Tag Archives: writing

Postcards

Liner Notes

Sometimes on weekends when I wake up at the usual time, I’ll briefly fall back asleep for 15 minutes or so. I call it my second-wind sleep. Its defining characteristic is how vividly I dream during the interval. When I awake for the second time, I’m usually coming directly from dreaming. 

Saturday morning I dreamt I was arriving at some sort of pre-graduation gathering. The parking lot was filling up, but I found a place on the loop near the entrance with ample space for me to park the white Econoline van my dream-self was rocking. While it ‘felt’ like it was high school — something about the loop — all recognizable personnel were from my college experience.

Once inside the building and entering the room where (whatever) the gathering (was) was being held, I saw a face my dream self hadn’t seen in a while. 

“Dave!” I called out to a guy I played some music with in college. I remember making some awful noise one summer shedding with Dave and a couple other guys in the TKE house basement.

In the dream Dave was wearing a Star Trek-like uniform, but in the colors of our alma mater. He mentioned he was just finishing a musical project, and was holding the physical master or some recording of the final product in his hands. He interrupted my congratulating him with a question.

“What did it sound like?” he asked me. 

I wasn’t sure what he meant. 

Asked him to explain. 

“Your drums … what did it sound like to you?”

Deep question. 

He said he wanted to mention me in his liner notes of the project he’d just finished. How super cool of him, I remember my dream-self thinking. We hadn’t played together for a couple years.

I ascribed a genuine weight to his question. 

What did it sound like? 

But just as I began to think about how I might answer, the proceedings began.

I never got around to giving him my reply. 

Dave, who played guitar (and bass), was there to accompany a choir-ish group (hence the Star Trek uniforms) providing music for the occasion. Singers harmonized a lyric, “It’s been a long time comin’ …,” and were nailing it, understanding both the assignment and the substance of the material. 

As I listened to the music, my dream self was thinking back to how cool it was that there were people like Dave in this world who care about liner notes. 

It was at that point I woke up from my second wind sleep. 

I had a morning haircut, so quickly showered and got dressed. But before heading out I felt compelled to jot down all the details I could remember of my dream and email them to my good friend Doug. 

I had no idea what motivated me to share my dream with him. 

The dream itself made no sense. It was barely a fragment. And it wasn’t even interesting. Immediately after hitting send I considered following it up and apologizing to Doug for my dream spam. 

But before I could do so Doug replied, telling me that my timing was perfect, and added a few words intimating why. I mentioned I was coming to Waynesburg and could I buy him breakfast? He said he already had breakfast plans with his youngest son and grandson, but would shoot me a note after, if I was still around. 

He did, and I was.  

And so we met at a place on High Street.

Seeing him walk in brought its usual smile and our big hug was medicine to my Saturday morning.  

And as soon as he grabbed the chair across from me, we jumped in to the conversational jazz we’ve been playing ever since we met as freshmen in the band room at Waynesburg College. The kind that just makes time melt. We took chorus after chorus after chorus … catching up and comparing notes: on family, on things we think the other might appreciate (Have you heard … ? Have you read …?), as well as the day-to-day smudge and scuff that more and more keeps us up at night (whither sleep?). Our friendship has always made space for all of it, even the messy stuff. There’s music to be found there, too. A long way from freshmen we are. 

As always we could’ve sat and talked forever, but we knew it was time when it was time. Before going our separate ways, Doug mentioned a new coffee shop around the corner that opened up across from where Scott’s Delight used to be. I asked him if it was worth checking out, and he said it was. 

Though my caffeine tank was full to brimming I stopped by on my way out of town. Ordered something sweet and carried it into the adjacent room with the tables. The interior was warm and coffee-shop cozy, the walls adorned with local art, photography and ephemera. 

Something on the wall immediately caught my eye. On a hunch I walked over to take a closer look. 

It couldn’t be. 

Ha … it was. 

Our record. 

Well, Doug’s record. 

The one he bootstrapped, wrote, and paid for the recording, pressing and distribution (such as it was) of a couple months after we graduated. He poured his full heart and bank account — everything he had at the time — into it. 

I played drums. 

Technically speaking I sang backup, too. In actuality, I monotoned on the chorus. So committedly, in fact, that by the end of the session I had earned myself a nickname: The Drone. 

The A and B sides were rock-a-billy homages to the music Doug loved and loves to this day. Of and from a time when three chords were as sufficient and sustaining to us as ramen. 

After the recording and pressing of the 45s, we got some local airplay, and, according to ‘official’ documentation Doug received from the record company, we briefly trended in one of the Scandinavian countries. I remember seeing a photo copy of some paperwork Doug received that testified that, at our peak, we were charting just north of Eric Clapton’s “Tears in Heaven” in Sweden, I think. I got the second biggest kick out of that. The biggest kick was the occasional photocopies Doug sent me of the modest royalty checks he’d get in the mail.   

Those were the liner notes that came to mind as I stared at a relic from more than 30 years ago, framed and hanging on a wall in a tiny coffee shop in the town where we met. 

I imagine Doug’s youngest son was behind its placement. 

I thought to myself how cool it was that there were still people in this world who cared about such things. 

Pondering the morning’s serendipity as I stared at our old 45, it suddenly all made sense to me. 

I knew why I’d shared my morning dream with Doug. 

Because he’d shared his with me three decades ago. 

And I also think that, deep down, I had a hunch that we’d make some music of it somehow. 

I think our morning’s conversational jazz qualified. 

Same chords as always. Different changes these days.  

As I drove the back roads home, I mentally made plans to turn in early that night. 

To give myself room for a second wind sleep, in hopes that I might bump into Dave again. 

And get back to him with my answer for his liner notes. 

“What did it sound like?”

It sounded like what it’s always sounded like. 

Like old friends making time melt.  

Standard
Rearview Mirror, Righteous riffs

Colophon: March 6-10

In no particular order … an incomplete, un-edited, accounting of the stuff that got me through the week:

Monday afternoon, inviting some student leaders from BYU’s Experience Design program to our team’s weekly meeting. Co-creating the agenda with Michaela, a senior in the program. Her showing up prepared with some custom slides to guide the menu we’d discussed (she, a badass). Their team giving us a prompt for our Story Circle, “How did you get here?” Every answer a window into each other’s Story. Me, choosing not to overthink it, confessing how I am here in spite of myself, and (still) basking in awe at that fact.

Not getting back to sleep Monday night and instead of the obligatory trying in vain to doze, getting outta bed and going downstairs to write, finishing something for Karry to read on her late morning work break.

Getting a hand-written letter in the mail from my niece on Monday, and saving it until Wednesday morning, when I knew I would need it most. Walking outside to tear the envelope so I could savor it while listening to the chattering birds whispering their reminders that today matters. 

That letter filling my cup full, and me needing every ounce of it on a Wednesday that drained it to the dregs. 

Leaving the office late, depleted, for home and Peter texting me asking about dinner. Said I was thinking pasta since I assumed I’d be solo. Five minutes later, he shooting me a recipe he found and a shortlist of ingredients to pick up on my way home.

Getting home a few minutes before him, filling the pasta pot, getting out the cutting board, peeling the garlic, making us salads. He coming home from his Wednesday classes and commencing to chef up the new recipe. Calling new tunes for me to hear (he’s digging Ghost these days). While he worked and I sipped from a freshly cracked Malbec, our easy conversation the best Wednesday medicine. Filling our plates full and watching Duquesne in the A-10 tourney. While the Dukes lost, Peter’s delicious dish earning an automatic bid to our future family dinner bracket. Coming this close to crushing an entire box of pasta between us. Sun-dried tomatoes … who knew? 

In my Friday morning feed, a jet-lagged Patti Smith, from her tender room, her cat Cairo in her lap, honoring John Cale, her late-husband Fred Smith, and her kindred spirit Robert, on the anniversary of the latter’s day of passing, reading just the most beautiful passage from their story, Just Kids, the product of a promise kept, nine years in the making.

Staying up late Thursday night putting slides together for a Friday client meeting that I really wanted to slay. Rising early Friday morning on little sleep but with an epiphany. Scrap my slides. Tell a story. On my 45-mile commute into work, randomly tuning in a random episode of a podcast I’d only dipped toes in, and the episode the perfect pre-presentation pump up, had me literally clapping and shouting affirmations at the stop light into the industrial park, drawing the most curious stares from the car next to me. Clicking into my client meeting shot out of a cannon and fully caffeinated, naked of slides, armed only with a (glorious) story. Me OK with whatever the outcome, knowing I served their curiosity and attention as best I could, and gave them the best possible window into my humble offering. Authenticity over polish. 

My Friday work week ending on the highest of notes with my monthly connection with my P.S.F. (Professional Serendipity Friend), and listening to her gloriously effervescing hours after returning home with her husband from a sacred return pilgrimage to New Orleans. Us feverishly making notes of treasures to share with the other. Our conversational jazz making time melt (like all good jazz does). 

Karry calling me on my way home, confessing the weather too gray and cold to go back out in (me agreeing), and she calling in a takeout order from the Catholic Church Lenten fish fry across town, me picking it up, and us sitting lights out in the living room in the glow of Friday night whatever’s on, communing over church kitchen cole slaw, fries, hushpuppies and Heinz-baptized cod.  

Saturday morning, listening to Miles Davis’ In A Silent Way, steaming coffee in my favorite Saturday mug, my antenna still up … and typin’. 

Amen.

Standard
Rearview Mirror

Of bad Christmas presents, super smart ladies, and hiding the marshmallow ….

Dedicated to my cousin, Dr. Jennifer Wallace.

I love how my mother loved to write letters. She’d buy those long yellow notebooks by the packet and kept stacks of reserves on top of the kitchen fridge. She burnt through them almost as fast as the cigarettes she smoked when she curled up at the kitchen table to write, pen in one hand, lit Salem in the other, one foot on the chair, knee to her chest. 

From what I recall, she mostly wrote to her sisters: her older sisters Ruth and Doris, and her younger sister Janet. (Mom was the sixth of seven kids … though the oldest baby died at childbirth). 

____

As a kid I always held a special expectation at Christmas for the packages we’d get from my mom’s sisters Janet and Doris.

Their contents never had anything to do with whatever I’d petitioned Santa for. As a result, the annual postmarks from Coopersburg, PA (Janet), and Dayton, Ohio (Doris) always heralded a surprise or two. 

ESPECIALLY Aunt Janet’s. Her boxes always contained the quirkiest, goofiest, orneriest stuff, which was very much in keeping with her personality. You never knew what you were going to get, and were never disappointed. It was stuff that always left you asking where on earth did she find that? The stuff that made you smile long after the Christmas glow had died to embers. Having to wait until Christmas morning to open Janet’s gifts was always excruciating. 

By contrast, Aunt Doris’ stuff was usually a lot more austere, reflecting her personality. Doris was a business school graduate. I never saw her much, but I perceived her as pretty serious, worldly, super smart, professional (in the days when that was not what society necessarily expected of its women). Her holiday packages were always distinguished by a large can of Planter’s peanuts for Dad. Every now and then Dad would get a tall can of cashews. My childhood self registered this as lavish. Although Dad (and I) loved peanuts, we never splurged on them, never had them in the house. In my childhood memory I perceived cashews to be an extravagance beyond our means. It’s funny to think about now, but I always ascribed a special ‘fanciness’ to Aunt Doris’ annual cans of Planter’s. Overall, though, her gifts were practical, not spectacular. While always welcome, the arrival of her Christmas packages never registered the same high level of anticipation as Aunt Janet’s.

Until 1987 and the Christmas of my senior year of high school. In the annual package from Aunt Doris there was a surprise – a special gift for me. Last Christmas before college, I remember allowing myself high expectations for what was inside. It was big. Felt heavy in my lap. Too heavy for peanuts. I unwrapped it in earnest … to discover … a red, hardcover Webster’s College Dictionary, along with a note wishing me well in college. Really? A dictionary? I remember at the time putting it in the same category as getting a pair of socks. I considered it about the worst Christmas gift my 17-year-old self could imagine. She didn’t get me the way that Aunt Janet did, I remember thinking at the time. 

Continue reading →
Standard