I Am This Woman

(28 of 50)
Forgive me for just a moment, for not being fluffy, funny or pointless. This is a particularly important day for me, historically, as an American and as an Air Force brat.

Today is June 6. On a pretty day in summer, 64 years ago, a whole lot of men, young and old, landed in France for an invasion that turned the tide and eventually ended WWII. In the following months, American, British, French, Canadian, German, Italian, Spanish, etc. men and women died. Some survived and told us their stories, lest we forget.

However you feel about war, one cannot forget those hoardes of soldiers, sailors, marines and airmen who were cut down, some even before they were on dry land. Some of them were fathers and have children and grandchildren who remember. Some were childless, some married, some unmarried. There are some men who died, whose loved ones are now also dead 64 years later. They have no one to remember them.

But I remember. I was raised to honor their service and sacrifice, and to support the men and women and families serving in the military currently, regardless of my political and emotional feelings. My parents never missed any news coverage or speeches about this day. They watched with quiet tears in their eyes. They had lost friends, classmates, colleagues, neighbors; nearly everyone in their generation knew someone who had died there. They knew the magnitude of the day and taught us kids its importance. I remember. My brother remembers.

Remember them. Thank them. But really, just remember them.

Dan Fogelberg died yesterday. And I am sad.

This article gives a briefing. His official website has a link to The Living Legacy, a fan site I believe.

I saw him in concert with a girlfriend in 1979. We swooned - it was an acoustic solo concert. Piano and guitar. For two hours, he enthralled us. We were two girls at the stage door, waiting with the 30-some others. Then we saw his limo pull out from another door. Oh well… only years later, after living with a musician, would I understand why he ducked us.

I listened to his songs in college, those angsty years. I gazed at his beautiful face on the album cover. I fell in love with a Dan who looked a lot like him (though he couldn’t sing). I shed many cathartic tears, and was completely astonished at just how apt so many of his lyrics were to situations in my life. Surely no one else had EVER felt what I felt! and here was a song that described the feelings to a T! amazing! (Sketches and Same Auld Lang Syne, to be exact.)

One time, I went home with a date after a truly fantastic dinner out… he sat down at his piano and played one of Fogelberg’s songs… it must have been his best “line” because it worked. I fell for him right then and there. Music is so powerful, and as cheesy as some find his work to be, it was significant to me for a good long period of my life.

I think I’ll trot out the LPs and play them on my record player tonight (yes, I still have one!)

Go in beauty, Dan. Your creativity, work and music are here to remind us of your gentle spirit.

For too long, I’ve been running on E, and filling my creative and emotional tank with just enough to get by. When faced with taking a weekend completely off from email, work, even the keyboard, I find myself unsure and a little bit defensive. Nothing wrong with my hobbies and business aspirations. Nothing wrong with installing some WordPress things, moving a domain, checking email. Nothing wrong with responding to that email - a weekend time stamp makes me look committed, right?

See where that’s heading? Last weekend, even though I had been sick, I spent about 14 hours at the keyboard… which is nearly TWO working days. And that would be ….. NO WEEKEND. Well, a weekend spent in this chair. Maybe it was interesting, maybe I made a few dollars. But that’s no weekend. Not when you spend five days in the chair, working and pretty much doing the same things. (more…)

Yahoo story here.

I am saddened to hear of the passing of this wonderful actor. I admired her work, esp. her sense of humor and grace in a crazy business. The “extras” interview on “An Affair To Remember” on DVD depicts her as a working actor who appreciated the fun of what she got to do, as well as the craft. The scene of her at the piano with the old French grandmama makes me cry each and every time.

Saddened is rather a strange word to use when someone you don’t know passes away… she was ill from Parkinson’s and I admire the fact that she lived to 86. That’s an achievement with that disease. I know my father was ready and willing to go at 85.5. But why am I saddened? perhaps it’s the frisson one feels when reminded that we are all inexorably marching, slinking, tiptoeing, padding or tripping towards our own obituary some day.

As West says (previous entry), forget the epic - there’s only time to explode.

Thanks, Deborah, for livening up my romantic life as a movie fan. (I think I’ll watch that movie later today.)