I’ve spent a lot of time in New England this winter, but somehow I’ve managed to avoid serious snow.
Lately, though, snow’s been following me around.
I just got back from two weeks in Virginia, at a writers/artists retreat in the foothills of the Blue Ridge Mountains, and my popularity skyrocketed when a fluke snowstorm hit and my fellow writers/artists learned I’d driven down there in my 4-wheel-drive Ford SUV.
Then I ended up leaving the Virginia Center for the Creative Arts one day early, spooked by weather forecasts of a freakish monster storm — good thing I fled, as the storm dumped upwards of 30 inches on the region.
And now I’m hunkered down in Central New Jersey as a blizzard or near-blizzard is barreling in, expected to leave behind as much as 18 inches of snow, which will be whipped around tomorrow by winds of 40 mph.
But I’ve got a warm place to stay, I’ve got food, I’ve got the two most recent issues of two issues of the New Yorker magazine, I’ve got my laptop, I’ve got my cellphone and I’ve got a view of the N.J. Turnpike.
And I’ve got three perfect songs. They’ve all got that stark, cold, lonely sound of winter.
New England’s own Tom Rush sings Joni Mitchell’s “Urge for Going”:
Lindisfarne performs the beautiful “Winter Song”:
But let’s not succumb to those Cabin Fever Blues…Albert Collins sings about being “Snowed In”:
Virginia Center for the Creative Arts...my studio is at the far left
The view of the Blue Ridge Mountains was spectacular. The setting, high on a hilltop called Mount St. Angelo, set way off the highway connecting Lynchburg, Va., and Charlottesville, Va., was perfect, complete with a bluebird and cardinal who appeared outside my studio window every morning to flit and flutter in the first weekend’s snow, complete with a freight train which rolled through the valley every few hours (complete with beautifully haunting train whistle in the silent moonlit Virginia night).
And I managed (despite those happy distractions — and many more, including one or two that were even more happily distracting) to add a big chunk of words (more than 10,000 words during my two-week stay) to my novel-in-progress, “City of Gracious Living.”
Even though I’m glad I left just in time to avoid the devastating snow storm which paralyzed that part of the country, I wish I could have stayed forever in my beautiful little studio at the Virginia Center for the Creative Arts.
The highlight among highlights for me during my stay with a few dozen other VCCA “fellows” had to be the next-to-last-night of my stay, when Walter and I collaborated on a reading/performance, with me reading a chapter from “City of Gracious Living” and a chapter of another of my novels, “Half Moon,” while Walter expertly improvised jazz and blues and big-band riffs before, during and after my readings. It was a true honor and a certifiable thrill.
Thanks, Walter. Thanks, Melora. Thanks to all of the other talented artists and writers I met at the VCCA — sharing excellent meals and excellent conversations. And thanks most of all to the VCCA for giving me such a wonderful two weeks.
The title of this blog post is also, believe it or not, the title of the longtime official state song of the Commonwealth of Virginia. The song was written by an African-American named James Bland back in the 1800s. And the lyrics go like this:
Carry me back to old Virginny,
There’s where the cotton and the corn and tatoes grow,
There’s where the birds warble sweet in the springtime,
There’s where the old darkey’s heart am long’d to go,
There’s where I labor’d so hard for old massa,
Day after day in the field of yellow corn,
No place on earth do I love more sincerely
Than old Virginny, the state where I was born.
CHORUS: Carry me back to old Virginny,
There’s where the cotton and the corn and tatoes grow,
There’s where the birds warble sweet in the springtime,
There’s where this old darkey’s heart am long’d to go.
Carry me back to old Virginny,
There let me live ’till I wither and decay,
Long by the old Dismal Swamp have I wander’d,
There’s where this old darkey’s life will pass away.
Massa and missis have long gone before me,
Soon we will meet on that bright and golden shore,
There we’ll be happy and free from all sorrow,
There’s where we’ll meet and we’ll never part no more.
Yes, suh, and yes, ma’am, you read that correctly. Virginia’s theme song celebrates slavery and features an “old darkey” who loves his “old massa.”
Here’s some interesting stuff. Bland was from Long Island, N.Y. He also wrote the song “Oh, Dem Golden Slippers.” And through the years there have been numerous attempts to replace the song with one that did not glamorize or romanticize slavery. When those efforts failed, others tried and failed to at least change some of the words: “dreamer’s” instead of “darkey’s,”My loved ones” or “Mamma” instead of “ol’ Massa” and “Papa” in place of “Missis.”
If I got this right, I believe the song was finally designated as Virginia’s
“state song emeritus” and replaced with something a little less, um, what’s the word I’m trying to think of….Bigoted? Narrow-minded? Cruel? Redneck? All of the above.
Regardless, I have no doubt that “Carry Me Back…” still tugs at the heartstrings of plenty of Virginians.
Here’s Eddy Arnold singing this truly terrible song of pride and prejudice:
More about Virginia in the next few days. Why? Because I was just there for two weeks, and it’s on my mind, especially because the weather forecasts of about 3 feet of snow — which prompted me to end a wonderful stay at a great writers retreat one day early — appear to have been right on target.
So, in the next few days, I’ll write about that old-time religion I encountered in west-central Virginia, my stay at the Virginia Center for the Creative Arts (and a few of the amazingly talented people I met there), “hidden” rural poverty in Virginia and the South, the Blue Ridge Mountains, the “Old West,” Civil War battlefields, the Walton’s Mountain Museum and my fellow shoppers at the Super Wal-Mart store outside Lynchburg, Va., home, God help us, of Reverend Jerry Falwell’s Liberty University.
So I’m sitting in a writer’s studio in the foothills of Virginia’s Blue Ridge Mountains, and it’s been an absolutely gorgeous day with deep blue skies and puffs of clouds and temperatures in the mid-60s for God’s sake and I’m supposed to be working on a novel but instead I’m gazing out a window at two brown horses who are totally ignoring the absolutely spectacular view of that mountain range in the distance, which view I’d like to share with someone who’s hundreds of miles away but it feels more like thousands or maybe millions of miles…So I need to remember what’s truly important, remind myself that miles are merely man-made measures, and what’s truly important are the things that can’t be measured by conventional means — such as the depth and breadth of love.
I need a song about love…hmmm…maybe something by the rajah of reggae, the Jesus of Jamaica, the truth-speaker of Trenchtown:
And now that I’ve got that out of my system (for now), here’s another great song by Bob Marley and the Wailers, and as we listen to it let’s lower the flag and bow our heads and ponder that Bob Marley has been gone now nearly thirty years, that when he died of cancer he was only 36 years old, and that his last words, spoken to son Ziggy, were: “Money can’t buy life…” The man who uttered that parting warning also wrote this great, great song, “One Love,” which is Marley’s reggae spin on Curtis Mayfield’s “People Get Ready”:
Yes, I’ve got a personal interest. But I wouldn’t say this if I didn’t really believe it:
The just-published novella “Love’s Compass” by Mary McAvoy is a book you should buy and read.
Mary’s got a knack for story-telling, and her well-crafted novella offers deceptively simple but intriguing themes and elegantly-wrought motifs to explore and enjoy, and the book’s also an engaging, thoughtful and provocative look at our society’s social mores and changing views of love and marriage.
Added bonus: The book title derives from the great poem “The Circus of the Sun” by my friend Robert Lax, the great mystic poet. “Circus” begins with this phrase: “Love had a compass…”
Here’s a synopsis of the plot of “Love’s Compass”:
As her young adult children depart from the nest, Liv finds that her husband is drifting away, too. What is pulling him from her at a time when they should be enjoying their lives together? Feeling abandoned and alone, Liv meets and falls in love with another man. “Love’s Compass” tells the story of love discovered at a time when new love is not often experienced. It explores a husband’s quiet exit from a marriage. It examines a woman’s thoughts and feelings as she tries to find her footing in a place that she never expected to be at this point in her life. Love’s Compass is the story of love lost and love found.
Mary has built a web site about “Love’s Compass.” It includes an author biography, links for purchasing the book online via Amazon or Barnes and Noble, and other features. The Amazon site also includes the “Look Inside” feature with actual sample pages of the book.Book-signings will be scheduled in Boston and in the suburbs north and west of Boston (the book is set in Boston’s colorful, artsy and slightly funky South End) – as well as one being planned in Highland Park, N.J.
In the mean time…you know I wouldn’t steer you wrong or point you in the wrong direction. “Love’s Compass” is well worth reading …I hope you’ll order a copy — and then, if you like it, tell your friends (or maybe even order them their own personal copy). And while you’re waiting for your copy of “Love’s Compass” to arrive in the mail, visit Mary’s new blog site and also check out Mary’s elegant and lovely nature essays and photos.
A Christmas chant, merry mantra, something to dispel gloaming and gloom. The words, perhaps, are “I believe,” to vanquish thoughts of disbelief, to full-fathom-five it, so faith surviveth. Loved ones may be far away. Maybe nothing gold can stay. Even if it’s Christmas Day. Alone. A koan: But a bright star shone. I believe that Christmas shines in spite of gloam and gloom. I believe its boundless spirit crowds the biggest room. Shed a tear. Savior’s here. Kings rode far. Compass star.
Here’s a song for bleak midwinter, when frosty wind makes moan, when cherubs and sweet seraphim sing the Christmas koan:
The title of this post refers, of course, to the song “Do-Re-Mi” by Woody Guthrie — which is perfectly apt, since Woody’s buddy Pete Seeger is lending his voice to a campaign to raise money for the trailblazing Sing Out! magazine, which has hit a fiscal sour note as it marks its 60th year of publication.
Here’s Pete:
And here’s a treat. Woody sings about how folks treat you if you ain’t got that “Do-Re-Mi”:
I don’t recall her name but I remember how she looked: red lipstick, dark Bette Davis hair, tattered velvet robe, pink blush on her cheeks, thick mascara on her tired eyes, red polish on her fingernails as she handed me money to pay for her subscription to the newspaper I delivered to her house every afternoon.
I’d seen her before. But I’d never seen her like this. I was making my rounds later than usual, maybe around 8 in the evening, collecting my payments for the week. I was 13 years old. She must have been in her late 40s. She was alone. She had clearly been crying — the trails of her tears were marked by lines of mascara running down to her cheeks.
“Come in,” she said. “I’ll get you the money.”
I’d never been in her house. I sat down and waited. Music was playing. I didn’t know the song then but now I know it was by Frank Sinatra, and it was a song from “In the Wee Small Hours” and he was singing “Mood Indigo”:
I always get that mood indigo
Since my baby said goodbye
And in the evening when the lights are low
I’m so lonely I could cry
The woman returned to the room and asked if I might like a glass of soda. I said “No, thanks” to the offer of water, stood up, and said I had to get going — I had more collection stops to make along my newspaper route.
Then I heard the radio announcer. He said we were listening to WNEW in New York and to a show called “The Milkman’s Matinee.” The program’s theme song came on. It was the Modernaires singing “It’s Make Believe Ballroom Time”:
It’s Make-Believe Ballroom Time
Put all your cares away
All the bands are here to bring a cheer your way
As I left I turned around and took one last look and I glimpsed her as she stood near her hi-fi with a highball glass in her hand and sang along softly as Glenn Miller played and the Modernaires sang:
It’s Make-Believe Ballroom Time
And free to everyone
It’s no time to fret
Your dial is set for fun
Want to know what my daughter Laura’s and husband Harold’s poodle — named Noodle — has to endure in exchange for food, fun, companionship, a nice home in North Carolina, and a chance to be ogled by big dogs who chew tobacco and eat grits instead of dog food and ride around in the back of pickup trucks whistling at cute little poodles from New York?
This photo says much, much more than any words could communicate…
Happy Thanksgiving, Noodle. Here’s hoping some of your human friends slip you a little turkey under the table when Laura isn’t looking…
Life is what happens to you when you’re making other plans. So sang John Lennon — and that song’s been a soundtrack for me during the past year as my own life has swerved and careened and accelerated to warp speed and slowed to a near halt, as it has sometimes seemed like someone — when I wasn’t looking — flipped a switch to put me on automatic pilot, my destination programmed and out of my control. It’s been a sad, chaotic, disorienting and often disillusioning period of my life.
But it’s also been a time in which I’ve encountered unexpected wonders and wonderful revelations. And many of those wonders and revelations have had something — everything — to do with love and its power to heal, inspire, rejuvenate, to restore one’s faith, to revive, to resurrect, to make life come alive once again, to appear and come to the rescue when you least expect it and all seems lost.
I’ve experienced a miracle. I don’t mean I’ve seen the blessed Virgin bearing messages or had stigmata appear on my hands and feet. No flowers have fallen to the ground when I’ve opened my cloak. I have not, like St. Catherine, risen to the top of the room. I have not heard voices — except the tender, warm, soothing voice of true love and pure affection. How many people can say that? I’ve realized there are so, so many people in this world who never feel true love.
These thoughts are inspired by a piece of writing, a burst of emotion, that’s way, way better than what you just read. Read the latest installment of SilverLining (complete with great photos of a young deer encountered on the path around a pond). Speaking of miracles. Speaking of giving thanks. Speaking of love. Speaking of life happening to you when you’re making other plans…
Here’s Ella Fitzgerald — from my hometown of Yonkers, N.Y. — singing about hope and happiness…singing about blue skies:
