Yesterday Jammer and I picked up a copy of “The Serpent’s Egg” at Squeezebox, our favorite little 2nd hand book/cd shop in Evanston. I was turned on to Dead Can Dance in NY in the late 90’s while doing a photo shoot with fashion photographer Jeff Licata. This morning I am alone with the music. (Jammer is house-sitting, it’s 4th of July week-end and we’ll get together later to hang with his doggie pal Buster, have a Joy Yee Noodle jamboree and to listen to our latest project “The Shadow of the Marigold.” Is it finally ready to be mastered?).

I have also been forced to take it easy, I have a case of vertigo, my mind is a kaleidoscope, it tilts and spins and, I drift about… watching the leaves sway in the summer wind outside the window. I think about my father. How he would sit in silence watching the world around him, I think about the lyrics in Black, Black Wings: “there was just no gettin inside of that, there was just no getting outside of that.”

A line from Helen Macdonald’s book “H is for Hawk” has been resonating over the past few days in this fragmented head of mine, “The unspoken atempt to hold onto something that has already flown away.” Yes. The awareness of the circles of change, going round and round over time, bouncing and crashing into one another, floating away.

I love nostalgia, I so believe the stories keep us engaged and grounded. While enjoying “The Serpent’s Egg,” I read an article by Kate Christensen about the relationship she shared with her mother as a child in the 70s. Her mother, a strong women; divorced, struggling to take care of her children while getting her PH D. Her mother had very little time to spare, although they always got together on Friday nights to relax and watch the Sony & Cher show. They would admire Cher’s style, her strength, her wit, and her ability to rise up from a rough childhood to become a successful and creative woman. Cher’s career and life like many, has gone through volatile ups and downs, but still, she carries on. Kate leaves us with gratitude for Cher’s story. To have the hope and courage to keep on going. A wonderful reminder – Hope and Courage, and Gratitude, for this life, all that it holds. The successes. The failures. The energy of spirit that connects us all, to all. – Carla

Photo of Cher by Bill Clough