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 |   Reflections and ruminations from a modern day Alice - Life is Wonderland |
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Reflections and ruminations from a modern day Alice - Life is Wonderland  Welcome to the place were I chronicle my own falls down dark holes and adventures chasing white rabbits! Come on In, Take a Bite, You Never Know What You May Find... "Curiouser and curiouser." Alice in Wonderland    |
| Soundtrack of My Life Feb 19th, Entry 13 Wait For It - Hamilton, Leslie Odom Jr I was a late comer to "Hamilton" fever. In the early days of pandemic, my family was one of the thousands who were lucky enough to experience Hamilton live on Disney+. All of us were immediately hooked by the music, by the performance and by the story that took familiar characters from the history books and brought them to life with pulse and music, clever story-telling and some of the most compelling stage performances I've ever seen. My ten year old daughter was transfixed from the first chords. She has likely watched it now over eighteen times and regularly blasts the soundtrack in the shower. Hamilton transcends, it captivates and it moves you. It is very hard to pick a favorite song or vocal performance but Leslie Odom Jr is an absolute master of his craft and that is never more apparent than during his performance of "Wait for It". Lin-Manual Miranda crafted a song captures Burr's struggles and conflicts that builds at just the right moment. It gives Odom Jr a chance to deliver Burr to the audience with all his complexities and glory. There are by far many, many great performances among this original cast but this one, in my opinion, is one of the very best for Odom Jr. If you've not seem Hamilton, I can not recommend it strongly enough. It is truly amazing. I wish I could have found a link that would have had both the original audio and visual of the stage performance but I had to settle for the audio of the original cast performance. I also included another version that is also very good and gives just a hint of Odom Jr's amazing stage performance capabilities. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ulsLI029rH0 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k9AyO8h2I0k |
| Soundtrack of my Life Feb 18th , 12th entry, Moondance, Van Morrison https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6lFxGBB4UGU Once upon a time, I found myself on a 180 foot schooner. It was a floating scientific lab/classroom for the SEA, Semester at Sea. It was an amazing week long journey that departed Woods Hole, MA and traveling out to meet the edge of the gulf stream current. It was full of memorable moments but one of the best ones is connected to this song. We had just reached the edge of the warm water currents that make up the gulfstream and had begun encountering the large floating rafts of sargassium seaweed that was home to a virtual treasure trove of organisms. We were charged with pulling the great rafts onboard and cataloging all the organisms we could find in the pockets of these slick, brown floating carpets. It was hands-on scientific foraging - all done to the strains of Van Morrison's "Moondance", blasting from the boats speakers. It was surreal and amazing. It is a precious memory from another lifetime when I dreamed such different dreams for my life. |
| Blog City Feb 17th Prompt: "If you look at what you have in life, you'll always have more. If you look at what you don't have in life, you'll never have enough." Oprah Winfrey This prompt is poignant for me this morning. It feels right that I should re-commit to blogging again today, with a prompt that is so aptly fitting for where I have been mentally lately. I think I have been burdened by my own doubts and perceived failures this past year. I learned that the career and future I was building wasn't what it seemed to be. I was building sand castles and didn't see the tide coming in until it was too late. I felt like it left my floundering about, trying to find something secure again. I kept looking at the choices my siblings made, and faulting myself for making different ones - from "buying" into a family business, hooking my one horse to a buggy that was destined to go off the rails. I've been plagued by thoughts on how I should have been smarter, I should have seen through the false promises. I should have paid more attention, fought harder, been more...always more. I still am struggling but I am trying also to see that my choices have brought us blessings. My choices enabled us to have a beautiful home, to be healthy and have good quality of life. We get to take a family vacation once a year, our bills are paid and we are able to enjoy a full life. I may not have built the legacy I wanted to for my daughter, but I've worked hard. I'm been successful in my own right. I think Oprah is right, if a person sends time lamenting what they don't have...they will always feel unfulfilled. I'm trying to be the person who looks at their lives and sees accomplishments, not failures. Some days are easier than others. Blogging Circle Day 3014: February 17, 2021 Prompt: “We are like islands in the sea, separate on the surface but connected in the deep.” ― William James Use this quote to inspire your blog entry. I believe that one of the things this pandemic revealed in the basic human connections we all have. Isn't it always the case that something becomes more desirable once you take it away? For most everyone, we were all just going about, trying to love our best lives when the world changed overnight. Suddenly isolation was imposed and we had to severe some of our most beloved and important connections to our friends and families. It because clear that the world was really "in this together". I think of the scenes of the people singing together off separate balconies in Italy. We might be all islands but we crave that sense of connection, we reach for it when it is pulled from our grasp. This quote by Williams James is really the perfect representation of the world in this time of COVID. |
| Soundtrack of my Life Feb 17th, Entry 10 Rainbow Connection - Kermit? Truth be told, I don't know if there is an original composure other than Kermit but this is how I came to know this song. I used to sing to my grandmother and she loved it. She was an artist and a poet who had always been called a day dreamer like it was a bad thing. There was something that spoke to her in this song and my singing it to her only endeared it more. My grandmother is my kindred spirit, I can see what she loves about this song. I can see her singing along with me as a child and it brings me an immeasurable amount of joy. We don't get to see her much these days. Since the pandemic she has been living largely in isolation from us and it is the worst thing about the past year hands down. She turns 92 in April and as time passes I am more and more aware of how precious it is and how the pandemic has taken so much from us we will never get back, like time with our elderly loved ones. It is heartbreaking. Listening to this song and I am writing this today makes my heart a little lighter. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fEnC5gwNAN0 |
| Soundtrack of my Life Challenge Feb 16th, Entry 9 Lazaretto - Jack White I typically have music playing at work, a wide variety of music. My coworkers have learned that on the days when Jack White, in particular this album, is playing...they should steer clear. This is my angry music, my "working through the bullshit" soundtrack. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qI-95cTMeLM It is not that it is a particularly hard song but the driving baseline and free ranging vocals can be more of a musical assault when compared to other selections in my library. I think Jack White is pretty much a musical genius and this song is a good reflection of why. Its a cacophony of sounds that are shaped into this great track with surprising violin solos and that infectious baseline, a little funky, a little punky and a lot fun. |
| Soundtrack of my Life Challenge Feb 15th, Entry 8, Jane Says - Jane's Addiction https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i7Q_8q3XXrQ The discovery of Jane's Addiction will always be indelibly coupled with my teenage rebellion. It was the first album cover I had to hide from my parents and Perry Farrell became my whirling dervish spirit guide on my journey of self-discovery. Jane's Addiction was my gateway band, my musical coming out party in a way. This song in particular was a way to look at my dark parts and celebrate them. Jane's Addiction's lyrics were dangerous and exciting, sexually charged and shameless. Farrell always delivered them with a bohemian edge wrapped in a vocal proneness I hadn't heard before. It hadn't sounded like any music I'd heard before and it was love at first site. The exploits of Farrell's off stage behavior fueled that sense of taboo that I was drawn too. It was suddenly cool and okay not to just be the child raised on classic rock and Amy Grant. This was my own sound, my own blend of bad and free. Its hard not to hear those steel drums in this song and now remember how they made me feel, like something was being awakened. |
| Soundtrack of Life Challenge Feb 13th, Entry #7 Under Pressure - David Bowie/Freddy Mercury https://www.youtube.com/watch/YoDh_gHDvkk The song is a divine marriage of Freddy's powerful presence and David Bowie's eternal coolness. It marks a place on my 100 most favorite tunes of all time. It is timeless and relevant - despite the fact that both artists are deceased. I love it not just because of because of the novelty of hearing these two mega stars coming together, but to do so on a track and over lyrics that posses and overwhelming "everyman" quality.- Its the kind of song you instinctively turn up when it comes on. It is the kind of song to sing along too, take a measure of comfort from. My 11 year old daughter has recently discovered Queen and this song numbers among her favorites. She's not 100% sold on Bowie yet but I'm giving her the time to discover him in her own time. She has a pretty refined musical pallet and I know she will get there. I feel like "Under Pressure" could be the gateway tune to Ziggy and the Spiders from Mars... |
| Soundtrack of my Life Feb 12th New Day - Danny Gokey https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b9ZMPbLoePk On my darkest days I've been looking for an uplifting song, to get me moving, to get me motivated. I stumbled on this gem by accident and it's entirely the most perfect pick-me-up tune. Listening to it makes me happy, makes me feel buoyant and hopeful even on the afternoons when I am 100% covid-fatigued, drained my the demands of remote schooling and just so ready to crawl into a crayon fort for the remainder of the year. It is hard to ignore the infectious beat and positive message of this song. I just barely remember Danny Gokey as an American Idol contestant once upon a time. I think he's actually a Christian artist, normally not a genre I listen to. I like to think I found this tune because I needed it...and that's something to be grateful for no matter what religion you aspire too. I find the message of hope to be universally inclusive. |
| Soundtrack of my Life Challenge Feb 11th Power of Two - Indigo Girls https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hj0yVN8pFNw I discovered the Indigo Girls in college and this song is one of my favorites. In college I also met one of my closest and dearest friends. This song feels like our personal mantra. We might have been polar opposites but we were always there for each other with the exact balm or remedy for what ever ailed us. It has been one of the cornerstone relationships of my life, she's been there for all the best and worst times. Our lives have taken very different paths but we reconnect as easily as we did in the days when we shared an address. She is very much on my mind these days. She just lost her dad a few days ago and I've been aching for her. They were close. He was the stand-in Dad for all her college roommates, a great guy who was always there will a corny joke and a home cooked meal. He was her biggest fan and I can still hear them singing show tunes around the table. COVID is keeping me from being their for her in all the ways I normally would be. It compounds the loss and the pain on so many levels. This song makes me feel closer to her, and I hope she gets the good vibes and prayers I am sending her today and always as she navigates this difficult time. |
| Just as some songs take us to dark corners, some pack the power to transport us to time of light and promise. Throughout the pandemic, my daughter has been accompanying me to work where she can sign on to her remote learning platform from my office. On a recent morning, Sara Evan’s “Supernatural” came on the radio. I was instantly transported, through a haze of glossy memory, to a time when I was a newly minted mother. I used to love the rolling, Celtic melody of that song. I played it often back then, it made me feel happy and hopeful. As the tune spilled from the speakers, I was suddenly once again that young woman, slowly dancing across the sun-warmed wood floors in my bare feet, my infant daughter cradled against my chest. I could feel her full head of dark silk tucked under my chin, her tiny, clutching hands at my chest and the side of her perfect face pressed in close to where my heart beat fiercer than it had ever before. It had felt like magical moment suspended in time. It was that kind of tactile memory that floods your every sense. The kind you experience as a flash of time when you can feel it all again, with every cell of your being. I believe those type of memories are gifts, bestowed on us by the benevolent beings when we need them the most. With my throat thick with emotion, I flicked my eyes to the rear view, trying to reconcile that tiny baby with the growing girl in the back seat. I can still see her in those soot dark lashes and sloping brow. The soft curls are gone and so it the round, cherub face. My daughter, at age 11, is morphing into a strong and graceful beauty. She has an athleticism that inspires me, a quick wit that delights me and a kind heart that melts my own. Those tiny clutching fingers have grown into lovely slender digits that flit effortlessly over piano keys and nimbly type out text messages to her friends. She is reaching that age where she begins to move farther from me as she meets more and more of the world head-on. There are times though when the child reveals itself, more so during the time of this quarantine. It seems that the swift and uncertain turn of her world has regressed her in some small ways. For example, she has insisted on falling asleep between us again, as if it gives her a measure of extra comfort at the end of these strange days. She seems to want the physical contact with us more, bestowing random kisses and full armed hugs, when she had taken to shying away from them before. In other ways, she’s dropped her guard. At times her growing maturity has suddenly slipped to reveal the child again. Just the other day on a hike with her Dad, she was startled by a snake crossing the trail in front of her and it was as if the shock of it turned her into a panicked child again. She ran screaming and crying up the trail. She would only be calmed by a piggyback ride from her father, well past the part of the trail where the offending creature had disappeared into the brush. If there are positives to take away from a pandemic like this, it is the time we have been given to spend with our daughter, to focus on and enjoy the moments of quiet and chaos that come with her growing up. It has made me pay more attention to the precious balance of life and the amazing gift of lucid memories. There might even be something almost something supernatural about it all…. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FtN9GB08AsQ |
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