Bobbie Wayne's Blog

I wear a lot of hats. I’m a writer with a book weeks from being published, I was an artist and still have five paintings in our local gallery and a solo show in town this January. I play harp. Many of my hats come from the different styles of music I play, write, and perform. When I took up harp, I began writing songs about the environment, which led to composing instrumentals on my Celtic harp and dulcimer.

Then I began playing with Colonial balladeer  Linda Russell’s band at historic sites. Soon, my husband, Dan, and I started doing our own Colonial concerts in costume. When we moved to Nashville, TN, where I became a Nashville songwriter for eight years, I had to change eras and learn repertoire from the 19th century. I  switched from wearing panniers and sack dresses to antebellum attire, including 19th century corsets and hoops.

Dan and I now live in New England, where once again we play popular music of the 18th century. We have a Colonial Christmas show that includes readings from the period, music, and props. I still perform a History of Christmas Customs show I have been doing since 1989, in which I sing in five languages and wear a quasi-medieval gown and a holly wreath in my wig.

When I started playing harp in 1984, most Americans had never seen a Celtic harp. People used to ask, “Is that a regular harp?” or “Why aren’t you playing Irish music on it?” I told them my harp was from a different, older tradition than the pedal harps in orchestras today. Then I would explain that I was primarily a singer/songwriter, not a traditional Celtic musician, however, my repertoire does include Irish and Scottish music.

These days, Dan and I play Celtic music when we join our friend, Michael O’Leary, who runs a Celtic music sail aboard a 19th century reproduction schooner out of Gloucester, MA. We also join a group of friends to sing sea chanteys at a Salem brew pub once a month. I often find myself rushing around, trying to remember what kind of music I need to practice for that particular week’s event. It would be easy to get mixed up and arrive somewhere in costume (or not), having prepared for the wrong event. I wrote a song years ago about being booked by phone for a recording session only to show up and find that the producer thought he was booking the other kind of harp: a harmonica, for a rock session!

I was shopping in Market Basket’s produce section last week, looking through the strawberries,  checking the bottoms of the plastic containers to find one without any spoilage. To my left, a woman was looking through the boxes of blueberries. Without turning, I was aware that she was slim, blue-jeaned, t-shirted, and was wearing a hat with a floppy brim. I would have guessed her to be in her 40s.

It always amazes me how much the human eye can see from the periphery. If humans paid attention to everything our eyes see, our brains would overload, the way mine does when I’m trying to read an article on my computer and am bombarded with flashing ads. Instead, our brains dump much of what we see in the trash folder without bothering to consult us.

So, the first time I saw the woman open the lid on a box of blueberries and pop a few in her mouth, my brain completely tuned it out.

ME: “Oh wow! Did I just see what I thought I saw?”

MY BRAIN: “Nah, just mind your own business.”

As I was dong the umpteenth “final” edit of my book, “LIFELINES, Antidotes to Animus and Angst, I noticed something I had written regarding value. I was referring to the lightness or darkness of a surface, as in saying, “That desk looks black in this dim light, but it’s actually light pine.” But I realized that the statement I had written in my book, “Values change depending upon where the light shines,” can have a totally different meaning from my original intention.

Over the last eight years, I’ve come to realize that core values aren’t shared by all Americans. This came as a shock, ushered in by the acceptance by over half of my fellow country people of a candidate running for President whose moral and ethical flaws were not just flagrant, but well-known. Donald Trump, who, like me, was born in Queens and is 77, was well-known to all New Yorkers as a rich, pretentious character whose bad-boy behavior landed him in the gossip columns. We knew him as the guy on tv who loved to shout, “You’re fired!” at young wanna-be’s. We figured his running for the highest office in the land was yet another “look-at-me, look at me,”stunt to gain more news coverage. But then things got serious.

“…grab ‘em by the pussy. You can do anything (when you’re a star.)” Billy Bush’s 2005 interview of Trump on Access Hollywood was aired by The Post. Actress Adrienne Zucker later joined them, which prompted Trump to confide to his host, “I did try and fuck her. She was married…I moved on her like a bitch,” 

This seemed to me to put the nail in the coffin of Trump’s candidacy. While many who run for (or hold) public office have had affairs, if it becomes public the person is disgraced, impeached or passed over as being unelectable. American values had long dictated that once a leader’s affairs are revealed, a price must be paid. The crude language used so carelessly in a television interview would surely be the second nail. Additionally, reports began surfacing that since the 1970’s, 26 women have accused Trump of sexual misconduct; several of them accusations of rape. Newsweek reported on the vulgar misogyny and sexism Trump displayed in 17 years of conversations with radio shock jock, Howard Stern. Many of the interviews include Trump going on about his attraction to his daughter, Ivanca’s looks and her body.

However, Americans were sick of politicians in general, especially those who acted “uppety” by  speaking as if they had a higher education or if they observed decorum. Those people made some Americans feel dumb by comparison. Many were willing to excuse Trump’s sexual peccadilloes because he was such a great entertainer. He gave voice to the prejudices that simmered under society’s surface; the nasty, divisive thoughts some folks harbored about other races, religions and ethnicities. He did it in such a diverting way that the news couldn’t get enough of him, giving him millions of dollars worth of free airtime.

The end-of-season sales are great times to snag bargains…unless they snag you first! So here I am perusing Facebook when an add catches my attention. It’s a pair of green leather Clarks sandals; at least that’s what I take them for, since the picture has them sitting in front of the Clarks signature. Clarks, as those who like comfortable shoes know, are well-made, and long lasting. I checked the price: $65.00; a good deal for leather sandals. 

I click on the add and buy the shoes. A month goes by. A bubble-wrap envelope arrives from “Uniuni Return Warehouse” in Queens, NY. (Uh-oh!) The sandals are squished down inside in plastic bags. (Double uh-oh!) My heart sinks as I remove the shoes, realizing three things simultaneously:

1. No F***in’ way are these Clarks.                                                                                                                         2. This is the third time I have been taken in by an add on Facebook which turned out to be a “bait and switch!” 3. My husband is about to find out and give me hell for being so careless!

Luckily, I had payed with PayPal. After spending some time shouting, “SPEAK TO HUMAN!” at their AI answering service I get through to an agent who is savvy and helpful.

AGENT: “Have you notified the seller?”

In 1978 I moved to Leonard St. in Lower Manhattan to a loft building in what came to be called Tribecca. My fixture fee, (money paid to a landlord to move into an illegal loft) was $3,000. My rent was $275. per month. This got me 350 sq. feet of a factory loft which included a toilet, a bathtub and a sink. There were no interior walls; we artists were expected to install those, as well as a stove, a refrigerator and electrical outlets. We had to paint our lofts, including the wooden floors with their decades of accumulated grime and industrial debris. I rarely ate; I drank bad coffee. Most of the tenants aside from me and my next-door neighbors, were there for the “Boho” life: drugs, parties, the newly-opened CBGB’s, the glamour and the fun.

I had inherited $7,000 from my mother, who had died the past summer. After the fixture fee and rent, my money went towards buying lumber, nails, sheetrock, paint and tools to build my loft. I soon got work waitressing; a job for which I was supremely unqualified. After doing some carpentry in the morning, I would hurry uptown and work until dinner, when I would return to resume carpentry. Too exhausted to deal with food, I lived on lettuce, canned tuna and coffee.

BB, the woman in the loft below mine was a well-off Californian. Once her loft was finished, she threw weekly parties where she blasted loud music on expensive speakers affixed to her ceiling. We had no insulation under our floors, so it was as if the speakers were in my loft. She was sleeping with one of our young landlords, so I had no recourse. During one of my many fruitless attempts to talk with her about the noise, she tasted my coffee.

 “You drink this?”she said. BB took me to a coffee merchant’s warehouse southwest of us. Even as I mounted the concrete steps in front, I was enveloped by a rich, all-pervading smell of coffee. The warehouse was packed with wooden barrels of various coffee beans: Columbian, Moca Java, Kona, Indonesian and dark roasted Espresso. Mr. Goldfarb, the owner, was the third-generation owner. Thrilled that BB had brought an un-initiated coffee drinker to his warehouse, he gave me a tour, occasionally handing me a bean from a barrel.

A tadpole once hatched in the depths of the darkest, slimiest marsh that fed into the Great River. He opened his fleshy lips and said, “Glumpf,” and so he was called from then on. Thousands of other tadpoles in various stages of development swam about; some with just a tail, others with their back legs, and some with all four legs. soon after being hatched, Glumpf noticed the other tadpoles were being devoured by fish, crabs and squid, so he hid within the clumps of marsh grass roots while his legs developed, amusing himself by betting on who would be eaten next.

“Hah!” he crowed as a large silver fish herded a school of minnows into a patch of translucent green sea grass. The fish wove in and out of the grasses, vacuuming up his prey. “Hah hah,” laughed Glumpf, clapping his tiny hands.

“You find that funny?” said a low gravelly voice nearby. Glumph spun around to see a huge toad, streaming with algae and covered with warts sitting next to him. Glumpf nodded, all the while planning his escape if the toad lunged. “Good,” said the toad. “You’ve got the makings of becoming a king, like me, my boy. I have eaten most of my progeny, and need an heir; keep out of my reach until you are too big for me to eat and I will teach you all I know.” They both turned to watch a crab, camouflaged in the sand seize a tadpole and bite off its head.

“Ah hah hah!” they both shouted. “‘Deserved it,” spat out the toad king. 

“Damned straight,”echoed his new apprentice.

Today, I heard that in China, Artificial Intelligence (AI) has been used to create an avatar of deceased loved ones. The news program stated that in cases where a person just can’t get past the grief of their loss, AI allows one to speak and interact with their loved one every day if they wish. Consider the merits: Those experiencing “long grief,” where the individual cannot recover from their loss no matter how much time passes, can function again at their jobs and in their families without crippling depression. In certain instances, the avatar can disguise the fact that an important person has passed; for example, with someone in ill health who might not withstand the blow of losing someone very close to them.

However, I thought of defects and the ways this technology could be horribly mis-used: A person might never face the reality of the death of the deceased. They might withdraw from other human contact, preferring to spend time with the avatar. As the technology develops, what would stop people from taking the likeness of someone they can’t have a relationship with and creating an avatar of the person, such as a lover who has rejected them. For that matter, for nefarious purposes, someone might create an avatar of someone who is underage. Will the law go after people who create avatars of other people without their consent?

This brings up the age-old question of what is real or un-real. Who gets to decide? I was sitting at our dinner table, over which hangs a chandelier that holds realistic-looking electric candles. Across the room, atop a small cupboard, sat our wooden barn lantern. These are wooden or tin boxes about 6” square and 16” tall with a pierced tin roof and a handle. Barn lanterns have a door on them and hold a candle. They were used in the 18th and 19th centuries before electricity to illuminate dark barns. The door prevented the candle from igniting the hay, should the lantern get tipped over. Our lantern has a glass piece set in all four sides to emit light. I glanced over at it last night during dinner and distinctly saw a lit candle inside. Knowing I hadn’t lit the barn lantern, I realized that one of the chandelier “candles” was being reflected in the glass door, creating the perfect illusion of a lit candle within.

This reminded me of Plato’s cave allegory, in which he tries to illustrate the meaning of reality: Several men are chained for life in a cave, where all they can see are shadows projected on a wall. They assume the shadows are reality. When one man escapes to the outdoors, he perceives three-dimensional reality. He returns to the cave to liberate his fellow prisoners, but the others are so invested in their own concept of reality that they kill their would-be liberator, rather than experience changing their belief.  If you have found yourself arguing with someone over what they believe to be true and you believe to be false, you will identify with this story. 

Over the last decade, Americans have come to disagree over what is real, or true and what is un-real, or false. In the olden days, say, prior to 1980, one had to have evidence to prove whether something was true or false. But today, if something “seems” true, if it is told convincingly, by someone who looks and speaks well, it is accepted by many as reality. Stephen Colbert came up with a word which describes the news-like statements in the media which have little basis in fact: “truthiness.” That was quite a few years ago, when stories presented to the public as “news” still had to have an element of truth in them. But since June 16, 2016, when Donald Trump descended on his golden escalator to announce his candidacy for president, the business people of newscasting realized they were attracting huge audiences when they published Trump’s blatant lies and outrageous statements. Donald Trump ushered in the era of “ extreme newzertainment,” which, before him, one only expected to see in the trashy magazines on the way to checkout groceries.

When I lived in New York, someone in the TV industry heard that I played the spoons. I never thought of myself as a “spoon player,” exactly but I got several requests to audition for commercials. The last one was for a MacDonald’s commercial, a lucrative payday plus residuals for anyone lucky enough to land the gig. So I showed up with my spoons and a fiddle tune recording. The hallway of the Manhattan advertising agency was filled with assorted New York characters and their spoons. Older men in costumes with ten sets of spoons in a case, characters I’d seen busking in the Village, sat on benches or leaned against the walls, clacking their spoons. Nervous actors and hungry-looking musicians lined the benches, holding their spoons.There was also a sulky-looking girl with a punk hairstyle, wearing a tight T-shirt with black and yellow stripes that made her resemble a yellow jacket. 

When my name was called, I entered the room with a broad smile. I wore a folksy-looking skirt with a leotard and boots. One of the three men facing me put my music on and I launched into a spirited spoon accompaniment. The two clients sat slumped in their chairs, watching grimly as I pranced around, whacking the spoons together on my elbows, thighs and palms in time to the music. No one spoke. I kept playing and grinning like all Halloween until one of them said, “Thanks.” I later learned that Yellow Jacket Girl got the gig. She didn’t know how to play the spoons, but she hung one on her nose which tickled the hell out of the client, who liked her “look.”

Last week, I watched the first hour of the Biden/Trump “debate.” Biden, on stage left, looked like a bleached seashell on a beach. Trump, on stage right, had the high coloring of a ripe strawberry. Biden’s voice was hoarse and papery when he responded to the moderator’s questions. For the most part, Trump disregarded the questions, blurting out lies and non-sequiturs as rapidly as possible, making what he was saying impossible to decipher. Biden began to stutter in response. As soon as Trump smelled blood, having succeeded in gaslighting his opponent, he began ridiculing Biden’s memory.

Trump’s rubbery face ran the gamut of expressions: confused, wounded, thoughtful, puzzled, disgusted, and condescendingly bored. Biden’s face was as fixed as a Noh mask for much of the first hour of the debate. His eyes are too small to see without a close-up shot. Only once did he smile that rakish, crooked grin of his that is reminiscent of Harrison Ford’s. However he displayed a third expression when Trump brought up Biden’s son’s crimes. The president turned, openmouthed, facing Trump, wide-eyed as though he had just been goosed.

Before the first televised presidential debate on September 26, 1960, between John F. Kennedy and Richard M. Nixon, one’s appearance on TV was of little consequence. Aside from the nightly news on the three major networks, TV was an entertainment tool. Little by little, the way people appeared in the media became increasingly important. The news, itself, had to be exciting and entertaining to get high ratings. Americans began reading less and depending upon TV to form their opinions. The cult of celebrity had begun to take over.

I haven’t been on an airplane for eight years. During that time, I have shrunk two inches in height, going from 5’ 6” to 5” 4”. I’m also ten pounds heavier at 127 lbs. My seat on our Delta flight to Ohio seems almost spacious when compared with those of passengers nearby. We landed the last two seats in the back, next to the bathroom. Still, I have a pretty good view of the people across the isle and in the seat ahead of them. It’s not a pretty sight.

Dan Is 5’ 10” and weighs 148 lbs. He is lean like his dad. His height comes mainly from his long legs. The distance from his kneecaps to the back of the seat in front of him is exactly the length of my index finger, and I have small hands. Looking down at my own hips, I see about one inch of space from my thighs to the side edges of the seat. If I put my elbows down, there is 3/4” of space in-between each and the arm rest. 

In the window seat across the aisle from Dan is a young man. His father (I assume) sits on the aisle. The young guy is my size, so he fits in his seat, but the man is huge, with a big belly and heavy limbs. He cannot put his arms down and his sides are jammed against the arm rests. I wonder what happens if two people his size sit next to each other and have to share the center arm rest. There is no where else for those inner arms to go except, perhaps on the fold-down tray. 

The poor man in the seat ahead of them is even worse off. His legs don’t fit in the allocated space. To make things worse, the passenger ahead of him has reclined her seat. his tray upon which he has placed his arms on is sticking into his stomach. Luckily, the aisle seat is empty next to him, so his legs and torso are canted off at an angle with his feet and knees in the unoccupied area most of the time. For variation, he has to spread his legs are spread apart as if riding a draft horse or doing a split.

How many people get stuck in these tiny seats? I can see why fights break out when someone reclines their seat so that you are holding their head in your lap. Talk about shrink-sizing! I have dreaded flying since 9/11, when air travel went from being mildly annoying to the stuff of major panic attacks. And speaking of anxiety-inducing really bad PR, as we were boarding the plane, an employee was pulling people out of the line who had carry-on bags, making them fit the bag into a measuring device to see if they exceeded carry-on size requirements. One poor young woman’s bag didn’t fit. I don’t know what they told her but she began sobbing and begging them; not a reassuring sight to see while boarding.

We are a young country; our history is very short. Therefore, it shouldn’t be surprising to know people who are descendants of well-acknowledged Americans. I, for example, have a close friend whose ancestor was Rebecca Nurse, one of the innocent nineteen people hanged in the Salem witch trials. Rebecca’s farm is just miles from where I live and is still maintained.

Another good friend of mine is an extremely talented artist, whom I met when we both studied at a Boston atelier. She is a descendant of Ben Franklin’s. There are many people living in the small coastal towns of Massachusetts, where families have stayed for generations; often in the same house. My town is full of people whose families were extremely important during the Revolution. 

Although one of the things Americans do best and most frequently is move, our country is peopled with the descendants of Civil War generals, Native American tribal chiefs, cowboys, outlaws, politicians, civil rights leaders and famous suffragists. Even one of my doctors is related to Wyatt Earp.

It’s strange to realize what a short time ago these famous and infamous ancestors lived. For example, my college roommate’s dad fought in World War I. He was the oldest father of anyone in the class of 1969. The last authenticated Civil War veteran died at the age of 109 on August 2, 1956. When that person was young, he knew veterans of the Revolutionary War.

Like all countries, America needs to pay attention to those who came before us. Too little time is ever spent by the average American in considering what we and our ancestors got right and what needs to be changed. It has only been 248 years since we declared our independence from Britain. And unlike most older countries, our citizens come from everywhere else on the globe, as well as those of us who were here before Europeans. We have the collective wisdom of the world right here in our DNA. We can profit from the successes and failures of our forebears if we are willing to learn from them, rather than repeat the same mistakes they made.

My neighbor’s bush (the one that has overgrown and shades my grape arbor) has a wonderful jasmine fragrance at this time of year. Its long branches are covered with pink blossoms and the bush itself is about twenty-five feet tall. It looks like a big shaggy pink dog or a Cindi Lauper wig with branches sticking out every which way. For a week or so it will continue to perfume the air until all those little flowers fall off and start bushes of their own in my yard. They have to be pulled up by hand, which means hours of back-breaking work.

The previous owner kept his bushes neatly trimmed. This particular bush stood five foot tall, maximum; I never even noticed it. But because of his fastidious clipping every spring, it never blossomed. We were all deprived of its marvelous fragrance.

I confess, as a Long Island girl, brought up in America’s original suburbs, I can get pretty anal about lawns and gardens. I love arboretums, English cottage gardens, and even formal gardens. Yet, I am aware that imposing our artificial environment upon nature is one of the reasons our beautiful natural world is in such a mess.

Long Island is a barrier beach. Prior to the 19th c. the southern coast teemed with marsh and sea life; the rocky forested northern coast was home to thousands of species. The groundwater (in some areas only six feet below the surface) was sweet and clear. Streams, ponds and rivers were abundant. But soon, farms began covering the fertile soil. By the dawn of the 20th c., large industrial farms began using pesticides and artificial fertilizers. The crush of eager people moving to brand-new developments that took over the farmland following WWII began carving up the land into small, personal yards. Trees disappeared and pesticides like DDT were liberally used to control the clouds of mosquitoes and Japanese beetles that began to proliferate, having few natural enemies. Bird populations decreased and wildlife disappeared.

We kids followed the fogging trucks spraying DDT, delighted to be playing “in the clouds.” By the 1970’s, researchers determined that my own county, Nassau, had the highest rate of breast cancer in America. The groundwater is full of toxic chemicals people innocently used to create beautiful flowerbeds and perfect lawns.

When we bought our house, it its grounds had been neglected and the property overrun with  weeds. There was neither grass nor gardens…, just weeds. I’m not up on my weeds, so I can’t tell you their names. The front yard, however, was mostly crabgrass and some type of weed that grows in cow pastures, killing off all the grass. The back yard, especially on our hill side was covered with little creeping weeds that had to be pulled out individually by hand, which took a whole summer to do. The lower portion had several types of weeds; some small with roots that connect, others, tall and thick. We had some help from a landscaper, but we didn’t like putting down weed-killer, because, who knows what damage it could inflict on the wildlife and the environment. So it was several year of hand-digging, re-seeding, moving plots of grass in and, in general, busting my chops.

I hit on the idea of seeding the yard with white clover, which is actually a legume, not a grass. It gives back nutrients to the soil. But since our new neighbors have moved in, we’ve had to spray for crabgrass and ticks that live in tall weeds. Now that the yard is healthy enough to resist being taken over by the weeds, we have found a company that uses no weed killers, but rather uses organic fertilizers geared to encourage the growth of grass and clover. We’re going to switch to them. 

We have a young couple next door who have let their yard become what ours was when we first moved in. Right now, it’s full of dandelions, crabgrass and lots of broadleaf weeds, all of which go to seed and create problems for the houses nearby. I saw the husband digging in his front yard; he was planting individual plants in arbitrary places amongst the weeds. But I complimented him anyhow, on the plants he was installing because his aesthetics aren’t necessarily the same as mine. He was obviously trying to improve the looks of his place and that’s a nice thing to do when you live in a neighborhood. He said, “Yeah, I really hate grass.” I thought about it later; how artificial grass is and how beautiful this area must have been a few centuries ago.

Our part of Marblehead sticks out into the ocean with Salem harbor on one side. It is very rock and hilly. Before the town was much larger than “Old Town,” an area along the water filled with large 17th and 18th c. mariners and merchants’ homes, our area was left wild and was used as an un-fenced part of Marblehead for grazing horses. I’ve looked at the meadows, fields and graveyards here, none of which are fussed with, other than being mowed, and they don’t have crabgrass or the types of weeds that take over once someone abandons their suburban lawn. 

Don’t sit around complaining. If something bothers you, DO SOMETHING about it!

As an only child, I never learned to do regular things for myself. My grandmother lived with us and did the stuff I should have done like cleaning, cooking, washing, etc. Instead, I spent my time in my room, creating: art projects, sculptures, poems, stories, songs and plays. My parents found it easier to have someone else do the chores I did badly and reluctantly. I learned that someone else would take care of things.

Like many post-war 50’s parents, my folks didn’t want any more strife; they wanted a happy life. They weren’t political, and all our friends were white. Living on Long Island, my friends were Catholics and by Jr. High, Jews. There weren’t any people of color in our school. Most people we knew weren’t aware of Black history and didn’t understand the violence of the Civil Rights Movement. 

In high school, I had no interest in American history, viewing it as an endless succession of wars, and dates to memorize. Like many “middle Americans,” I held the infantile view that the Viet Nam war and the Civil Rights Movement were better left to people “gifted” in politics, the way I was gifted in the arts. Not until I got my first job as a music therapist in large, state-run psychiatric hospitals and state schools and hospitals for people with severe physical and intellectual disability, did I begin to learn the moral imperative that we all must speak up for those who have no voice. 

Living in NYC for a decade, throughout my thirties, trying to support myself first as an abstract artist, then as a singer/songwriter, I felt like the subject of Bob Dylan’s song, “ Like a Rolling Stone.”I often substituted coffee for two or more meals, and made a can of tuna, a head of rather wilted lettuce and an apple last for two night’s dinner. I worked as a waiter, an exercise instructor at Jack LaLanne’s Health Spas, a past-up artist, an illustrator, and a sign-painter and gilder. My friends and acquaintance came from everywhere in the world. I learned about the lives of others; soaked up their stories and learned how entitled my life had been and how unfair our country can be unless people speak up.

Every spring, there is a small window within which I need to get all of my garden work finished. This is because I don’t tolerate heat, humidity or mosquitoes well. We have a 4”x16” flower garden out front, shrubs along the house front, a vegetable garden out back, a rose garden, a grape arbor and a pergola. A third of our back yard is a hill which I’ve turned into a rock garden. Dan dislikes gardening but helps me lug the 40lb. bags of compost, manure, etc. all over the property to the gardens. The rest is up to me. 

Naturally, I’m frantic to get everything weeded, planted and rit up, (a Pennsylvania expression meaning, set to rights). This year, I had an 18th c. concert to prepare for, have an up-coming 2 hr. background music gig for a tea at the Salem Athenaeum, Christmas shows to book and start rehearsing for, , a blog to write, my book to finish editing, and live stories to go over to perform at The Moth. Dan and I had to deal with a very frustrated Border Collie whose leg injury prevented her from getting enough exercise for 2 months. All of the above occurred during my gardening window.

In the 80’s, I wrote a song called, “Little Garden in the Springtime.” In it, the singer’s horror at the high prices of fruit and vegetables makes her decide to grow her own. The problem is that the singer’s mind is a lot like mine: it drives her crazy anticipating disasters that will befall her garden from voracious deer. So, with each verse, the singer buys more protection: a fence, a gate, netting…you get the idea. By the last verse, she is guarding the garden with a gun, while consoling herself with thoughts of all the money she’s saving by having a garden.

We all have a small window in which to enact that which we think is important. That window is called our lifespan. Each of us must choose how we fill our days and spend our time. Whether we spend it having fun, being with those we love, building for the future, helping others, scrolling on our computers, learning about the past, sitting on our couches, or working our asses off is totally up to us. But a good portion of America has become watchful, spending time and treasure guarding against “deer” who will probably never invade our gardens. 

It is May Day, May first, when young girls in light-colored dresses dance around those suspiciously phallic maypoles, modestly wrapping them with ribbons. This is also Beltane, the ancient Celtic festival celebrating the mating of the God and Goddess, in sacred union. Believing that this coupling blessed the land, insuring its fertility, the people, themselves slipped off to the fields to make the two-backed beast. 

Sap Green, Viridian, Cerulean Blue, Raw Umber, Burnt Sienna…the words slide off the tongue like a spring sonnet. These were the names of the colors I squeezed onto my palette each spring as I painted outdoors. Thick viscous blobs of creamy colors made from pigments of the earth and water, the oils smelled of rich piney resins; even now the memory of that odor excites me. I always wanted to be the kind of painter that doesn’t have to analyze and plot what I paint: those who pick up big rich brush-fulls of color and lay it down. We are all that kind of painter as kids when we first finger-paint…pure id.

But something happens as we age; we become analytical. We stop going with our first impulses and sit back to consider our actions. This is a good thing in many ways. After all, we couldn’t function in a tribe without learning to defer gratification. We learn to balance our responses and desires with the rules of our particular group. We stop making messes with our food and resist making loud noises whenever we feel like it. Unlike those characters in the old musicals, we rarely break into a dance in a public space, such as a bank. Those of us who insist upon maintaining entirely different personalities, depending on whom we are with and our situation are mis-trusted by society. Unbeknown to us, we have locked away an important part of ourselves. “Oh, I’m no artist (writer, musician, dancer) we protest.”

Yet the womb of creation is “the mess.” We frown upon making messes, excusing ourselves for not doing something more purposeful, saying, “I’m just messing around.” Without messes, there is no discovery. The artist who picks up those brush-fulls of pure pigment has experienced the despair of over-working a good painting, losing the freshness and ending up with a dull brown mess. Composers banging in frustration on their piano suddenly hear a pattern of notes they made by accident; notes which suggest a new direction for their piece. A dancer mis-steps and discovers a new movement. Actors study their character, trying out gestures and expressions until they can discover the true essence the person they are portraying, the better to “become” the role. Writers and poets crumple paper after paper of writing gone wrong or stalled, tossing it to the floor. Then an idea forms out of the chaos and they search frantically through the papers for that one sentence that is the start of their new inspiration. These fortunate folk have never forgotten how to play.

I walk into our family room wearing a 19th c. corset over my 18th c. camisole. Too late to remedy, I discovered that the 2” I’ve shrunk over the last several decades have caused the boning in my 18th c. stays (corset) to stick into my pelvic bones. I’m having new stays made, but for tonight’s gig, a fundraiser to save General John Glover’s house from demolition, I’m stuck wearing my 19th c. corset. I have just tied on my panniers, hoops which extend each hip 4” on each side, and am looking for my quilted petticoat. It goes under the 5 yards of embroidered silk skirt, and is quilted to prevent the hoops from showing under the silken overskirt.

I’m hurrying because we carry a lot to our 18th c. concerts: my harp and dulcimer, an antique harp stool, Dan’s mandolin and guitar and his folding stool, our colonial card table, lights and an extension chord, a large oaken basket holding pewter drinking vessels, set lists, tuners, extra strings and my harp key. We need to arrive early to set everything up and tune. 

Wearing my wig cap which holds my hair close to the scalp and makes me appear bald, I look pretty strange as I enter the family room. Liberty, our Border Collie, is lying on the rug. As soon as she sees me she jumps to her feet and begins vomiting in that energetic and thorough way that dogs have when they throw up. I watch her in stunned silence as she moves to the other side of the rug to finish vomiting. I don’t know what to do; I can’t grab her and haul her off the rug for fear of getting soiled. I’m also wearing white stockings and white satin embroidered 18th c. shoes.

“DAN!” I scream. Dan appears, wig-less, but otherwise in costume. He grabs some paper towels and attempts to clean up the mess.

“We don’t have time to deal with this right now, “ Dan says. “I’ll roll the carpet up and we can clean it tomorrow. Go finish dressing!”

“What did you think of the concert?” our music professor asked Barb, Joel, Tom and me as we exited Oller Hall auditorium. We were four of the seven music majors at our small college. No one wanted to display their ignorance by saying something dumb, so we all turned to the person next to us. “As musicians, people will look to you in the future regarding music. You need to have educated opinions and be able to back them up,” said our professor.

I recalled this incident many times over the years, working as a therapist, an artist, a musician, a writer and a storyteller. I have opinions about the arts, our culture, the world, politics and lots of other things. Walking with Dan, I may point out how a person would look better if their hair were worn differently. I find myself doing the same thing with peoples’ dress, the colors they paint their homes, and even landscaping. As a former portrait and landscape painter, I studied what makes shapes pleasing. Don’t get me started on today’s Pop music; I was a Nashville songwriter for eight years. I have lots to say about the way people write and tell first person stories too.

One of my super senses is smell and it has made me an extremely picky eater. I can tell everyone what’s in their sauces at a good restaurant. I could have worked as a wine or coffee taster. This superpower has made me a pretty good cook…and a highly critical diner. Having a grandmother who was a professional seamstress taught me about “good” and “bad” material. Most of the clothes sold at big-box stores look cheaply made and badly designed. 

In other words, I have not just developed opinions; I am a taste chauvinist. 

When I am back home in New York I blend right in. New Yorkers have opinions on everything and they’re not shy about sharing them with each other, with strangers, on bathroom walls…When everyone around you is outre, no one sticks out.

Joni Mitchell messaged me yesterday. Then my computer died. I doubt the two have any connection…but you never know. I had been scrolling through Facebook and saw Joni’s picture under a note reading: “I need to hear from all my active fans all over the world.”

What the hell…I said something like, “You’re not just stardust; you’re a blazing comet!” Immediately, I got a reply.

     “You seem to be a great fan of mine. Where are you from?” 

Weird, right? I typed, “Native New Yorker.” Again, I got an instant reply.

     “I always make sure I squeeze out time from my busy schedule to appreciate my fans  cause they make me who I am today.” OK, could the possibility exist that Joni Mitchell actually chats online with her fans? I respond, saying that we have some strange coincidences: Our given names are both Roberta Joan, she contracted polio and I was a “Polio Pioneer,” one of the huge group of kids on which the Salk vaccine for polio was tested and proved to work. We both had Ukuleles for our first instruments, and both became artist/musicians who went back and forth from one career to the other. I bought a mountain dulcimer a few years before hearing of Joni Mitchell and her music, some of which she played on a mountain dulcimer. And we both had suffered from a mysterious virus.

I have had three sinus surgeries over the past years: two were to try to fix my septum and my abnormal sinus cavities. One was too small and the other had an extra wall in it which needed to be removed. The third surgery occurred after I broke my nose when I was running while trying to get my camera out from under my backpack. The toe of my boot hit a small asphalt curb. With my hands over my head, tangled in the camera strap, I took the full hit on my face when I fell. My nose was plastered against my cheek so that I resembled an Egyptian hieroglyph. I fell so hard that my nasal bone cracked in-between my brows. Needless to say, I re-deviated the septum which had been surgically repaired and had to have both nasal surgery and plastic surgery to remove all the asphalt in the wound. 

People with abnormal sinuses or sinuses which have been scarred from surgeries have special difficulties when it comes to head colds. Most folks’ colds last a couple of weeks. When I get a head cold, I almost immediately develop a sinus infection which lasts much longer than the life of the average cold virus. My colds, left to themselves, can last two to three months. An otolaryngologist explained it to me: “You have lots of scar tissue in your sinuses from surgeries and injury. When a cold virus attacks you, your sinuses swell shut, providing a nice little condominium for bacteria to grow. Some people have more bacteria in this area than others, too.” The solution has always been a prescription for antibiotics. Once that kills the infection, I get better.

As everyone knows, we don’t have a cure for the cold virus. Yet, people were treated with antibiotics which have no effect on colds for many years. Antibiotics have been abused for so long that they have lost their effectiveness in certain cases. Consequently, doctors were advised not to prescribe them for colds. My husband and I had a doctor whom we liked a lot. She was thorough, knowledgeable and kind. In the past, she wrote me prescriptions on several occasions when I got sinus infections. But once the AMA began telling people that antibiotics were useless in treating colds, my doctor refused to give them to me. I caught a devil of a cold that year and was obliged to go three times to her office (an hour away) to beg for treatment. This “cold” lasted three months, kept both my husband and I from sleeping and resulted in my becoming run-down. I could barely breathe, had constant sinus pain and didn’t know where to turn. I brought her articles about people prone to bacterial sinus infections. We argued until I realized, “ my doctor is not listening to me.”

Eventually, I couldn’t hear out of my right ear. I visited Mass Eye & Ear Hospital and explained that I’d had an infection for three months that my doctor insisted was just a cold. They said I had a massive infection in my eustachian tube. I was put on an Antibiotic and Prednisone for a month, which finally killed the infection, but had significant hearing loss from that episode. I now have a letter from my otolaryngologist on file at the office of my new Primary physician, explaining that if a cold lasts longer than several weeks or if I have symptoms indicating I have developed a bacterial infection, I am to be treated with antibiotics.

I am a musician and my hearing is extremely important to me. Had my doctor listened to me and investigated further, rather than stubbornly taking a stand, I would have avoided a lot of pain and anxiety and would still have total hearing in my right ear. If you are seeing someone for help and you feel they aren’t listening to you, move on! Don’t try to “be nice” or worry about hurt feelings. Tell them you don’t feel as though they are paying attention to you, so you are going to find someone who will. Most doctors really want to help their patients; but doctors, too, can be stubborn just like the rest of us. Make sure you stand up for yourself.

A bridge fell in Baltimore this week. Hit by a container ship, the Francis Scott Key Bridge, built in 1972, collapsed like a pile of pick-up sticks, taking the lives of five construction workers. The quick action of other workers who stopped cars from entering the bridge just in time saved lives. I was attending Maryland Institute of Art in 1972, and may have travelled over that bridge myself. 

In 1973, a portion of the West Side Highway collapsed near 14th street under the weight of a truck carrying 60,000 pounds of asphalt. Four years later, I moved to a loft within walking distance of the collapse. I walked up the remainder of the road, which simply came to an end mid-air. Standing on what was left of the highway at the end of the asphalt with the Hudson flowing along to my left, I watched runners and bikers making use of the remaining highway as a safe path. 

Moving to Massachusetts in 2000, I watched the news in 2006 after the ceiling of the D Street portal of the Interstate 90 connector tunnel collapsed. I’ve always had a fear of falling as well as a fear of being trapped underground. The last two instances are examples of infrastructure which hasn’t been kept up. One could argue that no bridge could withstand being hit by such a large container ship and remain standing. But why then are container ships allowed to be large and heavy enough to become a threat to the bridges they must pass under?

Transporting bigger and bigger loads in order to make more money in less time has become a factor. A lack of national standards for workmanship and inadequate regulatory requirements were blamed for the ceiling’s collapse. We Americans hate paying taxes that support infrastructure. I live in a fairly affluent area outside of Boston. The roads are in such bad shape that I have to wear a soft cervical collar when I drive anywhere. 

Priorities…America has ignored at our own peril the lack of safe and affordable travel, both in automobiles as well as railroad and airplane. We chose to advance travel by car at the expense of public transportation, and have not kept up with the rest of the world. We have no high-speed trains, our cities are snarled by too many vehicles and air travel is a nightmare. Having put all of our investments in interstates rather than trains, we now complain about paying for their maintenance.