Cathedral

I'm flying in Winchester Cathedral
Sunlight pouring through the break of day
Stumbled through the door and into the chamber
There's a lady setting flowers on a table, covered lace
And a cleaner in the distance finds a cobweb on a face
And a feeling deep inside me tells me
This can't be the place

A couple of days ago, I visited the Chapel at Duke University with my daughter, who is getting another masters degree there.  (So she can be an English teacher like her mom; can you believe it?)  Needless to say, the chapel makes one breathless with its grandeur and majesty.  Just don't think too much about the three 30-ton white Carrera marble sarcophagi holding the remains of the University's benefactors, Washington Duke and his sons, James B. Duke and Benjamin N. Duke, right over there to the left of the altar.

Now I have visited some equally impressive cathedrals, most notably in Venice, Florence and Rome, and I always experience the same mix of awe and angst when I do.  Being the frugal queen that I am, my first reaction is always, "Couldn't this money have been spent to feed the poor?"  But the flip of the coin suggests that this display of opulence compels the worshippers to take their religion seriously, to take pride in the House of God that their meager offerings have helped build.  I am always conflicted when being inside one of these amazing architectural masterpieces.

Graham Nash may indeed have been on an LSD trip when he wrote Cathedral.  It sure feels like it when he performs it.  I have witnessed this performance a couple of times, and (forgive the cliche) it blows me away.  So trippy.  The passionate orchestration, the minor chords, the variations in tempo . . . listening to Cathedral is indeed a spiritual experience.

Which is ironic, of course.  This can't be the place, Nash states, although he acknowledges that all religion has to have its day.  One of my favorite quotes from Rumi, the Persian mystic, is this:  There are a hundred ways to kneel and kiss the ground.  That works for me.  I believe that one can find God in a cathedral, but also in a forest, on a beach, at an art museum, on a tennis court.  Open up the gates of the church and let me out of here, pleads Nash.  I understand.

The take-away is this:  Find your moral grounding where you can.  Express your gratitude in whatever way you can.  Humble yourself to something greater when you can.

And wipe the cobwebs off your face.

24 Frames

You thought God was an architect, now you know
He's something like a pipe bomb ready to blow
And everything you built that's all for show goes up in flames
In 24 frames

~ Jason Isbell

I've been treading carefully with this blog so far, but now that I'm getting more comfortable with it, I'm ready to shake it up a bit.  When I first heard Jason Isbell's 24 Frames, these lines blew me away. I was so excited about them, I posted them on Facebook.  Unlike my usual dozens of "likes," the post only got two.  I sensed that I might have offended people?  And that bothered me.  Well, here's my opportunity to talk about why I find these lines compelling.

The song's title refers to the 24 frames that pass before the camera each second during a film.  I'm not a cinematographer -- I still think cameras use magic to capture images -- but I can easily imagine any event, any encounter, any stirring moment being flashed in front of my eyes in 24 frames.  In slow motion, maybe.  The song offers a handful of vignettes that seem to support this idea.  But I don't want to analyze the entire song, just the lines quoted above.

Most of us don't get to our seventh decade without some joy and without some heartache along the way.  I know people whose sadness is borne of tragedy I cannot begin to comprehend, but I know others who repeatedly claim to be "blessed," as their lives have been comparatively perfect.  Perhaps my most often-quoted line is this:  Life is a crapshoot.  Having been widowed at a relatively young age with three fatherless children to raise, I had to accept the randomness of the Universe.  I did not pursue finding someone or something to blame; what would have been the point?  Some misfirings in my husband's anatomy set the stage for a painful and cruel death.  What the Architect had created, that beautiful physical being, was returned to some ethereal origin for no logical reason.  Like a pipe bomb that blew.

In a discussion of his poem The Dancing, Gerald Stern talks about a wild and merciful God who "allowed" the Holocaust to happen.  He suggests that this wild God was distracted by something beautiful that he was creating somewhere else, and he looked away for a moment.  Because he is wild.  But he is also beautiful and merciful.  He's sitting in a black car ready to go, sings Jason Isbell. It's a haunting image, I know.  But it is not offensive.  It's just reality.

Reason to Believe

If I listened long enough to you
I'd find a way to believe that it's all true
Knowing that you lied straight-faced while I cried
Still I look to find a reason to believe

~ Tim Hardin

Today is Kathie's birthday, so I've been thinking about her and tracing our friendship back through the decades.  And it's getting close to six decades now.  Kathie moved to town in fourth grade and started shaking things up pretty quickly.  So damn smart.  And witty and child-like and (as one of our elementary school teachers recently said to me about her) "free-spirited."  Together, Kathie and I "published" two books. One was a book of animal poems; the other was a book of our made-up "Indian Legends."  I would love to see those books again, but these were the days before copying machines, and we gave our only copies to our fourth grade teacher, the beloved Mrs. Newton.  (Perhaps our love for her had something to do with the fact that she was the only teacher in the building at that time who was under 90 years old.)

Although I could easily detail our friendship year by year, I will jump to 1966-67.  Kathie, now sporting green contact lenses and a geometric haircut, was learning to play guitar, a very cool thing to do in the folk-era mid-sixties.  And she could play this Tim Hardin song, Reason to Believe.  Now mind you, Tim (at 25 years old) recorded his song six years before Rod Stewart did.  The song got to me, and I cannot hear it without thinking of Kathie strumming her six-string and crooning it the way that only a teenager in love can do.

So, thinking about Kathie on this day, I considered how these same lyrics might move me now, fifty years later.  And without belaboring the point, I cannot escape the political ramifications.  I'll let you ponder that one on your own.  Suffice it to say, these are uncertain times, and we are all looking for a reason to believe.

For now, I believe I will wish Kathie a happy birthday!  Thanks for the song, my friend.

Drive South

We were always looking for true north
With our heads in the clouds, just a little off course
I left the motor running, now if you're feeling down and out
Come on, baby, drive.
Come on, baby, drive south.

~ John Hiatt

Those lines are from Drive South, John Hiatt's "ode to the road" song on the 1988 album Slow Turning.  If I were to make a road trip mix tape (and I have), that song would definitely be on it.  Right before Hiatt's Thank God the Tiki Bar Is Open.  I can feel my motor running just thinking about this song.

I took this picture of John Hiatt two years ago at the Gallery at Bethel Woods (site of the Woodstock Festival).  I am happy to report that he obliged me in my request that he sing that tiki bar song.  I saw him again last winter at Southern Jam, a music festival in Boca Raton.  So yes, I drove south to go to that jam.  And if you are reading this blog today, I am driving south again.  These old bones just can't abide a Northeast winter any more.

But I can't hear these lyrics without thinking about place.  We are born into a place, and for many of us, that place becomes home.  Home: the very word resonates with comfort, belonging, safety.  For most of us, anyway.  But how many of us stay in that place that was our first home?  I have been in the Northeast almost all my life, shoveling snow and paying high property taxes.  And I love my home here . . . in every season except winter.  The reality is this: living in the south is just easier.  I tip my hat (which I promise to wear on the beach) to the People of the North for our strength, our hardiness, our tolerance, our ability to ice skate (sometimes on the driveway, without skates).  Lifelong Southerners have no idea how hard life in the North can be.  No matter how many winters I spend as a snowbird, I will never forget how hard.  And I will be grateful that I have an option.

By the time this is posted, I should be in North Carolina, still driving south.  Maybe John Hiatt will be keeping me company with his songs.  And when I arrive at that Southern home, I will thank god that the tiki bar is open.  Because, you know, I do not drink and drive. (And neither should you.)

New Year's Day

And so we’re told this is the golden age

And gold is the reason for the wars we wage

Though I want to be with you

Be with you night and day

Nothing changes

On New Year’s Day

~  U2

Although U2 recorded this song in 1983 in response to the Polish Solidarity Movement, Bono said it began as a love song.  Lech Walesa, a leader of the Polish Solidarity Movement, was jailed, along with others, when the Movement was outlawed.  Years later, Walesa won the Nobel Peace Prize.

I suppose the first two lines have always been true and always will be true, so there was nothing prescient about those 1983 thoughts.  The lines that grab me are the last two.  “Nothing changes on New Year’s Day.”  And yet we persist in viewing the first day of the new year as one of promises and resolutions and new beginnings, don’t we?  I’m as guilty as you are!  Why, I’m going to lose five pounds and curtail my wine habit and read five chapters every night and volunteer at a soup kitchen and write a novel (or at least a blog post every day) and create world peace! 

But the truth is, nothing changes.  There is still war and poverty and injustice.  There is still racism and hatred and violence.  There is still greed and anger and envy.  Those Seven Deadly Sins never change.  (Okay, take a time out here and try to name all seven.  I’ll wait.)

Nothing changes.  But there is still laughter and daylight and the smell of lavender and sage.  There is still hopscotch and redwood forests and river stones.  There is still birdsong and wood fires and quaking aspens.

Draft beer.  Basil and oregano.  Oceans and mountains.  Rock and roll.  Poetry.  Skin-on-skin touch.  Back roads.  Sea salt caramel gelato.

There’s still a Nobel Peace Prize.

(Pride. Envy. Wrath. Gluttony. Lust. Sloth. Greed.)

What Is Love?

The first “pop song” I can remember falling in love with was a little ditty called “What Is Love?” by the Playmates.   It was 1959 and I was nine years old, on the cusp of changes I could not foresee, but felt some trepidation about, regardless.  I can still see myself, bespectacled and awkward, staring at the ancient console radio out on the back porch, imagining myself as a blond, pony-tailed teenager with blue eyes.  What is love?  Five feet of heaven in a ponytail / the cutest ponytail that sways with a wiggle when she walks, crooned The Playmates.  I hung out in front of the radio on the back porch quite a bit that summer, waiting for my favorite song to play.

I’d grown up with a few 78 rpm records, mostly Gene Autry and Bing Crosby Christmas carols.  But there was also my father’s love for Hank Williams, Pat Boone, and Elvis Presley.  (I am still amazed that my father, who readily denounced rock and roll as “the-N-word music,” had a fondness for Elvis.)  And later on, my older sister played her Ricky Nelson 45 rpm records on her little pink record player, while I stared at the tiny lights inside the mesh speaker screen and tried to catch a glimpse of Ricky Nelson inside.  And so, aside from my mother’s obsession with playing “Michael Rowed the Boat Ashore” by the Highwaymen over and over and over again, I did have some decent exposure to popular music.

But that was their music.  “What Is Love?” was the first song that had me claiming ownership.  The song was mine.  And so began my journey of gathering songs, filing them away in that tiny portion of my brain that stores music.  My collection, now nearly sixty years old, is quite extensive.  (I bet yours is, too.)

Those of you who remember American Bandstand on television will recall when new music was introduced to the teenage audience.  And a couple of those teenagers got to rate the song and then tell why they liked it.  The classic answer was, “It’s got a good beat and I could dance to it.”  While I have certainly done some dancing in my life, it is more than the beat that compels me to love a song.  It's the lyrics.  I am a poet, a wordsmith, a lover of language.  For a song to speak to me, it must have good lyrics.  Or at least one good line.

And so I begin this blog, Lyrically Speaking.  My ambition is to share a line from a song every day, along with my musings on it.  And that’s all I can say about it right now, because I don’t know where my musings will take me.  Or where they will take you, if you choose to follow along.  I hope you do.

And I apologize for putting the “Michael Rowed the Boat Ashore” earworm in your head.  I will try to make up for that in future posts.