If I Could

Hanging on 'til Spring, staying awake in the face of societal collapse, filling up on art and words of wisdom

Dear friend, How are you? I hope you are finding quiet moments to enjoy a warm cup of tea by candlelight, a good book, a favorite album, maybe an outing to a museum or a music performance. The times are tough right now. There is no way of putting it any better. Daily, the news rings out with more tragic proclamations of disgrace. Finding the light in the bleak midwinter is difficult enough without this weight also pressing down. I have relied on the arts to weather every storm and every sunny sky throughout my life. Now is no exception. I gather all of the notes, thoughts, sketches, flicks, and tomes as if I am pulling an old afghan blanket up around my shoulders. I let them hold me and pass the time, my old friends.

Throughout our human history we have endured many many nightmarish eras and events. And while the storm raged outside the door, from those times came great works of art, came rebellion, came love, came learning, came humanness. It is our instinct to make, to create, and to document. There isn’t a time where poets weren’t reflecting on the generation around them, or singers weren’t wishing on a change to come. I believe as people and especially as creative creatures it is our duty to bare witness. To live wide awake taking notes and leave a mark that will ring out and tell the story of what we saw, what was done, and how we overcame. For we will overcome. There is evil in this world, but there is far more good. Hope. A simple word with great significance in times like these. We must have hope. We must be awake. We must intervene with our voices and if necessary, our bodies. We have a duty to document our singular experiences, to record history as we lived it. This is our work, this is our extended lifeline to those who are around us and those who will follow us.

I’ve been writing songs about the end of days, global warming, the tech takeover, and our lack of general unity for as long as I’ve been a songwriter. Every night we play our song, “If I Could” from our album Closeness I am reminded how cyclical politics and its effects are. There’s a line in the holiday song “Someday at Christmas” that goes, “Someday at Christmas men won't be boys, playing with bombs like kids play with toys” and I’ve always found it so sad that the entire song (released in 1967 by Stevie Wonder) is still just a wish. I know there will always be challenges for us as a species and that we, as artists, will always find a way to capture the dream, memory, and moment. But damn don’t you get tired of the sad story which continues to be told and retold? I know you do, too, and so I digress. I have to say what I feel, otherwise I am not doing my duty to stay loud when I witness injustices. I get really tired of staying quiet because it makes some people uncomfortable. I am no longer allowing others to shame me for being a good person and speaking my truth. Which if I do say so myself, is on the RIGHT side of history.

Today I am sharing a poem I wrote titled, “Spring Again”, written sometime in 2022. It’s always around February that I start dreaming of the deep green grass, buds on the trees, warm sun on my face, and a floral fragrance in the breeze. I am also sharing some wise words by folks I dig. Additionally, I am sharing some photos from my world. I’m sending you love and peace wherever this finds you.

x

Spring Again

And like babes just born we flee to the freshly green grass

Basking in the natural beauty as it blooms round

Was it only just we were shrouded in darkness

Like a disturbance we too will forget we were low

Change has a way of clearing the mind for what’s good

New is like a blanket over the used and discarded

And maybe we too can be cut fresh

Left out in the sun long enough to forget

Awaken from such sweet denial

Reborn as a wildwood flower

-Original Writing-

Desert Mountainscape in watercolor I painted, 2024. I don’t claim to be a painter at all but this is a pastime I really love and one thing I do without self analysis. Freeing!

Walk tall, kick ass…. love music, and never forget you come from a long line of truth seekers, lovers, and warriors.

- Hunter S. Thompson

Nature is woman’s best friend,’ she often said. ‘If you’re having troubles, you just swim in the water, stretch out in a field, or look up at the stars. That’s how a woman cures her fears’.

- Fatema Mernissi

He who passively accepts evil is as much involved in it as he who helps to perpetrate it. He who accepts evil without protesting against it is really cooperating with it.

- Martin Luther King Jr.

If you can’t beat fear, just do it scared.

- Glennon Doyle Melton

Don’t bend; don’t water it down; don’t try to make it logical; don’t edit your own soul according to the fashion. Rather, follow your most intense obsessions mercilessly.

- Franz Kafka

Well, I like to eat, sleep, drink, and be in love. I like to work, read, learn, and understand life.

- Langston Hughes

We have our Arts so we won’t die of Truth.

- Ray Bradbury

There is some good in this world, and it’s worth fighting for.

- J.R.R. Tolkien

I’ve been telling everyone to reread Night, or read it for the fist time. A powerful and painful memoir that warns of what may come if we choose to remain silent while our neighbors are taken away.

We recently performed at The World Cafe here in Philadelphia. Photograph by Brit Laird.

Photograph by Brit Laird

This song has been on repeat in our house. I am not normally a covers kinda lady, but I just loooove this one. And if anyone can cover a song, it’s Aretha. Obviously.