so.
Several years ago i released a CD entitled "Time Well Spent". It isn't a bad little disc, but after a few months i grew really tired of it. Then i didn't feel like selling it anymore, though many people continued to inquire after it.
So, I've been working on a new album. It's actually been a difficult project for me so far. My desire is for the album to capture a true "image" of my music--Just me and a guitar, no nonsense. But I want to maintain authenticity without sacrificing quality. Rough edges have the potential to enhance the final product, but only if the roughness serves the music. I lean toward demanding perfection of myself. I am trying to figure out the line between a gritty feel and blatant "mistakes." Eliminating every single missed guitar note would make the album feel a little too clean, a little too polished...basically just not what i actually sound like in a performance. it would lose the very quality i am seeking to achieve.
Patty Griffin's "Living With Ghosts" is one of my favorite CDs. Somewhere along the line, i decided that i would aspire to make my next recording as personal and intimate as hers is. "Living With Ghosts", dispite all of its slight imperfections, is (in my opinion) a bravely perfect album.
keep on the watch. i've got about 9 tracks down so far. not sure how long it will take, but it's comin' along.
What's New
This is one of my favorites-- An old jazz tune from the thirties by Bob Haggart and Jonny Burke. I first heard it on a Louis Armstrong album my father had when i was growing up.
What's new?
How is the world treating you?
you haven't changed a bit;
lovely as ever, I must admit.
What's new?
How did that romance come through?
We haven't met since then, gee!
but it's nice to see you again.
What's new?
Probably I'm boring you,
but seeing you is grand,
and you were sweet to offer your hand
- I understand.
Adieu!
Pardon me asking what's new.
Of course, you couldn't know,
I haven't changed,
I still love you so.
1939
sometimes the old stuff just beats out the new.
busy busy
my schedule is different this year. last year i worked 6 days a week so my hours were spread out nicely. this time around, my schedule starts a little later in the morning and goes til 7:30pm three days a week. this means i don't get home til after 8. Given me an hour to debrief from the day and then i'm ready to start my evening. what???? by that point i just want to put on PJs, read a book and curl up in my bed.
the one good thing is that (after September 23) i will have free weekends. this my not sound like a big deal, but for me it is HUGE. it means i can 1) travel 2) travel 3) sit around 4) make fun plans with PEOPLE 5) travel. who knows? maybe i can fly home for a weekend or two. it is likely that my sister and her family will be moving to Africa by next summer, so i want to grab every opportunity to see them (esp my niece) before they leave.
in other news, i set off the smoke detector when i made eggs this morning. no joke. now my home is slightly hazy.
In any case, the point is that i have these strange leisurely mornings and then i GO GO GO until well past dark. I was used to having my leisure time in late afternoon/early evening. i could run errands etc.
ah, well. just another transition to add to the ever-expanding list.
labor of love
love is a facinating subject, mostly because it is so enigmatical. Who can really say what it IS? or rather, LIVE out what it demands? Certainly not I. love IS a many splendored thing, it probably lifts us up where we belong, and i actually believe that in one sense, all we need is love. But the call of love is a call to a very disciplined life...a life full of great sacrifice and hardship which catches most people off guard. The popular song i referenced gives the impression that the only thing you need is the feeling of strong affections. Well, that will always break down because it is, at the core, self seeking.
anyway, i'm in the middle of a new song. i think i shall call it "labor of love". I'm still wrestling through what it means, but the overarching theme is that Christ's willing sacrifice is the ultimate labor of love. except most of my songs don't explicitly say "jesus Christ died on the cross to save us from our sins." I like to think that my use of imagery and phrasing is more artful/thought provoking/less cliche...but as usual, i could be wrong.
happy aniversary
i juts realized that i have been keeping this blog for just over a year. crazy.
where to go next
My tentative plan is to be in Pittsburgh for another year and then do graduate work in Special Education near my parents in Massachusettes. But, as with all of my plans, we shall have to wait and see. A year is long; mine are starting to feel longer than usual. You never know what could happen in that span of time. It's a direction, though, and as usual i'll keep on keeping on.
it's all right.
the funny thing about my life is that i really will be ok. i know it. i'm just afraid of becoming callous. i guard against this by listening to good music and supplementing Book of Common Prayer scripture readings with classic novels and various works by Madeleine L'Engle. Toss in an occasional piece by Flannery O'Conner or Anne Lamott and you've got the perfect recipe for a Kathryn O'Leary heart softener. I've been pretty careful this week to spend a lot of time reading and thinking. it gives me things to meditate on during the day. I just finished A House Like a Lotus and am in the middle of An Acceptable Time. I have not read them in years. i must say, i feel quite refreshed.
...and yet, it still just doesn't take the edge off.
the bane of my life
I am not sure if it has to do with the sudden change in barometric pressure (or if we are just being punished by Pluto, the wealthy Greek god of the underworld for telling him he can't have a planet anymore), but over the past few days my roommate and i have killed several gigantic black hairy flies that are somehow finding their way into our home. i think they might be magical flies. or just evil spirits. either way, they are most seriously disgusting and loud. I had a battle to the death with one yesterday morning before work. it involved the fly with his magical buzzing weapon and me with my bottle of "Bug Off" spray. i used it like a laser. i fired my weapon over and over again until i was completely sure this fly would no longer torment me. as far as this little bugger was concerned, i was using a fire hose. then i killed three more in my room last night over the course of the evening. i nearly killed myself in the process because i tried to climb up on my dresser to reach one of the flies with my flipflop in hand and managed to knock a bunch of stuff on to the floor. two points for the fly. but in the end i was victorious. but really folks, at this point the flies are about the last straw. you know, the one that broke the camel's back. i sort of went balistic. well, enjoy your day, everyone. i'm off to work.
the fishbowl in which i reside.
"Ms. O'Leary, where's your engagement ring?"
"I'm not wearing it today."
"yeah, my mom takes hers off sometimes too."
blast observant fourthgrade girls. the first week of school one of the little girls in my client's class asked me if i was engaged and pointed at my finger. At the time, this was indeed the case so I nodded yes. now i CERTAINLY do not keep the general population of nine year old girls updated on the latest twist in my personal life-saga, but apparently the news has spread--i'm just not sure how to break it to them gently. Before this year, not one of them ever asked me a single question about what i do outside of school. but stick a little sparkly ring on your finger and you've got yourself a brand new entourage of eyelash-batting, giggling elementary school girls who are just DYING to know all about it. Bah, Humbug. The interesting thing about this whole ideal is that the thin line separating personal/professional boudaries has been grievously blurred. I mean, it makes perfect sense. I tell my clients that i am 1) moving to DC, and 2) my fiance lives there and they say "congratulations" etc. and other such niceties. (this is the first they have ever heard anything about any of my relationships). they ask polite questions like "what does he do" and "what are your plans" and i supply them with a neat package of satisfying answers. THEN. three weeks after these small conversations take place i get to say just kidding! i am not moving.
enter onslaught of questions.
the buzzing never stops. in fact, my ears are still tingling. i now find myself in a situation where everyone and their grandmother knows particularly painful details about my life. everyone is very nice. people don't really know what to say (because there really isn't anything TO say) and people get to make sad-puppy eyes in my direction.
it put me in mind of a short passage from A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens. Granted, the details are different and i am pulling this entirely out of context, but the basic exchange seems apropos.
SETTING: Two men ask Scrooge to give money to the poor in the spirit of Christmas. The men have just finished their oral presentation and get right to the point.
"...Most of the small businesses in the city have been very generous. What might we put you down for?"
"Nothing." Scrooge replied.
"You wish to remain annonymous?"
"I wish to be left alone"
sigh. so much for annonymity. the jig is up.
enough! enough of Cryptic statements!
shall i tell you that the hawk flies at midnight? or that it's not over til the fat lady sings? perhaps you would be interested to learn that you really can't teach an old dog new tricks. well, rally the troops, I say. call out the fire brigade. sound the alarm. The bird in hand can fly back into the bush at the drop of a hat. Like the rolling stone that gathers no moss, so bad news travels fast. you know, i've been told that all good things must come to an end and that all is fair in love and war. I've learned that actions speak louder than words regardless of how good the words sound at the moment. Since nothing is certain but death and taxes, in the future i plan to let sleeping dogs lie. I suppose it could be argued that if nothing is ventured, than nothing is gained, and that even the best of friends must part. but as they say, the bigger they are, the harder they fall and what you don't know actually can hurt worse. well failure teaches success and experience is the mother of wisdom. and there is no use crying over spilt milk because laughter is, after all, the best medicine. anyway--lightning never strikes in the same place twice (or four times, in my case!) so let us all live and let live, letting bygones be bygones while we continue to look on the bright side of life.
family comfort
passage from
Meet the Austins by Madeleine L'Engle ( [...] added by me to signify skipped sections)
Just then a shooting star flashed across the sky, and John said, "there's a shooting star and i don't know what to wish. I want to wish it back to before yesterday and that none of this would have happened, but i know it wouldn't work."
I said, "mother, i don't understand it," and I began to shiver.
Mother said, "Sometimes it's very hard to see the hand of God instead of the blind fingers of Chance. That's why i wanted to come out where we could see the stars."
...And then another star shot across the sky, this time with a shower of sparks. We sat there close, close, and it was as though we could feel the love we had for one another moving through our bodies as we sat there together....And I prayed, "Oh, GOd, keep us together, please keep us together, please keep us safe and well and together."
It was as though our thoughts were traveling to one another, too, because John said, "Oh, Mother, why do things have to change and be different!" He sounded quite violent. "i like us exactly the way we are, our family. Why do people have to die, and people grow up and get married, and everybody grow away from each other? I wish we could just go on being exactly the way we are!"
"But we can't" Mother said. "We can't stop on the road of Time. We have to keep on going. And growing up is all part of it, the exciting and wonderful business of being alive. We can't understand it, any of us.....But being alive is a gift, the most wonderful and exciting gift in the world."
...We went home and then we just stood outside for a while. The moon was sailing high now, and the sky was clear and white above the black pines at the horizon, with northern lights...sending occasional rays darting high up into the sky...I'd never seen such a startlingly brilliant night, the fields and mountains washed in a flood of light. The shadows of trees and sunflowers were sharply black and stretched long and thin across the lawn. It was so beautiful that for the moment the beauty was all that mattered; it wasn't important that there were things we would never understand.
all's well that ends well
every night i sleep with my door closed. i have been doing this since i was little. maybe it has something to do with having trouble going to sleep unless it is totally dark. but originally i think i did it to keep the bad things out. i didn't want bad people to come or monsters to get me. somehow sleeping with the door shut made me feel safe.
perhaps that's why people talk about shutting something out or use imagery of God closing/opening doors in their lives. it is a way of building a protective barrier. Granted, God could close doors to keep me safe but doesnt always feel like that.
well, last night i left my bedroom door wide open. i think i left it open because somehow those bad things found their way into my room anyway. So what about God? did he let in those bad things in the first place or did he "slam the door" to protect me? all i know is that i feel abandoned by God (although my brother reminds me that God's faithfulness is not dependent on my momentary feelings on the topic). I feel unsafe.
anyway, I woke up this morning and decided to shut an emotional door really really hard in a desperate attempt to self-protect. it hurt.
...and it cost a lot.
