Kristina Stykos: News

Writing songs connects me to the heart of the world.

When I moved to Vermont in 1980, I had my internal compass set to find the true meaning of solitude and wilderness. When instead I got a waitressing job in Burlington and a red Toyota truck that wouldn't start in the winter, a digression from my original vision began. From this vantage point 28 years later, I can verify that life truly is what happens while you're making other plans. But what hasn't changed despite my having taken every unmarked backroad in Vermont in the meantime is my search for the heart of the world.

A few days ago I wandered through the late summer meadow beyond our house, to sit under the weathered eaves of our summer kitchen that never got finished. I had had a dream in which my oldest daughter Freya and I were in a hut in Siberia, where the quiet air held a feeling of returning home, amidst a light scent of woodsmoke. She told me that she had discovered that living closer to the outdoors was allowing her to find the essence of her life again in a vital way. With this dream still in my skin, I circled the old fire pit, and crude benches we had built years back. I sat on the sun-warmed deck of hemlock boards, surrounded now by sturdy golden rod and milk weed. My vision again opened to remember how simple hand-made structures lend support to creative imagining, prayer and meditation. I made a small vow to complete my summer kitchen with walls and a woodstove. No longer a kitchen perhaps, but soon to be a place to gently connect with the heart of the world; my small piece of solitude and wilderness finally won.

When my brother suggested we go to Canada to train for white water, I offered up my son Wilder instead. In some ways, I'm sorry I missed it, but there are other kinds of white water in life that I find myself riding almost all the time. I'm always looking for a faster way to the ocean.

So while they were pushing paddles into the turbulent river, I was also moving across the tops of waves. There were waves of summer flowers passing almost as quickly as the flood waters of flashing storms, hoards of japanese beetles moving into the fields of roses, giant hogweed like Martian umbrellas lining the roadsides, the rows of blueberries suddenly dripping with more fruit than we could use and arugula bolting and broccoli gone by. And all the work done on hands and knees in the spring to stave off goutweed, for naught.

I drove also many days of miles up and down through Pomfret's Cloudland, stopping one late afternoon at the Billings Farm Museum with my guitar in hand, the next morning at Birch Hill farm to yield a trowel as flower escort. Then up north to LACE to join the Waffle-Off Sunday, between tunes eating spoonfuls of local potatoes fried up nice, maple syrup from the waffle blending discreetly with carrots and beets. Then in the studio, my canoe careening across undulating tracks of musical creation, I continued heading for the distant place where all streams joyfully collide. Today the sun is shining between showers, and I'm thinking about how many friends I would like to be having picnics with. The frantic Vermont summer is racing along with me, and I'm trying to keep up with her.

As musicians we make things that are tangible and immediate out of measured phrases of word and melody. Ordinary people living in confusing times, we show up for work wondering if our work is relevant. We want to respond to injustice, to counter the barrage of corporate media using our simple tools.

Torrential thunder storm rains pound loud on the clear corrugated plastic of the woodshed roof. Tom, Erin, Michael and I are sitting on hay bales, holding beers at the end of a workday. Pleasurable smells of wet air, mowed grass and pine board waft around us, drifting peaceably. Something we all seem to have been holding eases with the careening free-fall of our stories. How many small voices does it take to move a mountain?

It’s midsummer and the summer dream is upon us. Soft winds and rain, alternating with floods of intense sunlight. The high, slow moving thunder-heads of brilliant white and ominous charcoal hover, while the garden overflows with color.

The studio has been cooler at night, and that’s when Doug P. has been coming in to finish over-dubbing his tracks for Erin McDermott’s new recording. We set up his amp in the hallway, and crank the volume to get the desired effect. I leave him alone for a while to work out his parts, and come downstairs to my desk. Blistering riffs tumble down off the third floor, in moody waves, like ravens diving off a dark precipice. After a long, hot day in the garden, I sit back in my chair happily inert, listening - his creative process reminding me of the unruly weeds and vitality of places where beauty is shaped by the human hand and heart.

There are always so many surprises. Like the eastern (Baltimore) Oriole, a flash of orange in the flowering daphnes of Indian Tree Hill, or the burgeoning new growth on old roses in the upper garden at Abrams. Or rounding the bend behind the old thorn-apple to find a woodland peony in bloom amid the bracken. Or glancing up the Broad Brook valley in Barnard, to see a shower moving slowly across the hills as handfuls of blossoms fill my hands from a spent bloom. There are times for letting our urgency go, so that inspiration can spring forth from the mystery of life. So true in gardening, and what a musical person struggles with while searching for something new.

Two days of live recording goes by fast at Pepperbox Studio when we're having too much fun - this week thanks to the "The Dixie Red Delights", a high-energy band from the Montpelier area that features the original music of Erin McDermott along with the talents of fellow musicians Doug Perkins, Jen Wells and Ben Roy. It was a great opportunity for the studio to break in a new Presonus 8 input mic pre-amp with optical outputs, try out an unused pair of Oktava MK319 large diaphragm condenser mics, and simultaneously enter the world of improved sound isolation techniques, ala: baffles. Meanwhile, the tight groove of the "Dixie Reds" was kicking up dust off the old studio radiators and rattling the third floor rafters. This bluegrass/Americana/alt country group is a hardworking quartet of fine musicians, who fill the immediate vicinity with a fun, cooperative spirit.

My new sound baffles, created by my husband from 2x4s, high tech cotton building insulation and discount cloth from Jo-Ann's Fabrics - they really look sharp. They consist of 2 panels, roughly 5-6' tall and a couple feet wide (each), hinged in the middle to make a mildly sound-proof area for isolating individual studio mics. We were able to position them so that everyone could see at least one other band member, if not all three. The learning curve on live recording in a small space, with a full drum kit outside the studio doors in the hallway, is steep but not insurmountable. "Dr. Foam" (as we came to call Doug after he stood aside to rub his chin and ponder deeply our acoustic challenges) applied his 6' plus height advantage to tacking up extra pieces of foam bedding all around Ben and his drums. It didn't look quite as sharp as the new designer baffles, but we had to agree it was breaking up some of the reflective room noise picked by the drum mics. We also ran direct lines from the acoustic and electric guitars and from the stand-up bass pickup, just in case the track bleed became problematic in any particular song.

Hot summer weather - a big surprise to the pile of snow still lingering on the north side of the studio - so we found ourselves opening windows (as yet screen-less), letting harmless, sleepy hornets in and out, along with musical Chickadee-dees and the sound of peepers in the vernal pool. Short breaks (dare I call them cigarette breaks?) were taken on the balcony, overlooking our small Stonehenge of standing stones in yonder field. A hawk greeted us at the start of the day; a flaming red sun and full moon rising at the end.

We're all looking forward to the final phases of this project - a few over-dubs, mixing and then manufacturing. I appreciate our good days in the studio, and how they stretch out to meet the rest of the world.

Last Tuesday I was invited to lend my ears - for the day - to a final mix at Imaginary Road Studios in Brattleboro. The project was that of my good friend Scott Ainslie (www.cattailmusic.com), who has been cutting tracks since last July. My privilege to be sitting at the side of Corin Nelsen, Will Ackerman's long-time engineer! Settled into the comfort of the padded swivel chair, I let the emotion of the music sink in once or twice, before starting to pick apart its sonic qualities. New material from Scott always touches a complex range of traditional grooves and his own words like strong, sweet coffee.

The thoughtful work of previous recording and mix sessions allowed me to focus in on issues of fine tuning. Its always surprising how a small change can make a big difference towards the end of a project. Something as simple as carving out a little more space around the lead vocal, or bringing up the level on a track by a dB or two. It can affect everything.

Although the recording studio implies an internal world unto itself, at Imaginary Road the outdoors is a point of creative inspiration. The spring sun warming patio stones at the mud room door; Will wandering by with his chain-saw; the barely budded trees of the craggy Dummerston hills: the big red sun hat of Will's wife Susie disappearing behind a forsythia bush. Maybe I'll be down within the year to mix my own upcoming solo CD. We'll see how the budget holds up. It would be my first choice!

I'm recovering now from having spent the last few days with more of my favorite people than I ever thought could fit in one room. Actually, there were many rooms: a local foods cafe, an ancient department store basement, a car interior, a backstage dressing room, an artisan's gallery, a dusty guitar shop, an opera house elevator, a quiet kitchen in early morning light, a cozy corner booth, a handmade plywood stage.

The LACE Farm Fresh Arts Festival lit up downtown Barre on Sunday, drawing people off the streets and in from the hills, under sunny chilly spring skies. We ate well, sang and played while capuccino steamed, wandered the globe with Senator Leahy's photo exhibit, and talked about the Froggy Bottom Vermont-made raffle guitar - with Jackson Browne. Monday night, the Barre Opera House was bustling to support a night of his music, and local farmers took the stage to take a bow for their around-the-clock dedication to feeding us locally.

I feel the goodness of every one of us, as we pull up chairs to the table of our collective life. Special thanks to Scott Ainslie, Barb Ackemann, Doug Perkins, Jamie Masefield, Dave Keller, Susan Reid, Pam Bockes, Bennett Shapiro, Ariel Zevon, Crystal Zevon, Ben Powell, John LePage, Kris Cecchini, Barbara Borowske, Glenn and Claudine Meyer, Richard Fink, Dan Casey, Peter Monihan, Margot Button, Ela Chapin, Joseph Kiefer, Senator Patrick Leahy, Kym Maynard, Elsa Engstrom, Anna Snipes, Tom Lauzon, Michael Millard, Andy Mueller, Eric Goodenough and Jackson Browne.

Mixing is a bit like herding cats. I should know. This is a 3 cat household - and I'm in my ninth week of "Mixing and Mastering" with Pro Tools, an online course through Berklee School of Music. But in the case of cats, you know you have no business expecting them to be molded to your will. Everyone knows a cat can only express the will of the Great Cat Consciousness in the sky. So different from the art of engineering. When it all goes to hell at the console, there is no one to hold responsible but yourself.

Berklee's demo mixes for students provide all the necessary elements: vocals that need compression and de-essing, multiple guitar tracks with various degrees of distortion and finger squeaks, snare tracks that are dull and lifeless, electronic loops that make your head throb. It's a pile of meaningless drivel really - but by the time you finish your mix, it should sound like music.

Today I'm celebrating the completion of 9 weeks of herding cats - I mean mixing tracks - from Berklee's demo library. I'll never meet the chap who offered up the wistful falsetto vocal: "kaleidescope girl wants to trip with meeee..." or the cruel creator of the dysfunctional clips of reversed audio, but maybe it's better that way. I can kick back on this blustery winter day, knowing that I did everything I could to the best of my abilities to elevate the material to new heights - and that I will never, EVER, have to hear it again.

This week I'll be back at Langdon Street Cafe, as much to watch the crowd as they will be there to watch me - with Doug Perkins. As usual, I'm looking forward to the food: a "best value" tempeh reuben.

There are days when I'm happy to stay inside the studio all day long, snuggled in with Pro Tools and all my gear. Then there are days when I have to ... get out. Last night was a case in point. The gig was at Main Street Grill and Bar, with free dinner included. This training ground for advanced culinary students at NECI (New England Culinary Institute) is one of the best kept secrets in the area. Despite the 'storm warning" weather advisory predicting up to 15 inches of new snow, I was going to get my dinner, and have a fantastic evening of dueling guitars with Central Vermont's next best kept secret: Doug Perkins. Guitars and equipment loaded into the car, I took a deep breath and said good-bye to my home and my cats, as one says goodbye to land when heading off to sea. Who knew if I would make it back up the hill at midnight?

The gig was a pleasure, preceded by vegetarian pot-stickers and fresh greens; washed down by a Burlington-brewed Switchback. We played to a small crowd of gracious diners, until Jen Wells (bass player extraordinaire, formerly of the Calamity Janes) busted in with her friends in tow. Then the mood picked up considerably, and our guitar chops cranked. We flew into fiddle tunes "Leather Britches", "Cooley's Reel", "Merrily Kiss the Quaker" and "Tripping up the Stairs" with an unusual fervor. Best of all were our trial runs of new instrumentals of mine, and a freshly penned song or two. Our most receptive audience egged us on to use them as lab rats.

Getting home was of a different order. I was on my own, relying on the will of my Subaru and fate. Okay driving through Barre, but at Washington Heights there seemed to be a lapse in the state highway plowing protocol. A mess of slippery snow over wild frost heaves was the menu. I slipped her into low gear, and sat a little straighter in my seat.

The best was yet to come. Pepper Road, a foot of snow accumulated and no plow in sight. My high beams picked up a whirl of white, in anticipation of the first hairy climb towards home, following a tumbling creek bed. I was simultaneously working on what would have to be left in the car, should I need to abandon her. My nagging conscience kept sticking on my 2 guitars in their fiberglass Calton cases. Heavier than sin. But would I really be able to leave them roadside in a ditch? The car temperature gage indicated 28 degrees - that meant the snow was riding the borderline of traction versus no traction. I gunned it - for 2 miles.

This morning brought more relentless winter reality; husband gone, plow truck idle. No less snow since I fell senseless onto my bed in a stupor the night before. No time for resting on one's laurels. I made my coffee, checked my email, then headed out towards the Ford. It occured to me suddenly to call the plow truck "Old Yeller". Yes, "Old Yeller". That sounded good. I grabbed the frozen door handle with conviction, jumping briskly onto the dog-hair ridden bench seat.

My meeting with Carter in Montpelier about reworking my website was a success - though he almost missed it due to an impromptu skiing date with his wife. Funny how the copious amounts of snow take on different meanings for all of us in Vermont, depending on our schedules.

The afternoon allowed me some down time at LACE - I met with Crystal in the warm cafe, to discuss future music events and the upcoming Jackson Browne concert/fundraiser. Not much like work, sitting amidst the fine aromas of localvore cooking, in the company of my creative and charismatic companions. Our plans for the Sunday March 30 LACE Farm Fresh Arts Festival advanced, - and I did all my locally grown produce, bread, salsa and cheese shopping in one go.

Looking forward now to getting serious about my next full-length recording, and an evolving collaboration with a producer from Boston MA. Stay tuned...

Last night was First Night and we found the streets of Montpelier covered with slippery snow, the air softly flecked and whirling. I struggled over curbside mounds with my 2 guitars, mandolin and other gear, into the first venue, a snug church basement well appointed (annointed?) by the First Night crew. Thanks to Jeremiah Brophy of "Show Works" for again providing his live sound expertise to First Night, an often thankless job. I learned a few things watching him set up our mics. Our set felt acoustic and intimate thanks to him, although we were gently amplified. In today's loud world, this kind of sensitive use of technology is much needed.

It's sometimes important to quiet things down to hear them I think. In order to play well with Doug I have to know when to pull back and listen to him. It's an art that develops between musicians who have good chemistry. Dynamics can be lost when the amplification is too much, just as it can be lost when a player plays too loud and stops relating to others. Well, Doug and I are blessed with the will to listen to each other and we take a lot of pleasure from it. We hope the audiences we play for do too.

Later playing with Wagtail on the red carpet of the Main Street UU Church, we rocked the sanctuary with fiddle tunes. The natural reverb of the place is exceptional. Again, our sound man did a masterful collaboration with us. It's teamwork, split between musicians, sound crew, event organizers and audience. Thanks to everyone. Especially to people who come up and talk to us after we play, who share stories of how our music and music in general affects their lives. It's a big part of why i perform - to meet people and hear their hearts tell about the joy of music. It inspires me to know I have this common ground with so many others.

Came home before midnight, before any new big snowstorms and watched Jay Craven's movie "Disappearances", based on Howard Frank Mosher's novel, with a glass of wine and my husband. HAPPY NEW YEAR!

"Scattered snow flurries..." This morning's weather report announces the rapid approach of winter to the North Country. I'm hunkering down by the wood stove, worrying about whether or not my guitar is too close to the heat. Rummaging around in my studio yesterday, I rediscovered a legion of sound-hole humidifiers in a drawer, and so began the annual ritual. My “Froggy Bottom” guitar, built in Vermont by my husband Michael Millard, has a German spruce top that rings with color, and in the winter especially I'm on duty protecting it’s natural vulnerability. Drawn to the soothing warmth of my stove, I must use all my willpower to pull back to where the heat is no longer pulsing across the air.

Winter is a time of reflection and study for me. Early mornings start in the dark; a bracing trip to the shed to for a few sticks to wake the fire. Water on for coffee, the house is still and quiet but for the crackle of the fire and the hiss of the kettle. This is my favorite time of day to find out what my guitar has to say, which leads me to my own voice and perhaps a song. Yesterday the journey began with some chords, feelings and then words around the topic of leaving someone you’ve loved. The lyric of the chorus presented itself eventually:

"Love is not one thing
It changes - that's her disguise
But words cannot betray
What you say with your eyes..."

Later in the day I was still trying to get to my Berklee “Critical Listening” course homework, but the seduction of learning the song I’d just written – better – was too great. Finally around dinnertime, I wrestled the guitar back into its case and went online to look at Lesson 6, on EQ. Certainly a topic I’m greatly interested in, and intent on understanding. I printed out all course work and earmarked my textbook for the week’s required reading.

Nice to notice a year late, a properly snotty review of my first solo CD in the English magazine fRoots. Evidently singer-songwriters go through the meat grinder at the hands of this team of traditional music thinkers - most S/Ss are discarded at first listen, categorized generically as “whiners”. Local folk DJ on Vermont Public Radio (and friend) Robert Resnik patted me on the back: “You got in – you didn’t get a thumb’s down…that’s an achievement!”. Thanks all the same guys, I already know I play "tidy guitar" and have "perfect diction".

I'm still surpised when someone tells me they haven't been to L.A.C.E., Barre VT's newest grocery and cafe, run by a group of amazing and energetic young people. Doug Perkins and I have been playing there once a month for Sunday brunch, and it's THE spot in Central Vermont for congenial community networking and wholesome local foods. The new occupants of the ex-department store space on Barre's main street are transforming the way we do business with local growers and vendors of regional products. This vision was created and is supported by the hard work of Ariel Zevon, her partner Ben and many dedicated employees and volunteers.

We love the funky style and open-minded welcome mat that Ariel and her friends have extended to musicians in the area. We intend to continue playing at L.A.C.E., shopping at L.A.C.E., and hanging out at L.A.C.E.. We hope you will check it out, if you haven't already.

A summer wedding at one of Vermont's most secret trout ponds, Noyes Pond in Groton State Park. I arrived to join my band for the evening - The Cleary Brothers - and play some tunes for the bride and groom, maybe kick up a few dances with caller Dan O'Connell. Everything seemed perfect: the white tent, the sound system, the white table cloths and happy party goers...we sat in a semi-circle, bluegrass style around our mic, and launched into an old time tune. Hmmm. Something was amiss. Was my head on fire? Did I forget to wear socks? Was it possible to play guitar without using hands? Any exposed flesh was now fresh game for hundreds of No See-Ums, notorious invisible bugs of the north country. We twisted, we squirmed, we sprayed, we prayed, we even took turns scratching in time to the music, but most of all we played - until there was no avoiding the truth. It was a first for us all - to be run off by critters while entertaining.The gracious bride and groom retired with us and their wedding guests to Seyon Lodge, conveniently located just north of the bugs, and we continued in grand style, ala screened in, for a few more hours. A great good night of high spirits, good will and good music.

Our sound man extraordinaire for the CD release party, Bennett Shapiro of Mad Tech Sound, gave us an interesting statistic. He said that a whopping 50% of all the bands he's done CD release parties for - do not get their CDs in time!! I felt a little better, having been in charge of sheparding our CD through the final stages of manufacturing. It arrived the Wednesday prior to our Saturday June 16 release, to the rough-sawn deck of my woodshed, without incident. Coming in just under the wire has become a way of life for me it seems.

We had the pleasure of seeing many of our local friends around us at the party, and I only wish I could have personally thanked everyone who played a part in seeing this project come to completion. Especially the friends who buy our work in local stores, and support us in spirit. It's not always easy to keep on making music in a rural state where daily life can be pretty demanding, and the time for creating good music hard won.

I was honored by the trust my band members gave me this last winter, to engineer the recording using my studio as our laboratory. As a band, we spent many hours arranging, listening back to our ideas and refining things until we caught the energy and musicality just right. Additionally, there were many long (lonely) hours I spent researching technical manuals and reviewing our work. Right at the tail end of it all, I started taking an online course through Berklee School of Music, to help me better understand the experience I had just been through, while producing with Pro Tools, the recording industry's current software of choice. I'm finishing up that course now, and looking forward to my next course in Oct. 07, called "Critical Listening". Thanks again to all who have encouraged me to further my education, to keep writing and performing, and to take more and more control of my own creative process.

Last weekend we had Susannah’s CD release party, at the Plainfield Vermont town hall. We did it last year, with her first release, but I didn’t remember loading in from the stage door, from a dirt road that could have passed for the town’s best sledding hill. I tell you right now I don’t trust my emergency brake, but I did realize that if I turned the wheels inwardly, instead of rolling onto US Rte 2 I might have a chance of just going into the side of the historic building or at the very least, the ditch.

But honestly, as soon as the car was re-parked onto a flat surface, there was something else on my mind. The brownies I had so generously offered to “whip up”? Well… they burned on top. How perfect my devotion to Sus’s bake sale was meant to but would not be! I sheepishly sought her out to break the news, before she asked the dreaded question: Why are they upside down in the pan?

Was it a severe moral compunction that brought me to the bake sale table at intermission, to explain the long, boring tale to any disinterested person who would have me: Silly me, forgetting my convection oven is broken - but hadn’t I made due brilliantly by enlisting the help of a toaster oven! I cringe to think of it now.

As usual, there was a strap problem. Last year the endpin of my cittern decided to pop just prior to the show, and the strap went flying. This year, I’d brought a strap for the mandolin, only to discover there never had been an endpin on this instrument, not that I’d ever checked. So no popping this year, just no. A mental image came to mind immediately: the elbow pushing helplessly against slippery wood, the sweat and my loosening grip on the pick, the fiddle players going too fast. Extrapolating (!), we see that from no strap, we move quickly towards no grip. And from no grip, smoothly into no instrument, at least not where you need it.

Thank god for the wasp. It certainly had us all distracted from any other thing of an unpleasant nature. Just as my first important guitar entrance arrived, the insect landed on my fretboard, literally under my fingers. I must have made some kind of an alarmed grunt because Sus, between fiddle strokes, leaned over, and swished her hand across the deck of my guitar.

This is a stellar example of the true spirit of our loyal friendship, and epitomizes Sus’s ability to multi-task with wicked accuracy.

Later the wasp went after multi-instrumentalist Colin McCaffrey. We were all impressed by the way Colin worked it into his solo and seemed to soar above it, when he could have easily chosen to laugh, curse, swat or rip his shirt off. Banjoist Pete Sutherland said Colin was upstaged by a bug, but I thought he held his own masterfully, turning the wasp into just another tool of his creation.

More later…

I recently visited the site of a young singer-songwriter who shall remain unnamed, to sample the current trend of blogging. However good her music may be, her blog was a mess. I wanted to get out a sharp pencil, correct the grammar and typos, and write comments in the margins. Another confirmation that my having been an English major in college did indeed sow the seeds for my eventual self-destruction by useless editing.

I bring this up to reassure any other former English majors out there that this is NOT a blog, nor will it ever be. I would not blog if you paid me. Well, I might run on a bit, occasionally, but blog, NO. I have my dictionary here and just checked my spelling of the word "occasional". After all these years, I still can't spell it. But with the dictionary, this is a shoo-in. (Not to be confused with the Imelda Marcos footwear sale today). Thank God I can still alphabetize, with a little help from the ABC song. I swear I only use spell check when no one else is around.

So, about not blogging. The art of letters is a more dignified approach to this type of public communication, and for someone my age, it carries fond memories of past lives lived in more gentile times. And so, by your gracious leave, dear reader, I will attempt to offer a few daily notes from my life here in Vermont as the spirit moves me, served with distinction, a la punctuation.

Rain today, and winds up to 50 miles per hour. Limbs down, some discreet mention of the "S" word ("snow) at higher elevations. Not the best day I've had as a gardener. Elizabeth's asters and pink and peach yarrows were on the docket for transplanting, and as I gingerly dragged the red Walmart tub of plants across her yard, I heard huge trees in the woods literally cracking off and thundering down upon leaf mold. My dog got the message and went back to sit in the car. All the while, my baseball cap sitting backwards on my head kept me busy, a perfect foil for the wind's capricious updrafts. I'm sure Elizabeth was getting a pretty good chuckle if she was watching me from the window run after that thing all morning. Anyway, as soon as I got back in the car and started rolling on out of her driveway, the heavy plashing on the windshield began like syrup flying out of sap buckets.

So why did my daughter Anna’s 6th grade class NOT cancel their over-night canoe trip to Groton State Park today? The image of a canoe on Kettle Pond with fresh-faced youngsters blowing sideways for ten miles has formed easily in my mind’s eye. No need to huff and puff to get the old campfire started. Why, they should be able to burn the whole lean-to down if they want, with gusts of up to the speed of winged flight.

Not to mention the other daughter, age 18, who just survived a emergency root canal in Italy with a dentist who spoke no English. Has anyone heard of the city of Pistoia? That’s where she emailed me from after the fact, sitting bravely at an internet café computer, forming her sentences through a haze of painkillers. The most pressing thing that she wanted to tell me was that in Italy you have to pay double to sit down in restaurants. I’m beginning to wonder if I did actually raise these children or if they have mutated.

It’s at times such as these that I’m so very glad to be able to pick up a guitar and…play.