No More Must Die

I’m ‘pinging’ around today, having a hard time getting focused. This new escalation of war in the Middle East fills me with even more dread and disgust. The warmongers know no limits. Diplomacy is not very trendy these days.

Knowing how to find a way back to my breath, I practiced what I preach and did a quick art prompt, called Ten Things You Noticed Today. It’s something I use to jump into art-making or writing when I feel stuck or anxious. I’ve been sending out weekly creative prompts on Patreon for almost 3 years and will migrate it over here so you won’t have to ping around the internet to find it. I learned this prompt from a Sarah Selecky writing session.

Today, I’m thinking about my political activist dad. Here he is, protesting the Vietnam War. It’s a photo I found when my sister and I went through his papers after he died. I wonder where this protest was and who he’s with — I never got a chance to find out. He’s the one standing on the right. The message is so relevant to this moment. I’m surprised at how hard it’s been for Canada to come together with one voice that screams, without equivocation: ‘No More Must Die’ — especially when it comes to Gaza. I always thought Canada was a peacekeeping nation. When did that shift?

So, I made my drawing and then a few nice things crossed my path.

1. Listening to Patti Smith’s latest video post on Substack, talking about dread and sharing her ‘sphere of generosity’. I love her short, bedraggled videos in her bedroom, where she rambles on, getting her fingers caught in her hair and then somehow pulling together a poetic message. I highly recommend taking 5 minutes to watch it.

2. A text from my son with some new music to listen to: a-sides with Adrianne Lenker and Buck Meek. I’m mostly content with the music that’s already in my universe but I do love his musical picks for me and how they arrive, just when I need them. This was a very sweet listen after a potential doom scroll, and somehow perfect for today when I heard this line in the song, I Still Hear You:

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   Darlin’ I still hear you, singing, but only for a minute
   And then you're gone a minute
   And then you're long gone
   Like the day from the moon
   Like the child from his high balloon.

It sent me reaching for this photo of my dad and I singing together, taken by my sister. It reminded me of a beautiful moment in the past month when I heard a musician singing ‘Lilly Marlene’ in his set — a song from my dad’s repertoire. As he sat at the piano and played the tune, I could hear my dad’s voice ring through. I was stunned to be hearing his voice so clearly. What a gift it was. Music is like that.

I wrote a song for my dad about all the songs he sang to me. It’s called Lullabies of the Land on my album, Get Yourself Home. It was a song that came together one verse at a time over a few years. I got the second verse after my son was born.

Singing is the opposite of war. It holds us together.