About May 23

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

10 months later, Summer herself unbelievably, tragically passed.

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

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

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

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

With love & faith....

The Winter Solstice

 

Tonight is the Winter Solstice, little sweetheart - the longest night of the year. It’s been a thing with me for a while, I guess. As you’ll remember - because you were in one of the casts! - my play, Seven Pages Unsigned, is set on the night of the Winter Solstice. 

When I was a good deal younger than I am now, little sweetheart, I think I used to enjoy the night - not just this night, but night itself - much more than I do now. I even rather liked cloudy, sunless days. But I’ve found that I’ve grown much more photosensitive. I really need and long for the light. 

That’s both a literal statement of fact and simultaneously the more poetic one - I miss and long for the light that is you. The light you brought into my life. 

Anyway, the thing about the Winter Solstice is that every day now until the Summer one (quite appropriately), the days will grow longer, the light come earlier and stay later. Something to look forward to, yes, little sweetheart? 

With all my love…

Holy Days - April 4th

Little sweetheart, it's April 4th. As the month turns from March to April, I always have this day in mind somehow, intuiting its approach. 

April 4 was the day my return flight to NYC was scheduled after you and I had gotten the "Blackbird" production together. Closing was meant to be a few days prior, so that you and I could decamp to Davis and have a lovely weekend together before I flew back east. Already, we knew you would be following just a few weeks later. My birthday was the 25th and we had tickets to see Low at that really special church venue in Philadelphia. We thought we might either take the train down or even rent a car and drive, because you were going to be here also for the workshop of my play My Before and After. We'd arranged to have the day off so we could make the trip. 

Instead, tragically, none of that came to be. I did fly on April 4th, heartbroken, ruined, alone. 

This day haunts me, little sweetheart, so I must do everything I can to be mindful, to listen quietly for your presence and to heed your call, your guidance. And simply to have faith - faith that you are closer than I can even imagine and that I need to keep my heart open, do our work and know that you will one day soon call me home. 

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.
 

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.

The Saddest Person Ever

 Little sweetheart, when I was working on the last play I wrote for you, the last play I ever worked on, really, in 2013, a little while after your tragic passing, I was in Upstate Washington State, on retreat with the company and cast before our production of of My Before & After. It was ten days in a lovely little arts colony in the mountains.

One day, I was in there little cafe having coffee with the lead actor, a lovely man named Tim. As so often happened my thoughts were of you and I burst into tears. He was very kind but he also said to me, quite worried, that he thought I was the saddest person he ever had known.

I still am. I try hard to do my work and be kind and say our quiet prayers, but often the darkness descends, my love. And I need to say that. I need to live within it and let it be part of me as you are always a part of me, the biggest part, the very best part, and just quietly ask to feel you near me. I know it’s okay to feel this bad. I know because you loved and still did love me and that we are forever.

Thank you, my little sweetheart. Always. Always.

Just Like Waiting For The Bus...

Little sweetheart, it's a new month. I guess it has been all week.

I'm trying my best to be quiet and listen for you. I know you try to find and comfort and encourage me in every way you can and know how. It's hard because you are eternal and I'm still stuck in the mortal world. I say it every morning when I wake - I don't like it here without you, please take me to you. I just want to pass through death to the other side and be with you always.

While I'm here, I just want to honor and feel as close as possible now to you. Remember I told you after my mom died - I remember exactly where we were, I was driving her car up the big hill in the little town where she had lived, to pick up the suit and dress you and I had brought for her funeral - I told you that with my mom now gone, I knew that I had, more than anything, to be with you as much as possible. However that needed to be, even if it was flying out to see you every weekend (like a congressman going home to his district) until you could move to New York. Whatever it might be, I needed to be near you, with you, now, always. It just seems the cruelest thing that only ten months later, you too passed.

Little sweetheart, it's a new month. I don't want any more time on this earth without you. But if I must be here, if I must wait, then I want to use the time as best I can and in a way that pleases and makes you proud.

I've been working both on the book and on the new album. The last week or so I've been mostly tracking bass on the songs and adding some other guitar and vocal parts, but mostly I'm in the bass phase. This computer is getting full. I need to upgrade its hard drive, so I'm trying to get to a place with progress on the album that I can be okay leaving off for a week while the MacBook Pro is in the shop getting the upgrade. I bought a keyboard for my iPad, so that during that week, probably this coming one, I can turn my full attention to the book and type up the entire chapter I've just written out by hand in my notebook, filling it. I'll also burn playlists to disc of the album in progress, so that I can work out and practice more vocal and instrumental parts, so I'm ready to resume recording when I get the laptop back.

Please help and be with me, won't you, my darling? I need you more than ever. And if it's time to fly to you - perfect! All this is just to keep me doing the right thing while I wait for you. I thought about it the other day when I was out for a walk. I said it aloud (I talk to myself a lot now and also to you): I just need to think of my life now as if I'm simply waiting for the bus. The bus that will take me to you. It'll be here soon enough. I needn't get anxious or upset. I need to just wait patiently and know you will come for me.

While I wait, these are some good things to do, I think. Let me know, won't you little sweetheart? Let me know your will so that I might follow. Always. Always. With all my love forever.

"The Most Beautiful Thing..."

Little sweetheart, as I mentioned last week (in the post that spoke of how in my best moments I hope I'm doing my best to keep devoting the rest of my life to you) I've been working on a live performance art adaptation of our double-album for you, Of Love and Loss. In October we had a concert performance of it in Brooklyn and after that I rewrote it replacing the idea of actors with a female spoken word narrator who, performing in tandem with us (the band), takes us on the journey, sort've like in a radio play or a novel - the narrative voice along with the music and lyrics, ya know? We have an idea to do it in either something like an art gallery (indeed, we think of this now more as an art installation than a tradition theatre "production") or a sacred space or even outside in a beautiful place. We're looking for a visual artist to collaborate with, maybe using film projections - I'm putting some together myself, meantime - and I've sent the manuscript out to a few people. One of them, that nice filmmaker, Alexandra Dennis-Renner, from USC who's doing the documentary about us, little sweetheart, wrote me to share her thoughts after reading it. It's so very much about you, my darling, I thought I'd post it here....

"I don't know how technical to get, so I'll leave it at this: It's wonderful.

I'm not sure how to describe the piece as a whole other than it just works. It flows, it weaves in and out of itself in a way that knits everything together into this tight, soft little package, and even though its meant to be abstract, there's a definite beginning-middle-end that gives you a sense of both resolution and anticipation.

I can imagine it so clearly as a stage show (a really wicked one...can't wait to see it in the flesh), yet it makes so much sense as literature. It's like a play and you read it like a play, but it's still such a different beast all of its own. The little quirks: the narrative uniqueness in the stage directions, the overall intimate, interactive nature of the show--they keep you invested and eager to see what happens next. But not in the typical Freytag pyramid sort of way...it's more hypnotic than that. You're not following the narration and the story intellectually as a listener/audience member, but emotionally. It's like you're living this series of events and you have to keep following because you don't have a choice. You're living this moment and it's not up to you to stay engaged in the story or not. It's as if the story and the narrator are this proxy for life/the Universe/fate/whatever you want to call it and they're pulling you by the elbow through everything because that's how living and being present in something greater than yourself works (I hope that makes sense).

The atypicality of this show is all so conducive to BPX and everything the band has become over the course of three albums. It's this total, physical representation of the soul of the band and the music. It's not just this-or-that. Not just a story, not just a play, not just a record or a song or a way two people fell in love. It's all of these things together existing not just in the same realm but within each other that invoke a completely new experience. It's like the liberal arts degree of music or theatre: you realize how all these different, seemingly related yet removed elements compliment and further each other....but rather than coming together to create a more rounded education, they allow you to have a complete moment. They make you a whole person (emotionally, intellectually, spiritually, artistically, personally) while you're immersed in the show.

I loved the shared storytelling between you and Jason. It was seamless. And the humor...oh my god. How Summer would eat bananas with a knife and fork...the bit about putting Equal on individual pieces of dark chocolate. It's just so funny. The whole show has this love and warmth wrapped around it, but that moment in particular, that (dare I say) comic relief added all the more authenticity and fondness. It added an even warmer depth to her as a person and the show as a portrait of her being.

It's 25 pages... easy enough to get through in one sitting, but I'll be honest: I had to stop and take a break once or twice because I was overwhelmed with every emotion arguable. It really delivers a wallop to the senses... it's going to be a powerful piece of visual art.

On a less technical note: There's no doubt in my mind that Summer is an incredible human being. The way you talk about her, the way you create for her... it's so obvious that she's a presence and a beautiful force all her own and I want nothing more than to know her. This show has the potential to do that. I wouldn't be surprised if she was there at every staging breathing this little bit of her own essence into the performance. But even more so (and thinking about it brings tears to my eyes), I want whatever it is that you two have. I want to find someone or something that I love that deeply and that gives me a reason to live so graciously. It's the most goddamned beautiful thing.

I'm so very excited to see where this goes and the kind of joy, grief, catharsis, inspiration, imagination, closure, realization it brings to the people who see it and take part in it..."


So am I, little sweetheart. And it's all for you. Everything is. Love you forever.

Today...

It’s my second to last day in NorCal, little sweetheart. I go back to NYC tomorrow night on an overnight flight that will get me to JFK at 6:30am. Gah! I’ve not been home much since September - first the play out of town and then this trip. Yesterday was a great day. Beautiful, sunny and warm here and I drove down to SF to meet Greer Sinclair - a woman our producer wanted me to talk to - from the SF Art Institute who the band may collaborate with for the alt-theatre adaptation of Of Love and Loss. She is studying film and may do projections for us. She really liked the music and script and our idea and those videos (remember, sweetheart, I made a series of music videos - 9 in all - for songs from Of Love and from Angels from last July?) and she showed me some of her own work which uses a lot of atmospheric and silent movie type public domain footage. I think you'd really like it, my love. It’s very beautiful and kind of perfect. And I really liked her. I think she’s very sympatico. I think we’re on the same page. We’ll see how it goes, but possibly our next step with this will to be do something out here either in SF or LA.

Anyway, I drove down in the rental car to meet her in North Beach but I parked over by the Marina - where we first met, my darling - so I could look at a performance/gallery space over there. I looked around for a little while. I went up to where the theatre was and the stairs where you and I sat one afternoon between shows and shared a chicken pot pie I'd brought from home and warmed up in the microwave backstage. I walked all around and looked at the water and the boats going by and then climbed the long steep stairs into the park and beyond and began walking the hilly route over to meet Greer at this neat little cafe. I forget how beautiful and heartbreaking a place SF is, my darling. Just gorgeous.  My heart was so full. My thoughts filled with you.

The cafe was on Vallejo near Columbus. I was a bit early so I kinda settled in. Soon, Greer arrived and we talked and showed each other video, like I said, on our phones. After, still talking excitedly about you and how we might go forward, we went for a walk around North Beach, past City Lights Bookstore and some neat bars and a beautiful church at the edge of Washington Square and finally wound up at the Art Institute. That place is brilliant. You'd love it, my little sweetheart. An exhibit/reception was going on so we walked around there and then Greer took me up on the roof where there is a breathtaking panoramic view of the city. The building looks like the mission - a bell tower and a Spanish courtyard with a fountain. It was amazing.

Finally, I walked back to the marina and wandered through the rest of the Fort Mason Center, thinking about us, sitting on some steps and remembering the first time we kissed there in the parking lot. I wandered over to the farthest corner building - the "Festival" one that's seemingly an old airplane hangar - and there was an event going on. It was full of Christmas trees. There must've been a thousand. And little stalls to buy ornaments or snacks and drinks. Loads of people were wandering around with their kids and dogs and holiday music was playing. I took a turn through there, taking in all the sights and sounds and the strong, cozy scent of pine. Then I walked over to the newest space, Gallery 308, where that amazing sound installation by Janet Cardiff  - the performance of Thomas Tallis's "40 Part Motet" I told you about and saw last year up at The Cloisters - is now going on. It was wonderful. Very moving. I kinda couldn't bring myself to leave. Finally around 8pm, I started the drive back north.

I’ve been listening to “Pet Sounds” on repeat and it’s inspiring me to start work on two new albums for the band, sweetheart. One will be dreampop arrangements of Taize music (those little chants that are a French monastic tradition and that I discovered going to that little church on the Upper West Side, I've told you about) and the other, six ambient drone pieces I’m composing for the series of photos Jacs Fishburne took of me in our studio, superimposing images of you and text you wrote, both handwriting and typed, over top. What do you think about calling it Double Exposures? That's what I've been thinking we might title it.

As I got close to home, closer to your folks's house, I decided to make a stop in Davis, little sweetheart, at The Nugget Market where you always used to take me. I got a nice blue scented candle in a little glass and took it out to the angel to sit with you there and talk a bit. It was hard leaving there, too. I got back in the car once and then turned it off and got back out and stayed a while longer, laying down on the stone and talking to you. The candlelight lit up both the stone and the angel's face - a stream of its golden light illuminating her sweet face. And I knew that's why you called me back. You wanted to make sure I saw that.

I feel lonely today, little sweetheart, as I often do. Sometimes it's so overwhelming and I don't know what to do with myself or why I'm here. But yesterday was nice, my darling. A good day. And I need to remember that. I know you're doing your best to comfort and point me in the right direction. Please help me quiet myself and listen for you. Listen to you. Hear. And please, my dearest dearest, Summer, take me to you as soon as heaven will allow. I love you with all my heart and soul...

Your Koala,

Michael

Last night...

The concert performance in Brooklyn went really well, little sweetheart. A standing ovation, no less, and many in tears, including me, of course. I love telling people about you and talking about you and bringing something of the light you brought into my life to others. I truly believe I was born to be found by you and to love and care for and honor you. And I will do that to my last breath. It just feels right. You are goodness itself. And I long to be with you again in The Forever. With all my love...

Tonight...

Little sweetheart, here's a pic from the put-in rehearsal yesterday for the concert performance of OF LOVE adaptation tonight. A bit nervous and a bit concerned slightly too hipster a setting but trusting in the faith that when it's all about you, my Angel, it is true. As you famously said to me once and I carry in my heart with gratitude and faith, in the knowledge that we will be together soon in The Forever, "No matter where you are, whether you should be there or not and no matter who is present..." Yes, baby. I believe. And love you forever.

On the air...

We were on the radio again last night, little sweetheart. Irene Trudel played "You Are" from Angels to open her last set. It's our sixth time on her show this year, my darling girl. And she talked about the adaptation of Of Love and Loss and the concert performance for you on Oct 29. It's all for you, little sweetheart. It always is. When I let that guide me, I know I'm doing as I should. It just feels right. It's the only thing that does. Exactly as the song says: "And you're everywhere. In everything. You're all I know." Always be with me, Summer. Don't go too far away. And take me to you soon, won't you, my love? With love & faith... xM

October 29

We're going to have what we're calling a "concert performance" of Of Love and Loss, little sweetheart, in Brooklyn later this month. I've written an alt-theatre adaptation of the double-album and we've been working with this very nice woman, Nina Keneally, who has extensive Broadway credits, to bring it to full-realized production in a found, possibly sacred space, later next year.

This "concert performance" will feature Jason & I playing Of Love in its entirety live with a female spoken word artist (our friend Kim Donovan) as narrator. It's all happening on Thursday October 29th as part of R&D Studio's Salon Series.

It's all happening, little sweetheart. It's all happening...

"Of Love" project...

I've been meaning to tell you about this for a while, little sweetheart. How to begin? Well, over the last year or so, independent of each other, several people - my lit agent, my filmmaker friend (Heather Winters), a few other colleagues- have encouraged me to conceive a "theatrical" (for lack of a much much better word) adaptation of Of Love and Loss, that would somehow bring the very intimate kind of experience it is hearing us play the song cycle to a slightly larger audience, with some added component, possibly, of theatre arts. I wasn't completely adverse to the idea but I didn't want it to be stupid. Elaine (my lit agent) had a program in mind that required no script, only a proposal and although we didn't ultimately get selected, it made me articulate something initially.

A few months later, little sweetheart, I met up with this woman, Nina Keneally, a theatre producer, who I've been in touch with sporadically over several years. She once wrote a really beautiful letter (back in the days when people did such things) to my previous agent about my play District of Columbia and we finally met up a few months ago so I could give her "Collected Plays". She was very moved by our story, my love, and interested to hear the music, so I gave her Of Love and Loss and happened to mention the adaptation idea. She went home and listened to the album and got very interested in the idea.

She immediately started thinking of venues and possible opportunities to work on it. She asked if I could just for a start write out all the lyrics and maybe some very simple line or two linking the songs.

I had a different idea - it's kind of hard to describe- but I wrote something. It's not really a play. It's certainly not a musical.

Some of the things I describe happening - with the band at its center and the audience close - are essentially realistic, a man and woman sitting in the space with us looking at the night sky together, her watching over him as he sleeps or he sensing her invisible (to him) presence talking to her looking in entirely the wrong direction but with utter conviction. Other descriptions are more illusory - an enormous reproduction of "Mediterraneo" (the Of Love and Loss cover) appearing brushstroke by brushstroke and at its completion, the woman emerging from the painting and the man going to her under the waves.

I don't know how we do this exactly and my thought is that it shouldn't even be in a theatre but in some found space or art gallery or a church. But Nina - whose producing credits include both the world of Broadway ("Good Vibrations", "Driving Miss Daisy", "Last Night at Ballyhoo") and the experimental music lab at American Rep Theatre, is committed to the idea. Things go wrong and people forget but at the moment this nice.

Our first foray into this is a kind of "concert performance" in Brooklyn on Oct 29. A woman in Bushwick runs this salon series of new works - art exhibits, concerts, film screenings - in an artists loft once a month. Nina knows her. We won't try to stage it at all. Jason and I will play and a friend of ours, Kim Donovan (your dad met her once, little sweetheart - she's from here but she's been working for Pixar out in NorCal since about the time you and I met) will read all we would see. Like a radio play version. Like a female narrator.

We hope it begins to give people an idea of what this might become - an evocation and testament of love and faith - in a way, while not yet staged, more powerful and intimate than listening to the album and reading the "script" at home. We hope.

Anyway, like everything, it's for you, my love. So I'm glad we're talking about it. Stay close to me, now, won't you? Don't go too far away. We're in this together, right? For now, between invisible worlds. And soon, forever, inseparable. With all my love...