Timothy and Me

Eight or ten years ago, I got an email from a guy named Timothy. He’d been listening to Sleepy Hollow – an early morning radio show on WXPN in Philadelphia. Chuck Elliot, the host, had played one of my songs that day. Timothy liked it enough to google me and tell me so. I wrote him right back. Emails like his are rare. When they come, they tell me that something I’ve created has worked. That I’ve communicated. I’ve gotten through, spoken to someone who knows nothing about me except that one song. It’s validation I wish I didn’t need, but I do. Timothy must have been grateful that I’d responded because every so often he sends me a screenshot of Chuck’s playlist when it includes one of my songs. I always write him back. Every Christmas he sends me a card, and I send him one too. We’ve never met. I have no idea how old he is, what he looks like, or what kind of life he lives. I just know he’s a thoughtful man who enjoys my songs.

I’m spending a lot of time looking backwards these days. Some of it’s because of my mother’s decline, but a lot of it’s because I’m getting older. This morning I realized that looking backwards is just more enjoyable for me right now. I love my friends who live all over the country, and I love my family who are scattered too. I loved the time in my life when I was singing for others, when I was a mom, when I lived in Manhattan and Brooklyn and Woodstock and Colorado. Corvallis is home now, and I love it here too. These days I’m aware that I’m waiting for what comes next rather than planning it. There’s no way I can, so I don’t. What I’m learning is what a relief it is not to plan.

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Here’s one of the songs Chuck plays on Sleepy Hollow. I haven’t heard it for a while but listening to it just now was good for me. I love this song! It’s one of those Bar Scott songs that I know no one else could have written and there’s some pride in that. Mucho thanks to Peter Tomlinson on accordion and electric guitar, Lou Pappas on bass, and Manuel Quintana on drums. I’m doing the vocals and piano. Dave Cook mixed and mastered. Production kudos to Peter and Dave who brought this song to life. And thanks to Chuck for playing it and Timothy for hearing it. I hope you like it too.

A Winter Tide

Laid down on a lonely night
Only longing and the moon in the sky
No starlight, no candlelight
Not a lantern or a mirror in sight

Come inside and lay with me a while	
Pull me in like the tide on a winter night

Hand in hand and eye to eye
In a circle that we’re making in time

Come inside and lay with me a while
Pull me in with the tide on a winter night

Oh, I look for you at night
Oh, alone again at night with the winter tide 

Oh, I look for you at night
Oh, alone again at night with the winter tide
Oh, alone with you at night and the winter tide