A song.

For the nights you stand under streetlights in the summer

and wait for snow.

When you were the snow falling down
When I was the city losing colour and sound
When we were

Sunk like treasure
Sunk like treasure

~Lisa Hannigan

I know where all the music went last night.

In all the rest of the world, I’m quite sure there was a pause and a humming in everyone’s mind, wondering how a tune went, trying to make sense of a song forgot.

Last night, all the music in the world went silent to listen to sounds coming from inside a little church, in the middle of the woods, in the middle of nowhere, between hills and valleys, soil and sky.

For three years now, I’ve attended this annual concert. It is not comprised of a “band.” It’s a Dane, a Finn, a Shetland Islander, and a Bostonian who come together to share, to teach, to play, and to learn. They’re each masters in their own land.

They gather in a church that has a ship hanging from the ceiling. It’s a replica of the ship some of our immigrant parents arrived in.

They recover songs of the past, from composers long gone, and remember us to culture’s voice. They write and compose the sound of today; they pass it along and add to the cry of generation.

They tell story.
They relay history.
They nudge us into tomorrow.

And I got to be there.

I got to hear the Finn, who keeps the rhythm in his feet, without apology or restraint. Who pounds the floor and forces the beat up, up, up into your ankles and changes the pace of your pulse.

I got to see the Shetlander, who stirs the strings with his arm, and whips his wrist like a horse’s tail while his fingers fly on the board.

I got to see the Bostonian Lass, whose grooving knees and bouncing bun accent every slide and chop, cut and crunch, and whose wide smile almost hides the somber knowing in her eyes when the music starts to play.

I got to see the Dane, whose heart comes out in note and accidental, who is history in the making, who hears and plays the sound of soul. And his wife, the song, the muse, the Danish beauty. How they looked at each other when they played…

I got to see that. In a small pond of people, in a little church in the middle of the woods, in the middle of nowhere, between hills and valleys, earth and sky. I saw.

I saw where all the music went last night.

Remember Day 7?
Battle Song and War Cry?

Oooooo….well, I’ve got another one…

Tonight, I drove home in a thunderstorm. When it’s very late (or early, as it were), and you get out of the city far enough, you’re eventually the only car on the road. You can drive for miles and it’s just you, and the dark, and whatever small bit of road your headlights illuminate in front of you. But tonight, the skies lit up and the rains came down, and I listened to this on repeat (I recommend LOUD and then just a little louder…):

If there was thunder outside,
I wouldn’t have heard it…

It was absolutely my good thing-of-the-day. It reminded me that if there’s a storm between you and whatever it is you call home, you can stay and let it pass over you,
you can drive head-on into it,
you can even try to outrun it,
but in the end,

there’s no way out but through.

may as well have some good music for the road.

I went to a play called “Little Wars,” written by Steven Carl McCasland. I am not a theater reviewer, nor is this an attempted play review. I am an audience member who is filled with gratitude that people can be honest enough to write, produce, direct, act, and convey the following with such sincerity that it left tears on my cheek and lungs without air.

These lines were beautifully and expertly delivered by actor, Candace Barrett Birk:

I have often wondered what it would be like to be “normal”. I have questioned my sanity and searched for my “normalness” and I have stood in the yard with my hands clenched in fists yelling into the sky because even though I’m not sure there is a man in the sky, even though I’m not sure there is a God or a Higher Power or a Holy Spirit and even though I have questions, so many questions, who doesn’t have questions, I have stood in the yard with my hands clenched in fists yelling into the sky and asking why I was not “normal”!

But I have also often wondered, oh, I have wondered… if “normal” even exists…

and there I was in all my ugliness in all my rage in all my not normalness and I was looking at the sky when I should’ve been looking at myself.

This is a time that passes but it takes time like a stone in your kidney like a rock in your chest. In your heart. But when it passes when the time passes and you finally realize, it is oh so very normal oh so very quiet oh so very Yes. Yes. Yes.

(excerpts taken from the script)

I do believe there is a God. But God, I don’t believe there is a normal. And if there is, God, I thank you for not asking me to be it.

Little Wars is produced by Prime Productions, directed by Shelli Place, and is currently playing at Mixed Blood Theatre

I occasionally jam with a banjo man. He’s a gentle giant, has raised his children, is kind to my own, and enjoys playing music in his retirement.

When I started this journey, he sent me a kind note of encouragement and an idea from the late, Jiddu Krishnamurti:

“seeking drives aways the sought”

It made me ask myself, “WHAT DO I SEEK?”

I couldn’t say.

But I can feel it, seeking me.

Like a child lost at the zoo, surrounded by terrible beauties and beautiful terrors, I’ll hold my ground firm, until it, like a good parent, arrives to collect me. This requires restraint, patience, and very, VERY, open eyes.

So whilst we’re waiting in this zoo together, (…And JUST IN CASE you think the banjo is not the most thought provoking, philosophical instrument around), I leave you with a couple of songs from another friend of mine…

An exercise in restraint. With the exception of the introduction and ending, this tune is composed from a palette of 9 harmonics.

I love this one, too…