Be In Cahoots [David’s blog on KS Friday]

“I’m making old guy sounds,” I said. All morning I’ve been extra-moaning-and-groaning. Clearing my throat. “I’m making the sound my dad used to make!” She laughed. We are in cahoots, partners in this aging thing.

The temperatures are dropping and my inner weather station is alerting me to the changes. Achy joints. Sinus headaches. I’m not sure why an inner weather station is necessary. I can see the snow on the ground. The cold wind is hard to miss. The back door is sticking. There are plenty of indicators that the seasons are changing. “I know! I know already!” I say to my buckling knees. They seem to think that I missed the temperature plummet. “As if I didn’t already know.”

She laughs.

Sometimes when I walk across the parking lot toward the grocery store I pretend to be really old. She punches my arm and whispers “Stop it!” And then she looks around to make sure no one is watching my antics. “What! I’m practicing!” I say. “Practice makes perfect.” Another punch. “It’s the only way to Carnegie Hall!” I shout, defending my self. A third punch. And then she laughs.

Mission accomplished.

The view is near. The view is far. The day we met we climbed out a window onto the roof, drank wine, and shared life stories. The wind was cold off the lake so we wrapped blankets around ourselves. When it was too cold we came inside, sat in front of a fire, and shared more life stories. She read a story to me, something she’d written. She wanted me to know. She played the piano for me. I wanted to know.

We don’t have decades of shared memory so we share stories. We want to know. Looking back as we move forward. Comparing newly discovered aches and pains. Dusting off old heartbreaks, roads not taken. We are in cahoots, partners in this life thing.

And, to my great delight, captive witness to my endless antics, mostly, she laughs.

[let me take you back will not only take you back but will also give you a lift]

let me take you back/as it is © 2004 kerri sherwood

Kerri’s albums are available on iTunes and streaming on Pandora and iHeart Radio

read Kerri’s blogpost about NEAR AND FAR

share. like. comment. support. compare. dust off. read aloud. practice, practice, practice. we applaud every act.

buymeacoffee is an achy-joint-early-toleration-systemic-tip-jar affording you the opportunity to relieve however slightly the aches and pains of the artists you may-or-may-not appreciate.

Sit On The Horizon [on KS Friday]

We are the first wave of humans to experience a pace of change so fast that the media of our memories becomes irrelevant – and sometimes inaccessible – even before the paint on the memory is dry. A crank driven film camera caught a toddler version of me running down the hall in my footie pajamas on Christmas morning. Images rare and, at the time, expensive to develop, our technology makes those films seem prehistoric. Kerri and I work on computers that are separated by over a decade. Mine works lightning fast and hers…is teaching her patience.

I’ve recently been pondering a quote attributed to many: “We shape our tools, and thereafter our tools shape us.” Facebook is a tool. Twitter, too. This screen that opens entire universes for me is a tool. These screens that pull us into them are tools. Our stories, our expectations, our experience of time and space and each other, shaped by our tool. This river runs so fast that front page news is less than an afterthought tomorrow. We take so many photos and movies that we can’t remember taking them. It’s a million miles from the days of precious and rare footage in footie pajamas.

Kerri found the bin. It holds many treasures. Movies that her dad recorded of her first album release concert. Early performances. Recording of movies complete with commercial breaks (before tevo was a glimmer in its inventor’s eye). Luckily, we have a VHS player. And it works! Some night, very soon, we’ll plug in the player and I will get to see her, at the very beginning of her career, long before we met, play.

Reaching back. Racing forward. Little miracles of remembrance rendered obsolete by faster and smaller miracles of moment-capture.

We sit squarely upon the event horizon, our memories both a bin found in the basement and an intentional composition – Instagram stories, Facebook memories, a story shaped by our tools, tools shaping us, a creative act.

read Kerri’s blogpost about THE BIN

Kerri’s albums are available on iTunes & streaming on Pandora

let me take you back/as it is © 2004 kerri sherwood

Let Me Take You Back [it’s KS Friday]

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let me take you back

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Before Kerri and I were married, I asked her daughter, Kirsten, to tell me ‘the one thing’ I should know and understand about her mother. Kirsten’s answer was immediate. “Mom’s the most thready person you will ever meet,” she said.

It is true. Kerri is the most ‘thready’ person I have ever met. Thready means threaded to the past. We mark auspicious days. Each piece of furniture in our house carries a story. Every day she writes in her calendar what we did or what happened; at the end of the year it is our ritual to read the calendar and retell the stories of the days just lived. We light candles for lost loved ones.

She is rooted, deeply rooted, in family, in ancestry, and she actively and consciously tends the root through her thready-ness. And, what is most remarkable to me, is that her thready-ness is not weighty. It is in no way heavy. It is light-hearted and surprising and lively, just like her composition Let Me Take You Back. On this KS Friday, take a moment, and let Kerri give your spirit a lift. Let her take you back.

 

LET ME TAKE YOU BACK on the album AS IT IS available (track 12) on iTunes & CDBaby

Kerri’s designs & TAKE YOU BACK products

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read Kerri’s blog post about LET ME TAKE YOU BACK

www.kerrianddavid.com

let me take you back [as it is] ©️ 2004 kerri sherwood

let me take you back – designs & products ©️ 2018 kerri sherwood & david robinson