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November 10th, 2008
Two nights ago we played a house
concert under a giant bonsai tree, then drove home
through a sky of shooting stars and slept late while my
wonderful, magical grandmother passed away. One of our
new songs, “Long May You Live” had been altered for her,
to try to keep her here with us, but after watching nine
tubes and a dozen painful procedures plunge her into
suffering, I sang the lyrics the old way again, wishing
her peace on her swift journey away from here. She
valiantly fought cigarette-caused throat cancer 30 years
ago and died from that same cancer, come back from the
dark underbelly of the sinister devil, Tobacco. She
never smoked after the first cancer, but, the damage had
been done. She’ll always be with us. Smiling. Sassy.
Walking us through her garden in the sunshine, pointing
out the orchids and tomatoes and ant lions. Long May She
Live in our music, our hearts, our journeys through rain
and reunion and release.
You can see her dancing in our
video for You & I.
You
can also read a poem I wrote for her by clicking this
link.
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September 24, 2008
The musical highlight of our summer
in Oregon was taking the stage and playing a few songs
at a Portland House Concert for the Minstrel Prince,
Danny Schmidt. As Danny roared north to Alaska and we
stepped out of our summer songwriting cocoon, it was
wonderful to spend time with such a gracious soul and
true friend. From what we heard of his new songs,
Danny’s next album will be phenomenal. From the jumping
“Swing Me Down” to the simmering “Firestorm” he
mesmerized the crowd. Then, we were up, and since my
guitar, Lilliana, was being temperamental, we played his
guitar, a well-loved, road-honed instrument. It was like
writing a poem with Pablo Neruda’s pen. Dakota Rose sang
her powerful “Jenell” and I sang “You & I.” The sun sank
over Oregon, straight into the Pacific, and we were
surrounded by peaceful souls, artists and windpower
workers and the tiniest, cutest puppy imaginable, who we
filmed for our new YouTube Video. We drove home with our
bones full of smiles and our ears full of stunning
sound. |
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August 30, 2008
We had just returned to Oregon.
Settling into our apartment, gathering groceries,
drawing with crayons on the walls, etc. It was late
night, 2 AM. When I hear Dakota scream in the kitchen.
Guess what? A foot-long slug. No, not a foot-long sub.
That would have been a NICE SURPRISE. A foot-long
roast-chicken sub with spinach. But, no. This was a
FOOT-LONG SLUG that appeared to have crawled out of our
kitchen cabinet, since there was no slime-trail leading
from anywhere else to the slug. Just the slug,
leopard-spotted and smiling, her antennae poised for the
photograph I rapidly took. "Welcome back to Oregon!" The
big, banana slug seemed to say. I took her outside on a
piece of paper which rapidly became a sheet of slime and
set her free on a tree outside. She didn’t let go of the
paper, so I let her have the paper as a gesture of
goodwill. It had the lyrics to a new song, a great song,
a song about some elves who “borrow” a three-wheeled
bike and terrorize the workers at a microchip factory.
What a song! But sometimes you just have to let go when
it comes to a slug.
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