The other day, I read this lovely post by Gaynor Alder of The Modern Woman's Survival Guide in which she wrote a heartfelt letter to her 16-year-old self. It drew me into a cloud of nostalgia and I took up her invitation to write such a letter to myself at the same age. Here it is, reposted in all its glory...
Dear 16-year-old Me…
Be true to yourself.
Take chances.
Read.
Don’t diet.
Love, 21-year-old Me.
I think those four lines sum everything up perfectly... there's not much else to say. Life is simple really, when you think about it. Of course, that's easy to say when you're looking back, but not so easy to believe when you're in the midst of it.
P.S. Please spare a few minutes to take a hop, skip and a jump over to Gaynor's riveting travel tale Byron Bay: The Uncut Version... it's truly brilliant.
NB: I wrote this article a while ago to submit to a magazine. It didn't get picked up (I can kind of see why now... reading back on it, it is a little convoluted - too many adjectives and laden sentences, as usual!) so I thought I would post it here instead. I hope you like it.
There is an oft-repeated, much lauded piece of advice that gets my goat. It is recited by the well-meaning yet patronising acquaintance, dispensed as a generous pearl of wisdom to a needy friend or relative. The subject of their counsel is generally feeling a little lonely and vulnerable, searching for a bit of a boost from a loved one. Only this particular approach will not provide them with the buoyancy they are so hoping for. Instead, it will cement their despondency. You may have guessed it: You must love yourself before others can love you. Ouch.
I don’t know to whom it is that I can attribute this little gem. It is usually pawned off onto good ol’ Anonymous. Whoever it was, they must have been quite a sadist. You may disagree with me, at first. After all, it is generally quoted with unblinking authority. But please bear with me - this is a public service message. By the end of this piece, my hope is that each and every one of you fine readers will pledge never to take this tact with a grieving friend again. Ever. Unless, perhaps, you are exploiting it as a means of hurling your arch-enemy head-first into a pool of hurt and insecurity. Then, by all means, go ahead. (Jerk.)
Picture this: you are searching for love. You have been for quite a while. But, despite your best efforts – all your adorable outfits, come-hither eye contact with cute strangers and the topical novels you whip out of your bag on public transport – nobody has asked for your number or even struck up a conversation. You are feeling a little ugly and sad, so you share your heartache with a friend. And what do they tell you? It is your fault nobody finds you very attractive – precisely because you are feeling so lonely! THANK YOU VERY MUCH, you will think. I feel so much better now. Not. Hmph.
Okay, now imagine this scenario: you have finally found somebody who seems to like you. Maybe you have gone on a couple of dates with a colleague. Perhaps you played footsies with a gorgeous classmate during your Psychology tutorial. It could be that the person you have been crushing on since high school left an ambiguously sweet post on your Facebook wall. You feel elated, but at the same time, your self-doubts are surfacing. It is entirely possible that this will not work out the way I want it to, you think fretfully. I don’t look very good naked. I am extremely messy. I watch The Bachelor. When you voice your misgivings to a friend, they adopt a condescending tone, convincing you that those qualms will stand in the way of your happiness. They will never love you if you think like that, they say knowingly. You may as well just give up now. With that, your already wavering confidence has completely disintegrated and you feel even worse than before. That’s great, you will murmur under your breath. Just what I needed.
Now finally, envisage this: a seemingly viable relationship has broken down, for whatever reason. Maybe they never called after the first date. Perhaps the momentum fizzled out after a couple of months. It could be that your long-term partner has been caught cheating on you. So you call your friend and tell them how gutted you are that yet another love has been lost. You open up the deepest recesses of your heart and divulge your greatest fear: that the split was inevitable, because you are such a miserable excuse for a human being. Oh sweetie, they say in a sensible voice. Of course they rejected you. How on earth could they love you, if you don’t love yourself?
SHUT THE HELL UP, you will shout. What on earth would you know? I am great in bed and I cook a mean roast chicken. BUT IT JUST WASN’T MEANT TO BE. And it has nothing to do with me feeling fat and awkward and battling moments of self-doubt. Everybody does that. IT IS NATURAL. According to your daft logic, nobody could ever experience true love because nobody is completely happy with themselves. BUT LOVE EXISTS. SO YOU’RE WRONG. All I wanted was for somebody to tell me that I am perfectly attractive and nice and there are plenty more fish in the sea and, one day, I will meet the love of my life, when and where I least expect it. Somebody who will love every part of me, even the parts that I don’t. Is that so hard? Now, please leave me alone. I’m going to bed to cry and seek solace in a Mad Men marathon and mountains of Rocky Road. (Yum.)
"I have no advice for anybody; except to, you know, be awake enough to see where you are at any given time, and how that is beautiful, and has poetry inside. Even places you hate."
— Jeff Buckley
On a lighter note... I probably should have mentioned yesterday how important I also think it is to, as Jeff Buckley says, be awake enough to experience the infinite beauty in the world. So here is a touching video by talented 17-year-old filmmaker Josh Beattie, who wrote, directed and composed the music to this gorgeous little film. Thank you to Natalie Perkins for the link, via her marvellous blog Definatalie.
"According to Aristophanes in Plato's The Banquet, in the ancient world of legend there were three types of people. In ancient times people weren't simply male or female, but one of three types : male/male, male/female or female/female. In other words, each person was made out of the components of two people. Everyone was happy with this arrangement and never really gave it much thought. But then God took a knife and cut everyone in half, right down the middle. So after that the world was divided just into male and female, the upshot being that people spend their time running around trying to locate their missing half."
NB I wrote this post a few weeks ago, but decided not to post it because it read like an essay and I thought my readers may find it boring! In light of Sarah Wilson's latest column on random acts of kindness, it became topical so I decided to post it after all. Here is part of my comment on Sarah's blog so you can gain a little insight into why I found this exhibition so compelling:
Sarah, I kind of disagree when you say that kindness doesn’t come naturally… I believe that it is the unnatural things in our lives – money, time, social structures – that encourage us to quell our natural kindness, but that everybody has a desire to be kind, which is a driving force. Most people have to LIMIT that kindness to a certain circle, maybe just family and close friends, as a way of protecting themselves (survival, as you say). Tim Minchin (my favourite comedian in the world, not to be confused with Nick Minchin, the sickeningly smug politician) has a song called “If you open up your mind too much, your brain will fall out”. Well, I think most people think that if they extend their compassion too far, their hearts will fall out.
A few weeks ago, I visited the Art Gallery of Western Australia to see Australian sculptress Patricia Piccinini's exhibition entitled "Relativity". As you can probably tell from the photos, her pieces are a little creepy. They make you feel uncomfortable and want to look away... but then, you can't help but take another glance, and step a little closer.
The exhibition is intended to force us to question "what makes us human?" When we look at these grotesque creatures, we have an innate desire to separate ourselves from them... but we can't. Patricia imbues them with a humanness that forces us to feel empathy, which shocks and surprises us. The creatures' vulnerability - whether due to childlikeness or frailty - gives us a sense of protectiveness over them. And once you look at them for long enough, they have a oddly sweet quality.
Patricia has identified her ethos as "I feel, therefore I think". Her pieces help us to tap into our innate kindness and humility, as well as extending our awareness of the way we project our own fears and insecurities onto others. When we first see these creatures, we feel anxiety and disgust. Why? These are just sculptures! They can't touch us. So why do we feel so uncomfortable in their presence?
Society teaches us that to be human is the penultimate state. Humans are the smartest, most valuable creatures on earth. Everything else – animals, trees, plants, water – is at our disposal; they are subject to our needs and desires. We can manipulate them for our own benefit because we have a certain "specialness" about us that makes us more important than anything else. These kinds of assumptions are gradually changing but I've noticed that a lot of people tend to live in a condition of willful ignorance... which, of course, makes it easy to be callous.
Patricia often pairs her creatures with children. Their innocence reminds us of a time when we were quick to offer trust and unconditional love, and slow to make judgments. We can learn so much from reminiscing about our childhoods. The children also represent the future, and the fact that things can change for the better if we only remain in touch with our hearts. This extends to our relationship with the "other" in general... other animals, all living things, as well as other people of different races and ethnicities, backgrounds and life experiences, those who are younger or older than ourselves.
So what to take away from this? We should not allow our fears to overtake us. We have to let go of the notion that we, as humans, are more valuable than any other living creature. We need to allow ourselves to empathise with other people or creatures who are different to us, instead of shielding ourselves from that compassion as a subconscious means of protecting ourselves. We can turn a blind eye to the experience and suffering of others, if we deliberately keep our distance, but when we look into their eyes, we cannot help but connect with them and feel for them. Humanity does not just consist of intelligence and survival instinct. Our greatest gift is the ability to intuitively empathise and feel attachment towards other living things - because that it what gives us the desire to improve things, and the responsibility of acting upon that yen.
“If you’re listening, if you’re awake to the poignant beauty of the world, your heart breaks regularly. In fact, your heart is made to break; its purpose is to burst open again and again so that it can hold even more wonders.” — Andrew Harvey
So, I am the recent owner of an iPad. I am not bragging - I actually feel a bit shameful because it's such an indulgent purchase. But, on the plus side, had I not acquired my iPad I never would have found this picture perfect love poem (by a novice!), via my single favourite app, Stumble Upon.
This amazing video, a simply beautiful message of love from a cancer-stricken husband to his devoted wife for her birthday, had tears cascading down my cheeks. For me, something so incredibly sweet and beautiful emerging from such a heartbreaking situation is like a glimpse of a rainbow on what seems like a never-ending dark, stormy day. It's a glimpse of hope.
So, I opened up This Is Not the Story You Think It Is by Laura Munson* to, of course, the last page. I always read the last page of my books first, so I know what's coming. I do it for the same reason that I often read the plot of movies and tv series on Wikipedia before I watch them.** I don't think that it spoils them for me (unless the ending itself is disappointing). I just like to absorb stories with the conclusion in mind. It helps me to comprehend them better, as a whole.
Back on topic... at the end of Laura Munson's novel I found this beautiful love poem that I want to share.
I love couples that consist of a short man and a tall woman. It kind of absolves that completely unromantic "list" approach to finding "The One"... You know, "he/she must have blonde hair, a great body, a good sense of humour, be intelligent, successful, taller/shorter than me... etc." Love just doesn't work like that. Thank God. If perfection was a prequisite to love, then we'd all be very lonely.
Garance Dore and Scott Schuman
Sophie Dahl and Jamie Cullum
Nicole Kidman and Keith Urban
I love how they all look as though they are in their own little love bubble, oblivious to the fact that other people may be thinking less than kind thoughts. Or maybe they just don't care, which I love even more.
"But who can say what's best? That's why you need to grab whatever chance you have of happiness where you find it, and not worry about other people too much. My experience tells me that we get no more than two or three such chances in a life time, and if we let them go, we regret it for the rest of our lives." — Haruki Murakami
This blog post by Simone Heydon inspired me to pen a relationship contract with my lovely boyfriend Andy.
Andy:
* I will give you at least three sincere compliments each day: one on your beauty, one on your delightful personality, and one on something wonderful you have done.
* I will accept that you will never understand my borderline obsessive compulsive complex with cleanliness and tidiness. I will tidy and clean up after you without complaining when the mess involved is negligible.
* I will not be angry with you for being clumsy and absent-minded. This is part of who you are and I love you for it.
* I will not criticise any member of your family, for any reason, not even to join in with you.
* I will occasionally buy you small presents as a thoughtful gesture, for example a magazine, flowers or chocolate.
* I will never take my work stress or bad moods out on you.
* I will kiss you with regularity and passion without prompting.
* I will not get upset when I cook elaborate, gourmet meals for you and you can't eat them because I know quite well how "undeveloped" your palette is.
* I will drive you everywhere, and always open the car door for you.
Laura:
* I will cheerfully watch Top Gear with you, and try my best not to tune out whilst you talk about cars incessantly, indicating my interest by making appropriate noises i.e. "wow", "you're so clever", "what's that?" etc.
* I will put all your DVDs back in their cases when I am done with them instead of leaving them strewn around the room.
* I will let you play playstation without competing with it for your attention. I will even, occasionally, play it with you and not get angry when you ridicule my playing technique.
* If I call you and you don't answer, then you text me instead, I will refrain from calling you again because it probably means you don't want to talk to me at that particular moment (i.e. during a work shift or a "boy's night").
* I will limit my discussion about getting married and what we should call our children.
* I will try my best to be tidy, and not leave glasses of water or Coke Zero on the bedside table where I will inevitably knock them over and damage your expensive surround sound speakers.
* I will let you listen to your music in the car and never, ever criticise your driving.
* I will go to sleep at the same time as you, instead of staying up to watch Law and Order and The Real Housewives of New York City.
* I will not be personally affronted when you are stressed about work or in a bad mood.
* I will not nag you about ettiquete, making decisions for your future, not eating or drinking food and alcohol that you know always makes you sick, taking me on dates, buying me presents and being responsible with money.
* I will never take for granted everything you do for me.
P.S. Andy has declined entering into the contract, however I have noticed more kissing, compliments and patience with my clumsiness and messiness :)
This song was played at the wedding yesterday, it was just beautiful.
I have always absolutely adored Eva Cassidy's amazing, soul-stirring voice but I never knew her tragic story. Here is a lovely, moving tribute to her written after she died at the age of 33.
Echoes of a Voice Stilled Too Early
The Death of Eva Cassidy Haunts Friends and Fans
By Richard Harrington
Washington Post Staff Writer
Sunday, November 17, 1996 Page G01
Bruce Lundvall still shakes his head over Eva Cassidy. Lundvall heads Blue Note Records, a label with a string of distinctive jazz singers. None made a first impression like this unknown singer from Bowie.
"Eva Cassidy had the most extraordinary and singular voice I had heard in a very, very long time," he says. "It was distinctive not only because of its power but because of its timbre when she sang quietly. It was so very mysterious -- it would just freeze me.
"The first time I ever heard her was in my office. She sang an a cappella `Amazing Grace' and I was just nailed to the wall. I made a very bad mistake. I should have signed her. . . . She was a kid. Who knew?"
On Nov. 2, Eva Cassidy died at the age of 33 following a three-month battle with bone cancer. She was, for sure, a diamond, no longer in the rough but not yet in the proper setting that would showcase a voice so pure, so strong, so passionate that it should have found a home just about anywhere.
Cassidy didn't have any concept of target audiences or musical distinctions. She could sing anything -- folk, blues, pop, jazz, R&B, gospel -- and make it sound like it was the only music that mattered.
But that kind of reach, that kind of embrace, is so rare that it doesn't have a regular audience. Clubs shy away from booking a voice like that. Record labels don't know how to sell it. So Cassidy released only two CDs, both on local labels. The second, "Live at Blues Alley," came out a month before she learned she had cancer.
All that helps explain why Eva Cassidy is not a familiar name, even here in her home town. She was a secret slowly exposed by word of mouth from those who stumbled into her world and emerged forever fans. It explains why so many musicians sought Eva Cassidy out. Everybody felt like she was a part of their mix.
She was shy, of course. She was neither blessed nor burdened with the aggressiveness and ambition that fuel so many singers and musicians. But there was a spiritual solidity about Cassidy. She was determined, focused, strong.
"I don't even think she knew how good she was," says Chuck Brown, the "Godfather of Go-Go," who made a much-acclaimed album of jazz and pop standards with Cassidy in 1992. "She liked the idea of possibly making a living off music, but if she never got a record deal or never became famous, she wouldn't lose any sleep over it," says Chris Biondo, Cassidy's producer and bassist. "What's sad is that people were just beginning to figure how good she was when she got sick."
Toward the end of July, Eva Cassidy started showing up for gigs with a cane. Hip pain, she said. She'd been doing murals for three days. Must have pulled something.
The pain didn't stop. X-rays. The hip was fractured. Hip replacement surgery was set for Aug. 21. A precautionary X-ray before the operation found cancer in a lung. Tests at Johns Hopkins then found that her bones were filled with cancer.
All of a sudden, she was being told that she had three months to live. She started chemotherapy immediately, though it seemed little more than rage against the storm of sickness.
"It wasn't just the music," says Biondo. "Eva fought as hard as she did because she wanted to ride her bike again, to go out and spend Sundays with her mother. She loved music, but it didn't mean as much to her as it meant to the people that were listening to her singing."
Her mother, Barbara Cassidy, says Eva "was a very private person, with a sense of vulnerability about her when she sang. I think that's what touched people's hearts about her."
When Chris Biondo first met Eva Cassidy, she was just a friend of someone recording in his home studio in Bowie. "He told me he was bringing over a really good singer. I didn't pay much attention, but I remember Eva was scared to come in the door, she waited outside. It wasn't very intimidating, but she thought it was a bigger deal than it was. When Eva finally came in and sang, I knew my friend wasn't kidding."
Biondo's recording studio would ultimately be a bridge to a number of musical opportunities that Cassidy would never have sought out. It was there that she met Al Dale, a National Park Service official who would become her manager.
"When I went to the studio, Eva was singing background parts in the vocal booth, which I couldn't see -- Chris pushed the button on the board so the music was coming out," Dale recalls. "I said, `Man, she's great!' I was expecting to see this black lady and out walks this little blond, blue-eyed lady and I said, `Is that Eva Cassidy?' "
She was raw talent.
"She hadn't, like a lot of people, hit the Holiday Inn circuit, done tours and whatever," Dale remembers. "She had never done any of that, just some singing around the house with her family and doing little gigs. She talked about how she enjoyed doing backup vocals and liked all kinds of music.
"And, when I was first trying to encourage her, she'd ask, `Why would anybody want to hear me? Why would anybody want to buy my records?' "
She came from a musical family. Her father, Hugh Cassidy, is a retired schoolteacher who played acoustic bass for many years. Her brother, Danny, is a fiddle player now living in Iceland. Eva became serious about her voice and guitar when she was 9, about the same time her brother started on the fiddle.
She sang with a couple of high-energy rock bands in high school. "It strained her voice because kids play so loud and the singer has to screech to get above them," says Hugh Cassidy. "She hated that."
Eva's first professional job was singing country music over the summer at nearby Wild World, a first taste of doing songs she didn't want to do in front of audiences who weren't there to listen.
But Cassidy herself listened with great passion -- to the radio.
"One of the reasons she got so good, whenever a song was on the radio, she would always sing with it -- not the melody, always the harmony," Hugh says. "She had a sense of harmony -- it didn't matter what part -- high, low, she could take any part. When they'd call her in to lay down tracks, she'd go in and just do it because she had an incredible ear."
Chuck Brown also discovered Eva Cassidy voice-first when he was doing some recording at Biondo's studio in 1992.
"Chris put a tape on and I heard this beautiful, honeyed voice coming out of the speakers," Brown recalls. "Her voice projected her feelings, and I could feel everything she was singing. It's a devastating blow to lose her. . . . I felt I'd been knowing her all her life."
Though widely known as the Godfather of Go-Go, the raspy-voiced Brown had long wanted to cut an album reflecting his passion for jazz and blues, but, he admits, "I never had the nerve to do it by myself. That lady, man, I've never met anybody like her. When I first heard her voice, I thought about Louis Armstrong and Peggy Lee. What a combination that was way back in the '40s and nobody'd done it since! I really felt good about it."
They recorded "The Other Side," a supple collection of standards like "Fever," "Over the Rainbow," "Gee Baby, Ain't I Good to You," "God Bless the Child" and "You Don't Know What Love Is."
Cassidy's singing with Brown, says her friend Jackie Fletcher, was "simple and clear and gorgeous, the quiet crystal clear ballad interspersed with soulful blues tunes. It was not muddied in the water of rock-and-roll, and it made Eva work -- she had to have power in her voice to sing with Chuck."
The two did some club dates together -- the notoriously undemonstrative Cassidy got someone to teach her how to snap her fingers for "Fever" -- and introduced themselves to each other's audiences.
"When I found out she was sick, I haven't been right since," says Brown, his voice choking up with emotion. "I had to stop all of my recording sessions 'cause I just wasn't in no mood to go in the studios to do anything . . . "
In time, Cassidy began to venture out from the studio, playing small clubs and wishing they were smaller.
"She was scared to play in front of a lot of people," Biondo says, "though she became more comfortable when she realized her singing really moved people."
Singer Mary Ann Redmond, who shared some stages with Cassidy, says: "Female singers are a rare breed -- they can be insecure and a little bit catty and weird -- but Eva didn't have any of those traits. She didn't have any ego, she just wanted to sing because she loved music. She didn't even really like being onstage that much -- she'd rather sing background than be in the foreground."
Nicky Scarfo, who produced gangsta rap at Biondo's studio -- and sometimes enlisted Cassidy for backup vocals -- couldn't understand why she wasn't a big star. "Chris said she didn't care at all, she just wanted to live her life peacefully. She was just happy doing what she did. . . . There was no sense of urgency."
Like Dale and Brown, Scarfo's first reaction when meeting Cassidy was doubt. "It was: `Chris, are you jiving?' But Eva got on that mike and just destroyed it, we didn't believe what we were hearing."
At first, Scarfo didn't think Cassidy would want to work in gangsta rap. "I had her sing a hook that said `I want to thank you pimps and players' and I couldn't even imagine it -- but the way she sang it, she made it sound good, you know!"
Scarfo laughs at the memory. "She just put a feeling and a touch on words that brought them across with soulfulness and jazziness all wrapped up into one. And the way she did harmonies is unbelievable. She could do four-part harmonies just like that -- 1,2,3,4, write it and hit it, all the harmonies, note for note, and be done in 20 or 30 minutes. It was unbelievable."
So was the rappers' reaction. "These are guys that would shoot me if I messed their tape up. When she'd come in," Scarfo says, "I swear, it was like the principal walking into a class, I've never seen them so respectful and well behaved. These guys were really devastated when they found out about Eva . . . "
"Record companies want to pigeonhole you," says manager Dale. "What was really confusing about Eva is that she could sing everything."
According to Biondo, Cassidy's biggest problem with prospective labels was that when they asked her to show them what direction she wanted to go in, she would record three or four songs. "And, inevitably, one would be a gospel song, one a jazz standard, one a folk song, or some obscure Celtic song that Eva would change and arrange in ways that made it not resemble anything like it was when it was originally invented. Every song that she sang had some meaning to her.
"She didn't really understand that there were categories between songs; if they were ones she happened to pick, that was her category. I don't think until the day she died she ever understood what that was all about."
By mid-October, many in Washington's music community were aware of Cassidy's illness, though few knew its severity. Because she had no insurance, a benefit was scheduled at the Bayou, with dozens of bands and individual musicians volunteering their services.
"Eva cared enough about it to try to get herself pumped up to get there," Dale says. Effects of the still-spreading cancer and the harsh side effects of chemotherapy had made Cassidy so ill that she decided to forgo chemo on the two days before the show. When she arrived at the club -- moving slowly with a walker, a sprightly beret masking the loss of hair -- Cassidy looked frail but golden.
"Eva had such a sparkle that night -- she said, `This is like my big birthday party.' It may have been the one time in her life that she came to terms with the idea that people really do like her and think that she's a terrific talent. It filled her to know people appreciated and loved her."
Late that evening, Cassidy slowly moved down the Bayou stage steps with her walker and approached the microphone. Typically, she first thanked everyone. And then, with a fragile beauty that belied her pain, she sang "What a Wonderful World," a vision of moments and places and people that will never again seem quite as wonderful as they were that night.
Eva Cassidy's eyes may have been the only dry ones in the Bayou at that moment.
"I think that was the best day she had after she got real sick," Biondo says. "But she came home and threw up that night, she was in a lot of pain. The arm that she used to strum her guitar had cancer in it . . . "
Hours later, Cassidy was back at Johns Hopkins for chemo. According to Jackie Fletcher, "Her peak was the Bayou. She started sliding downhill that next morning. She lost so much of her strength over a short period of time and after that night, she was always in the wheelchair because of the pain and because her bones were so brittle."
Over the next few days, Cassidy tried to send thank-you notes to the performers and those who helped put the tribute together, even if she could only do one a day. The cards bore a heart with a smiling face.
The Bayou would be Cassidy's last public performance. The little bit of singing she did after that was from her bed.
"She liked songs with singable choruses," folk singer Marcy Marxer recollects. "Songs like `Give Yourself to Love' and `My Heart's in the Highlands.' Grace Griffith and I would sing, and she'd just jump in with the third part. Sometimes we'd have to sing softly to hear Eva, and she'd say, `Let's make a nest' -- and we'd circle up real close."
The last weeks were the hardest, of course. And, typically, it was Eva Cassidy who preempted others' sorrow.
"I once heard Eva say she wasn't afraid of dying," says Al Dale. "She never even had a tear in her eye. It was always, `Well, how you doing, Al?' You almost never got a chance to say `Well, Eva, how are you doing?' She never even asked for anything -- you could give her an apple and she'd think it was a diamond ring."
Barbara Cassidy remembers that earlier this year, Eva visited relatives in Nova Scotia and sat on some rocks watching meteors go by all night long. "She said it was so incredible. She loved different cloud formations, the way the sun would feel to her through the breeze, flowers. She just added so much beauty to my life . . .
"And she loved sunset, it was her favorite time. She called it the golden time of day, when the sun is going down and the yellows and reds hit the leaf tops . . . "
Hugh Cassidy sighs for a moment and says, "Eva got us all to look at the golden time."
In 1993, Eva Cassidy tried to record a song called "I Know You by Heart." The project was sidetracked. It was finished last month, with the calm, crystalline beauty of Cassidy's voice augmented by the aching, ethereal violin of her brother, Danny.
"You left in autumn, the leaves were turningI walk down roads [of] orange and goldI see your sweet smile, I hear your laughterYou're still here beside me every day . . .'Cause I know you by heart . . . "
Maybe someday "I Know You by Heart" will be released, its melancholy beauty heard by audiences around the world. Then, the song's sound may well bring tears to strangers' eyes, but right now it's the silence that hurts those who knew the singer.
This blog chronicles the journey of a 21-year-old aspiring writer from Perth, Australia, on my search for happiness, love and inspiration.
"Potentiality knocks at the door of my heart" — Haruki Murakami.
