I can't fathom this

 
Just came back from a memorial service, don't do that stuff very often. Played violin on a song called "Cowgirls don't cry" - kind of pathetic song, last minute call, practiced 40 minutes tops, much too little.
Why a country song at a memorial? Well I asked that myself as well. So I thought this would be a nostalgic tribute to a farmer who died naturally in his 80's, that's how it sounded at first when I got the call to play there yesterday. I was wrong.
In this case, as I found out about two hours before the ceremony started, it was all about a young lady who would have turned 19 next May. She just simply died in her sleep, no drugs, no brain seizures, no heart attack, no poisoning. Kind of a mystery really.
In any case - she loved horses, (hence the cow-girl song) she could "die for them", and maybe she did...

"Cowgirls don't cry -ride baby ride, when you fall get yourself up from the mud, it's just a lesson for  life."
(or something of that nature...)

I was going to do a recording of this gig, but in the last moment decided: No go! I don't know, it just didn't seem right and I was very moved by this transitional experience.
Sometimes I wonder if there are people out there who "depart" to the spiritual realm by choice or by will - simply  without using any assistance from drugs or any other substances. 
I really do... 
(this is a picture of her, not by me)


The coffin was transported on a horse-wagon to the fire department's locality because the chapel was too small to accommodate three or for-hundred people.
Cowgirls don't cry - I sometimes wonder why.   

Brandaris

So here is the story. Two days ago I went to New York City to meet up with a friend. Parked the truck at the "Cloisters" and kept calling on the cell phone until the microwaves turned my ear purple. I had no luck. Then I drove to 139th Street in Harlem and crashed into their lives, a beautiful woman from the US and beautiful man from the west coast of Africa. Don't worry, they are my friends and have "crashed" in my shire before.
Subway, go downtown, find Brandaris with phone or without. After checking out every possible hotel on 40th Street (because I knew that much of his location) I turned back  empty handed, no Brandaris to be found. I went back to Harlem, had an awesome time with my friends and a superb fresh, delicious fish dinner. Sleep.
Next morning I drove back (two hour drive) kissed Manhattan good bye, and was depressed. Where was this Brandaris? Later in the morning I get a call: "Hoi, do isch dr Christian!" I was delighted.
We had spend 12 years together in a Waldorf School in Basel and haven't seen each other since. That's 30 years plus...
Next day he came up to "The Shire" and we talked about the past a lot - and sometimes of the future. It was the most refreshing human encounter I had for a long time. He drives trains in Switzerland you see, a completely different view of world-circumstances. And they are always on time. You could have guessed that!
Now, the reason why I didn't find him in New York, is that his real name is NOT Brandaris, that is only his artist name, taken from a light-house named
in the north of Germany. And I had believed he had changed his to this.. No wonder the hotel concierges gave me blank looks. 
Well, there is much more to this story - of course. But I will not tire you with juicy details. 
All is good, and as Christian did say, the "Waldorf Mafia" is stronger than the Sicilian cartel. On top of it, we don't even have to go on a killing spree to maintain our power.
Thank you Christian for being such a fine person to see me and consolidate with me after more than three decades.  

Correction: "Brandaris" is a existing light-house in the Netherlands, and Christian's dream was always to be a light-house-keeper

Amunioucoto

So the Canadian geese are coming back, what a surprise. It is almost like Winter Olympics in Vancouver, bringing it all back home.

St. Valentine's Day

by Norah Pollard

My father was unable to hug me

or talk to me. He could never say

"I love you." He was too shy.

Too, his mind was in

another world.

But whenever he came home from his journeys,

he'd bring me presents—Little Lady Toilet Water,

that grand midnight blue Stetson,

those many Waterman and Parker pens,

the pocketbook with the brass eagle clasp.

And for all occasions, overblown cards

with the puffy scented satin heart or rose

on the ront. Inside, his scraggy signature,

"To my Paddy, from her Daddy."

When you did not give me

a Valentine today,

I was undone.

And I wept in the shower

even though I am an adult and know

gifts are materialistic shallow

commercially driven wasteful crap.

But why, why could you not have

Wasted some mute love on me?

an other kind of beach

So there you go. "visited" Martha's Vineyard for a few days. Couldn't stay there much longer, just did my job. Crown-molding  in this case. Beautiful island. The Kennedy's also live and die there. 
It was not like Puerto Rico, not at all.  It was bitter cold. Even the seawater at the shore was frozen.
Nevertheless it was the ocean - and that always frees my mind, no matter what the temperature is.
And then I took a break on the second day, waltzed down to the beach, found a dead seal with his head chopped off. I tried to redo this seals history in my mind. Was he or she a-washed ashore, just 'cause the animal was old of age? I don't know. Perhaps a freak fisherman killed the thing because the animal was getting into his lobster traps. Nobody will ever know.  
So yes, this working gig turned out all right, though the circumstances were tough, like chopped off heads. You never know when you loose your fingers.

   Do you sometimes in life feel like a dead seal chopped off his head with no return?
Just curious.....