On this crystalline morning in the Willamette Valley, frost furs the fallen leaves and pre-Solstice day length ratchets relentlessly downward. The press of darkness and seeping cold seems to encourage a circling of life. When I was nineteen, what I wanted most was a career playing jazz trombone. I likely had the right stuff: enough talent, the dedication to play five hours a day, and some developing connections. Then a lot of impetuous living happened, and I emerged from the educational system fourteen years later with a Ph.D. in evolutionary genetics. Go figger. My trombone still leans in a corner to my left, partially obscured by a cardboard mailing tube and the black legs of a microphone stand. Usually I just avert my eyes and get on with what remains of a glorious existence that has unfolded through a mysterious combination of intention, opportunity, stubbornness, accident, generosity, and a lot of Love.
Life continues to happen. Half a century later, through the (dubious) wonder of social media I have become friends (I mean actual friends) with jazz guitarist Don Latarski. Don recently joined The Nature of Gratitude team, a marvelous group of collaborators who provide insights into gratitude using music, spoken word, and photography. Don played with me during a production of NOG last April while I read “Letter to My Father.” It was a magical moment, and our work together has been steadily unfolding in the way of a germinating seed. Don’s musical sensitivity to spoken word has been astonishing from the beginning. I have long known that my writing is a stand-in for that trombone still calling from the corner. Yet working with Don has rekindled the creative coals of melody, chord, and rhythm that have lain dormant for decades, waiting for the right breath, the right fuel, the right moment to flare.
Other friendships have unfolded. Laura Dubois is music director of a local nondenominational church, Unity of the Valley, and executive director for the online nonprofit project Connecting from the Heart. Together with sound and video engineer Ryan Zimmer, they have produced a library of inspirational music videos designed to provide respite for people suffering from various emotional traumas brought on during the pandemic. Those traumas continue. Thankfully, so does Connecting from the Heart.
You know where this is going. Laura invited Don and me to produce a series of five videos for CFTH. Time was limited, and each track was done in a single take. We practiced most of the pieces only once. Regardless, perfection has never been the goal. As Don likes to say, “it’s all about the flow.” Like a river. A rattling riffle. A deep pool. A swirling eddy that tugs you gently below the surface, then releases. A liquid and ever-shifting continuum of music and words.
All five writings are from my book Palindrome: Grateful Reflections from the Home Ground. I’ll post the videos as they become available on the CFTH website. The first is entitled “Sift,” a poetic recounting of backpacking my father’s ashes to an alpine lake in the mountains of western Idaho, a place that has become the focus of an intergenerational family pilgrimage. The language and guitar are as austere as the granite crags that encircle the lake, and Ryan has enhanced this aura by rendering the video in sepia tones.
When I watch the recording, I imagine sitting with Don on the granite boulder referenced in the poem. Words rise on the resonant notes of his baritone guitar and circle the small basin above the lake. Mother Mountain Goat with twin kids stop grazing sparse grass on a narrow ledge to look down at us. Black Bear down in the draw takes a break from rummaging a rotten log for grubs, raising his long nose to gather in the scent of sound. From the shade of a stunted western white pine on the ridge behind us, Mule Deer turns his velvet antlers toward words that take wing on music. For a few blessed moments, the hurtling of time onward into infinity simply stops.
View the video from the CFTH homepage here (scroll down to “Watch our newest release. ). Make a holiday donation to CFTH here.
Find more of Don Latarski’s music through his website, see his recent albums with Heart Dance Records, and download from your favorite service.
Order a signed copy of Palindrome: Grateful Reflections from the Home Ground directly from me, purchase one from Tsunami Books or J. Michaels Books in Eugene, or order online from Barnes and Noble.
So happy for this collaboration, Tom. You meld with Don and made this day more peaceful and full. Thanks for doing this. I can't think of a better way to play your words out into the world.
Lovely combination of talents and gifts ..
and life. Love you, Claudia