Author: Deb

Teacher, Writer, Interfaith Minister

Let The Band Play On

~ Deb ~ Leave a comment

Of all the arts to burst forth from the creative spirit of humanity, there is none greater than music.  A musician is a painter, architect and thespian.  Without music, the world would be a soul-less place. 

I’ve seen music silence a room of rowdy drunks, unite a quarreling mob, change apathy to action and anger to peace. 

It is the intersection of art and science.  It’s the neighborhood bar where math buys sound a few drinks and they sneak away to copulate harmony into existence.  It’s the church social where poetry and percussion break bread together.  It’s the marriage altar of profound emotion and perfect pitch. 

Friends singing around a piano is the greatest form of communion, and wine is necessary for this particular Lord’s Supper as well. 

Music has broken my heart and healed it again. 

Love and music are the only two things I know of that can truly change the world.  They’ve both changed mine.

Oh, The Weather Outside is Grateful

~ Deb ~ 2 Comments

It’s Gratitude Week here at the Until Zen World Headquarters.   Yepper, for the next solid 1/52nd of the year this is a cynical-smartass-free zone.   Just seven solid days of smiling salute to the Original Unsplit Atom for bursting forth with the Big Bang of Bounty that is this life.  Keep your hands on the bar as we zip through the roller coaster world of whatever pops into my head for a super-sized shout-out.  Might be a person, place or thing, or D) none of the above.

And so we begin.

My niece, Emily Elizabeth Beer, freakin’ rocks.   Brilliant (grad student in sociology), talented (piano playin’ perfectionista), nurturing (cooks for her friends), and adorable (biggest brown eyes you ever saw).

But, that’s just the resume.  This is why she rocks my world:

She’s the only person with whom I have a truly adult relationship and whose diaper I changed.  (I think maybe once.  And then I probably did a sucky job and her mother had to come along and redo it.)  When I look into her eyes, I see all the eyes of all the ages she has ever been.

We think alike.  We don’t have to try to understand each other.  We just do.  I think perhaps my sister was a surrogate mother.

When I check my inbox and see an e-mail from her, I get excited.  Every time.  Without fail.

She agreed to a “blog-off” WHILE working on her thesis.  And I think she did it just because I’m her aunt and she loves me and she didn’t want to turn me down.  And I love that about her.  (You’re off the hook, Em.)

When we see each other, usually just at Christmas, she smiles.  I mean, she really smiles.  Not an I’m-smiling-so-you-think-I’m-happy-to-see-you smile, but a YIPPEE-LOVE-YOU-Gotta-run-to-hug-you smile.

I wish we had more time together.   I wish we lived in the same city where we saw each other all the time to the point where we took it for granted, not because we didn’t care, but because we just knew the other one was always around the corner. 

Emily, you’re one of the people I love most in this world, and I am so . . . so grateful for you.

Poet At Work

~ Deb ~ Leave a comment

Sunday morning sipping tea.

Different from past Sundays.

No newspaper. No black and white movie on t.v.

No coffee (too acidic, causes arthritis, gums up your joints).

 

Now I sit at the kitchen table

still in my robe at noon

laptop computer wirelessly surfing the net

from one website to the oddly connected next

like a cyber version of six degrees of Kevin Bacon.

From the blood type diet to the blood type of Jesus

to a blog about Ernest Angley to a Wiccan site (for balance)

to a chakra site to Shirley MacLaine’s site

which talked about her new book

and had the first chapter online

which mentioned the connection of musical tones to colors

and how that is evidenced in the chakra system

which made me think . . .

 

Connection.  Colors.  Tones.  Energy centers.  Emotion.

So I wrote a poem about the color of anger.

 

Can’t you see I’m working?

Livin’ the Good Life

~ Deb ~ 2 Comments

I was half-watching Antiques Roadshow earlier tonight on NPT while puttering around in the kitchen, and some woman had a vintage guitar handed down from her uncle or some such.  This instrument had been stored under her bed for years on end, or at least that’s the story I half-heard, but it makes for good drama so I’m sticking with it.  Anyway, this under-appreciated piece of hand-me-down family treasure was appraised at a value of $35,000.

I have a guitar.  I actually got on the Internet to see what it might be worth.  It IS almost 20 years old, after all.  From what I can gather, I might be able to get a cool $200 for my little gem.

A couple of days ago, Oprah began her now-live Friday show by focusing on the fires around L.A.  Her major motivation at that point was the fact that the night before it had roared up (or down) the mountain whereon is located her home and the homes of her very wealthy neighbors, among whom are film director Ivan Reitman and actor Rob Lowe.  Oprah wasn’t crass enough to show a picture of her own house, but I saw an aerial view of it on a news program later this weekend, and I can’t even begin to describe the mansion monstrosity that is Oprah’s (second? twelfth?) home.

Susie’s mom told her on the phone today that she has just purchased season tickets for the Nashville Opera next year, which sounds heavenly to me, and though it doesn’t seem to touch the stories above, they’re all pretty much the same to me right now.   All equally out of reach.

Earlier this afternoon, I finished the chicken coop so next spring we can have chickens, and eggs will be one less item on our shopping list in the future.  The thermostat is set at 69 instead of our previously spoiled winter level of 72 because . . . it really does make a difference in the bill.   And even with the Prius, we are consciously combining trips and avoiding drives that are not necessary.

This long ramble about money and how comparatively little of it I have must only end this way.  I have a job (two, in fact) that almost guaranteed will not go away.  I have a home I love and a yard I love even more.  I’m not hungry.  I have four dogs who show me immense love.  I have a partner I adore and who makes any place she is home for me.   I have family and friends who are second to none.  I have two sisters who are just freakin’ wonderful.   I have more to be grateful for than most people in the world.

Oh, and I have a guitar. . . which is worth a hell of a lot more than $200 to me.

And I have a house that is not burnt to the ground, no matter how modest it is.

And I really prefer the symphony to opera.

Damn, life is good.