nakedjen

berceuse

Those of you who have packed your life into the small boxes that will carry the most important bits and pieces and then waved goodbye to the place you've called home for nearly half your life will understand exactly what I am about to say.  Those of you who may not have had life turn upside down and shake you by your ankles and leave you searching for the spare bits that might remind you of who you really are may decide that what I'm about to say is all just more melancholy navel gazing.  Whomever you may be, whatever journey your own life has taken, I can't help but think that there's a part of all of our hearts that get squeezed, that we give for the thrill of giving, that grow attached to the place we call home.

I've called many places home.  Too many places, perhaps.  My own heart, though, always gave and was given and grew attached to a few too many beautiful souls in each place which made the extraction process, the moving along, the leaving just a little harder each time that time came.

When I drove away from Santa Cruz that cold December day, with the gray waves of the Pacific crashing hard on my favorite dog beach, the redwoods reaching higher, it felt, in a salute to my departure, I left behind not only, of course, the very people who knew me best and held my own heart gently, but I also left behind the community of healers who had kept my body, quite literally, walking with my dogs on this planet.

Shannon Lynn Brown was my massage therapist.  Scratch that.  Shannon Lynn Brown was my therapist who gave me incredibly intuitive and healing massage.   The most beautiful thing I can say about her massages is that when you're touched by Shannon she just knows, she just does, exactly what you need, exactly how much to give you, and exactly how to make everything all better. 

It was no surprise to me, truthfully, that Shannon decided that she should create the ideal music for massage therapy.  She's always considering the whole body and the whole experience and because she is also always learning, herself, and is also an accomplished cellist, it just made perfect sense to those of us who truly know her, that she'd create some adult lullabies for those who really need them most.

Her new CD is now available for purchase and it is just lovely.  I am currently using it as part of my own daily yoga practice and I have to say it offers the perfect calm for my own mind, but also for Buddha and Stella.  They seem to love it, too.  It's a huge win when I can have music that provides a calming influence for all of us.  It's like we're all living together in an ashram here.  We may be far from the crashing waves on our favorite beach, but this music has us totally blissed out.

Next week, the dogs and I will be back in Santa Cruz for a short visit.  A visit that includes a long overdue massage with Shannon (and my professor is getting one, too!) and a chance to receive the gift of touch that I know only she can really give.  The music, her intuitive touch, her heart all just combine to make sure that everything, every little thing, is always just so much better.  Always.

Moment's Notice

We're there, far above the clouds, more than 14,000 feet above sea level, and I am trying my best to count all the stars.  There are more stars in that sky on that night than I have ever seen in my life before, or since, but I am determined to count every single one.

Occasionally a satellite whizzes right by and I gasp at the intrusion and wonder that there's all that junk in our skies and insist that we can't be polluting the skies in this way, that it can't possibly be that important. 

You're strumming your guitar, the guitar that you've carried up the side of that mountain, because you've just discovered that you might even be able to play and it gives you such joy.  You may only know a few chords, but you know all the words to all the songs that matter and all you want is to be able to sing the songs that people want to hear. Forever.

We're there, atop the Garden of the Gods, you with your guitar, me with nothing more than my smile of satisfaction that I actually made it to the tippy top without toppling right over the other side and tumbling down like Jill after her Jack when a helicopter appears and someone with a bullhorn demands to know if we're all right?

All right?

We're golden.  We're sitting on top of the world.  We're also just, perhaps, a little bit crazy.  A stern sheriff informs us that tumbling down is far more common than not and we're lucky we're even alive.  Our hearts have never really been a place where fear has dared to tread, however.  Not even for a moment.

The walls of the auditorium are breathing heavily and are soaked with sweat and on stage, on that small stage, the band, our band is gathered around and is carrying all of us together on yet another psychedelic journey that goes on and on and on.  We round a corner and smack right into a gay disco fairy complete with platform silver boots and rainbow tights leading an aerobics class for the beat challenged.   Without even an exchange of words, we join right in and kick three steps right, two left, high five the person behind and pump our fists as if we've just won the golden gloves.   The band kicks it into some higher plane and I can't even imagine how I'm ever, ever going to come back down.  I'm grateful you're there to keep me from disappearing completely.

It is you. It is me. It is Clyde.  It's one very old couch in a farmhouse far from California.  It's an old rotary phone and a call from TB that has shared the tragic news that Jerry Garcia has died.  There are tears on my cheeks.   What frightens me more are the sobs that wrack your body.  I had never seen you cry.

There are firemen in the house. Men in yellow coats and a paramedic and I can not tell you my own name. I have no idea who I am or what day it is or where we are.  I just know that I know you.  I am certain of you.  The rest is a complete mystery and even as I travel the winding slippery mountain roads to the hospital in our sea coast town I have trouble sorting out how I got there, in that ambulance or why it was necessary or where it is that they're taking me.  The only thing, the sole thing, the very single thing that is certain is you.

We're in the middle of a corn field. In the middle of Iowa. In a car that no longer seems to want to run.  Broken. Down.  In that car, in the middle of that corn field, in the middle of Iowa, in the middle of the night, with no where to go and no way to get there, we share secrets and dreams and stories.  After all these years of life entertwined like a very tangled ball of twine it almost seems impossible that there would be any stories or secrets left to share. 

But there are always more.  Layers to take off.  We're never, ever, truly revealed.  Or naked.  Until we absolutely must be.

I am certain, quite, that you will never read this or know that as so many years have finally passed, that as so many years have come and gone, the crisp and jagged edges of my memories of us have softened and turned truly rosey.  The real love I always had for you is all that is left for me to hold. 

I still do. 

Moment's Notice came on the radio tonight as I drove through the dark craggy hills of Utah.  I hesitated to turn the station so I wouldn't remember.  I turned it up and allowed myself to really remember.  Like an old favorite film.  All the good.  All of You.

 

 

Forever ended. Infinity goes on.

They say, whomever they happen to be (I often contemplate who they are and I suppose they are always changing depending upon the certain subject so just tying it all up with they, calling these experts they, instead of truly searching out their names is easier, I suppose, but we've all gotten rather lazy, I think and they, those who have actually done the hard work to assess the damages at hand, really should be getting more credit...still I'm going to abuse the privilege right now and just continue the tradition) that music has been known to trigger suppressed memories, bringing them forth, extracting them from a cellular level where we had no idea we'd even stuffed them.

This wasn't quite like that, of course.

Some quick and superfluous background. I got married. You know that part. To David. You also know that part. I'm really choosy about music. That part, oh that part you all definitely know. The part you may not know, even if you've been reading very carefully, is that we were sung down the aisle by a live band.  It was that choosy about music bit.  The band, one of my very favorites (it was both the very choosy and perhaps a bit of the very spoiled in this case) played Van Morrison's Into the Mystic as David and Clyde and I walked down an aisle filled with smiles and tears and bubbles and hearts floating on magical love dreams. Yes, I know. Fairies were in the glen and unicorns were even grazing in the grass.  It was that ridiculous.

I then, as we all know, had a marriage.  You also know that part. That particular song was kind of, well, integral to the marriage. Played a key role along the way. Again, I'm not certain you'd know that unless you happened to be living with us. Which most of you were not.

I spent Sunday evening being entertained by The Swell Season.  My appreciation for their music runs pretty deep and I kind of have a little bit of a girl crush on Glen Hansard.  He's my Irish boyfriend.  It's a gift to live in Salt Lake, actually, because they happen to play here a lot. On Sunday evening, the concert was outdoors, under the vast Utah sky and I was right in front of the stage, my heart swelling with each and every note.

Then it happened. They played, Into the Mystic.

So, here I am (or there I was), standing on a hillside, red eyes fighting back the memories that want to spill in wet tears down my cheeks and I do what is probably not the smartest thing a person in my situation should do.  Then, again, I am not known for being intelligent, especially when it comes to matters of the heart.  I tend to go all in, full force, without even pausing for a breath, without a notion of thought, just grabbing the moment presented beating fast in front of me and, well, somehow love just has to win in the end, right?  Doesn't love always win?

I sent David a smidgen of video. 

Of those two fabulous people singing that Van Morrison song that had sung the very two of us down the aisle on our wedding day.  I just did it.  Wrote: I can't hear this song without thinking of you. I don't think I'll ever be able to do so.  I hope you're happy and well.  Love and more. Jen

I pushed send. Went back to fighting my own tears. Because, well, it was THAT song.  That song that on that day so many, many years ago held such promises for both of us of forever times infinity.  Forever ended. Infinity goes on.

I did not expect David to reply and even had a twinge of anxiety about opening that door. I haven't spoken to him in ages and a day.  We have other lives now. Lives that are not about rocking gypsy souls.  Lives no longer lived in days of old.

He did, though. With gratitude and love back.

Love does win. In the end. Forever might end, but loves does win.

I can't go back to yesterday - because I was a different person then.

"But I don't want to go among mad people," said Alice. "Oh, you can't help that," said the cat. "We're all mad here."

For you. From me.

Aliceringtone

Be careful as you go chasing rabbits.

These are My People, This is My Tribe

Just one more thing.  I know, I know.  I've blogged my brains out today.  Clearly.  They're splattered there on the floor and the only real reason Stella is not lapping them up is because she prefers the first edition words of famous authors on archival bound paper.  Not splattered brains.  Lucky for me.

We all know, or those who have been paying attention at least know, that I followed those boys who called themselves the Grateful Dead around for far too many years and way too many brain cells.  I spent many a New Year's Eve celebrating with the band until the wee hours of the morning and I am still, honestly, at a bit of a loss when New Year's Eve rolls around each year and I realize that I will not be spending it in jam-packed arena with all my best friends writhing and grooving to songs I've heard at least a hundred times before.

Given all of that, you'd think that I'd be sharing with you my favourite moment, my favourite song from all those nights spent grooving with my very favourite of bands.

This isn't about all those New Years Eves, though. 

This is about another New Years Eve.  Spent with one of my other most favourite musicians.  A man who sings with passion and soul and a glory that makes my spine tingle.  This is about a New Years Eve spent in an intimate coastal lodge, before a roaring fire, dancing with angelic children and earth goddesses and mountain men.  This is about a New Years Eve that made me realize that music, all music, is a gift that will transcend even the most heartbreaking and saddest and loneliest of personal moments and remind us that life is still beautiful, that it is still a gift, that it is to be, well, lived.

This is about a New Years Eve spent wrapped and embraced in the arms of my people, of my tribe.  They really and truly love me.  Just as I am.  Then, now and forever.  

10 Glorious Peasant

The Apple Guy's Package

December 15 Best packaging. Did your headphones come in a sweet case? See a bottle of tea in another country that stood off the shelves?

A gazillion years ago, in the last century, before I was naked (har!) I was a graphic designer.  For a cereal company.  And a phone company.  (Can you believe phone companies need graphic designers?)

I am a girl who notices packaging.  I can not help myself. 

One thing I did purchase this year in my year of no purchases was a new iPod touch.  This was out of necessity, as my trusty pink iPod of five years DIED a horrible death and I was bereft here at ChezNaked without my music filling the air.  People, there is nothing more sad than a bereft naked girl trying to sing her own songs without the benefit of backup.  It makes cats howl.  Off key. 

I happen to work for the University and they worked out some sly offer where that cute Apple guy would come and personally touch me with an iPod Touch if I would just please say yes.  How am I going to resist the cuteness that is Drew Barrymore’s boyfriend?  I am not.  Of course, that part was just all in my head, what I wished would have happened if I plunked down lots of dollars for an iPod Touch at the University bookstore on a particular Tuesday in November, but…what were we talking about, I’ve gotten all distracted thinking about the Apple Guy coming to touch me?

Right, packaging.  My iPod Touch.  That I did, in fact, purchase.  Courtesy of an Apple Bargains Day at my University Bookstore.  Cheaper than most.  Still expensive. 

The packaging, people.  Apple just does packaging beautifully.  Really and truly.  They must have elves in their buildings in Cupertino who do nothing but sit and dream about packaging the products all day and night and the days and nights after that long.  I wouldn’t mind that job, you know?  The job of dreaming.  I could be quite good at that.  Especially if I can share my bed with the Apple Guy while I’m dreaming.  Naked.

Still with me?  Probably not.  I’m not sure I am either.  I’m with that Apple guy, naked, dreaming about the packaging.  No, not that package!  Goodness.  I am trying to be at least a tad proprietary here.  The packaging on the iPod Touch.  Fabulous.  However, don’t even begin to try and open it.  No, I’m not kidding.  That iPod Touch sat on my desk for nearly three weeks because I couldn’t even begin to figure out how to open it.  I thought, honestly, that they had forgotten to send me home with the Apple Guy to assist in the opening and installation of my new toy. 

I finally went to where we all go when we need a question answered.  Dr. Google had the answers for opening that beautiful and distinct and could only ever be designed by the clever elves at Apple packaging. 

It’s damn beautiful packaging.  Almost as beautiful as that Apple guy. 

It's My Life

December 10 Album of the year. What's rocking your world?

I am a girl that is all about the music.  I think we've established that pretty carefully here.  I am also a woman who thinks often about the soundtrack not only for my life, but, you know, for the film that someone some where is going to obviously make about me.  Yes, I am that vain.  I admit it.  It isn't a constant obsession, because goodness knows if it was I wouldn't be getting anything else done, but I am thinking about that bio-pic or about that documentary and which songs just MUST be included.

Now, if we were to have a soundtrack just for the past year?  Just for 2009.  The soundtrack that will be playing while you're watching scenes of me wandering the house naked with the dogs as my only companions and cooking dinner for my friends? The music filling the air with a shot of my hands black with dirt as I'm pulling amazing red beets from the earth or mixing Dreamsweet teas in my studio?  The tunes blaring from the speakers in my car while I'm driving to the farmers market on Saturday mornings to hug my farmers?  Or from the headphones while I'm sitting at my desk at work? The songs floating in the air while I wander down the beach in Santa Cruz? 

The primary soundtrack, the primary sounds would come from The Weepies and from their album, Say I am You.  I know that Happiness is more recent.  I have it, too.  All the music of the Weepies are in rotation at my house.  All the time.  As is the music of so many other artists that if you were part of that life I just described, that naked life, part of that documentary bio-pic, you'd think yourself schizophrenic trying to sort out the proper soundtrack.

So we'll leave that to the professionals.  They are people who have enough drugs at their disposal and cash from the Mafia to be up to the task.  In the meanwhile, since you asked, Album of the Year for Nakedjen in 2009?  Say I am You from the Weepies from 2006.  Because, as usual, I'm always a tad late to every party.  Especially the ones about my own life.

Divided Sky, The Wind Blows High

You know there's that moment in your life, right?  I'm sure you've had it.  That moment where you're sitting at your very stable graphic design job in San Francisco and it's late December and you look over at your friend and colleagues and instead of thinking it you actually say out loud, "Fuck it.  I'm moving to Colorado!"

Now, while they choke on their coffee and ask you why Colorado, you tell them that even though you don't particularly like the snow and you've never skied a day in your life, that it seems like every girl should spend at least one year of her life working in a ski resort in Colorado.  What's life if it isn't an adventure, right?  And just how many Post cereal boxes can you really get excited about designing, anyway?  I mean really. 

So in that moment, that moment when you've announced that yes, you're moving to Colorado, the entire Universe shifts.  Because you've got a life in San Francisco, you know.  A flat, a job, a dog, a bank account.  Stuff.

But what do you do? 

You stuff some clothes in your backpack, you grab the dog, you purchase a 1969 VW Van with most of the dollars in your bank account, you tell the landlord that you're vacating the beautiful flat on the panhandle and you head for Colorado.  Because, like you said, every girl must spend at least one ski season in her life there.

Of course the van breaks down in Santa Cruz.  90 miles.  You get 90 miles before your van breaks down.  You spend four days waiting on the one guy in town who can possibly fix it for you who happens to have a bit of a drinking problem and can only be found during certain hours at a bar called the Hurry Back Inn.  And you have to catch him while he's still able to stand upright or it's all over.  Thus the four days of waiting.  It takes you four days just to figure out the catching while he's able to stand upright part.

On that fourth day you do manage exactly that.  And he takes a look at that van of yours.  That you and your dog have been sleeping in while waiting for him to possibly fix it.  But it doesn't look good, this van of yours.  It's very sick.  It needs lots of parts.  Parts that are not easy to find in 1989 when your van is already 20 years old.  So you do what any sensible girl with her heart set on Colorado would do.

You leave your brand new very old VW Van parked on a side street, give the keys to a good friend in Santa Cruz and rent a car to drive one-way to Colorado.  You pile the dog in the front seat, your back pack and sleeping bag in the back seat, and you wave goodbye to the ocean and promise that you'll be back.  You're just not sure when.

You get to Colorado and land in Steamboat Springs.  You remember hearing about Steamboat long ago when your summer camp offered winter ski trips there as a way for the summer campers to have a winter trip together.  You never participated in these trips because you weren't fond of snowy climates and you didn't ski, but if Steamboat had been good enough for Wyonegonic it was certainly good enough for you now.

So now's the part in the adventure where you might think that things start to get a little difficult.  You know no one in Steamboat.  You haven't exactly planned to move here.  Last week you were a very well-employed graphic designer in San Francisco.  One who by all outward appearances seemed rather responsible and not who would just take a deep breath one day and quit her job and abandon all reason. 

But that's what you did.  And now you're standing in front of a bulletin board at the only health food store in this very small town and hoping that you're going to find some inspiration.  Because it's FREEZING in Colorado and sleeping in your car doesn't feel like the best of choices even if the dog is big and cuddly.

Fortune and the Universe and luck all conspire in your favor that day and it just so happens that there are five single boys who are sharing a big beautiful house on the side of the ski mountain and they need just one more roommate.  Just one. 

You call them up, they decide you're perfect, and they let you and the dog move right in. You've never felt so loved for just being you.  Ever.  You want to kiss each and every one of them, but refrain because you also want to make sure they really allow you to stay and you haven't brushed your teeth since Santa Cruz.

Finding a job also proves very easy and by the next afternoon you're employed at not one, but two, establishments.  Two jobs.  A house.  Your dog has dog food.  You have health food.  And you've even managed to score a bike to get you around town. 

Life, as they say, is good.  Or perhaps even grand.

It turns out the boys are all excellent snowboarders and spend most of their time on the mountain.  You rarely see them.  You spend many many hours working the breakfast, lunch and dinner shifts at the two restaurants who have hired you and before you realize it two months have passed and you've yet to actually go skiing.  But you're making lots of good money (nearly as much as you were in San Francisco) and because you're working in restaurants, you're not spending any of it on food.  Or hardly any of it. 

It also just so happens that one of the boys happens to be a music promoter.  Who likes to arrange for bands to come and play all the resort towns in Colorado.  And so in addition to the five boys with whom you're already sharing your big fat house on the hill, you're also often sharing it with various other boys in the bands.  Who are crashing on your available floor space.  Or couches.  Or sometimes even in your bed. 

It's all good, you know.  This is what it is all about this spending a ski season in Colorado.  You share your bed.  Your share your food.  Your share your heart with a boy or two in the band.

That music promoter boy tells you that this AMAZING band is coming.  And they're going to stay for two weeks.  In your house.  Maybe even in your bed.  They're coming from Vermont.  He loves this band.  He went to college with them.  They're the best thing since sushi! 

A few days later this band called Phish arrives.  Of course you've never heard of them even though you're a card carrying tie-dyed Deadhead.  Why not?  Because at this point in their careers their universe is very small.  Very, very small.  And there's hardly anyone who has heard of them. 

It turns out that this band called Phish is made up of boys who are deadheads, too.  So when you're passing them in the bathroom or sharing the sink while you brush your teeth or inviting them to come to your restaurant for free breakfast, lunch and dinner you actually DO have something to chat about.  Actually, you have a lot to chat about.  Because if there's something that you can chat about ad nauseum and until people want to beat you into a small naked pile of whimpering slush just to get you to please shut up already you can chat about the Grateful Dead.

 

And so can those Phish boys.  They can most definitely chat about the Grateful Dead.

So you share your house.  You share your couch.  You share your bed and you even share your dog.  For two weeks.  And they bounce around your living room and they go off and play all the resorts and come back and go off and come back and go off again and jump around on their trampolines and come back.

And while they're there?  While they're crashing at your boy crash pad on the side of the mountain?  You go to one of their shows.  And you hear this song.  The Divided Sky.  And you decide it is perhaps one of the most perfect songs ever written.  It is certainly, you decide and tell them, their most Grateful Dead-like of all their songs.  And you fall in love with that song.  That one song.  For you, that song epitomizes the band.  It is the definition of Big Phish. 

Their two week visit comes to an end, of course.  And they leave.  And eventually, so do you.  Because a ski season in Colorado is just that.  A season.  It ends.  The snow melts.  The flowers bloom.  It's a beautiful site, but it means that the restaurants close.  You must move on.

Where do you go?

Of course you go back to San Francisco.  It holds your heart, anyway.  It's still there beating and waiting for you.  So back you go. 

And a few years later you attempt to go see a bigger and more popular Phish at the Warfield Theatre.  You don't have a ticket, but why would you need one?  You shared your house and your couch and your toothpaste with those boys.  However they don't seem to remember that when you see them during the sound check.  Don't remember it at all.  And wow.  Just wow. 

No more Phish for you.  It just hurts too much.

Until last Saturday.  Just last Saturday.  Nearly twenty years later. 

Because you're you and you're quite stuck on traditions you make up a huge Easter Basket for NakedIan just like you do every single year.  It's not Easter if NakedIan doesn't have nearly infinite amounts of chocolate confections to eat.  With a basket weighing nearly 40 pounds, you play the NakedBunny and take it over to NakedIan's house. 

It's a huge surprise, but he's actually home.  So you get to stay and visit for a while.  A visit that includes watching DVD's on his amazing HDTV with a surround sound system that's worthy of any live concert.  Maybe even better.  And what does NakedIan decide to play for you?

A Phish concert.  Live at Brooklyn.  You skip right to the encore, The Divided Sky.

A thousand beautiful and amazing memories flood over you.  You squeal.  You dance around the room.  You're transported, instantly, on a journey back to that time in Colorado.  That ski season.  When life was, as they say, good.  Or even grand.

And when the song ends, you hug NakedIan and with tears you tell him, "Thank you."  Because that really is your favorite Phish song.  And sometimes you need to remember exactly how wonderful your life really has been and how very lucky you are to be alive.  And to be loved.  And to be able to love.  Every day. 

Forget Taylor Hicks. Peter Bradley Adams is MY Alabama Idol!

One of the tenets of good improvisational theatre is for the players to be open and willing to say "YES".  I am not really an improvisational player, however, I did take a stab at it recently with DearSweetDave who is in the process of becoming more of an improvisational player than he has been in the past.  The experience for me was definitely eye-opening and perhaps even a little bit scary.  It is well known around these parts that I am, if nothing else, a perfectionist.  I like to get all A's.  I like to win blue ribbons.  I like to come in first and be the absolute best that I can possibly be.  Improvisational theatre makes being first and best and getting all A's very difficult.  Very difficult, indeed.  Because it's not about YOU.  It's about you supporting all the other people who are there on stage with you.  It's about letting go of being YOU and being a part of the bigger whole.  And it's most certainly about being open to all the possibilities that the WHOLE presents.  It's about saying YES.

At least that's the biggest lesson I learned from my first stab at improvisational theatre a few weeks ago.  Being open and saying YES.  I've been trying to apply that more and more in my every day life.  Especially in my marriage to and with DearSweetDave.  One of the things that DearSweetDave wishes for our marriage is that we were more playful.  I admit that my own desire to win and be first and get all A's can make things awfully serious around these parts a lot of the time.  Perfection does not come without emotional sacrifice.  But I do not have to be perfect all of the time, now, do I?  No, certainly not.  In fact, my own perfectionist sensibilities are perhaps what are standing in the way of my own ultimate happiness.  Time to rethink the necessity of getting all A's.  Time to learn to just say "YES!"

Late last week DearSweetDave sent me a link for a house concert Sunday night in Sunnyvale.  He asked me if I wanted to go?  Without even clicking the link or thinking about it, I just hit the reply button and said, "YES!"  I could have just signed myself up for crickets rubbing their legs together to play chamber music, but I didn't care.  I had said, "YES!" and DearSweetDave and I had a date for something fun.

The whole day turned out to be quite lovely.  We spent the early part of it in San Francisco.  We had lunch in the Haight with two imaginary friends of mine from the Internet and DearSweetDave even surprised me by finding and buying a CD at Virgin records that I have been wanting for a very long time.  He isn't just called DearSweetDave for nothing, you know?  We cruised back down 101 to Redwood City and hit their Whole Foods for dinner.  Why oh why can we not have Whole Foods in Santa Cruz?  Such choices!  Such yummy things!  We stuffed ourselves, piled back in the car and headed for Sunnyvale.  DearSweetDave was just a tad worried that we would be late and not get good seats, but we arrived exactly on time.  Go us!  And then walked in to quite an intimate setting.  This guy truly was putting on a house concert in his living room. 

The concert itself was just, well, amazing.  You can not beat the intimacy provided by a 10 x 10 living room.  Peter Bradley Adams played two sets.  And talked to us about how it was so difficult for him to play when he could actually see our faces and look at our eyes.  He sang nearly all the songs on his new album, which we bought.  It's really good and currently has permanent residence in the dog transport vehicle.  Buddha and Stella are becoming huge fans!  One thing I didn't realize when I said "yes" is that I was already sort of familiar with Peter.  He was one half of the band EastMountainSouth which I had seen open for Tracy Chapman a few summers ago.  I had really loved their harmonies and their songs when I saw them.   So I suppose in one aspect I was a bit predisposed to love him.   

Peter can definitely sing.  He can also definitely write songs.  And he can make you feel all warm and fuzzy while singing those songs that he writes.  Especially when you're sitting not a foot from him on a cozy couch in some guy's living room in Sunnyvale.  His songs take you on a journey you didn't even know you wanted to take.  But you hold on, almost breathlessly, waitingwaitingwaiting while he sings those next notes carrying you ever closer to a place deep inside your own heart that you knew existed but you weren't quite sure how to reach.  Really, it's quite a trip.  It wasn't until after the show that I learned that he was a classically trained pianist and that he was from Alabama.  I wonder where his accent went?  Because he really didn't have one.  At all. 

Peter is touring the country over the next couple months.  If he's coming anywhere near you, I highly recommend that you go out and give him a listen.  It won't be a waste of your time.  Just say "Yes!", keep yourself open to the possibilities and be ready for a journey you didn't know you really wanted to take.

Half Eaten Shoes

my youngest sister, halfnakedrobin, sent me a package. i received it today. seventeen years ago, shortly after clyde came whirling into my life, i left colorado in a whirlwind of my own and landed on my own mother's doorstep in washington, dc. me and my puppy and little else. the clothes on my back. i was thankful that my mom had a house where i could, in fact, land.

my sister, halfnakedrobin, was living there at the time in the english basement apartment that is part of my mother's townhouse. she had recently graduated from college. in fact, clyde went to her college graduation in north carolina. he even waltzed across the stage with the graduates and paused to ask for a diploma before running off and narrowly escaping the big gruff security guys. that dog.

anyway, after graduation, halfnakedrobin left north carolina and came and took over the apartment in mom's basement. and then i arrived from colorado. and announced that i was going to liver there, too. halfnakedrobin was not at all happy about this arrangement, but because she's the YOUNGER sister, she had to go along with it. before you go saying, "poor halfnakedrobin" do not feel too sorry for her. she has always been our mother's most favored child and has had her share of many blessings. and clyde and i needed a place to crash, man. it was there or the streets and the streets wouldn't come until much later.

now let's remember that clyde was a puppy. a tasmanian devil puppy. a whirling dirvish puppy of fur and teeth and unbridled energy. a puppy who for some reason could discern which shoes belonged to halfnakedrobin and which shoes belonged to nakedjen. maybe it was because my shoes were all from england and were made of expensive leather. or maybe it was because halfnakedrobin's shoes were not. but in any case, clyde seemed to get lots of joy out of choosing one of halfnakedrobin's favorite shoes and chewing it into one inch by one inch pieces. always her shoes. never my shoes.

the thing is, halfnakedrobin is just as much a dog lover as i am. really and truly. she loves dogs with every fiber of her being. but clyde knew that she wasn't his. and never would be. and neither were her shoes.

so a package came today. for me. from halfnakedrobin. inside? one seventeen year old half eaten shoe. complete with clyde teeth marks. lots of clyde teeth marks. the note from halfnakedrobin said that she thought it would make me laugh. it made me gasp. there was still so much of the young whirling nutso clyde in that shoe. halfnakedrobin suggested that i get it bronzed. which i think i might. for now, it's sitting on clyde's altar. next to his ashes. with his tennis ball. a tribute to all that he was and still is.

halfnakedrobin also included a CD. music by jack johnson called "in between dreams". she said that she always used to sing to her own dog, lucy (who tragically died two years ago) every morning. halfnakedrobin never noticed it, but her housemates always did and that's how they knew exactly how much she loved lu,lu,lucy. she heard the song "better together" from this CD and the minute she heard it she thought of her morning walks with lucy and knew she would have sung that song to her dog. it also made halfnakedrobin think of me. and clyde. and how much the two of us shared and our own morning walks together. for hours.

there was another song on the CD, though, that really, really struck me. truly. to the core. better together is a happy song and i love it. but this song, "if i could" just hit me in the heart. and to my core. as i doula i witness life being born all the time. and in my work as an herbalist and healer, i see life slip away. one goes out. one comes in.

i wish i could somehow link the mp3 for you here. it's an amazing song. halfnakedrobin had no idea when she sent me that package just how deeply she'd touch me. or maybe she did. the shoe made me cry. but the music? it will always make me smile.

p.s.  halfnakedrobin reads nakedjen.  thank you, dear sweet sister.  you made me both laugh and cry today and love you more than ever.