I work to promote ordinary activities that awaken kindness, cheerfulness, thoughtfulness & awe, helping people connect to their true nature and increase peace in the world.
You may recall that my dad died last year, almost exactly a year ago. Yesterday, my mother, my brothers, and I, along with three of my dad’s racetrack colleagues, honored his life by spreading his ashes on the racetrack at Emerald Downs. But not just anywhere on the racetrack, like in a tiny corner where the horses don’t run, but at the finish line.
In fact, we made my father’s final resting spot to be THE FINISH LINE. How poetic is that, especially for my dad, to become a visible line across a racetrack at the point where every race ends?
The photos below, I hope, put this in even better perspective than my short description here. As my mom said soon after we walked through the Winner’s Circle on our way out of the racetrack, “This was perfect.”
Indeed.
Spreading my dad’s ashes across the racetrack at Emerald Downs, we made a new finish line.My mom, with a little help from me, gets THE finish line started.Steve adds to the line.Scott’s turn.I moved over to the inside rail and connected the line to the center of the track.My mom standing with her back to inside rail, the ashes remains of her husband now a line across the racetrack.Soon after we had finished spreading the ashes at the finish line, the tractors came and my dad’s remains were more thoroughly merged into the racetrack.Before opening up the box containing my father’s ashes, we posed for a picture in the Winner’s Circle, an apt place for my brothers, my mother, and me to pose with my father.
Before spreading the ashes, we stood in the Winner’s Circle and listened to legendary track announcer Robert Geller’s “race call” of my dad’s life, an obituary in the form of a track announcer’s call of a horse race:
I’m fairly convinced that my family and friends think I’ve gone off the deep end with the amount of time I’m spending on Suno, the AI-music generator. I know I keep saying it but it’s so true. Doing this really brings me a lot of joy.
I’m spending the most time adapting my Tao of Kindness poems into pop songs. As a refresher, over 81 consecutive weeks beginning in 2018, I adapted the 81 verses of the Tao Te Ching into kindness-themed poems. After discovering Suno in March, I had the idea to take those 81 kindness poems and make them into pop songs. So far, I’ve completed 48 of them, all of which you can find on Bandcamp.
Here I am, 1985, age 22. But I’m just as enamored with taking song lyrics I’ve written over the years and using Suno to make them into full-blown songs. About the lyrics, I wrote most of them in the 1980’s, long before getting married, having kids, and starting a school. And most of those songs are about my romantic plights at the time. It’s kind of remarkable that through all of the moves and changes of the last 40 years I held onto the lyric sheets. But I’m a sappy archivist at heart and these songs serve as a kind of diary or journal, much like this blog has been serving as a memory jog for me over the last 14 years.
With that long introduction, I offer a song that I first wrote in June of 1985. I’m 22 years-old and know I’m heading off to Olympia and The Evergreen State College in a couple of months. My job as a statistician at The Daily Racing Form had been automated, meaning I had been laid off (truthfully, I was offered the opportunity to continue with the DRF but had to move to Los Angeles to do it, which didn’t really interest me). In short, I had a lot of time on my hands.
My apartment in NE Seattle, called Executive Estates, had an outdoor swimming pool. I spent a lot of time that summer out by the pool (well, in the pool, too). I also spent time with Matt, my “little brother,” part of the Big Brothers program. And I had a couple of women friends that I hung out with that summer, too. One, Janet, would come over to the pool quite regularly. We went to the Puyallup Fair in September to see Three Dog Night. She was a security guard at the time and we drove to Puyallup in her patrol car that had lights on top, like a police car. Driving down Highway 167 to Puyallup, it was fun seeing the drivers ahead of us slow way down when they caught a glimpse of Janet’s car in their rear view mirrors.
My other female friend was Cynthia who I’d known since my family moved to Washington State in 1974. She was in the combined 4th/5th classroom I was placed in upon our arrival in March. We went onto the same junior high school, Tillicum, grades 7th-9th. I remember being in the same English class in 9th grade, the year she was a cheerleader. We became more casual friends in high school although by the time we were seniors I had a pretty serious crush on her. Late in the school year, I asked her to the senior prom although we both had said we didn’t plan to go. She turned me down, perhaps because of that earlier pledge. I don’t know.
My feelings for Cynthia remained fairly dormant over the next couple years, during which I had the first adult romantic relationship of my life (Suno has helped me develop a whole album of songs dedicated to that relationship – stay tuned). But it had long ended and by early 1985 my feelings for Cynthia had rekindled. We hung out fairly often and my desire to be more than friends increased significantly.
After doing something together (what, I don’t remember – maybe a movie, a walk in the park, whatever), we’d say goodbye. And it was in these awkward moments of saying goodbye that I’d get flustered. I wanted the friendship to blossom into a romance so in each of these “goodbye moments” I’d imagine that we’d have a romantic kiss. Clearly, though, she wasn’t interested. So we’d say goodbye and she’d turn her head, offering me her cheek to kiss. Very European, a French bissou.
After one of these goodbyes I went home and wrote this song in which I imagined a time in which she wouldn’t turn her head, that instead of her cheek I’d be offered her lips.Original lyric sheet from 1985 (click to enlarge) Maybe it’s kind of sappy, maybe it’s kind of sweet. Over the years, I still remember the feelings of it.
Finding the lyric sheet in a notebook after discovering Suno in March, I tried a number of different genres and AI prompts, more than any other of my old songs. In the end, the one that I like best is as a country song. I rephrased a couple of the lines and got this final result.
If you like this one, I created an entire album of similar songs, all country-sounding and using my original lyrics, and posted it on Bandcamp. One of those, “Off Course, Of Course,” was also inspired by me wanting to date Cynthia.
I put the embedded song together as a “Get Well Card” of sorts to my friend David Spangler, he of the Lorian Association. David has been a major source of personal & professional inspiration and support for more than half my life. He and the entire Spangler family helped Melinda and me start PSCS back in 1994. Since then, David and I have had regular lunches, email back & forths, and many other ways to stay connected.
David facilitating a PSCS class in the 1990’s. Yes, that’s me in the striped shirt.The central part of David’s work is about what he calls “Incarnational Spirituality,” which revolves around the idea that being human, with our unique physical bodies, is a sacred experience. It emphasizes the importance of appreciating our physical selves and our connection to the Earth. Instead of simply aiming for oneness with everything, this approach sees our individuality as a strength that allows us to express love and make the world a better place through acts of service and kindness towards others.
I’ve long been a subscriber to David’s newsletter and a few years back he shared how a number of people associated with Lorian individually described incarnational spirituality. I was taken by their descriptions and as an exercise designed to increase my understanding, I worked to make each individual’s description into a haiku. If you’re interested in them, I’ve pasted them below.
Earlier this year, I discovered Suno, an AI music generator that allow you to quite easily create songs. Having enjoyed poetry- and lyric-writing for all of my adult life, I started playing around with Suno, learning how to best use prompts, extend songs, etc, and have really enjoyed the results. Knowing David hasn’t been feeling great and remembering my haikus, I thought I’d work on adapting them into a pop song. Today, I made the accompanying music video that allows the listener/viewer to follow along with my lyrics.
If you’re interested, here’s the music genre prompt I entered into Suno to get it to create this sound: Eastern European, gypsy punk ballad, accordion, trumpet, male vocal
I actually created an album’s worth of songs with a similar sound, many of them adapted from other things I’ve written over the years — poems, essays, memoirs. The album is called “Rediscover Play” and the band is called “Recteur Schmitt,” a tribute to Nantes, France, where my family lived for a year in 2010-11, specifically Line 2 of the tramway there (Recteur Schmitt is the name of a tram stop). Listen to the album (and/or pay $1 to download it) on Bandcamp.
Get well, David! I hope you get a kick out of this, my “get well card.”
THE HAIKUS THAT INSPIRED THIS SONG:
Souls walking on ground
enable a partnership.
To be a blessing.
We are each sacred.
An intimate universe.
Pre and post mortem.
Live a human life.
An inherent act of love.
Ourselves being here.
To work as partners.
Physical and spirit worlds.
In joy, love, and will.
The unfolding spark
is linked through relationships.
Unique and vital.
First, it’s my birthday today (61 – wow!) and I’m using the occasion to announce a new Kind Living project based on one of my all-time favorites.
Over 81 consecutive weeks, beginning in 2018 and ending in 2020, I adapted the 81 chapters of the Tao Te Ching into kindness verses, one each week, as part of a personal meditation practice. The idea of this project was to consider the ancient wisdom of the Tao through the lens of 21st-century kindness. Find the verses archived here.
In 2024, I discovered Suno, the AI music generator that allows people to make their own music using prompts, including putting their own lyrics to music. I’ve found this to be a tremendously satisfying thing to do and I’m joyfully adapting all 81 of my verses into pop songs.
The one embedded above, “Slow Down (At One With the Divine),” was inspired by Verse 13 of the Tao Te Ching. It’s included in the first of five albums I’ll be making available over the next several months, ultimately having all 81 verses adapted in readily-available pop songs. You’ll be able to find them on pretty much all the usual music streaming services and as free downloads on Bandcamp (links below).
I’ve named the “band” Motte Rouge as a tribute to the city of Nantes, France, where my family lived in 2010-11. This is a specific tribute to Line 2 of the city’s tramway, Motte Rouge being one of the tram stops. Learn more via this blog post I wrote on October 15, 2010.
(Note, all of the photos here are of Ella from our sabbatical in Nantes, France in 2010-11.)
My daughter, Ella, introduced me to the music of Taylor Swift when our family was on sabbatical in France during the 2010-11 school year (I searched my blog for any references to Taylor Swift and found just this one from 2011 when I referenced Ella being a fan, as well as one of Melinda’s and my “projects,” thus providing her time-stamped evidence of her fandom). This, of course, makes her a longtime “Swiftie,” ahead of the curve. I think she should take great pride in this. I know I do, as her father. For instance, I’m a huge fan of Jeremy Messersmith. Haven’t heard of him? Just wait. When you do, I can say that I’ve been listening to his music for years. And then won’t I be cool?!
Okay, maybe not.
Still, Ella is a big Taylor Swift fan and she does take pride in being a fan before her sister, Chloe, who used to tease her about it while we were in France. These days, I think Ella is simply so pleased to be sharing this Swiftie love with her sister that she doesn’t give her too hard of a time about being an early adopter and Chloe catching up later.
Anyway, Taylor Swift recently released a new album, “The Tortured Poets Department.” The initial release had something like 191 songs on it. And then two hours after that dropped, the marketing savvy Swift released something like another 438 songs. Ella’s been in Taylor Swift heaven since. A week or so ago, she told me that some friends of hers asked her to summarize her thoughts about the songs on the album, something she was working on when she dropped by. I asked if she’d share these thoughts with me and for permission to share them here.
So here you have as a guest blogger, my daughter, Ella Shaw, the longtime Swiftie, more than half of her life, in fact, on Taylor Swift’s latest release, “The Tortured Poets Department.” Take it away, Ella!
Taylor Swift TTPD – Ella’s Thoughts
Fortnight
I really like this one. I like that it references a lot of the other songs too. Also Post and her voice go well together. “I loved you it’s ruining my life” favorite line of the song
The Tortured Poets Department
Not my favorite song but I do think it’s an important one for the sound of the album. Favorite line “But I’ve seen this episode and I still love the show”
My boy only breaks his favorite toys
Love this one. Love singing this one in the car. Favorite line “He saw forever, so he smashed it up” also “I felt more when we played pretend. Then with all the Kens” I like this lyric since we know she was writing this album last year when the Barbie movie came out. So it feels like you’ll truly get the lyric if you were there with all of that.
Down bad
I like this one. I like the way she compared being in love with being abducted by aliens. Favorite line “cause f*&! it, I was in love. Cause f*&! it if I can’t have us. Cause f*&! it, I was in love”
So long, London
Track 5!!! LOVE IT! But so sad. I like that it’s a little bit like replacing his name with London. And the way she sings is so angelic but the tempo feels almost manic. Favorite line “how much sad did you think I had. Did I have in me” “and I’m pissed off you let me give you all that youth for free” Honestly almost ever line is my favorite it really feels like a letter being written or a diary entry
But daddy I love him
Like it. Favorite line “I just learned these people just try and save you. Cause they hate you” “I’ll tell you something about my name. It’s mine alone to disgrace”
Fresh out of the slammer
Like this one. Favorite line is when she repeating “fresh out of the slammer” when she’s echoing herself
Florida!!!
LOVE!!! Together they sounds AMAZING! Also one of my favorites to sing alone to. I think she said she wrote this song after watching dateline and everyone seemed to flee to Florida. Favorite lines “My friends all reek of weed or babies” “FLORIDA (drums) is one hell of a drug (drums) FLORIDA (drums) can I use you up”
Guilty as sin
Really like this one. This sound is my favorite kind of her songs. Favorite line “Am I allowed to cry” also like that this song is like her fantasy of this guy she likes
Who’s afraid of little old me
LOVE THIS SONG!!! I keep replaying it all the time. Love singing along. “You don’t get to tell me about sad” “you don’t get to tell me you feel bad” love that these two sentences are similar but just a little changed. “so they tell me everything is not about me. But what if it is? Then they say they didn’t do it to hurt me. But what if they did? This feels like intrusive thoughts. The whole bridge is so good!
I can fix him (no really I can)
Like this one but not my favorite. Kinda reminds me of like a continuation of Cowboy Like Me. The western twang to it is really cool. Favorite line “woah maybe I can’t”
loml
Love this one. Super sad. I like that the acronym stands for love of my life and he keeps calling her love of my life and she calls him loss of my life. When she says “a con man sells a fool a get love quick scheme” I think she’s referencing her Out of the woods music video. Favorite line “Mr. steel your girl then make her cry. You said I’m the love of your life” Again the bridge is just amazing lyrics.
I can do it with a broken heart
LOVE LOVE LOVE!!!! This might be my favorite. I love how upbeat it is but the lyrics are about being so sad and depressed. Best song to sing along to. Favorite line “Cause I’m a real tough kid. I can handle my shit”
The smallest man who ever lived
Like this song. I like that this song refers to the song before it by talking about her sparkling summer. Favorite line “and I’ll forget you, but I’ll never forgive. The smallest man who ever lived” the bridge is also amazing!
The alchemy
Love this song. The two songs before this are talking about her summer and so is this one kinda with it being about her starting to be happy with Travis. Favorite line “Where the trophy. He just comes running over to me” Also her talking about coming back a little like coming back to her roots.
Clara bow
Like this song. I like that she has all of these very famous women in different decades that everyone is being compared to. I also like that she says herself cause that is so true. And with the person being told they’re like her but with edge. Favorite line “You look like Taylor swift. In this light, we’re loving it. You got edge, she never did”
The black dog
Love this song. Another sad song that’s really good lyricly and fun to sing in the car to. Favorite line “And your location, you forgot to turn it off” Like that when she sings “old habits die screaming” then the music gets loud till the last time she says it and it gets quiet
Imgonnagetyouback
Like this one, not my favorite though. Favorite line “Whether I’m gonna be your wife or smash up your bike, I haven’t decided yet. I’m gonna get you back” I like that gonna get you back has a double meaning here.
The albatross
Like this song. Super pretty sounding, her voice is really nice in it. Favorite line “she is the albatross. She’s here to destroy you”
Chloe or sam or Sophia or Marcus
Like this song. Favorite lines “just say ‘I loved you the way you were’ if you want to tear my world apart. Just say you always wondered” “cooler in theory, but not if you force it to be. It just didn’t happen”
How did it end?
So good! Kinda feels like the other end of her song Lover with “we herby” as some wedding imagery like the song Lover does. Also this song is a little bit seems poured at the fans who think they deserve to know what happened between her and her exes but she’s only telling her friends. It seems like there a couple of times in the song reference it’s. “We must know how did it end” and “guess who we ran into the shops? walking in circles she was lost. Don’t you hear? They called it off. One gasp and then how did it end?” Favorite line “sitting in a tree d-y-I-n-g” “I can’t pretend like I understand. How did it end”
So high school
LOVE! It feels like it should be in a 2000s movie. One of my top favorite. Favorite lyric “you know how to ball, I know Aristotle. Brand new, full throttle” “you know what you wanted and, boy you got her”
I hate it here
Might be my favorite song. I loved playing the game where we pick a decade to live and I also would be like without all this and this. Love the escapism of this song. I really relate to it. Favorite line as you can guess is “My friends used to play a game where we would pick a decade.We wished we could live in instead of this. I’d say the 1830s but without all the racists and getting married off for the highest bid. Everyone would look down ’cause it wasn’t fun now. Seems like it was never even fun back then. Nostalgia is a minds trick. If I’d been there, I’d hate it. It was freezing in the palace”
thanK you aIMee
I like it but not my favorite. I do love the pettiness of it if it is about Kim. Favorite line is “and one day, your kid comes home singing a song only us two is gonna know is a about you”
I look in peoples windows
Like this song. Is it from the perspective of Peter Pan? With the song Peter from Wendy’s? Also it seems like it could be from her perspective of being such a big star that she’s looking in on other people having normal lives. Favorite line “I look in peoples windows. Like I’m some derange weirdo”
The prophecy
LOVE LOVE LOVE this song!!! Favorite line “I guess a lesser woman would’ve lost hope. A greater woman wouldn’t beg. But I looked to the sky and said. Please. I’ve been on my knees. Change the prophecy. Don’t want money. Just someone who wants my company. Let it once be me. Who do I have to speak to. About if they can redo the prophecy?” I really like how she says knees with it sounding like she’s begging. And the strumming of the guitar through the whole song is just so so beautiful.
Cassandra
I like this song. I like the use of Greek mythology with also referencing her life, especially the reputation and before era with the “room with snake” and “when its ‘burn the bitch’ they’re shrieking. But when the truth comes out, it’s quite”. My favorite line “so they killed Cassandra first, cause she feared the worst”
Peter
Is this Wendy’s point of view when she’s all grown up? She references the lost boys, fearless leader. “You said you were gonna grown up, then you were gonna come find me”. In Peter Pan I believe he grows up at the end of the story. Favorite line “But the woman who sits at the window has turned out the light” I like this line as it shows that she also grew up.
The bolter
LOVE!!! Love the guitar and like the upbeatness of it. I like that at the end it switches from ‘him calling her a whore’ to ‘her having the best stories’. Favorite line “there’s escape in escaping” it’s funny but also resonates.
Robin
It’s good but not a favorite. I think I’ve heard this is about her co-writers child? Favorite line “you have no room in your dreams for regrets”. The song is a really pretty song about the innocent of childhood.
The manuscript
Love this song! It’s so beautiful!!! It’s a perfect end to the album with her being like these songs are no longer about who I wrote them about/I’ve moved on from it. These songs are yours now. It’s so beautiful with piano in the background. Favorite line is the whole song but having to pick it would be “now and then I reread the manuscript. But the story isn’t mine anymore”
Back in the late summer of 1996, my older daughter, Chloe, age three, and I were home, just the two of us on a Saturday night. My wife and Chloe’s mom, Melinda (who was pregnant with our younger daughter, Ella, at the time), had gone out with some friends. Together, Chloe and I made ourselves a casual dinner and now, the dishes cleaned up, it was nearing her bedtime.
At Chloe’s request, I had gotten out the art supplies and she was busy coloring, cutting paper, painting, and whatever else struck her artistic fancy at three-years-old. I was taken by the seriousness with which she was engaged, although it also struck me that part of her seriousness was to keep herself busy so maybe she would get to stay up past her bedtime. Watching her, all of these things kind of converged in my mind and this idea of who controls time came to me.
We use the expression “learn to tell time” to refer to being able to read a clock. But I had the inspiration that there was another meaning for that expression, that if we tried, we might want “to tell time” to ease up on us. I mean it’s Saturday night, your lovely little three-year-old is engaged in an art project. Do you really need to put her to bed because the clock says it’s 8pm? Who’s telling who what to do?
Do we tell time or does time tell us?
I made note of that expression and let Chloe stay up past her bedtime. After finally putting her to bed, I wrote a poem that ended with that line and referenced the evening we had had together. Over the next nearly 20 years, the poem was stashed in a binder where I kept things like it, songs, poems, ideas. Soon before Chloe graduated from college in 2015, I came across it while sifting through the binder in one of my frequent forays down memory lane. I asked an artist friend (Fish Astronaut) to illustrate the poem, and I presented the hand-printed illustrated version to her as a graduation gift (click on the image above, that’s it, to see it enlarged and read the original poem).
In the ensuing nine years, the poem would find its way back into my mind. Or, more accurately, the idea of being the master of my time or time being the master of me would find its way back into my mind. The concept of mindfulness, Eckhart Tolle’s book “The Power of Now,” and even expressions like “there’s no time like the present” would rattle around.
One night not loo long ago, I decided to see if I could make the poem into a song lyric, a song that would make the point about being the master of our time rather than the other way around with an added implication that maybe we could all learn something from little kids. The rewrite came fairly easily. Then this month, April of 2024, after I discovered the Suno AI music generator, I inputted my song lyric and the prompt “An eastern European gypsy punk ballad with accordion and power chords, sung fast.” The song here is the result. For the music video, I added pictures of Chloe from in and around the time she was three.
Postscript – I’ve named the “band” performing this song “Recteur Schmitt” for reasons I will explain at a different time. For now, understand that Recteur Schmitt is the name of one of the stops on Line 2 of the tramway in Nantes, France. Find an entire album of Recteur Schmitt songs on the usual platforms – Spotify, Amazon Music & Apple Music. If you want to buy a copy of the album for $1.00, go to Bandcamp and know you will have made my day.
DOES TIME TELL US?
Saturday night sunset, the moon comes up – big, orange and bright.
Too late for being on time, too early for saying goodnight.
You sit undisturbed, absorbed in the concentration of being three.
Your bedtime comes and goes, now what becomes of me?
What do we know, what is the fuss?
Do we tell time or does time tell us?
What do we know, what is the fuss?
Do we tell time or does time tell us?
I buried a wish in the sandbox when I was eight.
And lost more than my friends when they could not relate.
Now I hold your tiny hand and I’m back in the right place,
I thank the clock each time I see your face.
What do we know, what is the fuss?
Do we tell time or does time tell us?
What do we know, what is the fuss?
Do we tell time or does time tell us?
They mismanage the time they save for themselves,
while little kids listen for fire trucks, fairies, and elves.
You and me, we are the secret no one understands,
colored paper meeting scissors, manipulated by little hands.
Hour glasses to measure time, alarm clocks to wake us up.
Too much sand is passing through while morning is too abrupt.
Saturday night sunset, the moon comes up – big, orange and bright.
Too late for being on time, too early for saying goodnight.
What do we know, what is the fuss?
Do we tell time or does time tell us?
What do we know, what is the fuss?
Do we tell time or does time tell us?
It’s spring break for me at Spring Academy where I’m the principal (yeah, a lot has happened since I last posted). I don’t want to talk about that right now, I want to talk about songwriting and AI.
I recently learned of Suno, an Artificial Intelligence music generator. To make use of it is pretty simple. Once you log in, you give it a few simple instructions and it will create a song for you. Want to write a country-tinged love song for your garbage collector, Suno’s got you covered.
For me, as much as I appreciate (love may be too strong) the people who collect our garbage, I’m not really interested in writing them songs of any kind. I am interested in taking many of the dozens of song lyrics I’ve written over the last 40 years and having them made into actual songs. I’ve had a couple of songwriting partners in the past but those fizzled out and the number of songs we created you could count on two hands. With Suno, I have a musical partner and a band wrapped into one. And after many weekend, evening, and now spring break hours of well-considered prompts and then some editing, Suno and I have collaborated on over 50 songs.
It’s a glorious feeling for me, tapping into a side of my history and creativity that doesn’t get a lot of attention these days. And with it being spring break, the timing is perfect.
[Click to Enlarge]As an example, I present this song. I wrote the song lyric in late 1986 / early 1987 when I was a sappy 23-year-old undergraduate at The Evergreen State College. I was in what I wanted to be a serious romantic relationship but my girlfriend was interested in something less committed. Looking back, I can’t really blame her. It was college, after all.
Interestingly, this song was written in longhand on notebook paper, pages that I’ve kept all these years (click the photo above to have it enlarged). It started out as a poem so you might see some poetic structure to the verses. Once I added the chorus, it started to seem more like a song to me, although the rhyme structure of the verses (or lack thereof) is unusual for a pop song. My AI prompt was “Bouncy folky pop. Male singer. Brushed drums. Pedal steel guitar. Musical hooks.” There are a couple of errors with the output and the video generated by Suno misses the opening lyrics. But the falsetto-style chorus with the hook is genuinely beautiful to my listening ear, giving the song even more meaning for me than just the words on paper. Even 37 years later!
Oh, back in 1987 I called this “Trick or Treat” and even inputted it that way to Suno. But after listening to Suno’s output, “The Trick of Your Trade” sounded like a better title. Listen by clicking on the YouTube play button below and follow along with the lyrics, below that.
THE TRICK OF YOUR TRADE
(VERSE):
I’m so sorry, why are you feeling this way?
When I hold you close you smile.
When I tell you why you push me away and tell me not to lie.
Am I supposed to be thinking, I don’t know.
But I’m thinking and have never felt this dumb before.
(CHORUS):
’cause your heart’s playing trick or treat, it’s dressed for the masquerade.
I knocked on your door, tasted the treat, but it’s the trick of your trade.
(VERSE)
You say you’re sorry you drew me into this.
When both of us were drawn.
When both of us drew out that kiss, don’t say it was a lie.
Am I supposed to be sinking, I don’t know.
But I’m sinking and I’ve never felt this low before.
(CHORUS):
’cause your heart’s playing trick or treat, it’s dressed for the masquerade.
I knocked on your door, tasted the treat, but it’s the trick of your trade.
(BRIDGE):
You said you want my feelings to hide but this costume is not the right size.
It’s hard for me to cover up when I want to take off your disguise.
(VERSE):
I’m so sorry, I’m drinking fermented tears.
I cradle the bottle and cry.
I unscrew the cap, swallow my fears, am I living a lie?
Am I supposed to be drinking, I don’t know.
But I’m drinking and I’ve never been this thirsty before.
(CHORUS):
’cause your heart’s playing trick or treat, it’s dressed for the masquerade.
I knocked on your door, tasted the treat, but it’s the trick of your trade.
Since the 1990’s I’ve been promoting the importance of ordinary acts of kindness by offering classes, making suggestions via a newsletter, and writing kindness-related articles. A couple of my favorite kindness activities come from when I was facilitating an in-person intergenerational kindness class in a Seattle retirement community in the late 1990’s. The class consisted of elderly residents of the Fred Lind Manor and students from the Puget Sound Community School (PSCS). We met weekly to chat about kindness and, more importantly, to complete a group action.
Early in the term, the students had the idea of delivering flowers to some of the retirement community residents who had a difficult time leaving campus. A florist nearby offered to donate day-old flowers to the cause and we went door-to-door in the community delivering bouquets. One resident, a man, cried upon receiving a bouquet, telling us he’d never been given flowers before. The florist was so generous, a kindness unto itself, that we had a lot of extra flowers. The PSCS students decided to surprise Melinda at the PSCS office and delivered a bouquet to her.
The next week, one of the teens suggested we go to a nearby coffee house and anonymously pay for the coffee of a random stranger, someone who arrives at the counter, orders, only to find their drink has been paid for, a kindness act familiar to most people interested in the subject. I was a little nervous about this idea as I hadn’t taken any of the elders outside of the retirement community before. But the enthusiasm was palpable and, frankly, contagious. I checked with the Activities Coordinator, a person I greatly admired, pretty sure she wouldn’t stop us.
So off we went, walking about five blocks to a nearby coffee house. There were nine of us who went, four teens, four elders, and me. We pooled our pocket change as we walked, planning who would say what, and trying to figure out how we all could inconspicuously sit in the coffee house in order to see our unknown recipient receive our intended kindness.
Can you picture it, four teens, four elders, and me trying to be inconspicuous in a small shop? It was probably 2:30 in the afternoon, too, an odd time to be out.
In we went and up to the counter our chosen representatives went, a teen and an elder, with a couple of dollars in loose change. They tried explaining the idea to the barista, who at first didn’t understand. But after a second or third explanation, she got it and broke into a huge smile. I still remember exactly what she was supposed to say to the recipient of our kindness upon presentation of the drink:
“You have been the victim of a random act of kindness.”
Meanwhile, the rest of us had tried fitting around a small table as far away from the counter as possible but still within eyesight of it. The two rejoined us and we didn’t have long to wait. In walked a person and up to the counter she went. Around our table we tried hard not to stare, each of us individually excited, the collective excitement seeming to scream out our presence.
It went down just as you’d expect it to go down, the person ordered her drink, was told it had been paid for and that she was a kindness “victim.” At first she didn’t seem to understand, then took a second to see if it was some kind of joke. Assured it was legit, she accepted her drink and with a warm smile she walked out of the store. All of this took less than two minutes.
Upon her exit, we exploded with happiness. The barista waved to us and we walked out, united in what felt to us was an act of superhero proportions. The elders seemed younger and the teens wiser. It wasn’t four teens, four elders, and me any more. It was nine people.
We floated back to the reality of the retirement community.
In 1974, my dad was transferred from the city of my birth, Omaha, to the Seattle area by Brach Candy, his employer. I sometimes say to people in the northwest, if you’ve heard of Brach Candy, my dad likely had something to do with your awareness.
Legendary jockey Willie Shoemaker after winning the 1978 Longacres Mile – photo credit: me!!What also transferred from the midwest to the northwest was my dad’s love for horse racing. Not far from SeaTac Airport was a racetrack called Longacres. I’ve written about this place many times as it has significant memories for me and they can all be traced to my dad.
As a kid, I watched him pore over the Racing Form, interpreting those little numbers into something that pitted his intellect against that of others. The intellectual challenge of this practice, what’s called handicapping, has always had a great appeal to me. In fact, beginning in high school and beyond as I made a career in education, I’ve often said that the best standardized test question I ever encountered is this:
“Pick the winner from a field of ten going six furlongs for a claiming price of $6250.”
The showcase race event of every Longacres season was the Longacres Mile. Taking place in August, it often brought the best horses on the west coast to Seattle, along with top jockeys and trainers. In 1978, my brother Scott & I stood at the finish line all day so I could be in place to take a picture of the finish and maybe get a photo of Willie Shoemaker. I got both as you can see here.
Longacres Mile Finish 1978 – photo credit: me!!The Longacres Mile was an important event for my dad and me for reasons that I hope have become obvious. We shared the joy of Trooper Seven winning the Mile in back-to-back years, 1980 and 1981, the first horse to ever do so. I’ve embedded the video of the 1981 race below, as called by legendary track announcer Gary Henson (who, incidentally, became a friend of mine when I worked at Longacres in 1988).
Longacres closed in 1992 but racing stayed alive with the opening of Emerald Downs in 1996. And I was more than pleased to see the new track officials honor the old traditions by keeping the Longacres Mile alive. In August each year, the famed race has taken place. As you might have watched in the video embedded in my blog post three posts back, my dad predicted the winner of the 2005 Mile for the local and national publications he wrote for. The winner, No Giveaway, went off at 60-1.
This is especially poignant for me today because a few weeks before my dad died, we had put on our calendars today’s date. Yes, it’s August, Yes, the Longacres Mile was run today at Emerald Downs. I thought about going by myself but instead went over to help my mom with some organizing in advance of my dad’s upcoming memorial.
Of additional poignance for me is this – The last (and final) time I took my dad to the racetrack was a year ago for the Longacres Mile.
First, let me preface this post by saying that my mom is fine and after a night in the hospital is back home, resting comfortably.
Everybody good? Okay, then…
My mom with Remy last week, a few days after my dad had died.Yesterday morning, my brothers & I received a text from our mom that said, “Having a bad morning physically after a bad night. Think it’s a food reaction but it isn’t going away. I really don’t want to call 911. Keep you posted.”
I immediately called her and after she described chest pains and tightness of breath, we agreed she should call 911. I had just arrived at work so I quickly packed up my stuff and returned to my car. It was going to be a slow drive from Northgate to Mercer Island at 8:30am so I knew I had better get going. Fortunately, my new co-workers were again understanding and said they had me covered.
As I was crossing the I-90 Floating Bridge from Seattle to Mercer Island, my cell phone rang and the caller ID indicated it was my mom calling. It wasn’t. It was a paramedic who said, “Your mom is having a heart attack. Instead of coming to her place, meet us at the ER at Overlake Hospital.”
Simple enough to do physically. A little more challenging mentally.
Upon arriving at the ER, I saw four or five people attending to my mom, inserting lines, changing her into a hospital gown, speaking with reassuring tones, but acting with the utmost urgency. Within a couple of minutes, a cardiologist arrived who explained to us both, “Okay, you’re having a heart attack and what we need to do is called an angiogram.”
A coronary ultrasound.As he’s explaining this, another person arrives with consent paperwork and a pen. He is holding the form over my mom as the cardiologist continued, “We’re going to insert a probe into an artery, either through your wrist or your groin, to see what’s happening in your heart. There is a 1 in 1000 chance of something bad happening during this procedure, a stroke, or a heart attack, or the artery may break.”
Let me say that that’s a lot to take in. But he wasn’t done, “If we discover a blockage, we’ll be able to do an angioplasty and hopefully clear it. But there is a 1 in 100 chance of something bad happening during this procedure. But it’s much riskier to do nothing.”
My mom turned to me, “What do you think I should do?”
“I think you should have the procedure.”
At that point, the pen was placed in her hand and she signed the form. Almost immediately, her gurney was moved from the ER to wherever they would do this procedure. I hurried along after her, walk-jogging with the cardiologist, carrying my mom’s purse. The cardiologist repeated some things and told me she was in good hands, then took me to a waiting room with these words, “While the procedure is pretty quick, please don’t assume the worst if I’m not back out to update you for a little while. No news is good news.”
I sat down, updated my brothers and others via text, and wondered what a person is supposed to think about at times like these.
Just before my brother, Scott, arrived, a different cardiologist came out and invited me to sit down (is that good or bad when you’re invited to sit down?). She said, “We didn’t find any blockages; in fact, I hope I have the coronary arteries your mom has when I’m 90.”
Exhale.
Back in her apartment today having lunch.“What we think your mom is experiencing is something called ‘Broken Heart Syndrome.’ It’s when a person has recently experienced a significant loss or some other kind of trauma and it impacts their heart. We’re going to admit her for observation but otherwise I think she’ll be just fine. Expect one or two nights in the hospital.”
It turned out to be one night.
About Broken Heart Syndrome, learn more at the Mayo Clinic website. It’s a pretty interesting read.
Andy Smallman 