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“We live in a perpetually burning building, and what we must save from it, all the time, is love.” — Tennessee Williams Greetings on this Full Pink Moon 🌸♎︎ When winter wanes in the land where I live, we’re flung into a time of great flux and beauty, with volatile and often destructive weather and supernatural blooming both wild and domestic. The suddenly green fields make us blink at their fluorescence. Especially in contrast to the bright pink Redbud blossoms. It rains and rains and the fog hangs low, waiting for sunlight to mingle. For me, this fleeting portion of early spring in east Tennessee is magical, inspiring, and melancholy all at once. A good time to write, and I’ve been writing. Yet, it has been so supremely difficult for me to write a newsletter (I sent the last one a few days into January). I have wanted to send one out these last couple of months, but writing from the place where I was - internally and externally - proved impossible. On January 21st, my youngest sister Rachel passed from this earth. It was absolutely sudden and unexpected in every way. Because Eric and I live here on my family’s farm surrounded by kin (both blood kin and otherwise), we experienced the tragedy firsthand, in real time. Since then it has felt at times like a gigantic wave crashed over us all here, and washed away anything unimportant. Only love is what we need to keep now. I remember when I first heard the phrase "Death is a door". I took it to mean, naturally, that for the one who has passed, death is not the end, that it simply opens a door to a new world, a new existence. I have realized recently there is another meaning as well; that the death of a loved one can instantly create a door in your own life, a door you are obliged to go through whether you are ready or not. Suddenly you cross a threshold and begin a journey that goes backward and forward, past-present-future, it is a road that spirals and you don't know the way. Kind of like watching light move through the afternoon, through the clouds, through the trees — I see it, I feel it, I praise its beauty; I look back and it’s shifted already. I can’t quite describe it. So, I am taking notes. It is still being written. It is all still being felt. The heart is open. And the place where you don’t need logic, or any answers at all, the place where Love is supreme and what you need more than anything else, that is the place to be now. What a godsend to be playing live on a regular basis during this time! It’s been wonderful to play with this incredible band and reconnect some dots… If you’re in the Nashville area, here’s a little list of upcoming dates: ~Thursday, April 17, 8-10pm @ Low Volume Lounge (at Eastside Bowl) ~ Sunday, May 25, 8pm @ The Springwater (Ziona Riley’s Sunday Salon) ~ Wednesday, May 28, 8pm @ Dee’s Country Cocktail Lounge ~ Monday, June 9, 7pm @ Urban Cowboy Stay tuned for more dates and a sprinkling of new music by this summer — we’re working on some singles to release as we begin a new album project as well. I leave you with opening lines and a link to a song I am reminded of in writing this note to you all. Surely poetry and songs exist so that we can express what is too hard to say otherwise. And how fascinating that in that timeless dimension, the meaning can ripen so long after it was written. “Strands of sunlight pouring through tangled Cedar limbs; Always a door just in view, I know I must open ~ Walking through a pink sky, leaving the past behind; things I thought were standing still have been moving all this time” Hidden Gems : https://open.spotify.com/track/4v6sRW4iKQok815XAnMXeb?si=182d4d6cc6c645e3 As always, thanks for reading, and listening! JJN www.jenniferniceleymusic.com
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