Archive | Music Matters

Don’t Worry About the Government

pregameI’ve been quiet because I don’t want to preach to the choir and I don’t want to be preached to, and right now all other posts seem frivolous, even I can see that. But this morning I’m up early after two consecutive weeks of late nights. My hair is up in curlers, my zit is smeared with a Vitamin E salve, and I’m drinking coffee while watching my neighborhood wake up through the bedroom window. Continue Reading →

Dance Out the Dawn, Eleanor Rigby

eleanor rigby beatlesI’m not minding how lazy the sun is this time of year. It gives me an excuse to wake a little less aggressively. This morning, I slept until 6:30—nuts in my book—and only rose then because Grace took matters in her own paws and woke me herself. Lest you think she was mean about it, “waking me” means she settled softly into my chest and patted me softly on the cheek. Continue Reading →

23rd Street Explosion, Magic Rock Revolver

1986wigstockI was already asleep when news of the explosion hit the wires. Being intuitively conflict-avoidant, a sense of impending doom sent me to Poughkeepsie the day before September 11, 2001; to an Oklahoma campground the week of the 2003 blackout; up the East Williamsburg hill while Hurricane Sandy crashed elsewhere in Brooklyn and Queens. I felt those disturbances in the force anyway, though, and I feel this now. It’s what pulled me awake at 4:45 this morning, early even for me.

In the darkness I made coffee and prayed for the 29 injured by the 23rd street bomb. Then, clad in slippers and the caftan I rarely wear outside the house, I hopped into magic car Minerva and zoomed over the Williamsburg Bridge still lit up against the night sky. (The sun is so lazy this time of year.) As I drove, I wondered at the rush of energy I was feeling. Was it dissociation? Despair? No, I said loudly, and turned on the Beatles’ Revolver, which had been playing in my head since I’d woken up.

Your day breaks, your mind aches
You find that all the words of kindness linger on
Continue Reading →

"All, everything I understand, I understand only because I love."
― Leo Tolstoy