This song was playing on the radio as I drove home late tonight. I had never heard of him before.  The music is beautiful. One cannot but think of a French cafe.  I’ve never been to a French cafe (unless watching Sabrina counts [I know, it doesn't]), but wherever it is that one would hear music like this – I want to be there.

The first clip is an audio version similar to what I heard on the radio.  The second is a video of a concert in which the writer makes a surprise visit and performance.

Lyrics are pasted below.

Enjoy.

Translation (from lyricstranslate.com)

La Meteque  “The Foreigner”

With my face of a foreigner
Of a wandering Jew, of a Greek shepherd
And  my hair to the four winds

With my eyes totally waterlogged
That give me a look of a dreamer
That  never dreams very often

With my hands of a petty thief
Of a musician and of a prowler
Who has  been caught in so many gardens

With my mouth that drank
that kissed and bit
without ever satisfying  its hunger

With my face of a foreigner
Of a wandering Jew, of a Greek shepherd
Of  a petty thief and of a vagrant

With my skin that rubbed
With the sun of all the summers
and with  everyone who wore underskirt

With my heart that knew how to make
Suffering a lot whom has suffered
Without making stories for that

With my soul that no longer has
the least chance for salvation
To avoid  the purgatory

With my face of a foreigner
Of a wandering Jew, of a Greek shepherd
And  my hair to the four winds

I will come, my sweet captive
My soul mate, my living source
I will  come to drink your twenty years old

And I’ll become the prince of blood
A dreamer or even a teenager
As you  will like to choose

And we will make of everyday
all the eternity of love
that we will live  till we die

and we will make of everyday
all the eternity of love
that we will live  till we die

Read more at http://lyricstranslate.com/en/le-meteque-foreigner.html-0#QhfVDglj4JGmHvVm.99

After some sulking this morning, I pulled myself up by my …. ankles? … and have been pressing through the day.  Recitals to practice for, lessons to prep for, and a house to cle – nope, that one’s not happening.

As I march on I am going to focus on some really great things in my life:

1. My husband.

Nathan has been so patient with me.  His dreaming never stops.  He is ambitious and talented and has been awesome during so many seasons of uncertain transitions. And, I might add, he is laundry king lately!

2.  A home still standing.

This week’s tragic weather in Oklahoma is heartbreaking. We gripe about the cold and rain here in Minnesota’s reluctant advance toward spring and summer, but really, we should count our blessings.

3. My girlies

Good thing they don’t always look quite that adorable, or we would get NOTHING done around here.  They  help us pace our life realisticly.

Naps. Snacks. Playtime. Cuddles. We all need them.

4. Messes

The studio needs a serious sorting session.  Sheet music, books, old files, contracts, sketches, plans, programs, budgets, more music.  Lots of ideas and dreams and successes captured, realized, and recorded….just not nececarily organized yet. At least it means we are active, pursing possibilities, and trying to make the most of what is before us.

There are times I want to scream, along with Mrs. Bird (a-hem) “This is NOT the best nest! I’m tired of this old place. I hate it. Let’s look for a new place right now.”

But that’s ridiculous. Mr. Bird is right: “I love my house.  I love my nest. In all the world This nest is best.”

Unlike Eastman’s story, this post will not be ending with news of a brand-new bird

Just a brand-new day.  Another one.  Another moment, with lots of blessings and lots of challenges.

May you see your blessings around you today and rise above the storms that may be brewing within you.

Perhaps I’ll write a limerick.

The problem is, I don’t recall

Quite what a limerick is at all.

I could get up and seek it out,

But that’s not what this is about.

I aim to do it fast and slick,

So what comes out is what I’ll pick.

—–

…pushing myself toward completion abandonment and publication of imperfect creative expression just because…

Here are some slices of what went down…

Meet John.

{insert picture of John with your imagination}

John has an audition tomorrow at the Chanhassen Dinner Theater. He wanted feedback on his audition selection – a song from The Light in the Piazza -  and especially wanted to run through it with a pianist.  Awesome.  This is exactly the type of thing that we want to happen on these nights.

He sang. Nathan and I coached it a little. Evan and Christy arrived.

So it turns out that Christy and John know each other.  He choreographed the show that Christy was just in. Yeah, he’s a dancer too. (In fact he raced off to an audition at Minneapolis’ Cowles Center right after his time with us.)  We know John through our babysitter. Small world.

We paused the musicness for food and drink.

Chocolate mini martini

More friends arrived. Ryan coached our 4 year old through coloring the ripening stages of a banana.

The ripening banana

Little A also contributed some of her other artwork for group viewing. Daddy and the girls have done a variety of paintings this week. They set the timer and paint for a little while and see what happens.

Here’s one of what happened.

Family painting from the other day

Quotables were created.

“Anyone who’s ever seen it is a part of it.” – Christy Jones.

An instrumental interlude.

Father-son duet

More music was sung.

Nathan and I are working up some revivals of old classics from American pop culture of the 20s-50s. The feedback and creative thinking were exactly what we strive for generating at these gathersing, so THANKS!  We are more empowered to keep working up more arrangements and create a great show.

Collaborative art – yes!

While we worked through three different selections, the little ones others kept busy with coloring and dancing and peeing on the carpet (that would be one of the bona fide ‘little ones’).

“Seriously! Nathan and Naomi are playing AGAIN?”

Finishing touches ala Nathan

Dessert + Poems

William Byrd, who I like to believe is one of my husband’s ancestors, was a 16th century English church composer and astute musical businessman.

English: Portrait painting of William Byrd II

In 1588 he published a music book specifically for amature singers.  It was called Psalmes, sonets, & songs of sadness, and as a sort of advertisment or “jacket blurb” for the book, Byrd penned eight reasons for learning to sing.  They are as follows:

Reasons briefly set down by th’auctor, to perswade every one to learne to sing.

First it is a knowledge easily taught, and quickly learned where there is a good Master, and an apt Scoller.

2. The exercise of singing is delightfull to Nature & good to preserve the health of Man.

3. It doth strengthen all the parts of the breast, & doth open the pipes.

4. It is a singular good remedie for a stutting & stammering in the speech.

5.  It is the best meanes to procure a perfect pronunciation & to make a good Orator.

6.  It is the onely way to know where Nature hath bestowed the benefit of a good voyce: which guift is so rare, as there is not one among a thoushand, that hath it: and in many, that excellent guift is lost, because they want Art to expresse Nature.

7. There is not any Musicke of Instruments whatsoever, comparable to that which is made of the voyces of Men, where the voyces are good, and the same well sorted and ordered.

8. The better the voyce is, the meeter it is to honor and serve God therewith: and the voyce of man is chiefly to be imployed to that ende.

Omins spiritus laudet Dominum.

Since singing is so good a thing
I wish all men would learne to sing.

 - selection from Music in the Western World: A History in Documents Selected and Annotated by Piero Weiss and Richard Taruskin, Wadsworth Group/Thomson Learning, Belmont CA 1984, pp. 155-156

And there you have it.  Learning to sing is good because:

1. It’s easy.
2. It’s good and healthy.
3. It makes you breathe better.
4. It helps you speak smoothly.
5. It helps you be a great speaker.
6. It might turn out that you’re a star waiting to be discovered.
7. It’s so much cooler than instruments. (and yes, this is a pianist paraphrasing this)
8. It helps you have more freedom in worship.

Oh, and by the way, my husband, Nathan Bird, professional tenor and teacher, has some openings in his schedule, so if you’re in the Twin Cities – or are willing to commute – contact him.  He is a ‘good Master’ eager to get acquainted with some more ‘apt Scollers’ such as you.

Nathan giving a voice lesson to his youngest pupil

At the very least, head over to Facebook where you can support all those wonderful reasons for singing by ‘liking’ his page and sharing his info.

Happy Singing!

Last Friday – One year old Lil P was coughing pretty bad so I stayed home from teaching to tend to the girls so that Nathan could keep his teaching appointments.

Saturday – I only went to the first of two ballet classes for which I usually play piano on Saturdays.  The second one coincided exactly with Nathan’s first rehearsal with the chorus for MN Opera’s Hamlet, and the girls were both seeming sick at this point – didn’t want to truck them around and share the yuck with sitters.  Also in the afternoon Nathan cancelled an in-house rehearsal with the quintet he has put together for the April program for Covenant Retirement Communities.  He scheduled more than needed for this very reason, but still it was a bummer to cancel.

Sunday – We all stayed home from church and cancelled the piano duet sight-reading party.  This was to be the first of our Arts at the Aviary gatherings so far this year.  I miss doing every Sunday, but since I’ve been back at work six days a week we have been more reluctant to fill our Sundays.  I’ve been meeting more local pianists to include in the group and was so looking forward to a fun round-robin style duet marathon.  Starting tomorrow Nathan will have Sunday rehearsals with the opera, so it may be a while again.

Monday – Somehow I managed to get through 10 piano lessons – thanks to gallons of water and lots of cough drops – but Nathan cancelled his voice teaching schedule and again spared the babysitter.  Since she is also in the opera chorus he didn’t want to take any chances starting a MNOp pandemic. Probably not such a great networking strategy.

Tuesday – Once again I survived an afternoon of teaching piano lessons, and once again Nathan stayed home from rehearsal to watch the sick kiddos.  At this point I thought I was escaping the worst of it and would only get better from here.

Wednesday – This is the girls’ weekly day with Grandma.  Nathan drops them off enroute to his day of teaching voice lessons at a high school about an hour west of us.  Thirty minutes before heading to the bus for teaching, I realized that I felt miserable and had a coughing fit such that my chest tightened up and I had flashbacks to pneumonia of 2008.  so, instead of teaching I was zonked out in bed for the same time as my teaching shift.

Thursday – My cough was still something fierce, preventing me from speaking a full sentence uninterrupted, and Nathan’s ears were really bugging him.  No teaching, and no visit from mom who has been coming on Thursdays for a piano lesson and purchase of my homebrewed kombucha. Thanks for going without this week, Mom, we all have appreciated having a little extra of the tonic around here. (By the way, black currant ginger kombucha is A-W-E-S-O-M-E.)

Friday – By yesterday the girls seemed to be on the mend, but Nathan and I both still felt pretty awful.  No teaching for either of us, and no visit with my cousins for the girls.  Between coughs, my 4-year-old said, “Hey, it’s Friday.  We go to somebody’s house today!”  Yeah, sorry, not so much today, girlie.

Saturday – and here we are today. I managed to make it through both ballet classes, though I felt like I was running a temp during the first one and was in such a mental fog that I’m not sure I played any of the intros very clearly. Sorry ladies.  Hope you all don’t start dancing with a limp because of me.  Hopefully today was the last of the chorus rehearsals that Nathan will have to miss, and the last quintet cancellation for a while.

Last night we actually did not sound like a TB ward in our house.  That was refreshing.  I still can’t talk much without coughing, and my tastebuds are fully unfunctional, but with another day of rest tomorrow I am thinking I’ll be ready to start another week on Monday.

Here’s the thing…

I have spent much of the past five years in a cloud of depression and discouragement – about money, about work, about health, about family, about why God isn’t working things out better and faster.  Yet, as we have progressed – or perhaps regressed is a better term – through this week of acute discomfort and misfortune I have had a nearly constant sense that things will be resolved, somehow.  We aren’t being punished, or even necessarily taught anything specific.  We’re just experiencing life – a particularly crappy phase full of phlegm and coughs and infections and hearing double double.

Sometimes it helps one to wander down the path of “it-could-be-so-much-worse”-ness.  It’s not cancer that we’re fighting.  It’s not foreclosure that we’re facing. It’s not death that we’re mourning.

For me this week though I have moreso been driven by this growing sense of there being a big picture that extends far beyond my present troubles. I don’t know how the world started. I don’t make the sun rise in the morning. I’ve never seen the source of light.  Or the source of darkness.  Or the source of the wind. I don’t make it rain or snow. And I most certainly, definitely, absolutely, do not make the birds fly.  This sense of the bigness of the world and the vastness of the unknown has brought a perspective that has grounded me.  I guess what I’m realizing is that my not knowing the big picture is the very thing that can help me survive the not doing in the small picture.

This is a huge difference from past versions of myself that could only see a spiralling tunnel of doom and hopelessness when things were hard. That fact alone – the fact that I am responding now so differently than in the past is, well, pretty cool.

Peace does not prevail in my mind all the time, but It has become a more frequent visitor.

My focus has been more on the 88 keys instead of the qwerty keys.  This week I performed a concert with my husband.  Every time we do a concert together it is preceded by intense stressors.  How long is long enough to start talking about things really candidly and with way too much information the way that octogenarians speak of their life?  Suffice it to say, there was puke involved.

A few weeks ago I ran across a self-published family history book at a thrift shop.  It was beautiful, leather bound, poorly formatted, very big, and had an entirely boring chronological table of contents.  It was signed by the author, and selling for 15 cents.

This week my daughter turned four (!) She said on the morning of her birthday that she still felt three-and-a-half. Today she informed me that she feels four.  Oh good.  We need a break from three.

Our Christmas tree this year is beautiful. It is very small.  It’s a real tree.  It has lights, and pine cones, and birds, and bows on it. The decorating was all accomplished by my man and his two little elves.  There is something special about imagining them all – yes, all three of them – oogling over the lights and tinsel, placing the little trinkets upon the spindly branches.

Sometimes random is good.

This post was a response to a prompt to quickly write 500 words about anything, then delete 250 of them, retaining the essence.  I’m not sure this had any particular essence to begin with, but here ya go…

I’m not even sure how I first became familiar with him, but I have always had an attraction to something about him and the music he creates

More recently, my husband sang one of McFerrin’s songs with the Minneapolis based group Cantus. It was a setting of Psalm 23 in which all the divine pronouns are changed from male to female – a choice I got to learn more about this Sunday.

During a long car ride on Sunday I turned on public radio and was pleased to hear Bobby McFerrin being interviewed. (Click here to hear it.)  The discussion covered topics ranging from spirituality to improvisation to family to prayer.  The topic that continues to ring most through my mind is that of various disciplines.

The discipline of ordering your day and seeking quiet. McFerrin was so drawn to this that he actually had considered joining a monastic order or the priesthood.  There is definitely something in me that has a similar longing (for the quiet and routine, not the priesthood).  Earlier this spring I had a 24 hour solo get-away at a nearby silent retreat center.  It was fabulous and very hard.  Having set times throughout the day to stop and reflect and gather our thoughts is something Nathan and I try to incorporate in our lives with increasing frequency.  In a way, children in the picture can help this happen as their presence raises the importance of the routines of naps and snacks and cuddle time.

McFerrin reminded me of this value and inspired me to continue to pursue those routine moments of “bringing myself back to my calling” – checking in with myself, with God, and with those around me.

The discipline of creative exercises. Two types of creative exercises were mentioned in this interview.  One was related to the writing of the 23 Psalm setting. It was during a time when his own personal creative exercise was to write a piece of music first thing after waking each morning, before doing anything else.  This technique is probably not going to happen any time soon in this house per our schedules and kiddos, but we will be hanging on to the idea for future application. What would that be like? What would my creative muscles feel like to consistently do a similar creative exercise first thing, with a fresh mind, while the rest of the world (or at least the neighborhood) was still sleeping?

There is something so beautifully human about it.  An element of creativity that drives me to pursue it is the idea that people were created with the unique ability to be creative – animal species may have some sophisticated means of communicating, but none can create like humans can.  How beautiful, and even worshipful, then, to begin ones days not by diving into the immediately practical tasks, but by exercising and realizing this unique creative potential.

The other creative exercise Bobby mentioned was one that, I admit, I will not be doing any time soon.  Set a timer for 10 minutes, and sing.  Anything.  Just don’t stop letting things come out of your mouth.  Interestingly, he said that, in his experience with students and such, at the two minute mark the person will usually start talking to himself about how ridiculous the exercise is and want to quit.  He says to push through for 10 minutes every day for about three weeks and see what happens.  Nathan, naturally, is eager to give this one a go, but I’ll pass.  As I say that I also will add that there is something in me that wishes I was more willing to try it.  The freedom and lack of inhibitions that come with vocal improvisation are enviable indeed. I am not committing myself to never being able to do this, but I am just not ready yet.  Another thing to aspire to as I continue to bend my limits of comfort.

However, as I read through the comments on the program’s website, I learned of a similar – and, for me, much more approachable – exercise for writing.  Set a timer and write.  No erasing (I think a real pen and paper would be better for this one as my backspace reflex is rather uncontrollable), no scratching out.  Don’t stop for anything.  Don’t worry about nonsensicalness.  Just write.  The cool thing about this one is that even we busy parents could make this happen.  Granted, three minutes of uninterrupted time are never a sure thing, but they definitely do happen.  I will be trying this one very soon.

Woven throughout McFerrin’s discourse is his strong valuing of improvisation. Interesting, isn’t it, that this master of improvisation is such a fan of structure and order and discipline. I think I tend to be scared of improvising because it is so free and foreign, but the way that McFerrin talks about it really compels me to seek more ways to regularly practice it.  The value it can bring to me, not just as a musician, but as a person, seems worth the work.

Disciplining ourselves toward creativity is something that can and, I think, should be somehow rolled into our lives. Most likely it already is somehow.

What does it look like in your life?  Do you have some regular creative exercises that you do? What do you think of the ones mentioned?

*Actually, he didn’t really sit down at all as he was tending to our children and getting himself some food before heading out the door for rehearsal.

ME: Tell us about Nabucco.

NATHAN: It’s an opera written by Giuseppe Verdi – or “Jo Green” – that is based on the story of the Hebrews in exile in Babylon during the reign of Nebuchadnezzar – “Nabucco” in Italian.  It is also as much about the Austrian occupation of Italy at the time it was written.

ME: What is your character?

NATHAN: As a chorus member I play several different characters – a Hebrew warrior, an Austrian nobleman, an oracle.

ME: Tell us about one of your favorite songs.

NATHAN: I haven’t heard the soloists yet…   ”Va, Pensiero“ is the most famous.  It has these large sweeping lines that start in unison.  It’s also one of the largest songs (most people singing).  My favorite one thus far is -*spoiler alert*- after Nebuchadnezzar is struck by lightening there is this huge effect kind of mirroring the lightening in the orchestration…this descending line.  Then the chorus comes in at basically a tripple p and – I don’t remember exactly what we say, but it’s basically, “Oh crap!”

ME: Of all your friends and family, who do you think would most enjoy this opera?

NATHAN: This opera can really be appreciated by men, maybe more than women.  While I’m a sucker for a love story, any time the tenors are the warriors it’s bound to be a good man show.  Specifically?….My brother Andrew.

ME: Who do you think is most likely to walk out of the Ordway humming something from the opera?

NATHAN: Christy Andersen. (College friend and soprano)

ME: What’s the best part of your costumes?

NATHAN: The blood-stained spear…  No…the tux with tails.

ME: What do you enjoy most about rehearsals?

NATHAN: I enjoy that the director and his assistant have been so strongly encouraging us to be in character the whole time.  The acting and character development starts even before the memorization.

SEE THE SHOW!

Saturday September 22, 2012 8pm

Tuesday September 25, 2012 7:30pm

Thursday September 27, 2012 7:30pm

Saturday September 29, 2012 7:30pm

Sunday September 30, 2012 2pm

Getting the jars all ready

Perhaps canning doesn’t typically fall within the realm of ‘arts’ that I try to stear this blog around, but I really think that there is something incredibly creative, artful, and beautiful about the whole process of preserving fresh produce.  Aren’t vegetables just gorgeous!

The goods are ready. Sorry little guys.

Having grown up with fabulously delicious and abundant gardens in our respective back yards, Nathan and I both discovered, upon starting our own home together, that we dreadfully missed the whole gardening scene.

The peel and cut station

We do admit that our moms are incredibly hard workers and our bits of help in the garden only reflect a small fraction of the time and sweat that go into cultivating such abundance.  For the first few years of our marriage we tried to have some isolated plants of peppers, tomatoes, herbs, and the like…but usually with rather disappointing results. With moving during the summers we usually weren’t in any one place long enough to plan, plant, tend, and harvest from a single plot.

It was nice to have some help with transferring the tomatoes from the boiling water to the cold rinse in the sink.

Our first year’s pots of tomatoes were donated to the owners who assumed our lease when we moved – not sure what happened to them.  The second attempt was on a north-facing Denver deck – the one place in Denver that was not sunny all the time, er, ever.

The fun part. After blanching, the sink just slides right off.

The third and fourth years were when we were house-sitting just during the summer months, so we didn’t get the garden started quite early enough – and it was typical Colorado sandy soil, so our plants were a little pathetic.

My highly sophisticated technique for cutting the tomatoes

Last year was the first time we had a good chance to do a “real” garden, thanks to my mother’s kindness in sharing “a bit of earth” (Secret Garden is AubreyElla’s favorite movie lately) from one of her gardens. Nathan’s square foot gardening, and the plethora of free end-of-season pepper plants from the co-op, rendered much yumminess.

That’s me

This year we again are living in a space that is not conducive to having a garden, and were thinking we would merely have another go at whatever might survive on our small deck – which has turned out to be a pretty nice crop of basil and parsley (thank you Katie!).

I’m having a blast, really.

Then we heard from a friend in the area. Her recent treatments for breast cancer have necessitated her forfeiting garden work -one of her most dear summer activities, and she kindly offered her beautiful garden for us to use. Thank you Rene’. It’s a pretty sweet deal.

We assumed that all the tomatoes would fit in the pan, but I didn’t think we would get THAT close to the top

[I feel that at this point I should clarify that, when speaking of the act of gardening, though I tend to use the plural pronouns "we/us/our" etc,  it should be understood that Nathan is our resident gardener, not me.  At all.  I dream of having a green thumb some day, but let it be known that today is not that day. Thanks, hon', for all your hard work! And thanks to Mom for sharing so many tomatoes with us for this batch of canning.]

Stirring my culdron

So this summer we have been enjoying lots of radishes, heirloom pole beans (thanks Shahzore!), lettuce,  tomatoes, peppers, and cabbage.  Some of you have heard of and tasted last week’s amazing sauerkraut success.

Our sauerkraut experiment

It’s hard to even know how to communicate the thrill of journeying through a food item’s entire life span from seed to sprout to plant to blossom to fruit to the smell of freshly chopped produce to the smell of sauces and sautees to jars of products that some people have only ever seen on shelves at the grocery store.

Professor Bird takes his vegies very seriously

The whole experience stirs something in me that I think is akin to the journey of creating pieces of art.

Whether it is a watercolor painting from start to finish in an afternoon or a concert program that finally gets performed after months of planning and rehearsing.  There is simply something magical about seeing a project through to completion.

Today’s yield: 6 1/2 quarts

Creating something that you are really, truly proud of is an incredible feeling.