There are two things that occupy my thoughts throughout each day lately: the songs we've recorded for the up-coming EP, and the words of the songs we've recorded for the up-coming EP.  I'm spending a lot of time in nature (Hawaii's landscape being conducive such time) going over the messages and ideas i want these songs to portray.

The visit to So. Cal was far too short... not enough time to see everyone I wanted to see, but the visit was productive. Seeing some dear friends (Dave, the Rollingstone picture of you with Ness and Springsteen is now on my desktop, but I forgot to get your autograph ;)! And Amilcar, there's never enough time to get all the conversations in) was a treat that I'm still buzzing from!

I have a live recording from Lestat's to share from it. "All The Same" just posted here.

Mahalo to Kim for the amazing harmonies,
to Lou for the amazing sound,
to Jason for the amazing pictures,
to friends in music for all the fun!

XO,
r

p.s. I have a pile of more writings I plan on posting here... just to give you a heads up on the future rambles coming your way soon. Stay tuned friends.

Then there were the songs. I would hear him letting out beats and prisons in the quiet of his self-imposed exile. Freeing himself from a world that would surely drown him otherwise. And I felt tantalizingly liberated in my invisibility. Hiding in plain sight for he was entirely blind in those days.

I dreaded the day when he would regain his sight. Fearful that the songs would end and I would be left with a lump of flesh no longer recognizable.

And just like blindness, cheating the shadows of light, he would use his percipient interpretations to create a world all his own, that everyone found familiar once in view. Shouting his politics. Whispering his ideologies that were compellingly anachronistic. Somehow folding you into his perfectly flawed Utopia. Contradictions and all. Finding a safety you know does not exist, yet you are willingly deceived.

And this was the beauty of his gift.

I took to calling him Orpheus when I knew he could not hear me. Screaming his name across continents. Subjecting myself to profound humiliation in hopes of hearing just one more creation. One more composition to assuage my muses.

Though there is a good deal of distance between us now, I am still in tune with his working art. It persuades me from my indolence at times when movement seems oppressive and challenges my complacency.

I only hope a man so blind should never see again.

"This is your captain speaking..." The steward is making his rounds. I've never seen such a large man working as a steward before and I wonder if the narrow isles of our airbus irritate him.

"Could I get you something to drink?"

"Yes, please, vodka and cranberry please." I don't know why I am always saying please twice. I feel awkward asking people to do things for me.

Poor Kim is deathly ill in the seat next to me and I'm hoping that the next twelve hours don't completely do her in. I am also curious as to why she insisted on the window seat when she has been 'losing her cookies' for the past two days, but I am not about to argue with a nauseated woman.

A sweet, old man is sitting in the isle seat to the right of me. His wife is on the other side of the cabin and he is watching her to make sure she is settled.

"I'm sorry that you are not seated together." I am a compulsive apologizer. "Would you like me to trade seats with her so that you can be together?"

"Oh, no." says the sweet old man, "We requested different seats. She needs more leg room than I and after 52 years of marriage, we're not too concerned with seating assignments anymore. I read that book a long time ago. How do you like it?"

I glance at my book in delay, not forgetting I was holding it, but surprised by the question. 'Atlas Shrugged' by Ayn Rand. I am in the last two hundred pages of the bible-sized book (a book whose popularity is second only to that OF the bible... at least in most of North America) and smile at the finding of another literate friend.

"I do. Very much. Did you enjoy it as well?" He has warm eyes and though it is not entirely comfortable at this close proximity, seated side-by-side, we lock in perceptive and intelligent eye contact. I smile without showing my teeth.

"I remember valuing her particular take on capitalism at the time. But I was younger then and have forgotten a lot of the ideas I had so long ago. Now I don't read much at all but I do remember John Galt." Once again I smile. Once again I don't show my teeth.

His eyes are pools of memories and I can see the things he does not wish to remember swimming in them.

Many moments pass before I leave the pools long enough to gather words to express my take on the philosophy of Ms. Rand. I want to ask him other, more personal questions. Questions about his pool-eyes, but he is a stranger and it is safer to stick to literature. For now.

"I appreciate her vivid characterizations who exist within the realm of her objectivist philosophy." As I open my book to the back page to read the quote of Rand's that is printed there I am telling him why I am so inspired by her ideas. I talk too much when I am excited.

"'My philosophy, in essence, is the concept of man as a heroic being, with his own happiness as the moral purpose of his life, with productive achievement as his noblest activity, and reason as his only absolute.'" ~Ayn Rand

As I finish reading the quote the steward who is too large for the isles has returned with a tiny bottle of Smirnoff and a plastic cup with red liquid on ice. I smile. This time I show my teeth.

"Thank you. Thank you so much." I am a compulsive thanker as well.

Once the plane completes her ascent and Kim has paid her dues to the mile-high vomitorium a couple of times, she lapses into (what I can only hope is) a bordering state of comatose. She looks tiny and fragile to me, sleeping so still, and I feel guilty for my health.

We have had a rough journey in Europe having been robbed in Dublin and her purse lifted in London, and I hope that we will still be as close of friends after this trip as we were before. Friendships are never the same once you've experienced loss together. Some friendships never recover. I think Kim and I will be OK. Once we sleep for at least seventy-two hours. She is so little. She is so still. And I love her.

The lights in the cabin are dim and the babies must be sleeping because all I hear is the roar of the engines. The sweet old man gets up to go check on his wife while the steward who is too large for the isles returns to ask if I would like another drink.

"I love that book." He says. I must have picked this book from the 'most likely to start random conversations' section of the bookstore. "How 'bout another drink?"

"That would be lovely." I haven't forsaken my pseudo Irish accent just yet. I am sad to be leaving and am trying to hold on to whatever I can of this part of the world I love so much, robberies notwithstanding.

The steward who is too large for the isles returns with his hands full of tiny Smirnoff bottles. He drops them judiciously into my bag that is standing open at my feet and simultaneously dips into his cart to hand me a large bottle of cranberry juice. I smile in spite of my perplexity. I show more teeth than is appropriate for the discreet gesture. I say 'thank you.' Twice.

I drink until the words I am reading begin to do semi circles in a counter-clockwise direction and then I go to sleep. With the little girl I love on my left. And the sweet old man on my right. I dream about western european accents and the smell of pubs in rural Ireland.

I knew where it would take me and I went there anyway. Embracing the fall and the journey to it. From the precipice I could see the demise of those who thought they were impervious to the elements. There was a small prick of anxiety in my chest and a helplessness in my knees, but my shoulders kept the machine in motion.

It takes water, pressure and minerals to create this sort of flesh. Such an advanced and complex ecosystem all breathing as one formidable being. And here we stand, you and I, almost feeling the bend of earth as the adrenaline wanes. Dripping with endorphins. Staggering with drunken approbation.

It is strange to me that we are disconnected from this garden almost all of our breathing days. I have seen rain fall from the rocks. The whore of a river will change from dormancy to rage in moments, yet I can't seem to move any faster.

The evolution seems to be partially fractured. I have seen it all through eyes I must have borrowed, bones that are on loan who creak and feign their sanction.

Kierkegaard must have known just what this feels like but all I have to read is Thoreau. And that is why I stand here wondering where the earth ends and I begin or if there is any distinction between the two at all.

I am not religious, but I believe in Zion.

There were plenty of paths to choose from. I saw the apprehension in her eyes even as she made her hasty decision.

"The best thing to do is to keep moving. The best thing to do is to keep moving." She said while I was busy trying to grab hold of the thread of thought I was grappling with all afternoon.

Some would have said we were lost, seeing as we were not exactly sure where we were on the mountain, but we weren't at all concerned with our geographic coordinates. According to the sun, who was making her westward descent, we were headed north and that was all we needed to know.

I don't care where we are as long as we're here. I don't care where we are as long as we're here.

"When you're up here, like this, so secluded, do you ever imagine you're existing before... before all- this? Before the white man came. Before the missionaries came to teach christianity; that spiritual decoy designed to keep them busy while stealing the land from under them?"

I do. That's what I've been wrestling with. Seems to me, they were doing just fine before the skyscrapers and commerce. Before governmental strategies. Before the World Wars, the Navy, the PCC, the Universities. But I guess I'll never know as a white girl. I'm only lucky enough to know the beauty of this place BECAUSE of all the changes that have taken place over the past one hundred years. Is it wrong to be grateful for something even though I oppose the tactics that brought about its' realization?

"No." She said.

"'No' you DON'T imagine what it was like before?"

"I mean, no, it's not wrong to be grateful, you little haole-girl."

I am always amazed when she does that.

I am always amazed when she does that.

thub-dub - thub-dub - thub-dub

the sound of the old train echos my beating heart. there was a woman at the last stop hesitating. the silence of her questioning was astonishingly loud as it was all i noticed in those five and a half seconds. she made a move to exit, then pulled away from the door as though her hand had been burned by the touch. the self-doubt exhibited on her features was gut-wrenchingly obvious and i wished to have the answer to the question she was asking herself. i felt a stab of pleasure at the momentary escape from a personal refuge.

are the questions that i have been asking myself so clearly displayed on my face as they are on hers? i wonder if the sidelong glances i feel from the old man to my left indicates the knowledge he has of my current state of mirth, a single definition of all that came before this day of deliverance. from the look on the woman's face as she took the plunge to exit the train a split second before the movement became impossible, i would guess this day to be her day of deliverance as well.

and i can't help but to think of all that came before this day and all that had to happen in order to find myself, as i do now, at the doorstep of a world i hardly knew existed. a civilization of ancient knowledge and questions, hypothesis and science, literature and language. and in this swirling vacuum of ideas i find the tools for discovering all that i desire to grok as well as the intense satisfaction in the grokking.

every question i've ever asked has led me to this day. to this moment, even as it passes.

ping - ping - ping

my body moves in delay to the sway of the train and i relish the feeling of physical abandon. enjoying the sensation of a slight smile i make no attempt to conceal. the sense of the glances from the left of me are penetratingly stronger and i begin to wonder if i am speaking my thoughts aloud. it seems there is something amiss but i may be wrong. i am aware of the heightened sensitivity i have been feeling today and dare not look at the old man again, positive that the nature of my thoughts will be directly visible in my face. he makes the decision for me.

'hello renata'

before i turn to look at him i know who he is and why he was looking at me so intensely and for so long.

'hi dad'

as i wake i wonder why so many of my dreams take place on trains.

Thank you to the 2006 San Diego Music Awards for the nomination for best acoustic act....
this is super!!

Now, here's what I could use YOUR help with:
go to http://sandiegomusicawards.com/ and click 'Vote Now!"
If you vote for me I'll bake some cookies for you.

BIG affectionate hug,
Renata

This is bitter-sweet.  The end of something. The beginning of something. I haven't felt this way before.  The heat of the London streets choking my breath while I search for the words to describe this.

"Here you go, love.  Have it.  It's yours."  And my haste displays the desire I thought I could hide. 

I saw the woman sitting on the edge of the water.  I think she was crying, or laughing and I didn't want her to be aware of my presence... I wanted to observe this moment unnoticed.  To see the life-force that makes the city swell and the streets  whisper their stories of the horror they have seen.  The people they have destroyed and the birth they have witnessed.

I stood in silence. 

"Did you say something?"

"I was only asking where you are going."

I haven't thought of it.  I haven't been able to think of anything other than this place.  It seems like I have been here before though I am sure that I haven't.  Familiar smells of sodium and flesh.

Stop for a minute.  Lend your hand to the water and surrender the instinct to control.  Some things were never meant to be forced.  Some times we all have to let go.

Take a look around you.

Remember this.

This is living.

This is life at it's best and most flavorful.

Thank you to the LA Music Awards for their Nomination for 'Female Singer-Songwriter of the Year 2006'

Much Love,
Renata