BIG ANNOUNCEMENT! I just finished final submissions for the publication of MY FIRST BOOK! It is called The Miracle of Music - Stories of Hope, Understanding, and Inspiration. I wrote this book for anyone facing Alzheimer’s disease or dementia, life-limiting or terminal illness, long-term care, or hospice – and all of us who love and care for them. The Miracle of Music is a collection of real-life stories gathered from my years spent playing music and singing for residents in long-term care communities, for hospice patients, and for those suffering from Alzheimer’s, dementia, and other cognitive disorders and serious illnesses. My recollections and stories, as well as a brief overview of scientific evidence and biblical references, illustrate the healing power of music and what it can do for our spirits and our faith, especially as we face a personal health challenge, provide care for others, or work in ministry. Many individuals receiving care at home and in long-term care settings are quite lonely and isolated - they are an unseen population with many significant needs. The central message of my book is one of inspiration and motivation to share the miracle of music with those in need around us. I expect to have the book in hand in a month or so - look for more details and book excerpts to come!

Healthy, economical "fast food" at home!

“Chicken with White Wine and Sundried Tomato Cream Sauce,” Greek-style Fish Filets,” “Maryland Salmon Cakes,” “Tortilla Pizza.” Do these sound like fix-in-a-hurry meals you can easily make at home on a budget? In today’s economy, many mothers work outside the home and struggle daily with providing healthy meals for their families with limited time and money to spend on food. With simple ingredients and 15-20 minutes of preparation time, all of the above dinners can be prepared without stress and on a reasonable budget. It just takes a little advanced planning at the beginning of the week, and dinner can become the start of an enjoyable, healthy, and stress-free evening meal for a family struggling to spend time together at the end of a busy day.

Preparing and enjoying quick and delicious meals to be enjoyed as a family can also become something you look forward to every day. It’s all about seeing this basic activity of food preparation and meal-sharing as one of the most fundamental human experiences, an essential part of family and societal culture. If it’s something you and your family must do every single day, why not enjoy the process? Meanwhile, you teach your children how to use everyday healthy ingredients to create a nutritious meal that doesn’t break the bank. For example, the “Chicken with White Wine and Sundried Tomato Cream Sauce” requires only a few ingredients: boneless chicken, olive oil, a handful of chopped sundried tomatoes, a little white wine, and cream cheese. The “Maryland Salmon Cakes” use inexpensive canned salmon, bread crumbs, egg, Old Bay and other seasonings. It is quite simple to discover similar recipes for free on the internet – no need for the latest Food Channel cookbook. Like so many other things in life, it’s about attitude, planning, and choices.

Look for my recipes to be posted soon!
 

Silent Movie

Blessed cursed memories!
Are my recollections correct
or only tainted by my longing for
what was and what is
and what could be?
Only those black and white
silent films of
yesteryear
that captured my
life on
faster-than-life reels
can tell.

Funny how time
plays its own tricks
on a mind
bent on
melancholy,
wholly devoted to
finding something miraculous
in what was likely
just one in
a zillion
other stories
written in history.

Nothing special.
Nothing worth
writing about,
crying about.
And yet it was.
It was glorious,
momentous,
almost sacred.
It was blessed.
Reading my journals,
my recollections,
proves it.

But no one else
will ever know.
Only those of us
who were there.
We lived the laughter
and fullness
and spiritual journey
and struggle
and heartache
and endless striving
for victory,
where few could be had.

Or were there more
successes than failures?
Not everything can be
measured and quantified
in some common
meaningful way.
We can only look
inside, and try
to see something there
that wasn’t there before,
sound and music, and
not a silent movie.

Paradise, a sonnet

The balmy breeze, nearly one with my skin,
a wave of tranquility, it brushes
me with its Caribbean warmth within
its moonlit sea-laden glow. It rushes
through the palms and glides over me as I
lay quietly, contemplating night skies.
Who am I under this dazzling black sky
sparkling overhead, to know all the “why’s”
of my existence, of why I should be
witness to this beauty, partaker in
this unspeakable place and its blue sea?
My questions seem to end where they begin.
The answers do not come; I’m left alone
to understand this heaven on my own.

River Tears, a sonnet

River tears, tumble and toss over stone,
streaming, running, cascading o'er my heart,
songs of love and need; I oft cry alone
in silence, feeling pain those drops impart.
River tears, going where? To the deep sea
one day? An ocean waits to gather my
salty sadness – it gladly waits for me
to come to it, until my eyes are dry.
River tears, no beginning, always there,
like the polished rocks in the river bed
that feel life pass them over. ‘Tis not fair!
Oh, that I could be those cold stones instead
of who I am. Hard. Instead, I’m sending
part of me while my tears are unending.

MARBLE STATUE

Standing guard outside
the garden entrance
looking pensive
forlorn
carrying the weight
of centuries
on your bare shoulders
now stained
with weak acids
from millions
of raindrops
and brown-red leaves
falling half-hearted
from sad trees.

What you have seen
can never be known
and I wish I could
read your thoughts
but your eyes look down
as if you know what
I would ask of you.
You are but stone
and I am jealous of
your cool indifference
your veneer that takes
hundreds, thousands,
of years to really
fade away.

IF ONLY

If only I had known back then
that I’d be here.
Would I have wanted to know, though?
I was never one to
want to know
my future.
Too scary.
Only show me the good stuff.
Like the day I held my baby in my arms
for the first time.
The perfect day on
a perfect beach.
The wonder in my
child’s laugh,
the complete and innocent joy.
I wish I could remember mine.
If only.

Nonsense

Bubbles go down this time,
not up.
But they still do
what they’re supposed to –

bursting inside me,
sending sparkles
of inspiration
to my brain,

floating through my
clogged-up mind.
And finding their way
in that dark place
isn’t easy.

Train

I wanted to work on my book,
that long, long work of
putting volumes of life
into mere pages.
But I got off-track,
the click click click of the keyboard
like a train taking me somewhere else,
but without even looking out the windows
to see the blur going by,
I ended up here.
Who is driving this machine? I asked.
I mean, am I not the conductor?
But the only answer was
more clicking.
I’m on the right track,
I can feel it tonight.

Poems from the Heart

Sometimes when you write poetry, it is completely you, 100% how you feel at that moment, but then the moment passes. Sometimes, you have a thought, an inspiration, and you begin to write, and as you do, you conjure up the feelings you need to put into the poem. Is it possible to write a poem and never have felt what you express in it? I don't know. I know it's not possible for me. On the other hand, every poem is not a complete representation of who I am - there is often an element of fiction, of imaginings, of taking my feelings a step or two beyond my own experience for the sake of the poem. And endings are important, aren't they? What they leave the reader with, the last line, the last thought, the last feeling, the last impression.

I've written a few sad poems lately, and a friend read them and felt bad about how I must be feeling. But I smiled and told him that I might have felt that way when I wrote, that I might have had a moment where I was totally inside the words, but once they escaped onto paper, I also escaped the sadness. But I'm sometimes able to be thankful that I can feel the sadness, for without pain, without loss, without struggle, without loneliness, I don't think we can ever feel as deeply or love as profoundly.



River Tears
(a Sonnet)

River tears, tumble and toss over stone,
streaming, running, cascading ore’ my heart,
songs of love and need; I oft cry alone
in silence, feeling pain those drops impart.
River tears, going where? To the deep sea
one day? An ocean waits to gather my
salty sadness – it gladly waits for me
to come to it, until my eyes are dry.
River tears, no beginning, always there,
like the polished rocks in the river bed
that feel life pass them over. ‘Tis not fair!
Oh, that I could be those cold stones instead
of who I am. Hard. Instead, I’m sending
part of me while my tears are unending.




Dashed

To the ground,
stirring all manner
of dust and dirt
as I land
in a
heap.

To a dead place
a cemetery
as all I hoped
for is
lost and
dreams are
not to be
realized.

To a broken place
like a piece of
china
thrown against a
wall
in fury,
passion,
tears,
when all
I wanted
was
for you
to love me.

We use the word
when what
we thought,
what we longed for
was hurled
away
and utterly destroyed
before our eyes
before our hearts.

I am dashed
and I used to think
it was something
that happened to you
only once.

The End

“Long ago,
far away” -
they spoke their stories
rife with intrigue
and loyalties so steadfast and unearthly
romance, never seen before
passion, other-worldly
and love, the unending, unreachable quest
now discovered.

Thought I:
Myth! Fantasy!
You story-tellers
you torment the broken-hearted
you torture the lonely
Do you not see
what is stirred in the
solitary soul?
Vicious!
Hold out unreachable hope
unattainable love
to sell your words and
be known.
Go down
in history –
you made us want something.
You did.
You did what you intended.

But you did not expect
that I would sit
at this Italian bistro
and live your words
make them true
find myself
discover love
end your story.

Dawn

Misty, milky gray
moves over a field,
hovering
waiting to rise
as light catches dewdrops.
Though they sparkle
for a moment,
they are soon gone
with day’s full sun.

Like my heart,
when hope of tenderness
returned
has all but vanished.
Only tiny glimmers remain
on a summer morn, when
warm presses down
on cool
and droplets glisten
for a time,
but theirs is not
a long life.

And yet
the hope of light
that will last
is held out
each dusky, shadowy eve
when I feel the end
of another day
draw near, and
damp grass whispers
promises of
morning light
reflected on dewy blades.
Love will come
and I will shine again.

Why Has It Been So Hard To Write Lately?

Why has it been so hard to write lately? That is a timeless literary question, asked by countless authors and writers over innumerable centuries. Yet its definitive answer escapes me. In my head, I have written many posts for this blog - it's just that none of them have landed on paper. In my heart, I have written many poems and conjured many stories, and yet, they fail to be expressed in ink, but only in the ephemeral thoughts of a frustrated, aspiring writer.

I have been busy - how often do we all say that? How busy are we? Well, sometimes we are REALLY busy, and the absolute literal meaning of the phrase applies. However, sometimes, we have simply chosen to spend our time otherwise, even though it was not required that we do so. I am guilty of this very thing, if guilt is something that should be assigned to me for choosing to do things other than write. Yet to deny writing is to deny myself - trite as that may sound. I am denying something that is essential to my survival. Oh, alright, survival is too melodramatic. How about that writing is essential to the full expression of ME? To the full experience of life for ME? That writing is a release, and a necessary release at that? And now, I fear, I am lost in a complex labyrinth of philosophical and introspective meanderings. But so be it.

Isn't it the "stuff of life" that answers are not easy to come by, and what we think we NEED to do, HAVE to do, we DON'T do?

You tell me. But I have done it. Alas, I have written SOMETHING. And now I must do my very necessary etymological research to discover the meaning of "alas."