Time Bomb

Ticking ticking 

Tocking boom

My my my

How you run the room

Open the door

Smile on face

Tap a tiger's paw

Watch his ego race 

Lubing with lips

Salty surface sauce

Reverbing verbs

Less voice, more loss

Pin the truth down

Watch your lies

Pin a woman down

Watch her rise

Ticking ticking 

Tocking boom

My my my

How I run the room

their eyes

My father stomped and shouted

My mother smoked in silence

My father read newspapers

My mother read women's faces

My father loved a good debate

My mother loved a good novel

My parents had gentle eyes

My mother did the laundry 

My father took us to movies

My mother felt disappointed

My father felt defeated

My mother was tiny

My father was large

My parents had gentle eyes

My father remembered facts

My mother remembered feelings

My father needed her love

My mother needed his strength

My father bought potato chips

My mother bought fresh fruit

My parents had gentle eyes

My mother sought counseling

My father sought Catholicism

My mother asked for a divorce

My father asked for a second chance

My mother never called him anything

My father called her fruitcake

My parents had gentle eyes 

My father blamed

My mother let go

My father set his dreams aside

My mother met her goals

My father held anger 

My mother held forgiveness

My parents had gentle eyes

I am my mother's child

I am my father's child

I hope I have their eyes

the morning

All our regrets

Take us early to the grave

So come hold my hand

Let's learn to be brave

Conquer the doubts

That live in our heads

With love on our lips

There's an open road ahead

You bring the morning

When all I see is night

I trust your mouth

When you say it's alright

We both have hearts

Wanting to feel

So come hold the map

And I'll hold the wheel

I get so down, 

so down sometimes

I can't make sense 

Of the thoughts in my mind

But I look at you

And I feel something right

I look to you

And all sorrow takes flight

Cause you bring the morning

When all I see is night

I trust your mouth

When you say it's alright

We both have hearts

Wanting to feel

So come hold the map

Ill hold the wheel

bananas, holidays

My head is split

in ninety, numb, nickel-sized holes.

Christmas and New Years are hip

holidays for profit.

Sometimes monkeys need bananas 

to act kind, generous, and happy.

My heart is in prison,

without adjectives.

There is a hunger for destruction 

in the human mouth.

Chewing air, 

chewing words, 

chewing bullets

chewing skin.

I have felt teeth gnawing on my ankles.

Why do the battered go back?

Why do the batters batter?

What is enough?

When is enough?

Have all the bananas you want,

just give me back my heart.

My head is split

in ninety, numb, nickel-sized holes.

thinning

I made the bed with your sheets.

I'm trying desperately to keep your memory alive.

The more time passes, the thinner you feel.

I'm bombarded with useless details.

Memories slide aside

to fleeting likes and comments and conversations;

faceless, voiceless and unreal.

I miss your grilled cheese on a paper plate,

and the way your belly could burp.

Mother, I admit 

I write songs you will never hear

but pray you are listening

and pour wine before bed.

Come press your hand against my forehead,

I'm feverish.
My eyes are sweating, my skin smells like grief.

The dogs behave,

the dead decompose

the dishes dry

diets dive

days date days date days date 

daze.

Time is tacky without you.

You promised to visit.

I'm waiting, warding off abandonment.

This is thinning. 

Find What Makes You Happy and Do It. Often.

This past weekend I went my niece's high school graduation party.  I spent a good chunk of my twenties growing up beside her, so her leap from high school to college felt particularly profound.  I have vivid memories of dragging her and her older sister to my college campus, so they could see what it was I did when I left the house.  They joined me at dance rehearsals, at plays, at musicals and I remember secretly hoping they were soaking up the energy of artists at work.  I hoped they could feel the spirit of people who weren't afraid to express themselves and openly loved every bead of sweat that creating demanded. I wasn't out to make them artists, actors, or dancers.  I just wanted them to see what it looked like when people were actively doing something they loved, and the joy that came from doing so.

Oh so many years later, I find myself watching both of them embark into the adult world with excitement and curiosity. One fresh high school graduate and one fresh college graduate dancing around topics like "roommates" and "moving out of the house." It could make me feel old. And it does, slightly.  What it really does is make me feel more aware of time, and the precious delicacy surrounding the choices we make.

I am not about to do to them what a lot of adults did to me at that time, because I have learned that all the advice about making money and having nice things means nothing if you aren't listening to your gut and doing what makes you happy.  I'm not saying that's easy.  Money definitely helps us all.  But from all my observations, the most fulfilled people, whose spirits inspire me, are doing what makes them happy.  They know they need to do it, and they put every bit of self into doing it.

Knowing what makes you happy is not always a given.  Knowing how to put your authentic self into what makes you happy is also not always a given.  Learning yourself, learning to listen to yourself, to feel guided by a genuine and grounded sense of trust in your choices takes time, takes mistakes, takes failures, and then takes even more time.  Ultimately tho, all those failures and mistakes and time can develop into wisdom. And that wisdom, that trust-in-self leads to a divine awareness of what truly makes one happy.  Find what makes you happy, and do it. It may just save your life.  It did mine.

No, really.  It did.

Ten years ago, I made the choice to follow a dream.  I wanted to learn how to play the guitar and write songs.  Life had thrown some serious health challenges my way and those challenges gave me a heightened sense of the fragility of life and time.  So I picked up a guitar and with the fuel of a dream,  I wrote my first song.  My head was full of "what if" visions like most creative people. What if I could sing in front of people and play the guitar?  What if people actually liked and connected to what I wrote?  What if I could record an album? What if I could travel to other cities and share my music? What if I had a band?

Ten years ago, the possibilities were endless.  Yet my imagination never considered a "what if" like this:

"What if I become a budding singer-songwriter with kidney failure, and my music draws in an accordion player, who joins my band, who also turns out to be a willing donor, with a kidney that proves to be nothing short of miraculously perfect the moment I receive it?"

Had I never had that dream, had I never picked up that guitar, I would never have met Meredith.  I'm not exactly sure what my life would look like.  It wouldn't be good, I know that.

Some people make millions doing what makes them happy, others don't make a dime. In the end, the reward isn't about the profit in pocket. It's about the profit in heart.  Or in my case, kidney.

My hope for my nieces and all my loved ones is that you find what makes you happy and you do it, in whatever ways you possibly can. The rewards are endless. They surprise you.  They change your life. They may even save your life.

New Album on the Horizon

It's been almost two years since we last recorded and released "A Good Heart Will Break." We released that album to a sold out show at The Beachland Tavern at the end of July 2012.  Twelve days later I  received a life-altering/rejuvenating kidney from Meredith, my accordionist.  I prefer to refer to her as my harmony-making, life-saving soul sister. (I could go on and on with adjectives!)  

It seems only right that after our healing, adjusting and growing we venture back into the world of recording to document how the past two years have shaped us and changed our worlds.  

This will be the very first album I will approach with good health.  It will be my first album I write and record without the fear of declining health hanging over my head, without the fatigue of kidney failure, and without the uncertainty of my body's ability to match the goals my heart and mind have made.    

As artists we are driven to move people.  We are driven to engage the minds, hearts, and spirits of others.  I'm not sure why things have worked out as they have, but as an artist I feel called to share what this journey has been.  I feel a purpose to make this album that I've never quite felt before, and that is simultaneously exciting and scary as hell.

This is also the first album I will approach without both of my parents.  My mother and my father were my biggest fans, in life and in music.  I need to make this album for myself, for my fans, but most importantly, for them. 

I look forward to all that lies ahead.