WORDS MATTER

“…if we never meet again this side of life, in a little while, over yonder, where there’s peace and quiet, my old friend, won’t you think about me every now and then?” ~ Carl Perkins

My life was normal is what I was told.

But in my head was a mind that never stopped, not for even one minute of peace. The familiar was obvious, the rest confusing me about who I was and was to be. 

I am older now with so many more facts, but am I wiser? My mind still goes “zip” when it moves, “bop” when it stops, and “whirr” when it stands still. I never knew just what it was and I guess I never will.”

Christians say, “These six things doth the Lord hate…” I say, these six people doth I love in no partocular order. Perhaps that is why I am not a Christian and why I doth. 

Bob Dylan

Paul Simon

Joni Mitchell

Leonard Cohen

Bob Marley

Bruce Springsteen

Saying I grew up with or to their music is a misnomer. Even worse is referring to them as tunesmiths. I enjoyed their music. I listened to their music. I danced to their music. I played their music. Their music lulled me to sleep on those difficult nights when slumber eluded me.  Buddy Holly, Neil Sedaka, Neil Diamond, Smokey Robinson, Carol King, now those are tunesmiths.

What meant the world to me, saved me from the thoughts of reality, were their words. You see, they are wordsmiths. Their words may or may not have expressed what I felt, what I thought; what they did is make me think, create new thoughts which helped me make it through reality. The proof is that I am still here. I made it to this point and am able to write about it. There are many more I could list, but they would all come after these six. 

So what song brought me here today? None! Remember, I am fixating on the words and it is the words of a friend, someone whose words always seem to stir my thoughts, Mary Constance Mansfield, that stirred my mind as I begin a new day. And perhaps it was her mention of Joni Mitchell that got me thinking about the six. 

“To change the world live the change.

That’s super difficult when staying in alignment feels like terror.  

It’s primal.  We know it. You know it.  I know it.  

Let’s start at the beginning.  

Let’s march it out.  

It’s hormones.  

It’s familiar and those who are sensitive to certain energies may never return to baseline    

Little brains pickled in cortisol and many oxytocin deprived.  Being told this is normal.  

Violence in the streets.  

You see I tried    I tried to convince myself only being adopted mattered and if I just wouldn’t think about it this feeling of impending doom would go away.   And I just could never shake it.   

I’m fairly sure if I had been told the truth instead of the standard industry “your mother loved you so much, she wanted you to have a better life” I would have handled it much better.  In my case the answer to my question when I first asked it should have been “we don’t know”.  

Why? 

Because I was either born gifted or after 3 mothers in my first 9 months I became hyper vigilant looking for any signs of being abandoned again.  And learned to adjust my behavior accordingly.   

Either way I felt things deeply, intuitively, and I watched.   I watched. I studied people.   And what I now know is a trait of being neurodivergent I saw patterns.   I saw behind the scenes so to speak.   

I still do.  I made a decent living developing that skill and learning to trust it in my service to others as a nurse in trauma centers for most of my 30 year career.  See I had found a good addiction.  An adrenaline high.  And then the bottom fell out. 

Headroom rants.  11/14/23   

Rebel Rebel. And Aladdin Sane.  

Never did I see this coming.  

Me and my guitar and Joni Mitchell have looked at life from both sides now.  

Georgia Tann the mother of modern day adoption stole and sold over 5000 infants and no sooner did she die then the Baby Scoop Era begin.  

There’s no way around it.  The only way to make it work required me to lie.  I can give benefit of the doubt over and over trying to convince myself of a way to lie without lying but it’s just not there.  

So you demonized my feelings and took away my voice and then handed me a script.  But you took care of me.  You were there.  And somehow we became a fairly functional family in spite of the fact not one of us were related.  We were a paper family.  So I learned your script 😂😂😂

Good night.”

Mary Constance Mansfield

DID YOU KNOW

“In 1981, just after John passed, Paul and Linda invited legendary rockabilly musician Carl Perkins to stay with them on the Island of Montserrat, where producer George Martin had a studio. Paul wanted Carl’s help in recording a song called “Get It” for his new “Tug of War” album. 

It was literally just weeks after John’s murder, and both George  and Ringo came to spend time with their former bandmate. 

The night before Carl was scheduled to leave, a song came to him that summed up his warm feelings about the visit.  The song was so clear in his mind that he didn’t even write it down, which was unusual for Carl. 

The next morning he played the song, “My Old Friend”, for Paul and Linda, explaining that it was a gift for having him as a guest. 

Halfway through the song when Carl  sang the words “if we never meet again this side of life, in a little while, over yonder, where there’s peace and quiet, my old friend, won’t you think about me every now and then?” 

Paul stood up and abruptly left the room with tears streaming down his face. 

Not sure what had just happened, Carl stopped playing, and Linda hugged him. She thanked him for helping Paul grieve, explaining that he hadn’t been able to fully break down since John passed. 

Paul later explained that the last words John spoke to him in the hallway of the Dakota building  were “think about me now and then old friend”.

Thank you to Boris for this wonderful story and beautiful photo.”

“Bob Marley was so right when he said.....💚🌿

“You may not be her first, her last, or her only. She loved before she may love again. But if she loves you now, what else matters? She's not perfect—you aren't either, and the two of you may never be perfect together but if she can make you laugh, cause you to think twice, and admit to being human and making mistakes, hold onto her and give her the most you can. She may not be thinking about you every second of the day, but she will give you a part of her that she knows you can break—her heart. So don't hurt her, don't change her, don't analyze and don't expect more than she can give. Smile when she makes you happy, let her know when she makes you mad, and miss her when she's not there.”

🙏👏

Class dismissed 🥂“

‘Chris Parker, the original drummer on Bob Dylan’s “Never Ending Tour” when it began more than 30 years ago, told me that when he was on the road with Dylan the bus would often stop at old junk yards and Dylan would hop out to look at scraps of metal. 

Often, Dylan would buy the pieces of metal and load them in the tour bus, overlaying cases of equipment with the unwieldy pieces. Never once did Dylan tell his band what he was doing. That is and was Dylan’s secretive nature.

A few years ago, we got an answer to what Dylan was doing when a new mask was revealed. The Halcyon Gallery in London displayed and sold “Gates,” metal sculptures by Dylan from his home metal welding shop in Malibu, California.

In 2016, MGM National Harbor, a casino in Maryland, announced Portal, a 26 by 15 foot archway iron archway, to its new facility. It was Dylan first work of art for a public space.

Said Dylan: “‘I've been around iron all my life ever since I was a kid. I was born and raised in iron ore country—where you could breathe it and smell it every day. And I've always worked with it in one form or another. Gates appeal to me because of the negative space they allow. They can be closed but at the same time they allow the seasons and breezes to enter and flow. They can shut you out or shut you in. And in some ways there is no difference.”’

Photo by John Shearer

Ah, but you are very observant. Neither Paul McCartney nor the Beatles are among my sacred six. Today is November 17, 2023. After reading Mary’s words this morning, as fate would have it, these were the first three articles I came upon and inspired me to stop reading and begin writing. It is said, by whom I do not know, that things happen in “threes.” Hence, I leave you with these three words: