, little sweetheart - one of the first things you did when we were first getting to know one another was bring the entirety of your box DVD set of The Anthology to rehearsal and give it to me so I could watch it. I hadn't asked and we hadn't spoken of it. We were just newly introduced. But you said you knew I liked the group, so you brought it from home for me the next day. 

And when, a couple of weeks later, you threw that lovely "cupcakes & cocktails" at your apartment, you wouldn't let anyone change the music from your Beatles playlist and you sat down on the sofa with me and stayed there all night until it was time to go home. And even then, walked me to the basement garage and gave me your GPS device so I could find my way safely back to Bernal Heights. 

It was the beginning of our story. And how well I know, as I feel your celestial presence every day, that it is a never ending one. It is, like you are, eternal. 

With all my love forever. 

All Soul's Day 2021

Little sweetheart, over the years I've come to be more and more interested in some the days of remembrance. Two of them are these first two days of November - All Saints Day and All Soul's Day. 

Yesterday, I looked in to see if there was a service being broadcast from Trinity Church downtown. I think I told you how lovely some of their services - especially their Tenebrae - have been. Yesterday's was a really lovely one which brought both comfort and tears as I listened in quiet remembrance and prayers for you. It's here. 

With all my love forever.

Upcoming...

Little sweetheart, we're getting ready to release our 10th album. It's coming out on December 1 and is called Forests, Voices, Coastlines, Dreams: Recordings for The Dark Outside. 

As the title suggests, it's a collection of the seven tracks I composed and we recorded for the UK-based experimental radio broadcast event The Dark Outside, between 2019 and 2021. There was a special preview of it today on KFJC and we expect to hear further airings this coming week on WFMU, London's Resonance-FM and Germany's TFSC. 

Hey, little sweetheart - you're on the radio! 

Gougane Barra

On our last day in Ireland, little sweetheart, we said goodbye to our friends in Kilcrohane, already planning a return for next year, and made our way back down the coast toward Cork City. 

We stopped off at a special place that surprised and delighted you - Gougane Barra. You hadn't understood where we were going when Kris mentioned. You told me you thought he had said something about "going to the bank"  (ha!), so when we arrived at the beautiful spot you were excited. 

Situated on a lake and next to a national forest, the spot was named by St Finbarr, who built a little monastery on the island in the 6th century. There was a beautiful church there and a second rather small chapel or "oratory", as well as the churchyard and the incredibly intriguing "hermitage" - a series of stone tunnels where monks would cloister in for prayer and meditation. More modern conveniences lay nearby - including a lovely little hotel that you were so taken with we went inside to inquire, getting literature and talking about coming back for a stay. Trails through the woods, including a portion of the Irish Pilgrim Path that runs another 35k to Drimoleague began there, where the source of the River Lee flows. 

We only had an hour or two to spare that day, so we didn't get to stay nearly long enough to explore all we would have liked but you absolutely loved it, little sweetheart, and wanted very much to come back next time together and stay a day and night or two at the hotel en route to Kilcrohane, perhaps come fall. 

Inside the little oratory, I lit a candle and took this picture of you. 

Love you forever.

Two of We Two

Little sweetheart, also from the bench by the lighthouse, at the edge of the world there, looking out of the Atlantic we turned around and took two photos together. How very much I love you. Forever. Farther than Time, itself. Farther than any eye can see.

Also near Doneen

This was one of our last days in Kilcrohane, little sweetheart, again on that walk we came to like so much to Doneen, Bantry Bay behind us. 

Dinner in Bantry

The largest town around in this very rural area, little sweetheart, was Bantry, on the other side of the Sheep's Head. It was a beautiful port. A bunch of swans were swimming when we came out of The Snug after dinner. I'll find that picture, too, and post it here for you. 

That was at the end of the day, as night had fallen but before that, we'd walked all around Bantry, ducking into little shops and pubs and ended at our favorite place there - the aforementioned Snug. It was Kris, you and I and incredibly we had the place to ourselves. Often when I'd been there, we'd sit at the bar because every table was taken. 

Tonight was a special night, it just glowed, and we were together. You loved The Snug and, as one can see here, the food! "Best Meal Ever!" you told me later... 

At Sunset over the Ocean

Ending our day, safely back at the end of the trail, you sat on one of the little picnic tables there, little sweetheart, and I took this picture of you as dusk began to fall over the Atlantic and the peninsula itself. 

I've a huge enlargement of this beautiful picture, little sweetheart, nearly life size, framed and hanging in the red table room. 

Love you forever. 

Stone Circle

On that long hike, little sweetheart, we came across a stone circle. Stepping inside it together felt very special and I could feel its ancient blessing upon us. Thank god for you! Literally! 

Sheep's Head Lighthouse

One day, little sweetheart, we determined to walk all the way to the very edge of the peninsula. 

There was a little park with a picnic area that you could drive to but the rest of the way was on foot. It was a long and twisting trail and, honestly, we got lost on the way back! I was a bit of a panic! We got bearings back though and met up with Kris just as the sun was setting. 

You and I walked out on our own for several hours getting to the lighthouse and then wending our way back. There was a guard rail around the lighthouse and a sign warning not to cross it but you saw a lovely little stone bench there and couldn't resist. 

I took this pretty picture of you sitting there before climbing over and joining you. This photo also became the back cover of our album, Of Love and Loss.

Mermaid Landing

On our long walk, led by our intrepid little terrier, we found a curious little docking spot near the edge of the pier. Stone steps leading down to the water you dubbed it "The Mermaid Landing", little sweetheart, and immediately descended to demonstrate!

 

 

A Walk to Doneen

One morning we woke together in Ireland and you told me, little sweetheart, that as nice as it was driving to beautiful places, you'd rather not get in the car today but just venture out, the two of us, on foot to see what we could see. It was a wonderful idea! 

We wound up wandering north along the bay down to Doneen pier and up and around the hills and meadows. A little Jack Russell terrier appeared on the road at one point and then stayed with us for almost two hours - running ahead, then looking back to make sure we were following him, like a tiny tour guide - until he just as suddenly vanished on our way home.  

This beautiful picture of us was taken out there a little before twilight settled in. 

Dursey Island

On a couple of our days in Ireland, little sweetheart, we went for long drives, then walked around, at some of most sweepingly beautiful spots we knew of. 

We were in West Cork, near the Kerry border where there are three peninsulas - The Misenhead, The Sheep's Head and The Beara. Kilcrohane is all the way to the edge of the middle one. On this day we drove out to the edge of the latter. There's a cable car there that runs out to Dursey Island, the most western point of Europe. 

We stood together by the sign there that mentioned both New York City and Tir na nOg and Kris took this picture of us... before we went off to a pub to get you some hot chocolate! 

At Eileen's

Here's one of all us - Kris & Joy & you and our friend, Johnny - over at Eileen's pub in the center of the village. Johnny was one of our longtime friends in Kilcrohane. We always looked forward to seeing him when we visited. And he loved meeting you!

 

 

Ireland Anniversary, pt 1

Little sweetheart, eleven years ago we took our trip together to Ireland. When we first met, you'd been so enraptured by stories of my previous trips there, you immediately said we needed to go together, and I said we would. I'm so grateful that we got to do that. It was wonderful week and I think I'd like to remember its anniversary by posting some of our pictures from there, here this week. So, here goes... 

This one was taken shortly after our arrival. We'd woken up pre-dawn in London to drive to Stansted for our flight to Cork City, then a two hour or so drive up the coast to Kilcrohane, picking up keys for the guest house at the pub, settled into our room... and promptly took a nap! An hour or two later, we went for a walk and our friend Joy took this... right behind the house - our backyard for the week!

Down the trail

Here's another from our first day, little sweetheart, of you, taken by me, just a moment earlier, looking back along the trail. You look amazing in your pretty hat and coat and boots, the green of West Ireland all around you! Love you forever! 

Michaelmas

Little sweetheart, today is the Feast of St Michael, also known as Michaelmas.

I didn’t even know about it until last year when I read something from The Cloisters - that wonderful medieval art wing of The Met that we like to visit way up in Fort Tryon Park  - in a email. By the time I saw it, it was September 30th, the day after and I’d missed it. But I read up on it and discovered that in more ancient times it used to observed on Oct 11, so I observed it myself, then - ha! Today, having marked it on my calendar beforehand, I had a chance to do so properly.

It’s a feast day, so I made a cake (!) which I’m sharing with the neighbors and later I’ll roast a chicken. In the lightest sense, I’ve jokingly said that I’m celebrating Michaelmas in all my michael-ness. But in the truer, deeper, richer sense, it’s a day of contemplation and thoughtfulness and prayer.

I didn’t get out of the house early enough for my run so I took a long walk up in Riverside Park to listen to the birdsong and watch for butterflies - both things always bring me close to you. I listened to Electric Hymnal this afternoon and again tonight. I told your mom and dad about it and heard back from each of them. Your dad remembered that you and your brother used to observe Michaelmas when you were little kids at The Waldorf School and it made him curious, having remembered that, so he looked up the holiday and sent me a text about what he found online. Your mom loved that I remembered and that had, “quite rightly”, she said baked a cake.

I didn’t grow up Catholic or Episcopal, so I never knew too much about the saints until later in life when the sacred became more intriguing and after your tragic passing desperately necessary to me. I mentioned this to a friend of mine who works at a wonderful church way downtown, I mentioned it before, Trinity Church, not far from the former Trade Center towers, and she suggested I read more of the mystics, if I hadn’t already. So, I’ve bookmarked the works of a few including Julian of Norwich and Hildegard of Bingen (who was also a composer) to look into.

Meantime, I’ve another day to look forward to. To quiet down and listen for your celestial, guiding presence. And to do better. With love and gratitude and quiet prayers. With all my love forever.

Forests...

Little sweetheart, the latest iteration of that fascinating UK-based experimental radio project, The Dark Outside, is taking place today, broadcasting for the next 24 hours never before heard music and recordings from Galloway Forest in Scotland. I composed and we recorded a piece for them, as we have for every event since getting to know of them.

We’ve now seven works in total that we’ve assembled and had broadcast for the project. Up til now we’d only released - and quite limitedly - two of them but we’ve decided between records to compile a special album of them, this more experimental side of Bipolar Explorer.

We’re calling the new album Forests, Voices, Coastlines, Dreams: Recordings for The Dark Outside and we hope to release it sometime around your birthday next month. So more news, artwork and links about that all soon.

As ever, it’s all for you! With all my love forever.
 

Summer-FM!

Little sweetheart, we’re almost a year out from the release of Deux Anges but our friends at KFJC, WFMU, London’s Resonance FM, and any number of internet radio stations are still playing tracks from the double album, for which we’re incredibly grateful!

Also, today, Dan - who has a Sunday morning show on the aforementioned KFJC in Nor Cal played a track from Of Love and Loss. “Out”, with your soaring vocals, came in the first hour between a new band that we quite like, Memory Wire, and a longtime favorite of us both, the Cure.

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

A Glimpse of the Divine

Little sweetheart, today is the 20th anniversary of 9/11. I didn’t think you and I ever really talked about that day. It wasn’t until I was talking to your mom just now that I knew you had actually been home in Davis, not in England at school that morning and had to wait over a week to return to Oxford after.

It was such a strange day, here, little sweetheart, to say the least. I myself was just back from London having been there from Memorial Day through Labor Day. I’d barely readjusted to the time difference and was actually sleeping when the first plane hit. I infamously didn’t have a tv in those days and when a friend called to wake me up, she told me to turn on my radio. I still had a landline, then, which was good because the cell signals were jammed and you couldn’t get through. The subway shut down and eventually so too did the buses but not before the few that made it here uptown were crammed full people seemingly hanging off them like a scene out of Gandhi. All day long people covered in dust made their way on foot up the West Side Highway and 12th Avenue.

No one knew what to do. I walked over to another friend’s apartment - a normal person who actually had a television - and we just stood there watching. We got the idea that maybe we could donate blood, maybe they’d need that, so we walked up to the old St Clare’s Hospital (not there anymore) on 9th but the whole block was cordoned off by police, awaiting injured survivors who never arrived.

The bridges were closed but somehow our friend Paul got in from the outer boroughs to open up McCoy’s because he thought people should have a place to go. It was something you and I knew from our time in England - and later when I finally got to take you to Ireland, too - about how pubs are something different from bars. They’re public houses and especially out in the countryside a community gathering place. “The pub is the hub” Prince Charles famously said.

A score of us trickled in, watching the coverage and speaking in disbelief to one another into the night.

It was a few years before you found me, little sweetheart, although you would move to New York, briefly, for a year, and live just blocks down the street. Later, this place, this place from where I write this, became (and remains) your home, too. Somehow the memory of this day is intertwined with thoughts of you. Certainly great loss is a commonality but I think a larger thing, a spiritual presence, is the true linkage.

When unimaginable things happen, somehow, I think, we’re closer to the divine. We can sense, can feel its presence, almost know it. Today, I feel so close to you, little sweetheart. I know you’re near and encouraging me to carry on - with our work, with striving to be a better person each day, and to hear you calling. I will listen. Always. With all my love forever.

Kindred Spirits

Little sweetheart, today is maternal grandfather’s birthday. I often think about how much you two would like one another. And probably do! I hope you’ve found time in Heaven to get acquainted.

He was a baker. He used to make all of our birthday cakes when we were children. He and my great uncle had a hotel and restaurant in a kind of summer town on one of the Great Lakes. I’d go down there and “work” in the kitchen - over in the salad room far away from the knives or anything potentially dangerous to a seven year old - for two weeks every year and get a crisp twenty dollar bill for my efforts. He ran the whole kitchen and my great grandmother used to main the front desk. College kids would be hired for all the other stuff, mostly.

It was idyllic. I was just telling your mom about the whole thing. I don’t have any plans to write for the theatre anymore but it strikes me as something of a good setting for a play.

Anyway, I feel like you and Louie are such kindred spirits. Both of you so very kind and thoughtful and funny and just love people. Both with such a twinkle, a kind of antic mischievousness. I just think you two would get on so well and again, imagine that you already do! And I only just thought of this now, incredibly - you love baking! - so there’s yet another thing you two have in common.

Thinking of you, as ever, my little sweetheart, as I think of my dear grandpa today, too. With al my love forever.
 

UK Radio Interview

A got a chance to talk about you for some time tonight, little sweetheart, during a radio interview in the UK. 

A station there, Radio SLE, has several programs that have featured us over the last couple of years. The first of them was in collaboration a while back with the Canadian podcast, Limbocast, that did interviews with me after Deux Anges was released, broadcast the double-album in its entirety and then had us back to talk about Til Morning again last December. 

A couple other shows have picked us up, little sweetheart, and a special one, "Music in Mind", that talks with musicians and composers about their work and issues of health and well-being, asked me a couple weeks ago if they could schedule an hour long interview with me for broadcast today. SLE doesn't archive their broadcasts, so I don't have a link to a recording but I had a very wide ranging and thoughtful chat with their host Frankie Rose. 

We spoke a lot about you, of course - the soul and conscience of Bipolar Explorer, the very reason for its existence and continuation - and she opened and closed the show with songs from Sometimes in Dreams: "You Are Loved (Summer's Theme)" at the top of the hour and "Our Oneness Can Never Be Erased" at its end. 

As ever, it's all for you. Listen, little sweetheart - you're on the radio! 

With all my love forever.   

San Simeon (You Said)

Little sweetheart, our earliest champion, the great Irene Trudel, played a track off of our double-album, Deux Anges, today on her legendary show. It's always an enormous honor and all of the songs are truly prayers to you but I'm so glad she played this one - "San Simeon (You Said)" - the 3rd track on Disc Two. 

The beginnings of this record found their origin on the road trip that Sylvia and I made down Highway One in California - a trip I always wanted to make with you (even though I know you hate being in the car!). We'd flown out to see your folks and were with them before and after. Your dad let us borrow the Enclave (it's the spare car they have hanging around - what replaced the beloved Rendezvous) and we headed down the coast for a five day trip down to my birthplace in Santa Barbara and back on the coastal route, stopping at a few of the Missions along the way. I wrote about it (and Sylvia posted it) on the special mini site about Deux Anges. 

All along the way on the overnights, I played my Westerberg electric (the one I kept at your apartment in the Inner Sunset) through a cheap echo pedal and a 9V mini Marshall amp. I'd record via voice memo and the first three of the 30 songs on Deux Anges were birthed that way. 

All them them - Santa Barbara, Mission Street (Carmel) and San Simeon - retained their titles for their geographical origin. All began as instrumentals and "Santa Barbara" remained one. "San Simeon" was the last to have a vocal. Indeed, I put the vocal on and later had to learn how to play and sing it simultaneously(!). It's incredibly prayerful when I do, now. 

The lyrics are very minimal but perfect somehow in evoking we three - you, Sylvia and I. I know how you are with me. You were that night when I played the lick in our hotel room. You were when these words found me. You are even now. 

With all my love forever.

As Close As Breath

There’s something I’ve begun to notice, little sweetheart. I’m very affected by the sound of someone crying.

All this time I’ve known that if I even breath a little hard hard or too deeply that I myself can fall into weeping because the grief is so close to the surface, always. I don’t desire its absence - far from it - “never be ashamed to cry for that girl”, I’ve been known to say. I wrote that an index card and it hangs here over my desk. My grief is part of me and connected to you. I don’t need to do anything to bring it forward but I know especially that it can be triggered by breath.

The newer thing I’ve begun to discover, little sweetheart, is that when I hear others cry - a child or even an adult in some difficulty or anguish - it engages my own emotions so viscerally, I often begin to cry myself. In a way, that is, like so many other things, a testament to you. To the great love and empathy that is such a characteristic of your beautiful spirit.

You continue to mould me, little sweetheart. Reaching out to me from the place I cannot yet see to make me a better, finer person and to teach me all I need to know for the journey. Even through my tears, how grateful I am that you found me.
 

Cardinals in "The Wild"

Little sweetheart, I went for kind of an epic walk this afternoon, farther north than I’ve been in a while. So far, it was dark by the time I finally got home.

At the northernmost point of Riverside Park, there a section of called Forever Wild. It’s trails, a forest and woodland, almost 60 acres. The big highlight in Riverside this year, little sweetheart, is that the parks conservancy have introduced half a dozen goats into part of it so they can feed on invasive species of undergrowth.

I had a mind to go that far up and see if I could spot them but the real treat turned out to be all birds I spotted and a very quiet overgrown spot where I could hear cicadas - I’d been wanting to do a field recording as a base track for our next Dark Outside track.

Right around where I recorded the cicadas in a grove of trees, no sign of the city around me, I saw two cardinals! They were as close as I’d ever been to one. We’ve had a lot of rain of late, and there was almost like a little stream running there because of the run-off. A couple of sparrows and a starling were taking their turns, having a drink and splashing about and the cardinals - at first poised on a railing, only an arm’s length away - flitted down to the spot and joined them.

It was truly magical, little sweetheart, and I felt so very close to you.

I’ve been carrying that blessing my heart all day. Thank you, my angel.

With all my love forever.

A Memory...

Little sweetheart, I don’t spend a lot of time on Facebook. I check in once a day because we’ve sometimes gotten messages for the band’s page there, so I try to be watchful for that. There is a feature there called “Memories” and it reminds you of something you may have posted or that happened on that particular day some years ago - like its anniversary, whatever the post or event might have marked.

I mention all this because, one day, the feature reminded me that that last play I wrote for you, My Before & After, had its performances with Seattle’s ACT eight years ago.

Your mom came up to Seattle to see the play and stay for the talkback - the after-show Q&A between the playwright (me), the Literary Manager and the audience. ACT had flown me out to be part of a program with one other playwright in a co-production with The Icicle Creek Theatre Festival. Each year they select two new plays and cast a company to play roles in both, then put everyone up for two weeks at an Arts Retreat in the mountains in central Washington state, work on each play, presenting them at the end over consecutive nights, before coming back to Seattle for the performance at ACT.

It was really kind of lovely. I had my own little cabin - with air conditioning and wifi! - and there would be two rehearsal periods each day, a morning one and an afternoon one, which we’d alternate each day, one play or the other. The rest of the time I was working on rewrites in my little cabin or going for long walks in the woods. But I did have one entire day off and walked into the nearest town, about 3 miles away.

And that’s what I’m remembering most today, little sweetheart. How I ached and longed for you and how good the long walk felt. How I wandered around in the little village full of sweet little shops that I’d so like to have taken you to, have had you with me, seeing it all together, and that somehow, I think you really were at my side.

All kinds of little coincidences kept happening. I’d hear a song in one of the shops, a song that I’d heard you play on your little MacBook Air when we were together in your room. I stopped by a gift shop and was browsing there and found a necklace with your name on it. Silver chain and “Summer” in silver, too, at its center. There were just two of them in stock and I bought them both so I could give one to your mom.

Finally, I was really hungry and wanted to find something simple for lunch - I was really craving just a nice tuna salad sandwich - but there was some kind of majorly German vibe to the entire town and all the places were that kind of beer and sausage cuisine. Like Octoberfest all year round. I finally settled on a place that had a kind of sea theme, unusual I thought for a small village nestled into the mountains.

Again, it brought you to mind so much, little sweetheart, for your love of tales of pirates and sea lore and I felt as if you had led me there. I sat down and looked at the menu and lo and behold, there was exactly what I’d been craving - lovely fresh tuna salad, fresh greens and some hand-cut fries. It was mid-afternoon but nice and cool and unhurried inside. Very homey with dark paneled walls and decorated with nets and other sailing paraphernalia. I kind of felt like having a beer, something locally brewed, an IPA, perhaps, and they had one that looked good. You order a mug or what they called, charmingly a “schooner”, so I got the latter and it arrived in a tall, rounded glass.

I’d set out that late morning so very sad and lonely, little sweetheart. I’d met my lead actor for breakfast before I left and over coffee he told me he thought I was the saddest person he’d ever known in his life. How I longed and ached for you!

But I think you sensed that, little sweetheart, and came alighting near me all day to help buoy my spirits and keep me going. You fortified me. I remember thinking that very thing at the time. Memories, indeed.

How I love you! Forever!
 

Some thoughts

I don’t think much about the theatre, anymore, little sweetheart. But when I do you always come quickly to mind.

I was watching an interview last night that Stephen Colbert did with the great Robert Duvall. He asked him something about Brando and it made me think of you and want to tell you about it, too. Duvall, of course, famously worked with Brando in “The Godfather”. They were a generation apart and I think Colbert’s question was an acknowledgment of that, sensing Brando’s importance to the generation of actors who followed him. Duvall spoke about himself as a young actor, an acting student, really, in New York, along with his friends Gene Hackman and Dustin Hoffman, who was also his roommate.

Duvall said of Brando, “He was our godfather. Me and Hackman and Dustin used to hang out and if we talked about him once during the day, we talked about him 25 times. Gene met him, by accident, for the first time, on the street and he almost cried.”

I don’t have that kind of feeling about the theatre any more, little sweetheart, but I remember feeling it many years ago, when it was so important to us both. I remember how serious it was to you and I am still so very proud of you.

Your mom used to say that you were the most talented person she ever knew and I know that feeling myself. As I’m writing our story every day, of late, I’ve been telling the tale of your performance in “The Blue Room”, which remains simply the most breathtaking thing I ever saw on a stage anywhere in the world over the entire course of my life.

I knew you’d understand exactly what Duvall meant and I thought of you even as he said it, wishing you we’re sitting here with me, watching it together, as you used to say - “watching a story together with my partner at the end of the day”.

I was, I am still so proud to have been called yours, little sweetheart. And I know you are here. Closer than I can imagine.
 

With all my love forever.
 

Songs Are Like Prayers

It’s funny, little sweetheart, how when working on an album for months and months, after its completion and release, that I might not pick up my guitar for weeks or even a month. Finally, I return and I need to remind myself how all of the songs actually go! Ya know?

I made a list of about 40 of ours songs I wanted to review and have been playing again regularly each day. Just me with my pedals, going through the Vox AC-30 using the big halfback Mesa cabinet (what a huge sound!) and the PA powered up for vocals.

When I return to these songs and play them, little sweetheart, it is physically and emotionally healing and I wrote down a phrase after as I sat waiting for the tubes to cool down before I shut everything off for the night. “The songs are like prayers”, I wrote.

And they are. I need to play and sing them and when I do, it brings me closer to you.

It’s the most important work of my life, little sweetheart, to honor and conjure you. How I love you! Forever!

Butterfiles - at last!

Little sweetheart, for much of this season I’d been disappointed not to spot many butterflies in my walks through Riverside Park. There’s a wonderful garden at the top of The Serpentine near W91st Street where they would often alight. Monarchs, especially, seemed to like quite a big tree at its upper edge, but last fall the gardeners trimmed it back extensively. I don’t know if the two events are related but all through the spring and into July, even, I’d only seen Satin Moths, no butterflies. Until yesterday!

Maybe its something about the month of August. Perhaps that is really high season but suddenly they’re back.
It was so wonderful, that first sighting of a monarch. Then another and another joined the first and the three of them flew and flitted about alighting on flowers and branches - and one another even! - before taking flight yet again. Shortly thereafter, I also saw a Swallowtail - a male with black wings and yellow highlights (the female is the reverse color scheme - yellow with black highlights).

I wasn’t alone in my delight and relief, little sweetheart. A couple of other people had stopped to patiently, quietly stand still, watching and waiting to take a photograph or two.

Like birdsong, little sweetheart, butterflies seem to me a harbinger of your celestial presence. They bring me closer to you. And it fills me with gratitude. As do you, always. I am so very grateful for you, my little sweetheart.

With all my love forever.

More From The Forest

Little sweetheart, we found out today that there's going to be another iteration of that super cool UK experimental radio broadcast event The Dark Outside. This one will be in September in Galloway Forest. 

It was for years an annual event, little sweetheart. The curator assembles recordings from artists all over the world and broadcasts them in a 24-hour event from this remote location. All of the recordings must be previously unreleased, never before heard, streamed or broadcast. They are premieres, usually composed specifically for the event. 

Further, it had been tradition that you could only hear the broadcast if you were in range of the transmitter itself, always outside, usually in Galloway or Epping Forest. During the pandemic, because it couldn't been done in-person, they broadcast the event online, but without archive or back announcements. You just had to tune in and hear whatever you might hear. 

Our first piece for The Dark Outside was in 2019, pre-pandemic and we've composed, recorded and participated in several more subsequently. Two of them - The Dark Outside, The Light Within and eleven:eleven we released on our Bandcamp page after. I think later this year we will release an album of them all. 

You, little sweetheart, as ever, figure prominently! 

More on all this in the days ahead. With all my love forever.

Fredric Westin's "Lärjungarna på väg till Emaus"

Little sweetheart, I'm often on the prowl for artwork both for the album covers and their booklets. We've done booklets now for three of the nine albums. The one for Deux Anges was 48 pages (!) and a collection of black and white photos nearly as old as the medium itself, all taken at the turn of the 19th-into-20th century in pastoral Middle England. 

I saw something yesterday, also in the public domain, that very much intrigued me. I don't know if we'll use it somewhere or not but it's quite lovely. 

It's detail from Fredric Westin's "Lärjungarna på väg till Emaus" and it's here below. The larger work is darker, a night scene of shepherds. This is at the top of the painting, the light breaking through the night and an angel on watch. 

My thoughts flew to you immediately. How you brought such light and love into my own life! 

With all my love forever. 

 

Watching and Listening... Together!

Little sweetheart, there’s seemingly an endless parade of new Beatles-related documentaries and features - an entirely new six hour cut of unused footage from the Let It Be sessions is coming out this fall - but the most recent one is really remarkable. I watched it all last night and thought so very much of you. 

It’s quite straightforward, just Paul McCartney and Rick Rubin in a room set up as a studio out in Amagansett, a mixing desk, a Fender Rhodes keyboard and a couple of guitars sitting around the periphery. Incredibly, they’d had the master tapes sent over from London - they never leave Abbey Road, so that’s something of a first - and Rubin just plays back about three dozen Beatles and early McCartney solo tracks over the studio monitors, often isolating vocal or bass or guitar parts, as they discuss the songs, how they were written and recorded and the stories that surround them. Discuss, or rather often shout over the playback because they’re listening to it all LOUDLY! As did I! 

I ran the sound through our studio monitors. I think you would love this so much, little sweetheart. It’s very musician-centric and although I know it often made you nervous, I always LOVED being in the studio with you! 

You still are with me here, of course, because whenever I work on something new, invariably, I bring in your own isolated vocals, first hearing them just on their own fill up the room and then as they float above the tracks joining the other instruments. 

I remember, too, how one of the first things you gave me, just a week or two after we met and were beginning to fall for one another was your entire box set of The Beatles Anthology on DVD. It was so sweet and generous and your way of saying you wanted to share something special with and get to know me better. 

How grateful I am to and for you. Always! With all my love, my gorgeous girl.
 

Under The Blankets Dream

Little sweetheart, I so often dream of you. Of course. And I’m so blessed when you come to me in dreams. 

Sometimes, the dreams are bittersweet. The best are when we are simply together and everything is okay, as it was before and even better. Other times, things are more complicated and worrisome. 

Last night I had a dream that was a bit of both. It began in that bittersweet vein - you were on earth, had been laying low away from all the drama, but healthy and fine. It was an enormous relief to know of it but somehow I thought that you didn’t want me anymore. I was so heartbroken I just lay down asking God to take me home. There was nothing more for me. 

But then I heard you in another room. I got up and followed the sound of your voice, heard your laughter, too. It seemed to be coming from under the covers of a big bed. Two figures seemed to be there. I think you were with your friend Danya. You both were giggling and then you spoke in a strange, an unusual and somewhat comic accent. Then in your normal voice you called to me telling me to hurry and come to you. 

You were recording a performance of some kind and my parts to read were next. You lifted the covers to show me. There were pages of a script and a tape recorder and you were smiling beautifully, inviting me to join you. And when I did, you kissed me so very deeply I could still remember the sensation when I woke. 

Everything was okay. Everything was okay again.

Rescue

Little sweetheart, it’s been a wonderful year for birds reappearing in the city. Maybe some of the lack of travel during the pandemic accounts for it but regardless it’s been so lovely seeing so many different little avian friends and hearing their songs. It always takes me to you instantly. 

What I’d been sad not to see much of yet, and we’re well into the season, is butterflies. At the top of the Serpentine in Riverside Park there used to be a tree there at the very northern edge of the garden where monarchs in particular seemed to love to alight. They cut it back, pruning its branches, quite a bit last winter and I wonder if that’s why I still haven’t seen even one yet. There have been some pretty white satin moths but I’d hardly seen even one butterfly until yesterday when I spotted a little black swallowtail on the sidewalk near Dewitt Clinton Park. 

He was just laying there, alive but somehow injured or stunned. I carefully picked him up and placed  him in the bushes above, reaching through the railing there. 

We all need taking care of, don’t we, little sweetheart? 

I hope our little friend recovers and is okay. And my thoughts, as ever, fly to you. With all my love…

In Oregon on the 4th

Just a few weeks after my mom unexpectedly passed away and you got me on a plane back from London, then flew yourself across the country to help me in the difficult time, little sweetheart, your dad took us all on a lovely, healing vacation for the 4th of July weekend up to the Oregon Coast. 

I’ve so many wonderful memories of that time, even though I was hurting so, because you did so much to rescue me with the great power of you love. I so treasure this wonderful picture of the four of us taken the last morning of our stay. 

Thinking of you today and always and with all my love forever.  
 

 

That Song

It’s the last day and night of June, little sweetheart. Today has been the hottest day of the year, so far. 97f at its peak here in the late afternoon.

Tonight, I don’t know why, I thought of looking up something on YouTube. It was something that had been on TV and rather a phenomenon at the time, so much so that my mom had sent me a link to watch it. It was that clip of Susan Boyle singing “I Dreamed a Dream” from Les Miserables. I remember it being a little extraordinary as it was one of those awful TV talent shows and as she was older and didn’t look like a model or something that everyone was rather mean and dismissive when she came out and then shocked, and hopefully ashamed of themselves, to hear how wonderfully she sang.

I remember telling you about it and although you agreed with all that you were less excited because, as you told me, you had “a relationship with that song”, yourself. I didn’t quite know what you meant, little sweetheart, but I thought I understood.

When I finally did hear you sing it, it was from a performance that had been filmed when you were only 12 years old. They played it at your memorial on a huge screen at the back of the stage. You were still a little girl but all of you, all I would come to know, was there in your eyes as you sang expressively, soaringly and beautifully.

Your memorial, of course, was held, incredibly, on my own birthday. A day we’d meant to spend rehearsing a play of mine in New York, then driving to Philadelphia that night to see Low play at the storied indie venue at The First Unitarian Church on Chestnut Street. Instead I was here at the Brava Theatre in The Mission in San Francisco about to give your eulogy.

As in all things, little sweetheart, I followed you. After they showed you singing “I Dreamed a Dream”, the tears still rolling down my cheeks, I got up with the words I’d written for you and stood at the podium in silence for a long moment before I could finally gather myself enough to begin.

When I hear that song now, I, too, have a relationship with it, little sweetheart. One that you gave me, like so many other things that I treasure, that saved and redeem me.

How I love you! Forever, my angel. Forever.

Fathers

Today is Father’s Day, little sweetheart. My own father has been gone now longer than I had him in my life. And I find my thoughts are both of your own lovely father and regrets that I didn’t get the chance, as you told me and told your mother, too, that you wanted to raise a child yourself with me.

I sent your dad a card last week and a chocolate cake that was meant to arrive on Friday. I called him today to wish him a Happy Father’s Day and we spoke for some time. It’s been ages since I’ve seen him or your mom or really anybody, because of the pandemic and not being able to travel.

He was kind of winding up the call when I finally asked if he got the cake. He hadn’t! I had an alert that it had been delivered so he went looking for it, sharing the adventure with me on FaceTime. The company sends the cakes packed in dry ice so that they keep well and we found that instead of leaving it at the front doorstep or the backdoor table, that they’d tucked it under the edge of a little bush near the front door so that it would be in the shelter of some shade there. Your dad took it inside and reported that it was fine, thank goodness!

And, well, that’s my story - ha! Anyway, thinking of you, my little sweetheart on this day and every day. With all my love forever…

It's All In Here

Little sweetheart, just as I was about to go to bed last night, I heard quite a commotion outside. Curious, the window already open, I removed the screen and looked out. Across the avenue, people were pointing up to the buildings on this side and taking pictures as the sirens of emergency vehicles could be heard approaching. I looked to the right and three buildings down I could see flames bursting out of a window on one of the upper floors there.

Smoke soon filled the air and half a dozen fire trucks arrived, one of them raising its ladder to the roof of our building, as they opened fire hoses on the building three doors down at the corner. I could hear breaking glass and I got dressed in case we had to evacuate. I went across the hall and told both neighbors.

It was very frightening. My whole life with you is here, your pictures all around me.

They had the fire under control soon, in about half an hour. There were no serious injuries. They closed this block to traffic for more than an hour and then slowly began to peel away until everything was returned to relative normality. It certainly gave me perspective. All the stupid little things I worry about. And it gave way to a sense of greater gratitude.

I was so stirred up I couldn’t get to sleep until after 5am. The birds were already singing sweetly at my window. I said our prayers and finally lay down to rest. Grateful for you, my angel. You, who always keep me safe.

With all my love.

This

I had the most wonderful dream last night little sweetheart.

Not all of the details remain but you were with me, we were together and you were sleeping in my arms. You stirred, sleepy-eyed, caressing me and said quietly, intently “don’t forget this” in a way that seemed to suggest both that I should take the memory of it with me upon waking and also, in the moment of the dream itself, not to forget your touch and my own in response, to remember sensorially, to remember to reach for you and how we find one another.

Yes, little sweetheart. Always.
 

Best Days

Little sweetheart, I was just writing about the wonderful birthday we spent together in Davis. You made me the most delicious chocolate cupcakes and took me to see DCfC in Sacramento and we had the whole weekend together alone. 

This picture was taken right after the show back home in the kitchen together. One of the happiest nights of my life. 

Thank you, my gorgeous girl. Love you forever.

 

 
 

Elliott Smith

I remember, little sweetheart, that although I knew a little bit about him and had heard a song or two, that I suddenly bought Elliott Smith’s album “Either/Or”, maybe because I read something or possibly because I heard a track on WFMU. Maybe it was because I had finally seen “Good Will Hunting” for the first time - ha!  

Anyway, I told you about it and I’ll never forget what you said. You told me to wait before I listened because it was sad and that you wanted to be with me when I first heard it.
 

I wrote that down on an index card a week or two ago, remembering, and it’s here on my desk. I’m looking at it now and thinking, as I always am, of you.

With all my love forever.

Adventuress

Little sweetheart, this photo of you came up in my "memories" folder today, so I thought I'd post (or probably re-post) it here. 

You're in all of your Burning Man gear - goggles, scarves - your hair up and dust-highlighted from the blowing desert sands. My intrepid adventuress! 

Love you forever.

 

 

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.

Nice Things

Little sweetheart, I don’t know what brought me to this thought of late but I’ll share it with you, here. 

I was just thinking of how you took care to have your surroundings lovely and comfortable and how you were used to having such nice things but that you never so much as winced or complained enduring my rather spartan (to put it kindly!) lifestyle. My “bed” an ancient inch thick futon laid frame less on the floor, the crazy kitchen bathtub without even a shower attachment to wash your long beautiful red hair (you admitted to me that sometimes you’d slip away to the salon downstairs for a proper wash and blowout but you never complained. Watching videos on my tiny obsolete TV - I think that’s what actually prompted this whole thought last night, little sweetheart, remembering that. 

Whatever this rather comfortless squalor I’d simply made do with before you found me and saved me and illumined my life with your love and protection, you simply endured without a word of complaint. Only slowly, patiently, bringing me along by suggestion and completely innocent shopping trips to Bed, Bath & Beyond. 

There are so many things when I think of them, little sweetheart, that you did to care for me more than anyone ever had in my life before I met you and I’m so grateful for every one of them. And for you. 

How I love you! Forever!  

Faith & Time

Little sweetheart, during this time in lockdown when churches can’t receive parishioners, I’ve looked for services online to observe. 

One of them - I think I was telling you about this on Holy Week - is the historical Trinity Church, way downtown near the Battery. Their online services are beautifully shot and very thoughtful. The music is lovely and I’ve come to really like some of the liturgy, as well. 

This week there was a wonderfully thoughtful sermon about Time. It’s something that is so very relevant to me, as I’m sure you know, little sweetheart. I really think there is so much to Time that mortals don’t yet perceive but that you, little sweetheart, with the angels, know to be true. 

Primarily, I have faith that all of our life that seems to have passed has not passed at all but is always and eternal and that we can zoom and linger there in The Forever, just as we can be in whatever the “now” seems to us as mortals, simultaneously. 

Phillip A. Jackson is the speaker, here, and his sermon is called “One Foot in Eternity”. It’s really rather remarkable how resonant this is to me, little sweetheart. His words are both scholarly and inspirational. 

In these difficult days, little sweetheart, I keep telling myself to simplify and just to have faith. And listen for you. I know you’re so much closer than I can imagine. 

With all my love forever.

Heavily Played - DEUX ANGES (and Of Love)!

Little sweetheart, it’s May, and some of the non-commerical radio charts have been published. Incredibly, we’ve not one but two different albums charting the Heavily Played Records lists of two of the most beloved and important free-form stations in the country. 

Deux Anges has charted on the great WFMU at the #23 spot (out of 150) just behind Juliana Barwick and Sir Paul Freaking McCartney! 

And out in California, KFJC - which already had had Deux Anges all the way up to #21 in February - began adding some our earlier albums to its Current library, starting with Of Love and Loss, which is now itself at #28. 

Hey, little sweetheart - you’re in the radio! 

With all my love forever.  

Les Enfants

Little sweetheart, this may seem odd but sometimes I feel that I see you in little children. 

I remember being so very moved at church a few years ago during a baptism. It’s wonderful to come across a tribe of little ones in the park, sometimes, so concentrated on and delighted in something as simple as rolling a ball across the pavement. 

I see your bright, pure, beautiful spirit sometimes in little children and I feel such love and longing for you but also a recognition that you are everywhere and that I just need to follow in kindness and that you will find and take me to you again and forever. 

Everywhere there are reminders of you, reminders that life still has things in store that may show me the way and that I just need to listen, simplify and heed them. You will find me, always.

Mother's Day '21

Little sweetheart, today is Mother’s Day. 

Your mom is working on the house down in Turlock, so I found a florist nearby in Modesto to deliver a little bouquet on Friday, a few days before, so she could enjoy them. 

Mother’s Day is such a very wistful time for me, little sweetheart, both because I miss my own mom and because I miss you so very much and can’t help think how you wanted to raise a child with me and be a mommy yourself. 

I think somehow, when things eternal are finally revealed to me, perhaps I’ll find that in the full realness of time, the non-linear more complete one mortals can’t quite know, that we will have a child together to love and protect and teach and cherish. 

You’ve so much more to teach and show me, I know, little sweetheart and perhaps this is among them. 

With all my love forever.   

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

May Day

It’s May 1st, little sweetheart. 

I remember when I was a little boy that we used to celebrate May Day in elementary school by making little baskets, cutting strips of colored construction paper and then weaving and taping them together, finishing with a little handle at the top. Then, on the walk home, gathering flowers - honestly, probably dandelions, mostly - filling the basket and then hanging it on the front doorknob of the house for our mothers. 

How I’d like to do that with you and for you, little sweetheart. I’m thinking of you on this day and every day. 

With all my love forever.