Loose Leaf Notes

1. My Window is a Flat Planet: Clouds spill up / defying gravity / They melt away / like chances not taken / But some escape / and sail like boats / beyond the view / of accepted reality.

2 . Thoughts on a Practice:   Sun and moon. Breakfast and dinner. The arts. I keep in mind not to over-intellectualize. I keep it simple but don’t oversimplify. Curiosity is important. Beauty is salve.  Take the unplanned route. Adjust your mirror and follow the meter…

3. The KIND just turned 40. The “Hillbilly Psychedelic Folk Rock” band who play mostly Grateful Dead songs, is one year older than my and Joe’s and my relationship, which began in 1987, the year that we first saw and danced to the band at the South Main Café in Blacksburg.

4. “After 40 years of making music together, the KIND is not dead yet!” That’s what anniversary reunion invite said. Dogtown was packed and the band played for more than three hours straight with all the past bandmates alternating turns on the stage to join the current members.

5. Tim, the Garcia-type lead guitarist, said this: There’s been a lot of heaviness in the world, it was good to have a night to set all that aside and enjoy being in the present. I started a band with these guys 40 years ago and have spent my whole adult life with this music family. There have been a lot of folks who have come through this band and they are all family and all welcome to be part of this when it’s possible. This was a special treat. 5 of the 7 founding members.”

6. The KIND have a large enthusiastic following. It reminds me of the band version of a Rocky Horror Picture Show audience participation with familiar fans, friends who know all the words reuniting, dancing and loudly singing along.

7. I recently dreamt I was in an upstairs bedroom in an old house.  Trump sauntered in my room thinking he had the right to do whatever he wanted, but I stood up to him and turned him down. He sent me to another room where I could do whatever I wanted to. Turns out he was a paper tiger.

8. Best Academy Awards moment:   Mr. Nobody Against Putin won Best Documentary Feature, with director David Borenstein stating the film shows “how you lose your country” through “countless small little acts of complicity” and silence.” The film documents Russia’s slide into authoritarianism and highlights moral choices faced by individuals.

9. And then Jimmy Kimmel said, “We hear a lot about courage at shows like this,” he said. “But telling a story that could get you killed for telling it is real courage. As you know, there are some countries whose leaders don’t support free speech. I’m not at liberty to say which. Let’s just leave it at North Korea and CBS. Fortunately for all of us there’s an international community of filmmakers dedicated to telling the truth… and there are also documentaries where you walk around the White House trying on shoes (Melania).”

10. Hello Yellow.

11. “The glory of art is that it can not only survive change, it can lead it.” Robert Redford

12. It was a busy weekend. On Friday I went with friends to a Candlelight Celtic concert at the Jefferson Center in Roanoke.

13. Saturday was dancing to The Kind and Sunday I went to my friend Martha’s author talk at The Book House for her new book:  “Join the Convent and see the world,” is a tagline that Martha Taylor, a former nun and pediatric nurse, has playfully told her friends. Taylor is the author of a new book, The Color of Covering: A Life Changing African Adventure, a 172 page personal memoir that chronicles her life of service and self-discovery, and spans continents and cultures. Read the rest of the story I wrote about her book HERE.

__________Thirteen Thursday