Home
Checks and Loveletters is available online!
PLEASE NOTE: THE DATE OF THE 13TH ANNUAL SUGAR HILL FOLK FESTIVAL HAS BEEN CHANGED TO SUNDAY AUG 13!
UPCOMING APPEARANCES:
NEW LEBANON, NY (with Ukes)
SHEFFIELD, MA (With Ukes)
RHINEBECK, NY (private)
GREAT BARRINGTON, MA
DALTON, MA
BECKET, MA
WILLIAMSTOWN, MA (private)
BENNINGTON, VA
HERNDON, VA
ASHLAND, VA
COLUMBIA, MD
SAN MIGUEL D’ALLENDE, MEXICO
BRIDGEWATER, MA
COLORADO SPRINGS, CO
For more information, go to Reverb Nation. Call before you head out!
Dear Friends:
We were deeply honored to be recently featured in the Berkshire Eagle. Check us out!
THE DATE OF THE 13TH ANNUAL SUGAR HILL FOLK FESTIVAL HAS BEEN CHANGED TO SUNDAY AUG 13 from 1 – 4 PM! This year’s line up will be Liz Queler & Seth Farber, JP Murphy, as well at The Ladies Auxiliary Ukulele Orchestra.
GRAND CANYON RAFT TRIP: The September 2018 trip is currently confirmed and booked solid. If this is something that has been on your bucket list, let me know and I’ll add you to the waiting list.
SAN MIGUEL D’ALLENDE, MEXICO: The first Annual Songwriters of San Miguel Retreat, was a blast! Everyone walked away with a new song and a wonderful pile of new pals from all over the world. We are just beginning to schedule another and would love to have you join us! Hope to hang with you south of the border!
ORDERING INFO: Checks & Loveletters and all of my older recording are available. for purchase or download from CDBaby.
ARTIST EDUCATOR: Most of you know that I often go to schools to talk about my family’s emigration from Germany in 1940, during WWII. Drop me a line if you know a school or teacher that would be interested in hosting this presentation.
THIS MONTH’S POEM: Metaphor For Life
On the way to dinner that night, I waltzed down through the garden. It was early summer and the first crop of red raspberries was coming in. I have always loved berries of all kinds, especially red raspberries. I can suck down one of those supermarket cartons so fast that it truly wouldn’t make sense to purchase them if they weren’t so jam packed with vitamins, fiber, and antioxidants.
Dinner conversation was weird that night. I was lamenting my frustrations with the business end of my career in the performing arts when a woman across the table chose to tell me her very new-age story about how she acquired a literary agent. One of those “right place at the right time under a lucky star” tales. My only response was “well, that’s nice, but it hasn’t been my experience.’
Her reply was strange and thought provoking. “It’s my metaphor for life,” she said. “Everyone needs a metaphor for life.” I bused my dish and left the dining hall.
More subdued now, I passed through the garden again. The berry bushes were loaded with ripe fruit. I knew I was not supposed to pick from them, but of course I imagined that I could grab one or two and no one would notice. The berries fell into my hand. I barely had to touch them and they tumbled, staining my palms if I put any pressure at all. I knew that I would be unable to stop.
I spent my time in the bushes, pondering my dinner conversation. I knew I needed a metaphor for life. When I was a young girl, I was sent every summer to the Maine woods for three weeks. It was a Jewish camp for underprivileged children. My depression era mother was thrilled to find it, and it was where I fell madly in love with the woods and nature in general. I immediately found the blueberry bushes at the edge of the road, where I would go to pick and stay until they were all gone. The counselors, who didn’t like it when I dawdled or separated from the group, would try to lure me from the ripe fruit by telling me that the boys had peed on the bushes, but I knew about the heavy dew that fell every night. I also knew that they were lying.
A metaphor for life. The red berries barely had time in my fingers, and I know I ingested several pounds of them that beautiful summer evening. As I picked furtively, I thought about all the things I wanted…a performing career, a working marriage, a nicer home, a community of artists and collaborators, brilliant and easy going accompanists, the opportunity to travel, a better musical education, a full schedule of appearances at great venues, and a welcoming audience of fans who loved what I had to say and how I had to say it. As I picked, I realized that this was my metaphor for life. Plant the bushes. Prune them back as they grow. Mulch and nurture. Pray for rain. Caress them until they are ripe and ready to fall off into your hands and heal your body.
And if they are not ripe enough, if you have to pull them off of the cone, then they will not be tasty and sweet. For those berries, you have to come back the next day, or leave them for someone else to pick.
Raspberries. My metaphor for life.
Hope our paths cross soon – Bernice