"A Little Magic, A Little Kindness" - How I Found My People Through Laura Nyro

Laura Nyro 

Everyone is talking about how amazing Joni Mitchell is because she performed at this year's Grammys at the age of eighty. I agree, but whenever I think of Joni Mitchell, I'm reminded of Laura Nyro, and this makes me sad. In the late 1960's, both Laura and Joni were successful singer/songwriters, and they were major influences on each other. But by the 1970's, Joni's fame and presence in people's minds completely eclipsed Laura's. I appreciate Joni Mitchell's talents, but it is Laura Nyro's music that speaks to me. Joni is more popular, but there are a select few of us who prefer the more primal, soulful and passionate Laura Nyro. 

Laura Nyro was discovered by David Geffen while he was working as a talent agent, a few years before he became a record industry mogul. He quit the talent agency to devote all his time to managing Laura's career. But after releasing a few albums, it was clear that Laura shunned the public life that came with success.  She created music primarily to please herself. She and David Geffen parted ways and sold her song catalog for $4.5 million dollars, each receiving half. The sale allowed David Geffen to start his own record label, and Laura was now free to do anything she wanted. What she wanted to do was "nest," so she bought a house in Connecticut and spent most of her time there raising her new baby son. 

Laura Nyro and David Geffen (from Pinterest)

I first heard of Laura Nyro in an unusual, and somewhat embarrassing, way. I was seventeen and seeing a guy in my neighborhood who I suspected was also seeing another woman in our neighborhood. The first picture I ever saw of Laura Nyro reminded me of this woman. I was obsessed with looking at Laura's picture in my book. I was jealous, but also oddly curious, and eventually I figured, "Since I'm always looking at her picture, why don't I just listen to her music?!"  

My photocopy of the Harmony Illustrated Encyclopedia of Rock article where I first saw Laura Nyro's picture 

I was never fortunate enough to meet Laura Nyro, but I attended her very rare, live concert at the Berklee Performance Center in Boston, Massachusetts in 1989. Shortly after that, I got married, moved to Canada, and met my new aunt, Rose, who turned out to be a Laura Nyro fan. The first thing she said to me was, "Has anyone ever told you that you look exactly like Laura Nyro?" She said she was first introduced to Laura Nyro's music in elementary school. Her teacher, a priest, played Laura's "Eli and the Thirteeth Confession" album in class, pointing out some of the album's spiritual lyrics, such as: "I was walking on God's good side," and "Lucky's taking over and his clover shows. Devil can't get out of hand cause Lucky's taking over and what Lucky says goes." I hadn't considered "Eli" to be a spiritual album, as many of the songs are filled with anger and contain themes of feminism, poverty, and deep, passionate love. "Eli" is a fast-paced, energetic album, with musically complicated rhythms and powerful lyrics. Plus, this is the same album that has the song "The Confession" with the lyrics, "Oh I hate my winsome lover, tell him I've had others at my breast."  I'm doubtful Aunt Rose's teacher played that song in class!

Aunt Rose on the left, and me on the right - first meeting where she said I looked like Laura Nyro

As a newlywed living in Canada, I was nesting too. I listened to a lot of Laura Nyro's music, and since so many of her early songs were about living in New York City, I gained solace in the fact that even though I was homesick, I knew that Laura had also left New York City when she moved to Connecticut and had probably been a bit homesick too.  By this time, I mostly enjoyed the two albums she recorded in Connecticut, "Nesting" and "Smile." She sang about new things I was doing while nesting, like cooking. I often listened to her song, "Midnight Blue," and sang along to the lyrics: "There's smoke in the kitchen, shrimps curled." I watched a lot of Canadian TV, and one day I saw an acapella band called "The Nylons" performing Laura's song "Eli's Coming." Very soon afterward, while working at HMV Music Store in Toronto, Canada, I spotted one of The Nylons' singers, Micah Barnes, shopping for CDs.  I approached him and we chatted for a bit, mostly about Laura's "Nested" and "Smile" albums, agreeing how wonderful yet underrated they are. Meeting another Laura Nyro fan made me feel less alone and more at home in Canada. I imagined it was more special than meeting a Rolling Stones fan or a Joni Mitchell fan because a lot of people are fans of them, but when it comes to Laura Nyro, there are so few of us. I realized I was finding my people.

Laura Nyro (from Google)

In the mid-1990's, I moved back to New York City and worked in Manhattan as a legal secretary. My first boss, Murray, was an attorney who told me he used to have long hair and had attended the famous Woodstock festival in 1969. I was so impressed!  During the three years I worked for him, we had many conversations about music. When I told him how much I loved Laura Nyro, a memory was sparked in him. "I met her once!" he said. He told me that one night, he was hanging out with a friend who was friends with Laura Nyro before she was famous. The friend needed to briefly stop by her apartment in the Bronx, but when she greeted them at the door, she asked them to come inside. She wanted their feedback on a new song she wrote, so she sat at her piano and played it for them. He then asked me if he could borrow a couple of my Laura Nyro CDs. One afternoon, after typing my dictations of his letters by listening to his voice on the tapes he had recorded at home, I told him I heard Laura's music playing in the background. "No you didn't!" he answered shyly, but obviously I did!

Murray often said he and I weren't just boss and secretary, we were also friends. I let him read my "Iggy Gorgess" novel's manuscript over a decade before it was published in book form.  In fact, I changed the very last line of my novel because of his criticism, and I think it is better after taking his advice. Then, in 1998, I was devastated when Murray was diagnosed with a brain tumor. I never thought he would get cancer because he was already forty-six years old, and my experience of losing my dad at age fifteen convinced me that Murray was safe because he had already passed forty-one, the age my dad died of cancer. Murray was admitted to the hospital, and my firm sent me to the record store to buy a bunch of CDs he could listen to in his hospital room because I was the only one who knew exactly what music he liked. I visited him in the hospital and brought the huge pile of CDs I'd bought.  He passed away four years later. 

I stopped listening to Laura's music for several years after that. 

I was reunited with Laura's music through YouTube after I found out she was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2012. Bette Midler gave her a beautiful tribute, saying she was "the very essence of New York City: passionate, romantic, ethereal, eternal."  Her only child, Gil Bianchini, attended the ceremony and accepted her award. Through Laura's music, I learned to never hesitate to embrace the art I love even if it is different from what most people enjoy. Our passions draw us toward the people we are meant to meet, and I've found it's sweeter if that club has only a a handful of members. There are few things in life more beautiful than being bonded together by something rare and eternally special. 

This Is Not A Post About Chicago

It all started with a beautiful man.  But don't most things start that way?  An attractive person can change your world.  I grew up on 1980's movies where it's usually a male character who falls in love at first sight with a female character and then spends the rest of the movie pursuing her and having thoughts about nothing but her.  Movies like "Valley Girl" when Randy the punk spotted beautiful valley girl, Julie, on the beach and then crashed the preppie party to meet her. Well, I'm not about to crash any parties, but after seeing Robert Lamm of Chicago on their "Live at Tanglewood" concert video from 1970,  I have been consumed by all things Chicago. 

THE video! "Beginnings" from "Chicago - Live at Tanglewood"

A few months ago in August, I flipped my TV channel remote on the Chicago episode of AXS Channel's "Rock Legends" series. I remembered that my former stepfather gave me his "Chicago IX -  Greatest Hits" album on vinyl when I was a teenager.   This was in the 1980's, and until I'd heard this album, I had no idea that Chicago had a full brass section and a singer with a deep voice.  I was only familiar with their videos showing Peter Cetera as their lead singer, a blonde-haired tenor who sang ballads. It was a pleasant surprise to discover this earlier version of Chicago, and I listened to my "Chicago IX" album regularly.  I was told the singer with the deep voice on my album was Terry Kath who died in the 1970's in a gun accident.  My favorite songs on the album were "Make Me Smile," "Call on Me," "Beginnings," and "Feeling Stronger Everyday." 

My new Chicago bracelet set that I asked an Etsy artist to make for me featuring my favorite Chicago song 

After the AXS episode refreshed my memory of how much I loved those songs, I decided to look on YouTube for Chicago videos. I searched for "Beginnings" and stumbled upon the Tanglewood concert.  At first, I assumed the long-haired man getting ready to sing at the microphone was the deceased Terry Kath.  Basically, I just assumed this because I knew he wasn't Peter Cetera.   But right away, I heard him say, "Terry," while looking to his side and gesturing with his hand, so I said to myself, "Oh. This isn't Terry Kath. BUT THEN WHO IS THIS HANDSOME GUY??!!"  I Googled and found out it was Robert Lamm and that he is still alive and STILL good-looking at age seventy-eight. 

Soon I was watching every single Chicago video and documentary I could find.  Not just to see 1970's Robert Lamm but because Chicago's musicianship speaks to me. Even though I consider myself primarily a novelist, at the core of my heart, I am a musician.  When I was five years old, I begged my parents to let me take piano lessons.  They put me off until I was six because they didn't want to waste money on a piano only to have me change my mind.  I didn't change my mind, and I took lessons until I was sixteen. Then, when I was eighteen, I enrolled at Boston's Berklee College of Music.  Watching live Chicago videos during the Terry Kath years of 1970 through 1977 is like being at Berklee again.  Every night I enjoy sitting with a half glass of Chardonnay or a half bottle of Guinness beer with my headphones on and plugged into YouTube.  I am behind in my podcasts and in editing the 2nd draft of my newest novel because I keep watching and listening to Chicago in the 1970's, and it feels so good.

Pin from my Pinterest Board dedicated solely to Chicago's Robert Lamm

One day last month, I was really angry.  Just from the usual, everyday life's frustrations. So at night, I put the entire "Live at Tanglewood" concert into my headphones yet again. Terry Kath's amazing and busy guitar playing and Danny Seraphine's wild, forceful, drumming helped get everything out of me.  It was cathartic and exactly what I needed.  I was able to sleep peacefully that night.

So why do I keep on watching and listening to Chicago? I believe it is because obsessions allow us to distract our minds from the everyday things that are troubling us. Things like the fact that I have only $10 left in my checking account.  Or when I think about how if I carry my mug of tea down the stairs, I may trip and fall and die like Ivana Trump did while carrying her mug of coffee.  Or if something like that doesn't happen to me, and I live another forty years, is the planet going to be half submerged under water by then?  These days, when I have anxious thoughts, I immediately switch them, and instead, I plug into Chicago.

I know that eventually my fascination with Chicago will dim, but I don't want it to yet because I'm having too much fun. I'm excited I'll get to see Chicago play live when they tour the East Coast in April 2023.  But what would be even better is if one night, Robert Lamm could magically step out of that "Chicago - Live at Tanglewood" YouTube video from out of my laptop the same way Jeff Daniels stepped off the movie theater screen in Woody Allen's "The Purple Rose of Cairo!"  If that happened, I could remain in a dream fantasy world forever. Surely, this would be the perfect cure for my anxiety.  If only!

My ticket confirmation to see Chicago.  Robert Lamm is in the middle in white pants.

Madonna Is Here To Disturb The Peace

 

Me as a teen, dressed up as Madonna, when I auditioned for a Pepsi commercial

Recent picture of Madonna I have framed on my desk

"Artists are here to disturb the peace." This James Baldwin quote is the theme behind Madonna's new concert/art film, "Madame X."   Many of the late novelist's quotes are visible behind the musicians and dancers as they perform in "Madame X," and Madonna adds one of her own when she says, "We aren't here to be popular, we're here to be free." 

The first time I heard Madonna's music, I was a teenager growing up in Staten Island, New York, and the song "Physical Attraction" came on my bedroom radio.  I thought "Madonna" was an all-female soul group, but then I saw her on Dick Clark's "American Bandstand" show and was surprised she was one person!  When Clark asked her what she aspired to, she answered, "I want to rule the world." I thought she sounded arrogant, but it turns out she was right.  Shortly after that, I watched her perform "Like a Virgin" live on the MTV Video Music Awards, and her fame just skyrocked.  Suddenly, girls and teenagers wanted to be Madonna and started dressing up like her. I did this too one time when I auditioned for a Pepsi commercial, hence the top photo in this blog.  I didn't get the commercial, but I did make it past the first round, and it was fun to spend the day dressed as Madonna!

I still have my clipping of Madonna in "Time" magazine - May 27, 1985

A couple of years later, I was off to college.  When I met my college bestie, Lauren, we bonded over the surprising discovery that we both chose to go to Berklee College of Music because "'Til Tuesday" singer/songwriter Aimee Mann went there.  By that point, I thought it wasn't cool to like Madonna anymore.  Instead, Aimee Mann was the type of cool punk-pop singer I wanted to be.  Even so, one night, I admitted to Lauren that I "sort of still liked Madonna."  Lauren said there was nothing wrong with that and told me she liked Madonna too!  I felt at that moment, I was never going to grow out of liking Madonna.  In my mind, she was now officially here to stay.

While still at Berklee, I got a job at Tower Records.  One day, I was stocking one of my sections in the back of the Rock/Pop floor when Madonna's "Vogue" video came on a TV that was above my head. It was the first time I had ever seen it, and I was mesmerized at what a celebration of music and art it was! Sometimes, I still get teary-eyed when I hear "Vogue" because it reminds me of that moment I first saw the video, crouching in the middle of the Tower Records floor.  It takes me back to that time period in my life, living on my own for the first time and working to support myself in my own apartment.  Madonna's music has been with me at many stages of my life, and when an artist has been around for so long, each song jogs a different memory.  

I also saved my article of Madonna in NYC's "Daily News Magazine" - June 2, 1985

Earlier this month, in anticipation of "Madame X," I rewatched Madonna's first concert movie, "Truth or Dare," from 1991. When I later watched "Madame X," I noticed a vast difference between today's Madonna and the Madonna of thirty years ago.  The Madonna of "Madame X" is a wiser Madonna.  It is reflected in her music.  "Truth or Dare" is a concert film filled with pop music, and the lyrics are focused on herself. On the "Madame X" album, her lyrics are socially conscious, and the songs incorporate several different styles of music from different parts of the world. Her song "Batuka" was written in the style of Batuque music which is from Cape Verde and is considered one of its oldest music forms.  Batuque music was created by women and was always played by women.  My favorite part of the "Madame X" film is when she performs her song "Batuka" with an all-female band of drummers ranging in ages from teenagers to older women.  Batuque music was banned by the church because drumming was considered "rebel" music, yet somehow it survived and is still played by women today.  As Madonna says in "Madame X," "Women are powerful." 

There is a joke in the "Truth or Dare" movie that backup singer/dancer Niki Haris makes, saying there will be a Madonna "Like a Virgin" tour in 2025.  Now, we are only four years away from 2025, and Madonna is still touring in her early sixties!  Performers like Madonna and The Rolling Stones are sometimes criticized for still rocking out in their later years.  Even more troubling to some is the fact that Madonna is dating a man thirty-six years younger than she is.  This is another thing she has in common with The Rolling Stones, as singer Mick Jagger has been dating much younger women for many years. Maybe Madonna and Mick Jagger date such young people because they need a partner who matches their amazing energy? 

Madonna proves to us every day that older women are meant to be celebrated instead of being put out to pasture.  I love how the "Madame X" movie begins with a montage of Madonna's sexual moments of controversy throughout her entire career, and at the end of the montage, Madonna says that what is actually the most controversial thing about her is that she stuck around.  

Madonna and her boyfriend, Ahlamalik Williams, celebrating her 62nd birthday in Jamaica (usmagazine.com)

It Was An Era

Last week was the 17th anniversary of 9/11. Every anniversary of 9/11 makes us all relive what we were doing on the day the Twin Towers came down. I was on the Staten Island express bus on my way to work at a law firm one block away from the World Trade Center, and I found out from one of the few people on the bus who had a cell phone who got a phone call saying that "a small plane flew into one of the Twin Towers." As people learned about the events occurring from more calls on their cell phones, I was reading a computer print-out of a J.D. Salinger story that my friend Chris Dillon let me borrow from a rare collection he printed off the internet.  I listened with one ear and read about J. D. Salinger's character stuck in a partially underground trench as a soldier in the other ear. It wasn't pleasant reading, and that image of war from J.D. Salinger's story is the last thing I remember thinking about before the actual painful truth of the terrorist events of 9/11 unfolded and clouded all of my thoughts for days, weeks and months. I lost six pounds just from being upset. Last Tuesday morning (9/11 happened to be on a Tuesday also), I didn't know that while I watched the footage reliving the days of 9/11, Chris had died the day before on September 10th from tainted heroin.

New York City had a very different vibe before 9/11. We used to feel free in New York City, but on September 11, 2001, the City forever lost its innocence. During the first half of 2001, Chris and I were musicians on the East Village, NYC music scene and even played in a band together for a short while. The clubs were always packed, and it was an exciting time to be in NYC. But after 9/11, the clubs were suddenly empty, losing money, and nobody wanted to go out anymore. It was depressing to accept the sad truth that our City could be attacked that way, and nothing could ever feel the same again.

On September 10, 2001, I ate my lunch sitting under the Twin Towers. I didn't know that would be the last time I ever sat under those silver towers. About two years ago (maybe it was less, I don't know), I saw Chris, and we talked all about the old days. He had gray hair now and told me that his dog who he loved so much was named Katniss after the "Hunger Games" so he nicknamed her "The Hero Pup." He handed me some Hero Pup stickers, which was his new band that was really just him, singing and writing songs, that had a caricature of his precious dog on it. I put it on my Kindle that I carry everywhere. I didn't know that would be the last time I ever saw him.

 As soon as I learned of Chris' passing, thoughts of the days I knew him flooded me. I remembered the poetry written in magic marker on the walls of his attic room, the candles that smelled like chocolate that were always burning as we talked and talked and talked while we drank wine around the coffee table that was my grandparents' when I grew up. I was so grateful he took some furniture I'd remembered from my childhood home in Bay Terrace so they didn't have to be thrown away, and I could still enjoy a piece of something left from when I was a kid. At Chris' memorial, his brother and I reminisced about how often we all saw each other during those days many years back. "It was an era," he said, and that's the best way to describe it. Life is full of eras that come and go. But those long days existed, and certain things will always unexpectedly pop up to bring them back from time to time. It's true that things can never be the same again. But at least we had that era.


RIP Christopher Dillon Micha a/k/a The Hero Pup

My Top Four Female Artists Most Important To Me In The Trump Era

The above photo is a Joan Semmel self-portrait.



The one positive that came as a result of Trump becoming president is that women are finally able to speak out against sexism, sexual harassment and sexual abuse. When we now have a president who is on tape saying: "Grab them by the pussy," what more do we have to lose? What do we gain by staying silent when the leader of the United States has displayed a complete lack of respect for women? We've already hit rock bottom.

I've compiled a list of four female artists who I feel have created works of art that reflect our newfound freedom to express ourselves in ways that go against the grain of what we've previously expected from women artists. Some of these brave works were created before the Trump era, but they should be revisited because they perfectly reflect this move towards a change in consciousness. These examples of their art below bend our way of thinking and push us toward new directions in our roles as women:


1.  "Locker Room Talk" (song/video by Dolltits) - Musician/Songwriter Therina Bella and Musician Magie Serpica have refused to let Trump's "Grab them by the pussy" words be forgotten. Instead, they've recorded a song and video that will keep his words remembered forever, and they've laid it all out in the open by using Trump's own actual words as every single lyric in the song. We've all heard Trump's own words in the recording of the "Access Hollywood Locker Room Tapes": "You know I'm automatically attracted to beautiful...It's like a magnet. Just kiss. I don't even wait. And when you're a star, they let you do it. You can do anything...grab them by the pussy. You can do anything." All of these words sting, but my particular favorite part of Dolltits' video is when a little girl appears and sings along to the line: "You'll never be a 10." This stings even more than the "pussy words" because think of the message the president of the United States has given to young girls by rating females for their supposed "beauty" or lack of it? Think about it.

Dolltits (Still from "Locker Room Talk" video)

2.  Joan Semmel - A female painter born in 1932, Semmel decided to paint female nudes in the 1970's, but the dilemma of painting the female nude body - which was usually seen as an object of desire for men - created a conflict with her identity as a feminist. Semmel resolved this problem rather perfectly when, while in her seventies, she took nude mirror selfies and then painted them. It is rare to see older women in nude paintings much less based on nude photos they have taken as selfies! Women continue to be sexually active throughout their eighties and beyond, so why shouldn't Semmel paint her own nude female body too? Semmel is an inspiration as an older woman who refuses to be pushed into the background and meant to feel that only younger women can openly display their bodies.

3.  "Trapeze" (book by Anais Nin) - Nin was born in 1903 and is best known for the publication of her Diaries which are the unabashed, brave and honest account of a woman constantly torn between needing to identify herself as an artist and wanting to take care of the men and friends she loves. Nin struggled to not confine herself to the traditional role of woman, and her diaries depict this battle of gaining her own identity separate from the men in her life. By the time she wrote the diaries that were published last year as "Trapeze," she was living a complicated bi-coastal lifestyle in which she had a longtime husband, Hugo, who lived on the East Coast in New York City, but also had a new lover, Rupert, who lived on the West Coast in California. "Trapeze" shows her near impossible feat of bouncing back and forth from coast to coast while keeping each relationship secret from the other. In Nin legend, before "Trapeze" was released and we could get her uncensored version of the story, it was believed that Nin only remained with Hugo out of loyalty and really wanted to be with Rupert full time. Most romantic tales would have us believe that too: The long-suffering wife as the victim whose unfaithfulness we forgive because she really only seeks love just like every other woman and has no other reasons behind her bad behavior.  But in "Trapeze," we learn that Nin enjoyed the wealthy, New York lifestyle she had with Hugo where she had a maid and could be a writer 24/7. She claimed the sex was better with Rupert, but he drove her crazy with his fastidiousness and insistence that they save money and eat dinner in, and that she do all the housecleaning herself. After a couple of months of this, she often couldn't wait to get back to Hugo and her New York lifestyle. In "Trapeze," Nin gets real and admits that she has chosen to stay with both men because of her own needs. She doesn't try to write a romantic story with a happy ending. Instead, she tells the truth of her story wherein she makes the best out of her imperfect relationships and imperfect life. She does this with a maturity we don't always see in both fiction and memoirs of women who are often depicted as near children and as victims of the people and circumstances around them.

4.  "Peek Hour" (short story by Adrea Kore) - Kore's brilliant and sexy short story refuses to stay silent on an issue that women usually don't speak about: penises. At least, they don't usually speak about it in the manner that female protagonist Roxy in "Peek Hour" does. Roxy has what she describes as "feelings of affection and admiration of the penis." Her favorite thing to do is ride the crowded train where she weasels her way into the specific seat that gives her the best view of the "packages" of the men standing closest to her. She says the men don't even notice that she's eyeing their pants because they've traditionally been too busy focusing on HER parts so it never even occurs to them that she's obsessed with stealthily examining THEIR parts. She examines their bulges and notices their different sizes and shapes and whether they lean to the left or the right. She laments the fact that most penises are hidden away and wishes to liberate them all. She wants to build giant statues of them so they can be monuments that people can visit. While she fantasizes about these things, the bumps of the train often force men's crotches into her face. This excites her, and she says it happens so fast, the men usually don't notice, and it's her little secret. She does whatever she can to brush into men's crotches "by accident." I love this story and find Kore's depiction of Roxy's penis obsession fascinating because for once we can see a woman's point of view of the penis that doesn't seen to be influenced at all by the man's point of view of his penis.

This is a penis sticker by Luna Snaps that is on Redbubble.

I hope to spread the word about these amazing artists and their music, stories and paintings! Women have been categorized, marginalized and misunderstood for too many years. We have different things to express than what has previously been expected of us. These women are my favorite examples of a new feminine consciousness, and they remain such inspirations to me!


You can find my Top 4 at their websites listed below. Please check them out!

www.dolltits.com
www.joansemmel.com
anaisninblog.skybluepress.com
koredesires.wordpress.com

Finally - Dad. (Part 1)

I prefer to remember my dad the way he looked as a young man. The way he looked in the pictures I saw of him taken in the 1950's and 1960's. Not when I knew him when he had that wild, curly, 1970's hair that used to reach the roof of his car even though he was only 5'10." In the 1980's, he lost that 70's hair.  Not because of the cancer treatments he started in 1981 (oddly enough, he never lost his hair like the majority of patients do) but rather because the styles changed, just like the best things in life always do.

After he died in 1984, I took out his college graduation picture and made a conscious effort that any time I thought of him, I'd only think of how he looked in the 1950's and 1960's. Somehow, it made thinking about him less sad.

My father only walked this earth for 41 years, and I only knew him for about one decade of those if you count the years I was an old enough child to have a clear memory of him. A few decades later, he has become an almost mythical figure to me, and I have to rely a lot on what people older than I am can remember, and I'm always anxious to hear stories about him. Luckily, my relatives and his friends are always more than happy to share what they remember of him with me.

One of my favorites comes from my mother's first cousin, Carol. My mom is an only child who grew up in Brooklyn, New York, and every summer to escape the City, she and my grandmother spent the entire summer in Scranton, Pennsylvania, with her my grandmother's sister who is Carol's mom. My grandfather joined them on weekends. When my mom and dad became serious, she brought him along on one of the visits to meet Carol and her sister, Barbara, who were like sisters to her. Carol told me about the first time she "almost" met my dad. She said she went out to her country backyard to meet him where he had climbed a tree and was just sitting at the top it, enjoying the country air. She told me that when she spotted him all the way up there, she thought: "Well, I guess we're not going to be meeting him today."

Even though my father had what many people would consider a short life, he did a lot in those 41 years. He was a Language Arts teacher for 17 years at Prall Intermediate School, I.S.27, on Staten Island, New York, and he was also a singer and songwriter. He enjoyed teaching and often brought in his song lyrics to have his students analyze them as assignments.  One of the projects he had done in the late 1960's or early 1970's was an album based on Walt Whitman's "Leaves of Grass" poetry book. Whitman was considered pretty "out there" for his day so he self-published and paid for "Leaves of Grass'" first edition and even did most of the typesetting. So basically, Whitman joins the ranks of today's indie writers like myself (or on my bad days, I choose to think of it this way). What my father did with Whitman's "Leaves of Grass" is kind of like what Kate Bush did years later when she wanted to use James Joyce's Molly Bloom monologue from his novel, "Ulysses," as lyrics for one of her new songs and wasn't granted permission. Instead, she wrote "The Sensual World"  and just changed the words, writing her own version of the original prose, keeping in line with the feeling of the words, which in the end is all that really matters - what feelings pieces of music bring to its listeners.  

After my father died, I went through every single loose leaf paper he had in his bedroom dresser drawer, and there were tons of them. It took me months to go through them all, but every weekend when my mom and brother were out with their respective friends, my 15 year old self grabbed another pile from his drawer, sat on my living room swivel chair in front of the TV, and read through every single word. When I read the lyrics based on Whitman's work, I hadn't yet read the original "Leaves of Grass" that they came from. As a grieving teen, I don't think I was really ready for it. It wouldn't have impacted me the way it did when I finally picked up the book several years later. When I read through "Leaves of Grass," I was amazed, and I could see what the appeal of the book was for my dad. It is a celebration of life. It was written for people who enjoy sitting at the top of trees all by themselves enjoying nature around them. I imagined my father reading Whitman in college and embracing his days as a young man, enjoying this earth while it was still his.

My father was a well-liked person because he accepted everyone as being the same as him. He felt a connection with others and with nature around him so I can easily understand his identifying with "Leaves of Grass." Below is an excerpt from Walt Whitman's "Song of Myself" which is part of "Leaves of Grass":


“I celebrate myself, and sing myself,
And what I assume you shall assume,
For every atom belonging to me as good belongs to you."


My dad wrote this song version of Whitman's "Song of Myself":

My dad wrote at least 9 songs based on "Leaves of Grass." Once I read the original book, I was happy it moved me as much as it moved him because there was now another reminder I could forever have of him because these reminders keep his memory alive to me on those days when I really miss him. My whole life has been a quest to recapture what I can remember of him. Whitman wrote:


“Failing to fetch me at first, keep encouraged. Missing me one place, search another. I stop somewhere waiting for you.” 

 
Whitman's "Leaves of Grass" is both a celebration of life and also a celebration of nature. He believed we should enjoy the little things in life and embrace the natural world that was given to us. His words are affirmation that every human being is connected to one another regardless of generation or even century of time.  He believed human life was carried on THROUGH nature because every generation walks the same green earth. He meant this figuratively AND literally, proclaiming that human beings once deceased eventually are "reborn" again through the growth of the grass beneath future generations' feet.  This passage below is simply beautiful and is one of my favorites from "Leaves of Grass": 


"What do you think has become of the young and old men? 
And what do you think has become of the women and children? 

They are alive and well somewhere, 
The smallest sprout shows there is really no death, 
And if ever there was it led forward life, and does not wait at the 
end to arrest it, 
And ceas'd the moment life appear'd. 

All goes onward and outward, nothing collapses, 
And to die is different from what any one supposed, and luckier.” 


That last line brings me comfort. I like to imagine my dad is in a happier place even though he can't be here physically with us. I know that I titled this blog entry "Part 1," and eventually I'll write a Part 2, but I have no idea when. Processing the loss of my dad has taken me a long time. In fact, it was not too long ago that I could finally display his school teacher picture in my house which is the picture I have that looks most like the way he looked during the years I knew him. So like I said, there will be a Part 2 one day. In the meantime, I, and hopefully now you, will celebrate Whitman.

Dad and Grandma in the 1970's