Between the lines...

Some of the names have been changed...

2011-01-09T10:37:00.000-08:00

This week in an effort to jump start my creativity, I started rifling through the piles of paper scraps revisiting old song starts that never quite made it to the finish line. Some of them go all the way back to the 80's when I first started songwriting, ever rhyming the obvious, love and above, using words like true and blue. How very clever and original... I cringe. They got better as I went through the pile, and I could recognize the shifts of maturity as the content became more authentic.

Bruce had company, and they were downstairs at the kitchen table jamming away, and finding their afternoon groove. I brought a guitar upstairs and locked myself away, then started experimenting with a few lyrics. The sentiments were old, but as I relaxed and let myself revert to earlier perceptions my creativity seemed to respond. A change here and there, moved them through the decades, becoming more relevant and less specific at the same time.

I finally put together something I thought was ready to bring to the table. Bruce's creativity was well revved from an afternoon of playing and he added the finishing touches. I'm always so pleased with what Bruce adds to the basic structures of the songs and the way that they mature. So we have a couple of new tunes, one called "Middle Ground", and the other called "Let Me".

Where is Home?

2010-12-11T18:45:00.000-08:00

I uploaded a video for one of our new-ish songs called "Where is Home?" The music file is now off to iTunes, coming soon to a download site near you... the video makes the rounds on YouTube. It was a challenge to put together images that captured the feelings behind writing the song in the first place, but it has slowly taken shape.

My family tree has experienced some severe pruning, so there are places inside that will always feel oddly connected and disconnected... like I imagine a phantom limb would feel. Somewhere in my past are chromosomal explanations for the gaps in my understanding... unknown aunts, uncles, and cousins who hold the answers. My father's family immigrated to Canada from Europe, leaving many of the branches of extended family behind. Although I come from a large family, it is not a close family and as kids we learned to navigate through the mazes of adult relationships, and the unexplained corridors that provided access to some and impenetrable disconnect from others.

Oddly, and maybe for our benefit, the past has a way of repeating itself. At the time of writing this song I had become aware of some of the confusing corridors in my own life. Here in the present I find new scars, new walls, new tangles of brambles in what used to be well tended relationships. Nothing from the mysterious unknown past is to blame this time. Between the lines, the decisions make sense to me, but the emotional inheritance of it all is more agitating disconnect. And so it continues.

Ultimately we choose our own family, those who offer us "an open door, a caring heart, and a place where we can always start again in this world of woe." This is home. May we all offer "home" to someone, even if they are outside of our genetic obligation. May we all find "home" even if it is not where we expected to find it.

Information Underload

2010-06-25T14:26:00.000-07:00

Today is my birthday and I'm thinking about information. How much do I really want to know?

There's that comfortable place where I know enough about what I'm doing to carry on an intelligent conversation. It's a place where I can focus on the sand dollar at my feet, and not have to think about the deeper things, the currents of change that cause the shorelines to constantly shift.

It's good to come to a place where you know enough to realize how much you don't know. To understand that in order to successfully navigate through life you have to invest your intellect to at least try to understand things that are beyond your comfort zone.

It's a lot of work to stay current in these times, and sometimes I feel lazy. I sit back and let the media tell me what to think instead of spending the time to at least think of a good question.

A Little Stern...

2010-06-23T21:54:00.000-07:00

My husband Bruce was laughing at me when I got into the car today. He'd watched me stride across the parking lot, while I was deep in thought, clearly with one of those looks on my face. They say it takes less muscles to smile than it does to frown, so in terms of facial movements I guess I can be an over achiever. I inherited a stern face, as my box of old family pictures will affirm. In fact, I keep a photo of my grandparents out, just to remind myself to adjust my face.

I get plenty of chances to do the laughing too. On a good day, Bruce could pass for a gentle and kind-hearted country doctor, but as he lives with chronic pain most of the time, the good doctor's face can be replaced by a certain grouchy and heavy-browed muppet character.

Between the lines, we're pretty positive and optimistic people. So today we have both had a good laugh as we practice over-smiling. It's a cheap source of amusement and a reminder to look a little deeper. We all have a story.

Morning Muse...

2010-06-21T15:24:00.000-07:00

It's the reluctant pull of morning that causes my brain to start its frantic clean up, stashing the details of a departing dream into places where they will never be found again, unless of course it's by accident. Like the scurrying clean up you did as a teenager when you heard your parent's car pull into the driveway. The grandeur of the midnight persona is lost, faded now with other inexpressible things...and stuff.

This morning it's our bulldog Molly who shakes the bed and ensures that all dreamy remnants have fallen through the cracks of consciousness. She hopes I'll notice that her orange ball is within my reach, the one she lives for and has poked into the blankets with her nose. She stands at the end of the bed, stares intently at the ball, then back at me. "Oh sorry, did I wake you?"

The morning coffee arrives (in the heavy glass mug that I like), a savoured morning ritual, and I think about the dream state, this veil of fantasy that both hides and reveals. We sip our coffee and watch a local flock of wild pigeons through the skylight as they land in the tree tops. I wonder, just where do the details of our dreams fall, and will we ever find them again? I suspect they'll turn up unexpectedly, somewhere between the lines.