story | The Direction of Intention

Try To Understand [saturday morning smack-dab.]

Posted on June 5, 2021 by davidrobinsoncreative

…and my favorite part of this particular cartoon is that we had Mars/Venus disparity on what was funny about the situation. We lived the cartoon while writing the cartoon. You know the old saying: What is funny on Mars…

read Kerri’s thoughts on TRYING TO UNDERSTAND

smack-dab. ©️ 2021 kerri sherwood & david robinson

Filed under: smack-dab | Tagged: comic, david robinson, davidrobinsoncreative.com, Kerri Sherwood, kerri sherwood itunes, kerrianddavid.com, kerrisherwood.com, mars & venus, middle age, misunderstanding, relationships, smack-dab, story, studio melange, the melange, understanding | Leave a comment »

Celebrate The Metal [on KS Friday]

Posted on June 4, 2021 by davidrobinsoncreative

Quinn used to say that Dodo, his mother-in-law, was a warrior. This slight gentle woman was a quiet post of stability. Her daughter, Ann, inherited her mother’s metal. Both women held their worlds together even when it seemed irreparably fractured. Gentle, graceful, kind. Both avoided the limelight and required no accolades. They were strong and made stronger in hot water.

Marcia was the sturdy foundation that Tom McK and Demarcus built their artistic careers upon. Neither would have succeeded were she not stabilizing and elevating their work. Her life has been a study of adversity and she’s met every new tsunami with deep-river-courage-and-clarity.

My first impression of Melissa was of a quiet mouse. What I didn’t know, what I was grateful to witness, was the utter audacity that roared to the surface in her struggle to bring real learning opportunities into her classroom when the system was hell-bent on strangling education. She was a lion-of-possibility and, to this day, inspires me.

My grandmother was a tiny joyful woman. She might have weighed 90 pounds soaking wet with bricks in her pockets. And, she was a force to be reckoned with. Our metaphor for her mischief, our defining story of her, was the day the neighbor sold his horse to the glue factory. She knew the truck was coming for the horse. She ran to it, led it from its pasture (i.e., she stole the horse). She hid the horse in her kitchen. Once, I attempted to grab the check for lunch and she pinned my hand to the table with her fork. And then she laughed.

Laughter. Joy. It’s what binds all of these stories, these remarkably strong women, who reveal the depth of their strength only when circumstance demands it of them. The hotter the water, the more potent their response. The hotter the water, the greater their laughter. Compliment them on their brass and they’ll wave it off, deny they are doing anything special. Honestly humble and humbly honest.

In the past two years, the water that Kerri and I have found ourselves in has been steaming hot. Kerri is, like Dodo and Ann, Marcia and Melissa, my grandma Sue, a warrior. She inherited her mother’s metal. The hotter our water, the greater her capacity to stand still, to find light, to laugh at our (my) spinning foibles. She melts down, to be sure, but push her to her boundary and you’ll find that your horse has gone missing. And, while you stand perplexed in your pasture, you’ll hear a certain hearty laughter coming from the kitchen in the house next door.

Boundaries on the album Right Now – and all of Kerri’s albums are available on iTunes and streaming on Pandora

read Kerri’s blog post on WOMEN LIKE TEA BAGS

boundaries/right now ©️ 2010 kerri sherwood

Filed under: Gratitude, Heroes, KS Friday, Power | Tagged: clarity, courage, david robinson, davidrobinsoncreative.com, Eleanor Roosevelt, female, feminine, feminine power, grace, inner strength, Kerri Sherwood, kerri sherwood itunes, kerrianddavid.com, kerrisherwood.com, kindness, story, strength, studio melange, the melange, women | Leave a comment »

Come Home [on Two Artists Tuesday]

Posted on June 1, 2021 by davidrobinsoncreative

“I search for the realness, the real feeling of a subject, all the texture around it…I always want to see the third dimension of something…I want to come alive with the object.” ~ Andrew Wyeth

The first time I walked into this house, I felt that I’d come home. It was a potent moment because I’d never felt that before, not in my entire life. I was a wanderer, even as a small child.

I’d come to meet this woman named Kerri. I’d been writing emails to her daily for the previous six months. A job afforded me the opportunity to stop over and meet her face-to-face. She picked me up at the airport [she was the one holding the daisy], we held hands and skipped to the car, talked non-stop during the hour-plus drive from O’Hare airport. When we arrived at the house, I laughed when she asked me to wait at the front door. She wanted me to come into the house through the front door but the key hadn’t worked in years, so she ran around back to come through the house to let me in. When the door opened, with my rolly-bag in tow, I stepped into the house and caught my breath. I almost started to cry but inhaled my overwhelm back into my body. Home. I knew this place.

It was a festival of texture. Raw wood exposed through the aging, flaking paint. Immediately I could see that this woman populated her world with stories, surrounded herself with rocks and wood and tin. She lived in a tangible world, loved the raw and the real, and had a designer’s eye. The dining room was a miracle of tortoise-esque pattern made when she stripped the wallpaper. She loved it so much that she abandoned her plan for paint and left the marks exposed.

This was an artist’s house. The hardwood floors creaked. Some of the antique door handles popped off if you pulled too hard. “It’s an old house and has its quirks,” she explained as she pulled a screwdriver from the silverware drawer to tighten the screw that holds the screen door latch in place. I learned over time that there are somethings you fix and others that you don’t because to fix them would interrupt the relationship with the house. Now I, too, weekly pull the screwdriver from the silverware drawer and tighten the aged-nearly-stripped-screw that holds the screen door latch in place.

Shabby-chic. They gave her style a name and she beamed the first time she heard it. “That’s me!” she exclaimed, “Shabby-Chic!”

When my dad came for our wedding, he stood on the back deck and said to me, “If you don’t put a finish on this deck, you’re going to lose it.” I told him that Kerri liked it that way. In fact, she’d throw herself in my path, she’d break my fingers, if I attempted to clean it, let alone paint it. He nodded and said, “Well, that’s all that matters really.”

Home. All that matters. Alive with stories that reach back and back and back. Texture and piles and projects everywhere I look. The lock on the front door still doesn’t work. And, like my wife, Kerri, I wouldn’t have it any other way.

read Kerri’s blog post on SHABBY-CHIC

Filed under: Family, Gratitude, Love, Seeing, Story, Two Artists Tuesday | Tagged: andrew wyeth, artistry, artists, david robinson, davidrobinsoncreative.com, design, home, Kerri Sherwood, kerri sherwood itunes, kerrianddavid.com, kerrisherwood.com, raw, shabby-chic, stories, story, texture | Leave a comment »

Consider The Intention [on Merely A Thought Monday]

Posted on May 17, 2021 by davidrobinsoncreative

My least favorite character in Romeo and Juliet is Capulet, Juliet’s father. A few years back I thought it would be a good exercise to tell the story from his point of view. In his world of privilege and order, he has an out of control daughter, a teenager no less, ignoring the rules of the house and society, having sex with the son of a sworn enemy. He imagines a better future for her (and himself) and has worked hard to protect her and match her with royalty. Like every parent I know, he just wants his daughter to behave and thrive.

Every story has an agenda. That’s true of the stories we tell of ourselves at parties, it’s true of the stories we shout at each other when we are having fights, it’s true of the stories we tell when we are falling in love, it’s true of the stories we tell when breaking up. Every story has at least two sides and each side has an intention.

Stories are never neutral or passive. It’s precisely why Blind Justice is so important to the health and well being of a society: between two opposing/competing stories there is a point of equilibrium that we call “fact” or “truth.” Blind Justice carries a scale to symbolize that place of story-equilibrium, ideally free of status, privilege, sway…weighing the stories to arrive at fairness and equity.

Health is the capacity to consider the other side of the story.

It is the truly despicable character that steps with intention into the gap between competing narratives solely to create discord. To lie for gain. Iago is just such a character. He creates an illusion with no greater intention than to hurt, to destroy. Desdemona dies. Othello murders because he cannot see through the lie Iago is telling. Othello’s love turns to hate. He cannot or will not hear the other side, the love story, the truth of Desdemona.

Hatred is a territorial flag planted in a one-sided story.

The modern GOP is Iago. Othello is a cautionary tale relevant in our times. What or who will be murdered before the lie is laid bare?

I have always been a lover of myth and parable, stories that reach with intention to deeper truths. It is why I stepped into the theatre in the first place. Art, like Blind Justice, uses story to reach deeper truths, truths that can rarely be captured in words. It’s the paradox of art and truth is always found there.

No story has a single point of view. No truth is singular – that is the hallmark of the truly important challenges that every society faces. It is why successful governments tell their story with truth as their intention. It is why successful relationships sail through stormy seas. The intention is pure. The desire to stand in the shoes of the other-side-of-the-story is genuine and necessary in order for the relationship, the community, the country to thrive.

Capulet is not a bad man. He has good intention. The play ends when he becomes capable of standing in and considering the other side of the story. Hope and equity is the promise rising from the pain.

Iago, on the other hand, is a wholly different story. His play ends in a cage with a nasty celebration of the pain, death and havoc he’s wreaked, gloating about his capacity to snare others in his big lie. All are made fools.

read Kerri’s blog post about THE OTHER SIDE OF THE STORY

Filed under: Art, Identity, Merely A Thought Monday, Metaphor, Perspective, Uncategorized | Tagged: big lie, blind justice, capulet, competing narratives, david robinson, davidrobinsoncreative.com, empathy, equilibrium, equity, iago, Kerri Sherwood, kerri sherwood itunes, kerrianddavid.com, kerrisherwood.com, narrative, Othello, romeo and juliet, story | Leave a comment »

See The Invisible [on Merely A Thought Monday]

Posted on April 6, 2021 by davidrobinsoncreative

“Oh my gosh!” She whispered. “These remind me of my mother!” She quickly pulled her camera from her purse and, to the amazement and amused curiosity of our fellow grocery shoppers, we had a straw-plate-holder photo shoot at the end cap of aisle 9.

It is, of course, among my favorite aspects of going through life with an artist wife. Everything is a story-thread. Everything is a possible composition, an opportunity for beauty. Everything is immediate. It is utterly unpredictable when the muse will strike. And, the immediacy of capturing the moment usually draws a crowd and she is blissfully unaware of the ruckus her immediate-story-composition creates. She is a rolling storm of performance art. I am the lucky one who gets to watch both the artist and the audience.

Augusto Boal, one of the developers of the Invisible Theatre, would be most proud of the unintentional performances Kerri creates. In an everyday setting, everyday life, a performance snaps an audience into awareness, shocks them out of their dulled sensibility, an audience that has no idea that it is functioning as an audience. Many stop to watch the crazed lady snap photos of straw-plate-holders as she tells sweet stories of her mother. Many scurry for the safety of anonymity. Either way, either response, a pure theatrical event takes place.

The performer scrutinizes her many photos, completely unaware of her performance. As she places her camera back in her purse, the audience immediately disperses, hopeful not to catch the attention of the performer and somehow be called into the play. They fold themselves back into the normalcy of their day.

But, something has changed. They have a story to tell, an unusual event happened in their day. The performer has touched back to her deep story and through her photographs, plucked her heart-threads.

And I have been the happy witness to art and artistry. All are fed by these lovely, oh so common, straw plate holders displayed at the end cap of aisle 9.

read Kerri’s blog post about STRAW PLATE HOLDERS

Filed under: Art, Creativity, Love, Merely A Thought Monday, Play, Seeing | Tagged: artist, artistry, augusto boal, david robinson, davidrobinsoncreative.com, invisible theatre, Kerri Sherwood, kerri sherwood itunes, kerrianddavid.com, kerrisherwood.com, story, theatre of the oppressed | Leave a comment »

Listen To The Lake [on KS Friday]

Posted on February 26, 2021 by davidrobinsoncreative

The sun poured in the window this morning. We sat in it. No, we basked in it, ate breakfast, sipped coffee. Simple pleasures. Endless appreciation. We reminisced about our childhood homes. Kerri recalled the layout of the den. I described the kitchen in my growing-up house. We remembered cooking smells and Formica table tops.

Our story zones expanded to include the many chapters of our lives. Multiple eras. Times that seemed as if they would never end. Times that passed too quickly. We imagined a day when we would reminisce about these times, pandemic times, both the hardships and the appreciations. For instance, in our isolation, we’ve created an end-of-the-work-day-ritual called ‘snack time.’ A glass of wine, french fries hot from the oven or a pear and cheese. Olives. We sit at the table we placed by the window, watch the day wane, and savor. I suspect snack time, borne of the pandemic, will be with us for the rest of our lives.

When in my old age I tell the story of the pandemic times, when the hardships fade in importance (as they always do), I will tell the tale of life slowed down. I will remember how limits made movement less frenetic and much more mindful. Rather than doing more, we pared down. We did less and experienced more. We placed increased importance on the simple things. In fact, we placed importance on the important things. Connecting with friends and family, not out of obligation or unconscious pattern, but out of necessity and intention.

I will talk about our walks, already central to our daily happiness, how they took on a wholly new significance. Getting out and walking became an exercise in paying attention, in absolute appreciation of the simple miracles. Affirmations of life. The magic appearance of the robins on a frigid day. The sunset bringing fire to the ice in the harbor.

I will tell the story of the day we were stopped in our tracks by the song of the ice on the lake. It sounded like whale song. I will tell the story of standing still in blistering cold, listening in utter amazement until ours eyes watered and our fingertips burned, until we looked at each other and in unison said, “Snack time!”

read Kerri’s blog post about LAKE SONG

Filed under: Gratitude, KS Friday, Perspective, Seeing, Story | Tagged: appreciation, david robinson, davidrobinsoncreative.com, Kerri Sherwood, kerri sherwood itunes, kerrianddavid.com, kerrisherwood.com, life story, pandemic, presence, simple pleasure, story | Leave a comment »

Make Noise [on Merely A Thought Monday]

Posted on February 22, 2021 by davidrobinsoncreative

I am conflicted. I wrote a version of this post and then tossed it away. I’m trying to be less argumentative in my daily writing. And then, Toni Morrison collided with Albert Einstein:

“In times of dread, artists must never choose to remain silent… This is precisely the time when artists go to work. There is no time for despair, no place for self-pity, no need for silence, no room for fear. We speak, we write, we do language. That is how civilizations heal.” ~ Toni Morrison, No Place for Self-Pity, No Room for Fear

I am an artist. Is it argumentative, is it confrontational, to write what I see? Yes. Sometimes. Once, I saw a park service truck, on a trail, quickly backing up. The driver did not see the man in the wheelchair right behind his truck. I screamed and ran and banged on the side of truck until the driver stopped, a few inches from hitting the man in the wheelchair. Sometimes it is necessary to shout and make noise.

All of my life I’ve understood the first rule of being educated, namely, to check your sources, as simple sage advice. It’s a good idea, if you are going to anchor your identity in a narrative, to make sure that your narrative-of-choice is solidly anchored in verifiable substance. Doubt and questioning, used properly, are necessary tools of an engaged mind.

Years ago, Robert Cialdini wrote, “The world abounds with cults populated by dependent people who are led by a charismatic figure.” In other words, people are easily led and – as we have recently witnessed – with disastrous results. All that people ever need do to avoid a nasty drink of purple Kool-Aid is to check their sources. In our day and age it is almost easier to check the veracity of the story-we-are-being-fed than it is to be misled. Almost. One must first desire to be fed the truth, even if the truth challenges rabidly-held belief.

Checking takes less than a minute.

Just ask the now-jailed-and-soon-to-be-tried capitol insurrectionists claiming that they were led astray by a flimflam-president-man. The Big Lie was easy to check. It remains easy to check. Yet, none cared to check it or perhaps refused to believe what they found. Checking the lie, listening to the data, would undermine the tightly held power-narrative of an entire political party. A pathological lies requires more and more effort, more and more outrageous lies, to sustain itself. It should have been easier to check the story than it was to storm the capitol.

Now I see the first rule of being educated, the necessity of checking sources to verify fact, as a dire necessity. It is the flashing red warning signal to these de-united-united-states that there is a cliff ahead. It is no longer a sweet bit of sage advice; it is a survival imperative. Respect for the line – truth or fiction – will determine whether we as a nation unite and grow or divide and collapse.

Many years ago, Robert Cialdini also wrote,“Audiences have been successfully manipulated by those who use social evidence, even when that evidence has been openly falsified.” Openly falsified. He wrote those words decades before tweets, Fox News, and the mega-amplification of all the openly falsified big lies. His words might now serve as the sad single credo of the Republican party.

It is not shocking that a political party lies. It is most shocking how little the followers of the party care to check the sources of the enraged hype it daily swallows like so much anger-candy. Dependent people. Easily led. Believe wholeheartedly. Ever expanding lie. No facts necessary. It is far beyond Einstein’s observation of people doing nothing in the face of evil; our nation is in peril because the evil we face is an openly falsified narrative. So many of our people, so many of our leaders, know it is a lie, feed the division, and actively look the other way.

read Kerri’s blog post about DOING NOTHING

Filed under: Art, Education, Identity, Merely A Thought Monday, Perspective, Story, Uncategorized | Tagged: albert einstein, cults, david robinson, davidrobinsoncreative.com, division, fact check, false narrative, Fox News, james cialdini, Kerri Sherwood, kerri sherwood itunes, kerrianddavid.com, kerrisherwood.com, narrative, snopes, speak, speak to power, speak up, story, the big lie, toni morrison | Leave a comment »

Breathe and Make Choices [on Two Artists Tuesday]

Posted on February 16, 2021 by davidrobinsoncreative

“The greatest weapon against stress is our ability to choose one thought over another.” ~ William James

A note from the Rejuvenation Fairy: the relief we seek may depend upon the phrase we choose. For instance, consider this phrase: coping mechanisms. What ease might become available if we viewed ourselves as something other than machines? Turn this dial. Adjust this screw. Add a little oil. Check the battery. Do this, then that will happen. Turn down the pressure gauge. Talk to others. Take a break. Cause and effect.

Breathe. Sentient beings are much more complex and subtle than apparatus made from iron and steel.

We story ourselves. For reasons no one will ever fully comprehend, we sort to the tragic. We imagine the worst. Ask any good storyteller and they will confirm that conflict is the driver. Yearnings meet obstacles and stories ensue. Everyone, without exception, is telling themselves a story. Everyone, without exception, is starring in their own movie, complete with impossible mountains to climb, monsters to face, dreams that remain just out of reach. Robert Sapolsky has it right: zebras don’t hold onto their tale of stress while human beings are reticent to let it go. We like to tell it again and again and again.

If we cast ourselves as victims in our movie, our stories will be filled with ogres to blame. If we reduce ourselves to the mechanical, our stories will be endless attempts at fixing what’s broken, looking for the right hose to replace. How to recharge the battery. The fortunate few recognize that their movie might be a story of choice. Choices made within given circumstances. The storm, like time, passes. How do we stand in it?

There’s little doubt that we are living in stressful times. There’s nothing like a deadly pandemic to turn up those mechanical pressure gauges. Add another notch or two of pressure with extreme national ideological division, cowards at the switches of government, mix in some economic stress…there are plenty of choices on the angst-menu. All are visceral. All are circumstances to the story we choose to tell, the story I choose to tell.

I came across a few universal coping strategies. Eat healthy. Exercise. Give yourself a break. Get plenty of sleep. Talk to others. Recognize when you need help and ask for it. I wondered why these good choices are reserved for times of stress. Why not give yourself a break as an everyday expectation. Talk to others. Eat healthy. Weave a calm center it into the fibers of daily life. Make choices. Especially in the story you tell yourself about yourself. The thought upon which you choose to fixate, to play over and over again in your movie-mind.

When Kerri and I fall off the pony and run around like our hair is on fire, we make chicken soup. I am the sous chef. She is the master mind. The recipe comes from her mother so the making of the soup is more than food prep, it’s a love-touch to her anchor. We touch love. And, of course, defying the advice of experts to avoid alcohol, we enjoy a glass of red wine. We choose the glasses: Jamie’s? Or Skip’s? Or Joan’s? For our wedding, we were gifted with many special wine glasses from many special people. Recently, Jay and Carol and Rob sent us wine. When we clink our glasses, we touch the depth of our support and reach of our friendships. We call 20 and laugh. As the soup simmers and the wine disappears, we realize that our hair is not on fire, that, although we are not zebras, we are infinitely capable of releasing our tale of woe. We need not cope or distract. We can grasp hold of the full tale of the enormity of our lives. We need only refocus our eyes, see the depth and expanse of our story and choices, enjoy the warming soup. Appreciate the story of the wine.

read Kerri’s blog post about CHICKEN SOUP & WINE

Filed under: Gratitude, Language, Love, Metaphor, Seeing, Story, Two Artists Tuesday | Tagged: chicken soup, conflict, courage, cowardice, david robinson, davidrobinsoncreative.com, family, family story, friends, Kerri Sherwood, kerri sherwood itunes, kerrianddavid.com, kerrisherwood.com, pandemic, Robert Sapolsky, story, storying, storytelling, stress, wine, yearning | Leave a comment »

Pay Attention [on Merely A Thought Monday]

Posted on February 8, 2021 by davidrobinsoncreative

I read this morning in my brainpickings, “We have to try and cure our faults by attention and not by will.” Simone Weil.

Kerri and I walk almost everyday. We head for our known, usual trails, and only occasionally go in search of something new. Even though we walk a well-known path, it never fails to seem entirely new. Kerri attends to the details, taking photographs of unusual pine cones, a downy feather on a limb, the sun streaming through the trees. She pays attention. My awareness is more global, the movement of forest, the orchestra and dance of trees and wind. I pay attention.

Our walks bring us perspective when all else seems dark and disorderly. Our walks refill our well of hope when our circumstance seems bleak. Mostly, our walks “cure our faults,” they bring us into a present moment where all of life’s judgments and fears fall away as the illusions that they are. Our walks, if only for a few hours, wipe clean our canvas and return us to a childlike curiosity.

Sometimes, after a snowfall, we arrive at our trail and it is untouched. It never fails that we stand at the trailhead and marvel at the unblemished snow. Sometimes we hold hands and jump in with both feet and laugh. Sometimes we step carefully, quietly. Reverently. Either way, it seems a special gift. First steps are to be noted. Last steps are to be noted.

This morning I read an article about How Aging Shapes Narrative Identity. How the story-we-tell-ourselves-about-ourselves changes as we age. Our investments change. We become less interested in pursuits and achievements, in willful purpose. We become more interested in appreciation of our precious, limited moments. And, so, we begin to tell a different story. New snow on an old path.

The article was timely. Kerri and I lay awake most of the night. Among other things we pondered my dad’s dementia, the stories that he weaves and realities he inhabits. He is obsessed with going home.

Deep in the night, we talked about the stories that we currently weave together as we grow older. It seems that this time in our lives is a blank canvas, a path of new and untouched snow. Standing at the trailhead of our next chapter, no steps to follow or map, neither of us has any desire to reinvent or become different than what we are. Certainly, the circumstances of our lives are changing, but more and more we merely want to pay attention. To hold hands and jump into the unbroken snow. To laugh. To note the downy feather in the tree. The wind song, the deer that surprise us, leaping through tall grasses. “Did you see them?” I whisper. Kerri nods and smiles. Reverence. Nothing in the world, at that moment, is more important.

read Kerri’s blog post about UNBROKEN SNOW

Filed under: Identity, Merely A Thought Monday, Metaphor | Tagged: Brain Pickings, circumstance, david robinson, davidrobinsoncreative.com, detail, identity, Kerri Sherwood, kerri sherwood itunes, kerrianddavid.com, kerrisherwood.com, mindful, mindfulness, narrative, perspective, presence, reverence, Simone Weil, story, storying, universal | 5 Comments »

Follow The Conversation [on Merely A Thought Monday]

Posted on January 25, 2021 by davidrobinsoncreative

I met Horatio on an airplane. With his wife, Teru, we were seatmates on a flight from Washington D.C. to Seattle. I’d just finished facilitating a workshop at the Smithsonian about story, he was stepping toward directing films, and Teru is passionate about writing life histories. We talked about storytelling clear across the country and our conversation continues to this day.

David and I sat next to each other at a conference. I’d only just moved to Seattle, I knew no one. I saw a sign for the conference and wandered in. It was my good fortune to pick a seat next to a brilliant visual and theatre artist. We started talking about life and art. Years later, every gallery I enter, every play I attend, I have conversations with David in my mind – and hurry home to write him or call him and share what we talked about.

To this day, MM is my greatest collaborator. We used to sit in my office and dream big dreams – and then go out and make them happen. He is the ultimate player-of-infinite-games, playing-to-play. When I need my mind opened, my pot stirred, or my obstacles surmounted, I turn to MM.

I was visiting Tom McK at his ranch. When he asked me to help him tell a story I had no idea that his simple question, the story that he needed to tell, would take more than a decade and would only be possible after his death. His story became my story to tell.

It was Tom’s story that I told to Horatio that day on the flight from D.C. to Seattle. It was multiple good conversations over many years with David about writing plays that finally brought me to clarity. MM was my constant companion. With his band, Mom’s Chili Boys, he composed the music that supported the telling of Tom’s story. He built the world of the play and then, together, we stepped into the world and fulfilled Tom’s request.

Fortuitous seat assignments on a flight. Following an impulse into a conference and taking any old seat. Playing an infinite game. One good conversation, again and again, and nothing will ever be the same.

read Kerri’s blog post about ONE GOOD CONVERSATION