Warming up

I'm With Her, remembering Wendy, new birds

It’s not quite summer but it sure feels like the season has already changed. Days are warm and long. The past week has been taken up with lots of birdy biz, mainly watching new falcons and terns come into being and take flight on opposite ends of Alameda. I derive a lot of hope and (obviously!) inspiration from watching bird life cycles, going from egg to hatchling to fledgling in a matter of weeks. Likewise, watching the parent birds diligently and resolutely flying to and fro, feeding their mates and their new chicks, and chasing away any intruders or perceived threats, is another wonder of instinct, determination and drive.

A little over a week ago, we drove to Monterey and Carmel to see I’m With Her at the Sunset Center in Carmel, a late-arriving birthday present. The trio of Sara Watkins, Sarah Jaroz and Aoife O’Donovan, were playing in San Francisco the following Sunday, but I had a gig that day so that option to see them closer to home was out. This was better. Carmel was beautiful, the venue church-like, and the talent mesmerizing. I don’t think there would have been a bad seat in that house, but had a great vantage to see and hear them from our second-row seats. One condenser mic, a rotating selection of guitars, fiddle, banjo and mandolin, three exceptional voices, thoughtful lyrics, interesting arrangement. Their music is stirring and overall just excellent medicine.

I'm With Her at Sunset Center, Carmel, CA

I hear the fiddle and the bow
Still playing long after the show
And your voice runs likе the Brazos through me
Wild and clear and bluе

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Western Gulls calling in the morning, heard through a closed hotel window overlooking Monterey Bay, sounded like the cat drinking water. There were a dozen or more of them nesting on the roof of the building across the street from our hotel downtown, most of them still sitting on their eggs. When I opened the blinds before sitting to drink my coffee, I saw one gull taking a break from nest duties, perched on the railing of the balcony one floor down, looking directly at me. I imagined it was used to soliciting tourists for breadcrumbs on the wharf a few blocks away.

It would have been nice to loll a little in Monterey but Saturday was also the memorial for Wendy Beckerman, the likewise ethereal songwriter who co-led a song group for nearly 30 years, and passed much too soon last March. So we finished our coffee and drove out to Point Pinos for a brief spell before heading back north. There’s a ‘Seawatch’ at Point Pinos during the winter which tracks the seabird migration visible from land as the point juts so far into the Pacific. It’s a dramatic stretch of coast. Even on a sunny and calm day, waves crashed and the air was 10 degrees cooler than it had been in downtown Monterey. A dozen pelicans drifted over our heads and we could see a bunch of Brandt’s Cormorant on the rock, but it was otherwise pretty quiet. Summer. Winter has a lot more going on. After twenty minutes we got in the car, pit-stopped at the hotel to change and grab our bags before hitting the road back north.

I thought we’d be late to the service, but the traffic gods smiled and we arrived with a minute left to find a seat in the back of the church before things got started. The church was arranged so that the congregation sat in a near-complete circle, 10 rows deep, with two or three aisles like spokes. Several singers performed one of Wendy’s songs ‘The River Knows,’ accompanied by a pianist. And then her family, given and chosen, stood up to offer remembrances, poetry, harp music, and a meditation. After, anyone else so moved — a mix of fellow songwriters, her yoga and meditation students — stood up to talk. There were few dry eyes. Everyone had a story of how Wendy’s words or music or presence had influenced them deeply or changed their lives for the better. It was the kind of memorial that makes you want to be a better person.

This is how we mend a hole
Stand together
Hands together
All who are in favor
All because the river knows
The river knows where it goes

So I’ve been seizing the day that much more since, opting as much as possible for nature and nurture, friends, food and music, natural intelligence over artificial.