Happy Easter 2008

I feel blessed to have a loving family to spend my Easter holiday with today. We gathered in Salem -- me, Leo, my sister, brother, their partners, my niece, and parents. We shared a delicious meal. We visited and played showed off new toys (my new iPod, my Dad's new iMac). We talked about life and family and art and being together. I played a little recital of an adagio from a Handel sonata and a couple of church hymns appropriate for the day.

Happy Easter, everyone.

Bunny Baby

Oh dear, my poor sister has a mutant child. I knew she never should have gotten mixed up with that guy she married...! ;-P

Tears and Rain

I enjoy James Blunt's music very much. I recently (March 2008) went back to iTunes to look for songs by him I didn't own yet, and decided to try out "Tears and Rain" from his first album, "Back to Bedlam." This isn't my favorite song, but it raises the hairs on the back of my neck.

I had posted here a video I'd found on YouTube, but it has since been marked private, so I can't share it with everyone now. So instead I'll share some brief reflections on the music and meaning I find in this song.

I love how the song opens with gentle acoustic guitar strumming. James' voice has a lovely, expressive quality. In this song he uses a tone that is very sorrowful, like weeping. How perfectly he sings this melancholy tune!

My favorite line is "How I wish I could walk through the door to my mind; / Hold memory close at hand, / Help me to understand the years." Memory and imagination are a great gift for turning over experience and learning from what has come before. How tempting it can be to feel like one could live there, inside an idea, inside an instant from the past! Perhaps it is well that we can't literally step through this door.