There is truly no greater joy than to have my sweet yet scarily precocious Angels in their car seats as we drive down to the beach, windows down, all of us belting out Karma by Taylor Swift.
They pay no attention to the fact that I can’t carry a tune; we’re nodding our heads and singing along with Apple music. “Play it again, Grandma!”
“Karma is my boyfriend.”
“I keep my side of the street clean. You wouldn’t know what I mean…” (Picture us mimic sweeping with our hands.)
“Karma is a cat…Purring in my lap ’cause it loves me.”
“Me and karma are like THAT.”
“Karma takes all my friends to the summit.”
“Karma’s gonna track you down Step by step from town to town.”
Like Taylor changed the lyrics to her bf’s name, I also change the words in this line…
“Karma is the guy on the screen coming straight home to me.”
to
“Karma is my two favorite kids coming straight home to me.”
Time spent with these Angel Kids is a neverending tapestry of shared joyful memories, including singing with tone deaf Grandma.
We finally had rain AND thunder! In the middle of a downpour, I absolutely forgot how to turn on my windshield wipers. I had to pull over and search for the owner’s manual to figure it out. That’s exactly how long it’s been since we had sky water! From last night to this morning, there was more than an inch of rain. More is on the way.
For some reason, it seems like a Cream kind of day, and I can’t exactly explain why I feel like this…
Ulysses, also known as Odysseus, is a character of Greek mythology. Homer wrote The Odyssey about Odysseus, king of Ithaca, who wanders for ten years (although the action of the poem covers only the final six weeks) trying to get home after the Trojan War.
When the original Angel Boy was young enough for nightly bedtime stories, we read The Odyssey to him (truth!) and think, in some small way, that it helped to encourage his professorial and writing talents.
Tales of Brave Ulysses
You thought the leaden winter Would bring you down forever But you rode upon a steamer To the violence of the sun
And the colours of the sea Bind your eyes with trembling mermaids And you touch the distant beaches With tales of brave Ulysses How his naked ears were tortured By the sirens sweetly singing For the sparkling waves are calling you To kiss their white laced lips
And you see a girl’s brown body Dancing through the turquoise And her footprints make you follow Where the sky loves the sea And when your fingers find her She drowns you in her body Carving deep blue ripples In the tissues of your mind
Tiny purple fishes Run laughing through your fingers And you want to take her with you To the hard land of the winter
Her name is Aphrodite And she rides a crimson shell And you know you cannot leave her For you touched the distant sands With tales of brave Ulysses How his naked ears were tortured By the sirens sweetly singing
Tiny purple fishes Run laughing through your fingers And you want to take her with you To the hard land of the winter
Background: The lyrics are inspired by Homer’s Odyssey, an account of the adventures undertaken by Ulysses. This can be seen in the song’s reference to “naked ears … tortured by the sirens sweetly singing,” an event from Homer’s epic. When interviewed on the episode of the VH1 show, Classic Albums, which featured Disraeli Gears, lyricist Martin Sharp explained that he had recently returned from Ibiza, which was the source of many of the images in the song (e.g. “tiny purple fishes run laughing through her fingers”) and the general feeling of having left an idyll to return to “the hard lands of the winter” https://www.lyricinterpretations.com/cream/tales-of-brave-ulysses
It’s cooling off even here in Southern California and now we can anticipate (or dread) shorter, darker days, to give us plenty of time for self reflection on the passage of time.
The Falling Leaves
Today, as I rode by,
I saw the brown leaves dropping from their tree
In a still afternoon,
When no wind whirled them whistling to the sky,
But thickly, silently,
They fell, like snowflakes wiping out the noon;
And wandered slowly thence
For thinking of a gallant multitude
Which now all withering lay,
Slain by no wind of age or pestilence,
But in their beauty strewed
Like snowflakes falling on the Flemish clay.
by Margaret Postgate-Cole (1893–1980)
I had to add this melancholy Nat King Cole song and just noticed he and the poet have the same last name. How cool is that coincidence!
The greatest thing you'll ever learn
Is just to love
And be loved in return.
I just learned the most incredibly interesting backstory about “Nature Boy”, Nat King Cole’s first big hit.
George Alexander Aberle (1908-1995), known as eden ahbez, was a songwriter and recording artist of the 1940s to 1970s, known to friends simply as ahbe.
In the late 40s, there was a rumor that there was a sort of hermit, disenchanted and disillusioned with the world, living in California in a cave under one of the Ls in the Hollywood sign.
No one really cared about this strange man until one night in 1947, he entered backstage at the Lincoln Theater in Los Angeles where Nat King Cole was playing. The man said he had something for Cole and he gave whatever he had to Cole’s manager.
Later, Cole tracked him down in New York City [no explanation about how he got from LA to NYC]. When Cole asked him where he was staying, the man declared he was staying at the best hotel in New York – outside, literally, in Central Park.
He said his name was eden ahbez (spelled all in lower-case letters). The song he gave Cole was titled “Nature Boy.” It became Cole’s first big hit, and was soon covered by other artists through the years; Frank Sinatra, Sarah Vaughan, Tony Bennett, and Lady Gaga.
The media went crazy about the mysterious man who handed Nat King Cole one of the biggest hits. Everyone tried to find out more about him.
What little they found was that he was once an orphan who never stayed at one place very long, living in various foster homes. He explained he just never fit in and was always searching for something.
“They say he wandered very far…Very far, over land and sea…”
They found out he would hop freight trains and walked across country several times, subsisting solely on raw fruits and vegetables.
“A little shy and sad of eye…But very wise was he…”
ahbez would eventually get his message out when the hippie movement began, with other artists such as Donovan, Grace Slick, and the Beach Boys’ Brian Wilson sought him out. He also wrote songs for Eartha Kitt and had another song recorded by Sam Cooke.
IIn 1974, ahbez was reported to be living in the Los Angeles suburb of Sunland. He owned a record label named Sunland Records, recording under the name “Eden Abba.” From the late 1980s until his death, ahbez worked closely with Joe Romersa, an engineer/drummer in Los Angeles. The master tapes, photos, and final works of eden ahbez are in Romersa’s possession.
Ahbez died in 1995 at the age of 86, of injuries sustained in a car accident.
As I was writing this post, I learned that we lost Sinead O'Connor, another one-of-a-kind talent. "Nothing Compares to You" can't be surpassed, whether she sang it or Prince did. There's so much that could be said about Sinead's tragic life, but I'll just honor her music and not dwell on the other stuff.
Since Tony Bennett died last week, I’ve been listening to a lot of the old standards by the great ones: Sinatra and Fitzgerald and Nat King Cole.
I don’t know how I missed the news, but I didn’t realize that Natalie Cole died several years ago.
Her voice was magical.
Natalie carried on her dad’s incredible legacy with an enormous gift of her own. She died at the age of sixty-five from idiopathic pulmonary arterial hypertension which led to heart failure after she received a kidney transplant in 2009.
I always loved this bittersweet duet. They’re both unforgettable.
Another musical legend gone too soon, Gordon Lightfoot charmed us with his beautiful, evocative voice. Bob Dylan once said that when he hears a Gordon Lightfoot song, he wishes it could go on forever.
Today would have been my mom’s birthday and I heard that Burt Bacharach died. He was one of my mom’s favorite artists.
While we were baking together or cleaning the house, wearing the apron I still have hanging up in the kitchen, she’d sing along with an album or the radio, which REALLY REALLY embarrassed me — I thought she was so annoying, but I miss hearing her voice now. She could carry a tune and I cannot, even though I had voice lessons…oh well, not one my skills, I guess.
So much awesome music like “Raindrops Keep Falling on My Head” and “Do You Know the Way to San Jose” and “Alfie.
Rest in peace, Burt.
Here are some of my mom’s favorites:
One of my favorite singers, Cilla Black and one of Burt Bacharach’s best-loved songs, too.
After yet another too real lucid dream about my kitty Bandit, I’ve been thinking about all of my children, from Misty to Tawny to Sabrina, Yenta, and Stella Rondo (named for a character in a short story by Eudora Welty) to Victor, Blackie, darling Ban — cats and dogs, mostly Border Collies, but also my rescued wolf hybrid Beowulf (of course) and crazy Tovah, my neurotic black German Shepherd.
I can’t wait to meet my babies again; happy and healthy. It’s going to be HEAVENly.
This post seems like a perfect place to share a little Leon Russell, Over The Rainbow…
From selenite to moon glow to reflecting on ways to become improved humans, we can’t forget our shadow side as well as our bright lovelight.
Carl Jung believed that we needed to see, understand, embrace, and accept our shadow side to become a fully integrated and fully functional human.
As much work as that seems to be to self reflect, with the full moon in a few days, I think it might be time to bring home another piece of selenite, don’t you?
For me, a little retail therapy is a bit more enlightening and illuminating than wallowing in sadness and guilt. At least, it’s less painful…
Enchanted Seashells | Princess Rosebud 