To The Other Half of The Sky video

Little sweetheart, the second of the two tracks from Dream Together that are so very much in my mind today is its closer, "To The Other Half of The Sky". 

From the moment I first found the chords and the words came tumbling forth in grief and longing for you, I've felt you lifting me toward you with love and protection. 

My angel! My True Love! My little sweetheart! God bless your soul...

Dream 3 video

Little sweetheart, I'm going to listen back to Deux Anges in its entirety today but two songs from our earlier album Dream Together are so very much on my mind as I feel your beautiful spirit draw near to guide and comfort me, today. 

The first of them is here: "Dream 3" - which literally came to me in a dream. The melody came wafting to me in sleep and I rushed to capture it in the dark, singing it wordlessly into my phone. The lyrics, too, particularly the bridge - which describes an actual dream I had of you, appearing to me within the waters of a fountain, beckoning me to join you, the cool mist about us as you kissed me. 

How I love you! 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...

Letter to a Friend

Little sweetheart, a friend of mine, Kristen Hartke, who writes a food column for The Washington Post emailed me the other day. She's writing a kind of unusual story about loss - what do people do on the day that is the anniversary of the passing of someone very dear to them. 

 

Well, she thought about you and I, little sweetheart. 

 

She's spoken to a lot of people and learned a lot about how different cultures approach this day and also, of course, how what we prepare, serve and eat may have some special significance or import. 

 

She interviewed me on the phone Thursday night and then I sat down and tried to write out some of the things I had mentioned and told her about. Partly in case I'd forgotten something and mostly so I could say them all to you right here, little sweetheart. 

 

I don't know what, if any, of this might wind up in Kristen's story but, just like always, talking and writing about you - the great gift of my life - brings you closer and comforts me. I love you so! 

 

Here's what I wrote: 

 

 

So, great talking to you Thursday. Your article sounds really interesting and resonant, and, like I said, made me think to write down quickly a few of the things I mentioned.

So… rambling a little about both the Day and food…

My thoughts of Summer are constant. She is always with me. And, of course, the subject and very reason for my work, our work. Bipolar Explorer continues, “of, for and about her”, as I often say. I’ve maintained a little blog, Summerlove, for several years where I write to her. And I’m working on a book of memoirs (the first of three, I hope) about her.

So, Summer is always with me and in my thoughts, every day. But, like we said, this day does come around each year. And despite our sometime intentions that we might better mark our beloveds’s memories by observing their birthday instead of their passing, it comes up on us.

The first three years, I traveled to California to be there with Summer’s parents on the day. The last five, I’ve been here. Over these ones at home, I’ve often been busy marking the day by doing something band-related to honor her. That’s included the releasing of singles “We’ll All Go Together” (2016) , “Watchers and Holy Ones” (2017) and videos for “You Are” (2015), “Dream 3” (2018) and “Necessary Weight” (2019).

So, I’m often busy making something for Summer on the day and forget to eat at all! But food is and was an important part of our life and relationship and continues to be. I loved cooking for her and when I’m in California visiting Mike & Linda, I cook for them each day.

Summer herself loved baking and on her visit here - we met working together in San Francisco and were immediately inseparable, a week after I first returned to NYC, she had booked a flight to visit me the week after my birthday - she wanted to make some cupcakes. She looked around my kitchen doing a quick inventory and spotted a big silver bowl squirreled away at the top of one cabinet, unused for years. I grabbed that down and then she made a list of all the things I needed in my kitchen, we marched up to Bed, Bath & Beyond across from Lincoln Center and procured each item. She made cupcakes that night and from that day forward I was always presenting her with recipes and menus to choose from so I could make dinner for her.

After Of Love and Loss came out in 2012, for more than a year, the band had monthly “couch concerts” here at The Shrine - I’d cook a big meal for the guests, we’d eat and then adjourn to the front room studio and play live for everyone, surrounded by pictures of Summer, songs written for her filling the air. 

On the first “anniversary” in 2012 when I was with Summer’s folks in Davis, we went to the Nugget Market, this lovely grocery in the beautiful little college town where UC Davis resides, and Linda saw a cake she imagined would catch Summer’s eye too. She had them write Summer’s name on it with pink icing.

The Serafin’s have a beautiful house in Davis. Linda herself designed it and it’s where Summer lived when she was going to high school. Her room is still exactly as she left it, her walk-in closet filled with her things and her cotton candy scent. Summer told me of the Davis house with great wonder when we first met and couldn’t wait to take me there. We’d often go, just the two of us, up there from San Francisco, and stay for days on our own, enjoying the garden, watching movies, sleeping late under the canopy of her beautiful bed and cooking.

One year on my birthday, Summer got us tickets to see Death Cab for Cutie, a very important band to the two of us, in Sacramento. We drove up and stayed in Davis. The show was beautiful and emotional and we held each other close and cried. When we got back to Davis, Summer presented me with four different recipe cards she’d selected of possible birthday cupcakes and asked me to pick one. I picked the most over the top chocolate one of the four, of course, and she began laying out provisions. Then she discovered that the hand mixer that was usually in the kitchen had been whisked off to the other house in Yuba City. She was in something of a panic. I noted that it was such a nice friendly pretty little neighborhood and asked if it would be out of line to maybe knock on a neighbor’s door and ask if we could borrow a hand mixer. “Great idea!” she said. “You go do that”.

So, I did. I knocked on the door next door and Mary, their neighbor, very kindly lent me their hand mixer. I told her it was my birthday and Summer & I were there for a few days, Summer making me birthday cupcakes and promised to bring her a couple when I returned the mixer the next day.

The cupcakes were amazing and amazingly complicated. They had molten chocolate inside the batter and all told - prep time and baking time combined - took about 4 hours! I have some pictures of Summer taking them out of the oven and another of her hand-drizzling more chocolate over each individual cupcake there in the beautiful Davis kitchen.

Cupcakes are actually something that I make on Summer’s days, birthday especially, and take around to both my neighbors here on the 5th floor and down the street to the lovely nuns I’ve gotten to know that live in the little rectory across from Sacred Heart. The head nun there, The Mother Superior, I guess, Sister Catherine, is especially kind and always remembers Summer & I. I knocked on the door this year on the 18th and asked if she would say a little prayer for Summer. She took my hand and we stood right there in the doorway and did just that.

I think the thing about food and the day is something that you seemed to have hit upon yourself, Kristen, when I was telling you all this - it’s about giving something to others. That’s so fitting because it’s so very much like Summer herself.

Someone told a story at Summer’s memorial - which was held, incredibly, on my birthday, yet another point of nexus connecting her and I forever. It was an actress, Bree Elrod, who was a cast mate of Summer’s at The Huntington up in Boston. Bree was always wearing a striped wool hat during their tenure there. One day she lost it. And the next day when she got to the theatre, Summer had a present for her - it was a pretty pair of warm striped stockings. Summer told her “I couldn’t bear you going with your stripes!”.

She was so very kind. To everyone. And to me. She saved my life with her endless kindness. She changed me and called me her treasure. She gave of herself. And she taught me everything.

Giving is very much the order of the day. That day, too, maybe more than others, even.

There’s so much more! But I think that’s a few of the things we spoke about... And seasonings! While doing the kitchen inventory here on her first visit, Summer looked through the spices and asked “hey, where’s your seasoned salt?” And (especially Californian) where’s the lemon pepper?” They were in-stock here, then immediately and always. I use them in every savory recipe still to this day. And on the little red table where Summer always set up all her things, her office/make up station, and where we would eat together, where now her things remain, a kind of ground zero of the shrine within The Shrine, a bottle of each - Seasoned Salt and Lemon Pepper - reside.

Okay, hard to bring this to end, as ever, so just signing off with a to be continued and this little excerpt from an interview France’s Indiemusic did with me after our album Dream Together (2017) came out:

“She’s always with us in so many ways. Her passing is entirely tragic. For anybody out there who wonders how you endure, I can only say what a friend told me when I said I didn’t know how I was going to go on or what I was going to do now. He just said, “you’re doing it.” It’s always there, grief. Like if you even breathe a little too hard. I think possibly you learn to carry it. I can’t tell anyone out there that it’s something you ever get over. For myself, I don’t even see that as some goal. I don’t want to “get over” anything that has anything to do with Summer. Not even the most painful parts. I want all of that. I welcome her, ask her to be near me.

I used to say to her all the time, even if she was just going into another room for a minute or only just shifting her weight to grab something from the other side of the bed, “don’t go too far away,” I’d say. I still say that to her all the time. Whether it’s in a quiet moment when I suddenly sense her presence or we’re in the middle of a session and a lyric I wrote for her hits me as we come to it.
Summer isn’t the main reason BPX goes on, she’s the only reason. She is the reason. And I think I can trust that I’m doing things for the right reason if I always know the reason for it is her. Not out of any ambition other than to honor and conjure her. She’s my conscience.”

With love & faith,

M

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.

Forever... (and Dream 3 video)

On this day in 2011, little sweetheart, you crossed over to The Forever, where I so long to join you. Tonight I assembled this video in honor and memory and faith - we'll be together again, soon and forever. Love you with all my heart and soul.

From Portugal

Little sweetheart, those same nice folks from France who are helping us over there came across a review of Dream Together that we hadn't seen before. It's from Portugal and was published in WAV Magazine just over a year ago! I don't know how we missed it but it's very nice. I'm trying to contact them.

The link to it is here: DREAM TOGETHER review - WAV Magazine (Portugal). 

I'm leaving the translation here below and my favorite parts, of course, are all the parts about you, especially this:

"...The will of a life of two lovers to be forever remembered, Summer Serafin continues to be the inspiration and motive for each newly addictive Bipolar Explorer album..."


Here it is in full, translated:

WAV magazine (Portugal)
Diogo Rocha
March 1, 2017

The year 2016 did not leave good memories to very many people! There are those who say that the best thing that happened in 2016 was that 2017 started. And I'm glad it did. On the first day of the new year, New York's Bipolar Explorer band presented their new album as a late Christmas present. Dream Together is the sixth long-length work of this post-rock group (dreampop, shoegaze, slowcore, minimalist indie or whatever one might want to call it) consisting of Summer Serafin and Michael Serafin-Wells.

After the much acclaimed Of Love and Loss (2013) and Angels (2015), Dream Together is a record that is great to behold in that cold winter, wrapped in blankets, surrounded by heaters and a freshly ground cup of Arabica coffee. For an hour, Bipolar Explorer bring back those characteristic sonics to which their fans are accustomed- loops swirling, guitars stirring feelings, infinitely nostalgic melodies and a voice looking for something that does not belong to this world. The result of this equation is a return to a time to which there is no certainty that one has belonged, but that is quite familiar to us.

The door of this return is opened by "Thirteen", a melody that prepares us to receive the melancholy and to understand that love does not always have a happy ending. This perception is heard painfully in "Not Alone", “With no arms to hold me / Let your spirit enfold me / I'm not alone”. But soon in "Dream 3", is clear the will of a life of two lovers to be forever remembered, "The precious spell and time will tell / The world the tale / How I'm in love".

Although passed from this life after a tragic accident, Summer Serafin continues to be the inspiration and motive for each newly addictive Bipolar Explorer album. In "Listen", Michael Serafin-Wells declares all his intentions, "Rest now / In the garden of ours /And I’ll be along / To reverse every wrong / In just a little while / I'll meet you there”. 

And do not forget that Summer's longing will only grow, always supported by the love that still nourishes her - “So deep inside my heart / Where you’ll remain and always burn / The most beautiful spirit /Ascension! / The miracle made true / Blessed, precious treasure / I need you more than ever ", is cried in “To The Other Half Of The Sky ".

With instrumental pauses that make us hold our breath and delve deeper into nostalgia, "Fireflies" and "Along These Lines" enrich this volume and testament of love.

Instrumentally, Dream Together does not present itself in a significantly different way than those works preceded by the band. In fact, everything we hear on this new album is already within the sonic signature of these New Yorkers. The highlight here is the emotional punch we are offered. Punching and kicking we are tackled throughout the album. Whenever a new track starts, it is as if we rise from the ground simply to fall again and only at the end do we realize the hematomas and hemorrhages all over the body. It's only when it's over that, with puffy eyes and a tight heart, we lower the lid of the computer, put down the cup of coffee and let out a breath of relief: oh my god!

To Find You

I went up to Davis today, little sweetheart…

Is Davis north of here, actually? I have to think about that for a moment. It may be south. That would be fitting, tho’. You were forever calling things “up” or “down” exactly opposite of their direction north to south. It was one of those things, like dates and numbers, that just didn’t compute for you. Charmingly so. It makes me so very fond and sad to think of it now. Like most things, I suppose, honestly.

I drove up (or down or over or whatever it is) ostensibly to deliver copies of Sometimes in Dreams to KDVS. Gabe, the station’s Music Director, has office hours on Thursday and I wanted to get it to him and a couple of the DJ’s who liked and programmed Dream Together last year.

I stopped at the house first, planning to walk over. I often linger at the house. I remember so keenly the many wonderful times you and I spent there lovingly, gloriously on our own. The amazing birthday cupcakes you made for me one year and the DCfC show we went to that evening and then returning cuddled on the couch in our pjs. All the times together in the garden and walking around downtown hand in hand visiting little shops or having lunch or dinner and getting a movie to take home and watch curled up together. Waking in your pretty canopy bed, entwined and in the deepest love I’ve ever known. It was an oasis and ours.

Today, my little sweetheart, something just didn’t feel right at all. I felt like a stranger there and far far too far from you and the love that saved and change me. I didn’t linger. I couldn’t have been there more than a few minutes. I packed up, locked the door behind me and walked to campus.

And when I came back, I just got in the car and drove to the Nugget Market and bought flowers to take to the place where the Angel honors your memory.

I know you aren’t there, darling. Not tethered in the least, You simply alight to confirm me. And I felt that you did as it was there finally that I lingered, letting the daylight go out around me and the night come on before kissing your stone and telling you how very much I love you. I lay all the way down across the marble there and listen and talk quietly to you. And cry and cry and cry.

Honestly, little sweetheart, I found myself in despair as I wept and something made me say that “people are so mean”. I’m not sure where that hurt came from but I felt and articulated it and somehow unburdened it talking to you. I sometimes feel, as I sometimes did in life, that people are trying to take you away from me and I said that too, “they won’t let me have you.”

But I know better because you told me yourself that others don’t matter. You told me, in the words of one of the songs we so loved, that my love would be safe with you. I remember, can still feel, how you crawled into my lap and quieted me, kissed away my tears and said over and over “I promise. I promise!”.

I need only quiet myself, listen, remember, do my work, do our work. And you will be with me. Here and in just a little while, forever. Help me to know, my darling. I need you more than ever. With all my love.

To Find My Way

Little sweetheart, a few advance copies of the new album arrived here in California late this afternoon and I set aside a few meant to go to radio stations here and back east and two for your parents, as well. Tonight, I sat with your mom in the front room where the Christmas tree is and we listened to Disc One together.

It’s a funny thing but I don’t usually listen much to the albums after they come out. So much vigilant listening goes on as I mix and hear playback of the masters. Somehow, months can go by before I hear something I was listening to so attentively just half a year before. Your mom had “Dream Together” on the other night, when we were waiting for the guys to deliver the tree we’d picked out and I’d forgotten how emotional it could make me feel. I stood there at the window looking out and just crying and crying as I heard “Dream 3” fill the room, longing for and missing you, heartbroken.

Tonight, that came up some too as I listened, as we listened together. I’m always a bit nervous as your mom listens for the first time but she seemed to really like it. It’s so very much for you.

I said something to Alex - that filmmaker at USC who’s doing the documentary about the us - when she asked me how it all felt. I said something about it being a culmination of all the work done beginning with the last two albums and she asked if they meant that this was the end of something. I told her right away that that was not what I meant. That maybe “culmination” was the wrong choice of word. That this album just took those elements of spoken word and dream pop to a more distilled manifestation. But perhaps there is something in it.

I don’t know, my darling. I’m kind of filled with sadness somehow, a bit inconsolable. I think the work is good and I’m pleased and relieved that your mom likes it (your dad hasn’t listened yet) but I feel a bit lost. I hope I can just keep it together and find my way, find you. I really want to very diligently (that word, again) work on the book after I return to New York. And I remember your impatience with life. I remember it with fondness and admiration. So much seems too distant now, too distant even here. I think writing may be the way to find it. The way to find my way.  Do you know?

Please help lead and guide me there, won’t you, my darling? And take me to you the moment heaven will allow. With all my love forever. 

Other Mourners

Little sweetheart, I met a nice lady a little while ago at that candlelight meditation service I’ve told you about. She lost her husband three years ago and I think she first introduced herself after I read one of the poems I’d written for you and read it aloud in the service in March. Her late-husband and her son are both drummers. Her husband was also named Michael and he was mostly a classical drummer and percussionist, playing with all kinds of famous ensembles and symphonies.

A while back, just before the service takes a break for the months of July, August and September, resuming in October, I gave her a copy of Dream Together. She really liked it and seemed to find it especially resonant, as sometimes others who have suffered great loss only can.

Tonight we actually met up for an hour or two before Taize. We met up at that nice little diner I like to take you to - Cafe 82 - up on Broadway. She wanted to hear more about you and how we met. It was so good to talk at length about you. I love doing that. I feel so close to you when I do. She and her Michael were married for most 40 years. He passed away after a bout with cancer, sadly.

There’s something about talking to other people who know about this - what it is to lose the great love of their life and who have faith that they will be reunited, that their soulmate is still nearer than they can imagine, helping to guide and comfort them, as I know you are with me. They’re not so impatient for you to “get over” the loss or look for someone else. They get it. It’s nice when that happens.

I’m doing my best to find my way… in my best hours anyway, little sweetheart. Please help me to make that be more often than not. Please help me to quiet myself and listen for you. I know you’re there and only seek to help me. God bless you for that and for everything. I’m so grateful for you. With all my love forever.

To The Other Half Of The Sky - Bipolar Explorer

For your birthday, little sweetheart. Video for "To The Other Half of The Sky" from our sixth album, Dream Together. Love you forever.

Found Flowers and Angels

Little sweetheart, I've had the strangest day.

My friend Lee was visiting from Boston. She was driving down to go to reading at Judson near NYU but stopping here to meet up for a few hours before. She arrived later than expected and we didn't have loads of time but she wanted to go for a walk and have something to eat after, so I took her up to that sweet little diner that you and I like so much way up on Broadway.

We had a nice walk and nice chat and a nice lunch. I gave her a CD-R - a rough mix demo of the new "incidentals" for the live Of Love and Loss (she runs a little theatre company in Cambridge, so it's possible we might perform it up there). After, she handed me a chicklet, a little piece of gum. I bit down and I immediately heard something crack. I felt with my tongue and spit out a tiny piece of tooth! Oh. My. God. I wasn't bleeding or in pain, so that was good, but it shook me up a little! I wrapped it in a bit of plastic and an extra handkerchief I had in my bag and stashed it back in the bag itself next to my notebook.

We were running a bit late for her reading and she wasn't sure how to get there, so I took her myself on the subway and then walked her over there from the train. After, I tried to get the dentist on the phone. It's Sunday, so the machine picked up but it also had an emergency number. I dialed it and the dentist who shares office space with my own answered and set up an appointment for me first thing Tuesday morning. Gah.

I was right down near the place where I often meet Elaine, my literary agent, so I texted to see if she was around. She texted right back to say she was about to walk her dog and that she'd meet me by the edge of the park across from Judson in five minutes. I've been with Elaine for just a little bit before I met you, little sweetheart, and she remembers how rich you made my life, how very happy. She's been so supportive and kind over the years and was among the first to ask if there was a way to meld my music for you with my writing. She also, tragically, just lost her husband a few months ago. I've only seen her a couple of times since then, so I'm glad we had a chance to meet up. She has a new puppy, just 16 weeks old. Her name is Fiona, and she reminds me very much of Gidget, the little cocker your Mom and I got your Dad for Christmas the year you passed.

As we sat down there was a little rose that had been cut but was still thorny and stalky and in full bloom right on the bench where we were about to sit. I gave Elaine Dream Together - it's been that long since I've seen her - and told her about the incidentals for Of Love. She's going to London on Friday, so she'll talk to Meg, my agent over there, as well.

When we parted, I felt better, I think we both did, and I took the little rose with me, careful to carry it by the stem with my handkerchief over the sharp needles of the thorns.

As I walked across to the West Side to catch the bus, I came across another flower. A pretty pink one. It was lying on the sidewalk near the little church and garden and thrift store there on Hudson Street. I gathered it up with the rose and carried them both carefully with me to the bus stop, then on the bus itself, then all the way home and finally put them both in a little jam jar I filled with water.

It all made me feel so close to you, my little sweetheart. A little sad, too, because I miss you so and it reminded me of how I'd always prepare a dozen roses for your arrival, arranging them in a vase and setting them on the red table where you'd organize all your treasures and do your make up and conduct official Summer operations here in our apartment. Where we'd eat together side by side. I never dine there anymore, it's too lonely without you. But I keep all your things and light a constant candle there for you.

I loved that I found these flowers today and that I brought them safely home. I love having thoughts and signs of you near. Please be with me today and always, won't you, my darling? And take me to the very moment that heaven will allow. With all my love forever.

About Kindness

Little sweetheart, thank god for you! Thank god for your teaching me so many things about kindness. No one I have ever known is as generous of spirit as you, my love. I'm so grateful for you. And I'm so grateful that you help me through these terrible days when I miss you so by visiting me when I myself act in kindness. I can feel you with me in those moments. It happened several times today, little sweetheart.

On my run, I came across a young woman who was trying to find her way to the pier from within Riverside Park. It's not easy to find if you don't know where to go down. She had a toddler in tow and was also pushing a stroller. She was new to West Side and wanted to show her little boy the river.  Her name was Jasmine. I explained how to get to the path and also told her about the free events they have up here - movies and concerts and activities - all family friendly. She was very encouraged and the whole time I could feel you with me.

You swell up in my heart when I help people, sweetheart. You're the best person I've ever known and I long to do as you would have me do, to be a better person myself.

Later, I saw the woman I may have told you about from HCC. They're an non-profit that has been helping low income tenants here in Hell's Kitchen for 30 years. She's one of their long-time volunteers. She was very worried about her brother who's far away and in trouble. I talked to her for a long time. She knows about you, of course (I love telling people about you, my treasure!), and I think when people do they tend to approach me with the things that hurt and trouble their hearts. It's you they can sense within and about me. It's your beautiful spirit that draws them toward me with a hope for love and understanding. And I'm so grateful to be any kind of conduit for you, my gorgeous girl. How I long to be with you! And encounters like this help me feel your divine presence.

Finally, just an hour or so ago, I was up at that sweet little church I've told you about. Wednesday nights are when they have their candlelight meditation service. It's often led by the young woman I've told you about who first welcomed me when I happened upon it a few years ago. She seemed a bit unsettled tonight, little sweetheart. She excused herself shortly after it began and when she returned around the midpoint of the service, she didn't resume sitting in her usual place near the front but stayed at the back, just a row or two in front of me, sitting by the cantor and kind of falling into her arms.

Afterward, I moved into the row directly behind her and spoke quietly to her asking if she was okay. It was something personal that was upsetting her, so I won't go into it but I did my best to listen and comfort her. "Everybody loves you", I told her. And it's true - she's very kind and sweet and I think you two would be friends, little sweetheart. She often tells me that she prays for you. I think she heard that - me telling her that she is loved - and felt a little better. And it had just been her birthday the day before, so I gave her a copy of Dream Together. She'd told me she'd listened to it online and gotten very emotional just hearing the guitars on "She Hears You Calling" - one of the songs you gave me in a dream, my darling.

All these things seem connected, my love. And they are because the connection, indeed the nexus, is you. May I do as you teach and guide me, my love. And may I be returned to you soon and forever. With all my love.

Dream Notebook

Little sweetheart, I write down dreams I remember as often as I can. I’m not too good at remembering them for the most part, but I’m trying harder to now. The album, of course, is filled with dreams - some of the songs, their melodies, even the words sometimes, straight from dreams and in other cases, the story of a song coming from one.

Anyway, I was looking over some of them and I found this one from a while ago. I don’t know if I ever told you about, so I will do now, even if I have before…


“…Dreams of you, my sweetheart have been ever more vivid somehow this week and I awake knowing that you are trying to find and guide and remind me. "Remember" was such a word of yours and I find so potent in my waking hours, missing and longing for you. And trying to do better. To be the person you were trying to help me become and I know even still are now from beyond my earthbound consciousness. Last night into the morning hours I dreamt you were with me. I'd bought some funny old car. I think now awake and writing of it that is a kind of recurring dream of mine. That I have some weird old car some place left forgotten and that I happen upon it or go looking. In this dream, my sweetheart, you were with me and we needed to get the funny old thing back to Davis but we had your Prius with us, too. I was so afraid to part with you. I knew we'd each have to drive one of the cars and had asked if you wanted to take a turn behind the wheel. You said you might like to in a while. Somehow I had the feeling that I was so lucky to have found you again and couldn't bear the idea of leaving your side even for a minute. But the sweetest part of the dream, my darling, through all of the strange, mundane logistics - what a normal, silly thing to dream of, no? - is that we kissed, my lovely girl. We kissed and kissed. And although I always used to close my eyes as our lips met, in the dream, again I couldn't bear to. I kept my eyes open and watched your mouth approach mine and I swear I could feel you. The way only you could ever feel in my arms. The way only you could ever kiss me. And for those moments, be they minutes or hours, in the other place of dreams, I was finally and again at home. You, my home, my love…”

From Dream Notebook. With all my love. 

Read(y) For You

Little sweetheart, tonight is the anniversary of the terrible accident that took you from me. I'll never forget what a wonderful day we had had right up until the worst, cruelest thing that could ever be. Today is Wednesday, so I went to that little church I told you about to pray and sing and sit quietly and send every thought to you. They asked me to read one of my poems for you, one of the Dream Together poems. It came near the end of the service when we name aloud or silently those dearest ones in our prayers. I spoke a little about you and then read this:

She sent him a dream so he would know. 
And she whispered "remember when you wake." 
It was the spot where she often stood 
on the opposite nearer-than-he-could-imagine middle distant shore. 
Ever faithful. 
Watching the other half of the darkened sky 
for him to pass from his world and fall gliding safely into her own. 
Forever and returned at last. 
Two halves of the same soul.

You are in my every thought and prayer tonight, my angel. And always always will be. With all my love forever.

 

Elle EST la raison. Elle est ma conscience.

Little sweetheart, last month the new album got a very kind review in France (of all things) and today the same publication, Indiemusic, followed up with a feature and interview. It's here. They asked a lot of great questions but my favorite parts are, of course, telling people about you, my darling. How you changed and saved my life. How very much I love you. What a wonderful, brilliant, kind person you are - the best I've ever known. How grateful I am to and for you - my treasure. There's a lot about you, of course, and a couple of lovely pictures. But one thing I've been thinking about today reading it is this passage:

"...Summer isn’t the main reason BPX goes on, she’s the only reason. She is the reason. And I think I can trust that I’m doing things for the right reason if I always know the reason for it is her. Not out of any ambition other than to honor and conjure her. She’s my conscience..."

May you always be, my little sweetheart. May you be with me and guide me and take me to you just as soon as heaven will allow. With all my love forever...

Dream Together - today

Little sweetheart, the new album, our sixth, Dream Together, was released today - New Year's Day 2017. It's on iTunes and Amazon and CD Baby and pretty much everywhere. And it so very much, as ever, is of, for and about you.

Below is a little something USC filmmaker and writer Alexandra Dennis-Renner wrote about the new album on her blog this morning. I read it to your mom as we were listening in the front room this morning, by the beautiful Christmas tree we decorated together, as she put the new charms I gave her on your (now hers) silver bracelet and we both cried.

Love you forever, my darling. Please help and guide me this you and take to you as soon as heaven will allow.

"I think with unanimous consensus, 2016 was trying. However, frustration, loss of confidence, and despair are not organic. They're born of hope. As much as we liked to paint the overarching climate of the year since passed with the theme of despondency and resignation, for all of us, in one way or another, 2016 was a beacon of hope. It alluded to prospect. There was expectation for change. We faced wins and we survived losses. Sometimes it felt like the universe was abandoning us, but here most of us are...on our feet and moving forward. I think there's no better way to forge ahead than with a new record from my friends Bipolar Explorer. Every song on Dream Together is a reminder that the end of one thing is not necessarily the beginning of something new--not a hard reset--but the continuation of what was through the lens of what could be. What will be. And proof that there is always love, hope, and strength in that journey. Happy New Year, everyone. You made it to the next chapter. There's something here for you and you are loved..." 

Alexandra Dennis-Renner
January 1, 2017
Los Angeles, CA

You Are My Home

I woke up this morning with my head on your pillow and pictures of you around me. Birdsong was in the air and the warm California sun breaking through the windows here at your folks house, little sweetheart, where I’m spending Christmas. I didn’t arrive until after 2am last night! Your mom picked me up and then we stayed up talking till nearly 5am.

My flight was delayed leaving NYC because it was coming from Orlando and there was a lot of crazy weather down there, apparently. More than a few of the planes meant to take off from JFK were originating from Orlando, so people wanting to fly to Boston or LA or Chicago or anywhere were all delayed, too. My own flight was delayed over three hours, so I can a lot of time to wander the terminal looking for a quiet place to sit and wait. I usually do that when I arrive early - I find some quiet corner, usually not anywhere near my own departure gate, and have a little snack and maybe write in my notebook and wait away from all the rush and bustle.

It was hard finding a place last night, little sweetheart! It was so crowded. But I did settle into a little corner seat near some big windows overlooking the runaway where people were waiting for a flight to Austin. And I struck up a conversation with a young woman who turned out to be a flight attendant heading home (to Austin) after several days flying all over the country.

I wound up telling her all about you - how we met and our trip to Ireland and how you loved hot water bottles after you discovered them while at school in Oxford. About food you were always at wanting to do things now and not just “oh, some day”. And I gave her a copy of the new album. Her name was Krista, little sweetheart, and she was very nice.

Later, it was finally about time to look in and see if there was any updated news about my own long-delayed flight, so I went down to that end of the terminal to find out. They told me that the plane was only about 15 minutes away and after they cleaned it, we should be able to start boarding in about half an hour.

So, I went and found a new place, a bit closer to wait. I was watching all the people go by as I sat there and I was feeling lighter, somehow. I wasn’t worried or anxious about the long flight or the late hour. I think it was having been telling someone about you that calmed me so. It often does, my darling. And as I sat there I noticed there was a little storefront across the way called “Be - Relax”. It had what looked to be a dozen big lounge chairs and people were laying down. A few of them were getting massages.

And it was then that I remembered that when my Mom died and I had to fly back from London and you flew yourself from San Francisco to Detroit to meet my plane, that you had waited all night in the airport there. I was happy to see you! I ran to you and took you in my arms. You were wearing that little blue backpack you’d only just gotten for your trip to Thailand. And you told me how you’d wandered around the airport all night meeting everyone who worked there and talking to them and that you’d gotten a massage!

I’d often wondered how you did that and what it must’ve been like. I kinda couldn’t imagine it. And then here was a place just like that, right in front of me, right after I’d just been telling someone all about you. I felt so very close to you in that moment, little sweetheart. It made my heart soar with love!

And I thought again, as I so often do, of what a treasure you are. How sweet and thoughtful and kind hearted you are. And how you filled my life with light and love. How breathtakingly good to me you were - and still are with your angel presence always helping me. How you were always there doing things for me not only without being asked but before I even knew that I needed them. How you are by far the best person I’ve ever known and who loved and loves me with more depth and trueness and generosity that anyone. How you could and can always be counted on. And how very very grateful I am for you and grateful to you for finding me. For everything.

And when I feel at peace, it is because I feel you and your love surrounding me. And I knew in the moment that I met you, my heart knew it had found its home. I knew I was where I belonged. My soul found its long-sought-for place of belonging. It is within your keeping. And I am so grateful, my little sweetheart. And I love you forever.

And At That Hour...

I looked up just a few moments ago and it was 11:11pm. It's said that if one notices, at that hour, a celestial presence may well be looking in, wanting to make contact and alight to comfort and guide their mortal, lonely charge. Thank you for finding me tonight, my angel. I've felt close to you today, little sweetheart. We have the first copies of the new album. The CDs and gatefold and the booklet all are beautiful, my love. Jason was just going to come by to pick up a copy but he stayed and we listened and had Christmas cookies and coffee and went on the roof briefly - it's freezing here, even inside it's cold! As we listened and your gorgeous vocals rang out above the guitars, I closed my eyes. I could feel you near. I remember exactly how you feel in my arms and how your legs and arms feel wrapped around me. I swayed in my seat, leaning forward to hear every note. And I cried for you, my heart so filled with longing. I think it's something else you taught me, my little sweetheart. That it's important to mark and observe these events. You've guided me all through the making of this record, little sweetheart - literally coming to me in dreams with some of the songs. Dream Together, indeed. Thank you for letting me know that you are watching over and are near me tonight, my angel. Take me to you soon. With all my love forever. 

On Dreaming...

Little sweetheart, all the art and audio for the new album Dream Together is in the hands of the powers that be. We’ve approved everything - the mastered mixes, the CD layout and design, the special accompanying 20-page booklet (that based on the idea of a Victorian book of verses). The digital distribution (to iTunes, etc) has been finalized, the CD manufacturers have begun production and the printing house is rolling presses on the booklet. All are expected to be in hand before Christmas and the official release with the record label is on New Year’s Day. A special pre-sale on iTunes, Amazon and CD Baby begins on December 18 - the day I fly to NorCal to see your folks. When people buy the album in advance, they can immediately download the first single, “Radioside”.

I’ve been so involved, pre-occupied with this album, my little sweetheart. I so want you to like it. As ever, your voice, both spoken and singing, is prominently featured. And the album is very literally as titled - many of the songs actually came to me in dreams with you at my side.

When you are in my dreams, my little sweetheart, I know that I am doing something right. It is such a comfort to me.

Conversely, when, upon waking, I don’t remember you being in my dreams, I am terribly worried that I have gone off the rails, am not living right, have done something wrong and offended you.

Little sweetheart, I make mistakes. I always have. I’m stubborn and opinionated and difficult - a handful. I am so very sorry - I can’t even tell you how much - for my mistakes, for every hurting your feelings. For any and every cross word.

I know we both make and made mistakes. I know that we are both wildly emotional. That that is also an enormous blessing. It’s why our love is so profound and true and passionate and unabashed and undeterred and deeply rich, authentic and real. Yet still it haunts me.

Please help and guide and forgive me, my darling. Please know -  and tell that you do, remind me - that the sum of our true love is so vastly beyond any of our earthly errors. That the little disagreements, the hiccups, fits and starts all have their root basis in the same thing - that we just desperately need each other and its only the sometimes frustration (like now) when we can’t be fully in each others arms, that we quibble and get cross.

These dreams, my sweetheart, these dreams with you are a testament to that. They keep me going. May they take me to you, soon, again and forever. With all my love…