MORNINGSNOW
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"Give Her A Name For Sorrow" came alive last night, friday january 25 2013. Need some sleep now....Goodnight Love.
november 30 1999. This morning I found this draft of a letter, a concept.
Harry, my dearest, my love,
From time to time we discussed that, should my suffering become unbearable, I will leave this life. Well my love, now that time has come. I want to go to God Our Father, our Creator.
Let me go; I will be so much better off when I will be with Our Father.
My love, was so happy with you. You gave me love, tenderness.
All that time, hours, months of sickness and pain you were there with me. You supported me in my suffering, together with God.
All that time you were sitting next to me, looking at me, your sweet smile, your radiance, your hands in mine, comforting me, caressing me.
All these days, hours, months (years) we shared were wonderful.
Do not be sad for my sake. you did well. This was real love between me and you, love given to us by God, Our Sweet Lord. All these beautiful hours we were together, often praying with God in silence.
So, my love, you have given me everything.
No one ever gave me so much love but you and God, Our Father.
Love you my love, you my dearest, dearest – love.
Annet.
INDIAN SUMMER
“Dancing Lady” is about how it all began, a love for Annet, the Unimaginable One (I said to my friend M. :”I don’t really know what to do...” M. just laughed.)
It was my second visit to Annet’s place, I took my guitar and improvised “Dancing Lady”; she danced to it like a flower on the water, she laughed and was beautiful, eyes shining, until she plummeted down into her chair to catch her breath; Annet, rigid with arthritis, diabetes, bottle of oxygen, crutches, breathingdevice humming through the night blinking a little green light telling that all is now OK; Annet danced for 3 minutes without pain.
Then the evening and the night, talking, eating, drinking, music, more talking, dozing off for ten minute spells (morphine), waking up in a second, the blue lakes of her eyes bright with anticipation, telling me how she saw the Lord after a carcrash when she was 18, her two brothers died, she was in a coma for months; people by a bedside sometimes talk as if the comatuse herself is not present and that’s how Annet found out there was no hope, she thought :”Oh no!” and Death had to settle for this for a long time. He came to fetch her in Ispahan*) that first night I was there, I could see him standing behind her, dark and quiet, like I heard him say :”Your move or mine?”, so I made my move, put my arms around her, her eyes shining with the Lord who came to her when she thought “Oh no!” and had just looked at her with eyes so calm, even Peace makes more noise Annet said, His eyes were still and warm and she knew she would live. Then I wrote “Indian Summer”**) just one, Lord, leave us together for a while, then You may come and show her Your Face, after all she knows You! The beginning and the end, her first song and the last, the song with which we saw her off (my last love...), exactly the way she wanted it and foresaw it all, a circle initiated and closed with a song. Indian Summer. Five summers. A life.
(may 20 2005)
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*) “The Gardener and Death”,(page morningsnow 2) a dutch poem, is situated in Ispahan in Persia, now Iran.
**)when autumn sets in in the southern states of America it is often interrupted with a few weeks of warm weather, the Indian Summer.
ISPAHAN
Was Death astonished, that night, at the girl? She put on makeup and picked her finest clothes, long black skirt, silk white blouse (“made it myself!”) and said:”One more time, Death, will I receive a visitor, shine and say Goodbye. Then you may come and get me!” But I saw his shadow behind her, only for a second, while she was beaming with the memory; I took her in my arms and refused to leave. Do I have to tell you this was not what she intended, that I should see how the insuline slowly took hold of her; how she suddenly locked herself in her bedroom so her dear visitor would understand that behind the bedroomdoor the Exit was ajar and that now, in style and with dignity, she wanted to leave? I wouldn’t leave, I called her friends J. and T. and J. must have spent an hour talking to the bedroomdoor, woman to woman, while T. was uneasily watching me, until Annet came shuffling out, her eyes wide with sorrow and an unspoken reproach to me: “Don’t you understand?”
Then we raced through the black night in T.’s little car, Annet gradually becoming more and more confused and submissive, to the hospital, she slowly drifted further away and finally, being hoisted into a bed, she sunk into a coma. The hospitalstaff weren’t happy with a person who wanted to say farewell to life, but after seringes, taking blood and a drip we were left alone for a moment. I took her hand in mine and softly sang a song I didn’t know, I’ve never been able to sing it again:
“Ayete*)
everything will be allright
unfold your wings and
find the Light –“
“Marco!” she whispered. “Mirella!” Where they there, her children, in Ispahan, to see her? I kept singing bravely, it seemed for hours, till she opened her eyes and said:”I dreamed I was in Kenya”-
Elafo**); is your soul African, my sweet, is that where your soul will go to, not now please, born on a song that was given to me and taken away again because it should be sung only once? Only the echo of my memory tells me it was so: “Ayete,
everything will be allright –“
*) Ayete: swahili, meaning “all is well.” In her teens Annet spent a year as an aupairgirl in Kenya, one of the happiest times of her life.
**)Elafo: swahili, meaning “longing for home, the place the soul returns to after death.”
THAT’S ALL I WANTED TO SAY
Yes, she was very ill, the devices I mentioned before made their entry one by one:
wheelchair and crutches were already there and so, that first night after the hospital, I wheeled her like a princess on a private tour through the village she hadn’t seen for over a year, she took it all in, the streetlights, the scents of plants and trees, the starspangled sky and she enjoyed it.
According to medicine it was impossible for her to live, but for me now, she, Annet The Unstoppable Gogetter, went straight for the goal and the goal was TO LIVE as if it were her last day, which was true when you think of it, because we lived in Ispahan where Death held his breath by the bedroomdoor and often interrupted my making music or writing to help her through asthma-attacks, heartrhytmdisorder or sugarcoma, from which she once recovered with a shock and said :”The Holy Mother says you did well –“ she looked at me as if she had spent a moment in Heaven, her face was 10 years younger – she survived a hundred and one times.
Death interrupted me? Yes, more than once, while being immersed in writing or recording acitivities I felt some one tap me on the shoulder. There was a Presence, an Angel I am sure, and for some reason he had a deep affection for Annet. There was a feeling of Grace, Mercy coming over me every time I felt this touch.
There would be many times I felt presences of various kinds, sometimes when things were critical, I could hardly move, having the impression the bedroom was crammed with Angels. There is "more" my friend, nothing is fixed, reality is not about being here nor there, and time and space are illusions. Time will stretch to twice - 3 times the length - if Need be.
But we had lots of fun, laughing for no reason, we had outings, wheelchair in the car, to Maastricht, sometimes boldly steering the wheelchair into the crowd (“Come, my dear, let’s part the Red Sea”) and obediently the masses yielded to Annet’s sweet smile, once a baby in a pram stared in wonder at the sight of a grownup being wheeled ahead, and Annet laughed again. We had snacks at the cafetaria near the bridge, we were together, that was all we needed and would always be - life isn’t all that hard when the pair of you set your minds on it –
or to Rijckholt, lovely little village that was so good to me when I lived there; in the fields surrounding the village there is a chapel where caring sisters and soulsearchers light candles in the middle of the night; there, at 2 after midnight, a window glares across the farminglands; when approaching it one finds it’s a small chapel, its open gate throwing light on the path, with an endearing Maria-idol: She tenderly looks down on the Child in Her arm, the Child, laughing, stretches out Its little hand, index pointing at the candles.
Then I put the breaks on the wheelchair, covered Annet’s legs and feet with a warm blanket, and her face was shining when she looked at Mother and Child: “Oh, how beautiful She is-“
and there we were, I had spent there countless sleepless nights myself and now too, the tiny sounds, a mosquito, a sleepy bird, a rodent in the grass, the heavy breathing of cattle in the field nearby, did their wholesome job and, rosary in her hand, she dozed off. Her little face said: “This is home.” I loved her. Still do. That’s all I wanted to say –
FROM MOMENT TO MOMENT
We live from moment to –
In the car in the moonlight-
Drielandenpunt*) in Vaals – Geoff is steering Annet’s wheelchair, rollercausterride with the Laughing Lady –
our wedding with just a handfull of sweet loyal guests –
the coffeeshop she filled with her laughter –
Eric’s boat, floating garden on the river –
-to moment –
waking up at night, in pain, respatory depression- talking till morning – a letter on the table when I wake up :”Good day my love, last night I was thinking –” and then stories about Love Not Expected Anymore, hope and things that will always be a secret, our Secret, but it was always about love –“God is watching us, love-” from moment to moment –
nights sitting next to you on the bed, you out of my reach, out of this world, holding your hand, praying your heart will pull through, hoping you’ll wake up and look at me with those eyes – those are the longest moments –
but then thank God there is the field, the sky, the river, a white boat and a wild swan and LIGHT, an abundance of light pouring over it all, dissolving all these long dark moments into nothing but Love –
did you expect that, love?
may 29 2005
*)Drielandenpunt: the point where three borders meet in Vaals, Germany, Belgium and the Netherlands touch here. It’s a tourist attraction with a playground for children, a cableway (it’s situated on a high hill with a breathtaking view) and, of course, a restaurant.
‘SPOOK’
“Spook!” That’s what she called every one she loved, and that was just about everybody. I became the Spook of Night. In those days Spook was sometimes desperate, tried not to let it show; Spook was looking for something to cling on to in the dark.
It was a stuffy night, a thunderstorm was brewing and static did something to the microphone – Elvis was in the room.*) Sweat trickled down on my guitar and tears of powerlessness – and I played, it sounded like a cry, a lament, like everything I still have no words for: Spook was adrift on the ocean and only his guitar kept him afloat. God can You use these Blues?
Later I would write the song “Spook” with her direct simple words, her comfort for the Spook of Night. But not yet, first the train would come, imaginary vehicle for my soul, that was doomed to stay behind at the station waiting for the next train, waving goodbye. She would say:”Bye bye Spook! Don’t you stay alone now!” And Spook would wave farewell and think :”I will never be alone, my love, you’ll always be there.” but his mouth would say:”Of course, love, don’t worry!”
Slow train, you’ll be my home.
may 29 2005
SLOW TRAIN
‘Slow Train’ was in my head, every night I heard long trains pulling through Rijckholt, taking minutes to pass, sometimes almost half an hour, one after another, the shrieking and grinding of slow heavily loaded trains, but I missed a line to keep it all together, to make sense of an otherwise meaningless tune.
There was a programm on TV about the Blues, and an old man called Travis sang in a broken voice, accompanying himself on the “harp”**), the sentence that would give me so much strength. Like a cunning thief I hid this gem where nobody would find it, in broad daylight:
“Waiting at the station,
next train will be my go.”
Thank you Travis, for the best line I ever stole, it took me places...
may 29 2005
*)When Elvis made his first recording “Blue Moon”, there was a thunderstorm brewing, and the static added an unexpected effect to the sound: a mysterious echo that cannot be technically accounted for.
**)Harp: a pentatonic harmonica used in Blues.
DON’T SAY
This I write to you, my brave grandson who never says too much, don’t say no when I give this to you. We won’t speak of what happened, you were still small then, but of course you’ll remember.
I’ve never had the courage to visit you in your home, there was – and is – too much to forget. That’s why I’ll do what Annet said: “Wait. There will come a time, he’ll understand.” That’s why I’ll tell you who she was, what we were together, not rap about broken hearts and why they break – I thought of this most every day, how, when, in what words. These are the words:
I loved her so, you see?
Don’t say no –
june 12 2005
CLOSETLAND
Closetland is the land behind the wardrobe; have you ever read “The Land of Narnia”*), or “A Castle of Bone”? **) In these stories children, when crawling through a wardrobe, discover a dreamland. In the darkness at the backside of the wardrobe they find a passageway to another life. That’s how it was for Annet. Pain and sorrow often caused her to sleepwalk; then she was looking for her children through the entire house, while her spirit was wandering in another house, in another time. When I spoke to her softly I would turn into one of the children, mostly Marco. For instants, she would ask:“Where is Mirella?” “She’s still in school, she’ll be home any minute.” “But I have her little red shoes here, I’m sure she’s hiding somewhere!” “She’ll come out and show herself. Would you like a drink of lemonade?” Set at ease she would let me guide her to her chair, eyes closed, a smile on her lips. She’d taste her lemonade and throw her arm around me when I kissed her brow, resting her head on my chest: “How you have grown! When Mirella comes out we’ll go see Grandpa Peet-peet!” Or: “Oh my! When Daddy comes home he’ll rebuke you! Having the chickens drunk on his liquor! Did you refill the bottle with water?” She’d wake up laughing, looking around in wonder, and say:”Was I at it again?” But then I could ask her to tell of Grandpa Peet-peet with his canaries, or the tale with the bottle of wodka, Marco gave it to the chickens to drink until they staggered and rolled about on the farmyard, and then refilled the bottle with water (“Daddy won’t notice”)!
All this happened when we had been together for a while. In the beginning they were hopeless nightmares in which she could not find the children, like that time when she entered the livingroom with Marco’s teddybear in her arms: “He won’t breathe, he won’t breathe -!”
But with time passing I was given a place in Closetland too. I would be Marco, or Mirella, or her dear sister Miriam; this is how she told me of the life she had buried with her children in the world behind the wardrobe. When she was awake I would retell her dreams, she’d say :”Oh yes-” and one by one the nightmares traded places with the funny little tales a mother likes to tell about her children.
‘Lady visits Closetland’ – thank God for the miracle of the subconscious, where, behind the fear and the pain of loss every one was still alive; where,
behind the darkness, a light was still shining; the light she had forgotten became ever brighter and chased the nightmares away.
‘I follow and I dread the day
she’ll pick to stay’
*) “The Land of Narnia” written by C.S. Lewis
**)”A Castle of Bone” written by Penelope Farmer
october 23 2005
LITTLE MERMAID
She’s lying in bed, high fever – she says: “It hurts with every step.”
I say: “Do you know the fairytale of the Little Mermaid?” She shakes her head and I tell her of the Little Mermaid who so loved her Prince that willingly she paid to the Witch the price for her feet: her sweet beautiful voice and the pain – arriving at that point in the story (“It hurt with every step she took”) her eyes fill with tears. I press my cheek to hers and she whispers in my ear :”Now I remember-”
february 21 2006
ONLY TONITE
Only tonight she’ll play for you
Fill the room, lay her heart bare in a song
Come take your chance
Willowtree she sways & bends
She’ll amaze you when she dances
One time only
This star will come whizzing by
Leave its dazzling trail of light
‘cross the sky, fill you eye,
Turn your gaze inside –
Only Tonite!
She’s sleeping, it’s 2 PM, a liitle while ago I recorded the guitar and now I’m doing the vocals – sleepwalking, dancing, she enters the room, feeling out the tones in the air with her fingertips, her body shivering with arthritis but her spirit floating above the pain like a butterfly, her hands reaching out to an invisible partner, gracefully, in slow motion; my voice falters; in wonder she opens her eyes, looks around, realizing where she is she says ”I was dreaming of beautiful music!” I play the recording I just made and she says: “You have to sing this in a different voice, slightly below your breath, so it gets a quality of silence-” “Dearest, do you know Chet Baker?” We sit down, I show her an old video of Chet singing: “You don’t know how hearts burn for Love that cannot live yet never dies; till you have seen each dawn with sleepless eyes you don’t know what Love is –” Her head nods in affirmation; of course she knows, only too well!
JULY 17 2006