TIME AND LOVE

My eldest gave me a record player for Christmas.  Which I am loving for a lot of reasons.  At some point, I gave him all of my vinyl - and all of my father's vinyl.   Which I am going to get back soon - even though I am not going to go up into his friend Ant's attic to search through all of the hundreds of albums he has stored up there.

In the meantime, I have one album, which is a great album to have if you only have one.  Laura Nyro's New York Tendaberry  Originally released in 1969 - I remember spending hours and hours listening to it, so rich with sound and her vocals soaring through them - like one crazily vocal bird or an entire murmuration.

The lyrics of Time and Love...I am reminded of what a touchstone they have always been for me.  Both then, and hearing them again, now.  A panacea to what we are going through, for sure.

So winter froze the river

And winter birds don't sing

So winter makes you shiver

So time is gonna bring you spring

Time and love

Everybody

Time and love,

Nothing cures like

Time and love

Don't let the devil fool you

Here comes a dove

Nothing cures like Time and love

you been runnin', you been ramblin',

And you don't know what to do

A holy golden wager says

That love will see you through

Time and love

So Jesus was an angel

And mankind broke his wing

But Jesus gave his lifeline

So sacred bells could sing

Time and love

Early on I was able to see her twice in Detroit.  Once at the University of Detroit, in the Memorial Union - which I remember as a gym.  She and her piano were on risers and we sat in the round - I was very, very close to her piano.  It was remarkable.  The other time was at Masonic Temple, also a great venue - but more traditional.

I've missed the rhythm of how an album is set up.  I've missed the kind of focus it requires...and I've even missed having to get up and turn it over.


Happy 2020 to us all.

details from the Chagall stained glass window - Chicago Art Institute

Miss Eva is wearing earrings shaped like old time Christmas tree bulbs.
and they   blink    blink    blink
as she walks to the altar and receives the plate of hosts
The body of Christ, she says.
Blink    blink    blink.
The body of Christ. 

Blink. 

Miss Eva works in home health care.
She is the nurse you would want sitting next to your bed as you lay dying.
"Now let me fix your pillow" 

Blink    blink. 

The body of Christ.
Do you need a clean sheet baby?  It's okay if it's dirty. 

Blink. 

Let me do that for you. 

Blink.   

The body of Christ.
Miss Eva is a light in the darkness, a beacon, a reason.

Blink. 

Miss Eva with those earrings
standing around the altar with the other ministers
(ministers of the cup / ministers of the host)
watching her I laugh out loud with pure joy.
Funny, slightly scandalous, those blinking bulbs.
It did scandalize some of the ladies in the choir
and certainly Miss Augusta.
The more I thought about it, the more profound it was
when you look at HER
at the totality of her
of what she does 

run the food bank
nursing the dying,
singing, ministering to us all
her kindness to children 

those damn little lights should blink forever. 

She is blinking
she is a living heartbeat of love and service. 

Blink    blink   blink
blink    beat    beat
blink    beat    blink

____________________________________

Miss Eva reminds me that everyone I meet has something to offer - as I am so often quick to forget it.

Janelle always told me I could sing and I would never believe her.  Here I was thirty years later, singing in a gospel choir - an alto no less - and feeling happy and proud of being able to do that (no doubt in part to the remarkable support of the community that had taken me in).

A couple of things they did for me.  They helped me learn to like my voice, to love the way making music is able to take me outside of myself.  They reminded me of a world outside of academia, outside of "Art" (with a capital A).  I have done a lot of writing about this experience but never put any of it out in the world.  

Last week Laura told me that Miss Eva had passed away last year - and so I think it is time to honor her with the writing that I started years back.