Very glad I followed the recommendation of a commenter to an article about Quincy Jones and read this autobiography. I settled with my iPad and read it as an e-book before bed every night, spellbound by the life this man led. He worked with everybody! I learned so much, not just about him, but about music and music history, ranging from classical composers to hip hop.
He had his demons and made mistakes, never quite escaping the damage of a tough childhood, but he remained full of love for his work and the world, along with his family, friends, and fellow artists. You know a man’s special when he had several children by several wives, and he and the kids loved each other unconditionally, and the wives spoke kindly and lovingly of him even when their relationships ended. No telling how many lives he impacted during his 91 years. I finished the book last night. Rest in peace, Mr. Jones.
After I ran errands this morning, I found a good way to make myself feel better about things while I color: play old music I can sing along to. Not the kind of music I normally listen to, but music that takes me back to times when I was really just the daughter of two, and the kid sister of two. For example, Saturday mornings when we cleaned house, my mother would stack albums on the stereo. They’d be her favorites, mixed with some of Debby’s favorites to sing along to, and some of my favorites, too. That’s how today, while I colored, I ended up on YouTube listening and singing along to many songs by Andy Williams, the Righteous Brothers, Tom Jones, Patsy Cline, and Hank Williams Sr.
I’d forgotten how singing is a great mood lifter. That’s true even though I’m not much of a singer (Debby is and Mother was). Luckily, nobody’s hearing me but the dogs; Tom’s been in and out of the house a lot so far today.
This is the book I was coloring from. I’ll share those I’ve finished as part of my Sunday Sundries post tomorrow. I did my first from this book in 2020, and I haven’t removed any of them to put in my sketchbook. I’ll explain why in tomorrow’s post. A unicorn’s always worth the wait.
When listening to YouTube today, I made a discovery. My parents had an album of instrumentals that included an English clarinetist, Acker Bilk. For all I know, the entire album was Acker Bilk. My father’s favorite from the album was Bilk’s rendition of “Stranger On The Shore” (England’s biggest selling single of 1962). For the first time, today I heard the lyrics. The words are so sad, maybe because as I listened, one of my characters came to mind, and it broke my heart for her. Then, as I pondered how to work it in as a reference in book seven (the current work in progress), I realized it’s even more heartbreaking for a different character in the series that would follow the Neverending Saga (should I ever actually complete the NS). I’m WAY too hard on my characters, and consequently on myself, sometimes. But as one of her mentors, who may have gotten it from Robert Frost, once told Marika, No writer tears, no reader tears!
Here’s the song with an orchestra and Andy Williams singing the lyrics:
And the instrumental version with Mr. Bilk and his clarinet:
The directly-first encounter I ever had with Quincy Jones, was when I bought a used 45 from Waxie Maxie’s, Potomac Mills Mall. The fairly good condition paper sleeve was not an indication of the condition of how very well used the record was in, an exactly amplified way that the flaking tattered torn and water damaged sleeve with missing booklet of Disco Mikey Mouse with it’s very new condition record!
Grace – Quincy Jones was the B side of the 45, and the condition of the used sound recording was much cleaner to new than the A side of We are the World- USA for Africa whose condition was terribly carved out. The A side We are the world is more to the Disco Mickey Mouse sleeve as the B side Grace is to the Disco Mickey Mouse record.
I kept them because every time I played Quincy Jones, I fell into a harmonically beautifully crisp world as I gazed at the neighboring woods outside through the bedroom window, into daydreams. All of this made up for the condition of the others. I do confess my little self that still recently moved from the UK leaving that High School and placed back into American Middle Grade School, he really was disappointed by the condition of We are the World, and that he had to wait it out until he found a record shop with a newer condition, 12 inch version that turned out to be the same as the 45, just on a bigger record. It would be decades from 2nd grade with the child copy complete with booklet of Disco Micky Mouse, when I found that tattered cover copy with the deceptively yet new record inside.
Meanwhile, that move meant Damon and I had to write, phone and mail until we had those rare flights across the Atlantic. But, we are inseparable family. At a new school, I met Patrick in a geeky computer club after school, and we also became best friends. The next day at his parents’ house, his brother bursts in right after soccer practice and I didn’t stand a chance against my first love at first sight. But, of course that had to stay locked up inside me all the time, even when those two would fight like cats and dogs over the ball being in or out for hours.
Like that Grace 45, Damon and I remain the inseparable B side despite the continents and oceans between us, but due to ignored tragedy similar to the A side Patrick can never be a friend again. Friends are ageless, the precious few we cling to are timeless, but bitter enemies sometimes can’t be mended by a replacement record.
Yesterday, while I was coloring, I was working through an idea in my head about friendship. The last eight years have been hard ones (for me personally) for so many reasons–politics, job loss, friend loss, deaths of friends, neighbors, and colleagues, the pandemic. As I colored, my mind constantly tallied who and what has been lost. Who and what remains.
I finally devised this thought: I can sit in the silence of someone’s absence rather than continue to sit quietly letting myself misunderstand or make excuses for cruelties directed at me. You know the kind? That if you protest or question, you’re told it was just a joke, don’t take things so seriously, you misunderstood, lighten up, I didn’t mean you…
If someone can be cruel to a person they call a friend, how much crueler are they to not-friends?
Friendships need room to breathe. Need room for grace and forgiveness. But people who use room, grace, and forgiveness to be mean, indifferent, and dishonest, have either changed from who they once were, or perhaps were seen and heard only through eyes and ears of love.
My heart hurts. I’m tired. I remain infinitely grateful for kindness. Kind words. Kind people. Kind gestures. For people who think with conscience and honesty and share their perspectives. For the room and grace and forgiveness shown me. What you say, Friends are ageless, the precious few we cling to are timeless, is very meaningful to me. Thank you.
Thank you too.