30 Days of Gratitude: Day 1 -- Hope

Square Case Self Portrait
August 2008 Ralieghwood, NC
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30 Days of Gratitude: Day 1 (In no particular order...)

Hope

Hope is NOT a thing with feathers, the thing with feathers is my nephew, and I have to take him to a specialist in Zurich.
-- Woody Allen

In the darkest days of my unemployment there were still the fraying strands of hope, dangling down before me. Logically, I could tell myself that I would, eventually, find a job... some job... even if it was flipping burgers at Burger World... The harder part was believing that I'd find a job (a) that paid enough to cover all of our bills (b) plus health insurance (c) soon enough that we wouldn't lose the house and be out on the streets trying to find some place where we could all live with our cats.

Dispair was relatively easy to come by. Depression was the looming presence that greeted me each and every morning as soon as I woke up. Panic and anxiety were just a few well-worn though paths away, any time, day or night.

There were many things that kept me going though those days including several good friends, my wife, a sense of responsibility and that intangible thing known as Hope.

Hope is faith holding out its hand in the dark.
--George Iles

I would like to say that it was My Strong and Abiding Faith in a Just and Loving God that got me through the darkest of days. I really would. Instead, I felt then -- and still feel today -- that I was in some sort of Great Theological Testing Chamber and spent days weeks on end failing spectacularly. I still don't feel that I'm all that good of a Child of God; in fact I often bounce back and forth between belief and doubt, trust and anger, understanding and confusion.

I'm also extremely cynical about a great many things in life. I believe Man is Inherently Good, but that it takes very little for Greed and Fear to corrupt a person. I frequently expect the worst in situations -- but still hold out hope for the best. And I try to approach life with the worst of expectations well hidden and try to face people and situations with high hopes.

So, here's to Hope.

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30 Days of Gratitude: Day 2 -- Music

Maggie
August 2008 Ralieghwood, NC
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30 Days of Gratitude: Day 2

Music

There is something about the best of music that transcends mere coordinated sound wave patterns. It's able to go outside of space and time, to bring forth sharp memories, to take me places or times I've never been before and/or make me smile so wide and big.

I grew up with music in the house, although neither of my parents played instruments. My mother and father's album collection was never something I spent time paying attention to. My mother listened to her Glenn Yarborough and Rod McKuen albums a lot and when she listened to the radio her station of choice was (I kid you not) Washington, DC's only muzak station. ("WGAY: The Beautiful Music Station") After church on Sunday afternoons my mother insisted on listening to "Matinee at One", WGAY's one-hour run-through of a broadway stage musical's soundtrack with just enough exposition between numbers to give a sense of the storyline. (That's the reason I know so many show tunes to this day)

By my early teens I had managed to buy a $50 acoustic guitar and found a Paul Simon Songbook at my Jr. High School's library that I kept checked out for months. Younger friends of my parents turned me on to the early albums by John Denver and I soon had a John Denver Songbook as well. I remember spending Friday nights trying to get my fingers to cooperate with the C - G - C - G - C - G - D chord changes of "Leaving on a Jet Plane."

In my late teens the first of two major life changes occurred -- I met Todd Fredell and started spending weekends in DC. Friday afternoon I'd get home from school, change clothes and pack for the weekend and then take the 32 bus to the White House, get off and catch a bus heading up 16th street. Two hours of travel later, I'd be at Todd's and there was always something to do there.

Musically, Todd was blessed with his older brother, Doug's, record collection. There I was exposed to Bowie, BeBop Deluxe, Roxy Music, Yes... My musical mind was expanded in ways I'd never imagined.

The second life change took place when I was 18 and landed a job at The Kite Site in Georgetown. The Kite Site's radio station of choice was WHFS, free-form radio from Bethesda (or BUH-thesda), Maryland. If Todd opened the doors of musical perception, WHFS (especially Weasel, Bob Here and Damian) kicked the jams out with an eclectic mix of acoustic singer-songwriter, blues, rock, and that great late seventies/early eighties New Wave sound.

Music became one of the ways in which I defined myself. The new music I was being exposed to on a daily basis (8 hours a day -- and getting paid for it!) was helping me to express my personality as something distinct from my parents and my upbringing.

(It also became one of the ways in which I would assess someone new -- to this day if I go to someone's home for the first time I check out the book shelves and the cd racks to get a quick take on their likes and tastes).

I foolishly dismissed my ex's preferences for Air Supply and Lionel Richie before we were married. When we moved to Connecticut and there was nothing but Adult Contemporary music stations on the radio I felt stifled. The first time I heard a college radio station playing "a new song by REM" ("Ages of You" from Dead Letter Office) I practically bounced in the car through the entire song.

Bonn and I have very similar tastes in music. :)

Today I listen to just about anything -- except country, metal, rap and opera. I try to stay open-minded about all types of music and am generally willing to give just about anything a try. I'm admittedly not 'up' on music the way I was back in the 80s and my tastes have shifted away from the techno-dance grooves that seem to be popular today. At werk I have several weeks' worth of music, ranging from Gregorian Chants to singer-songwriter, to New Age, to blues to REM to most of the albums I first listened to in Todd's living room. At home, my record collection sits next to my cassette tapes, my cds and burned mp3 collection.

They all get grateful airplay. :)

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