A line from the great Stan Rogers song First Christmas Away from Home takes on a new meaning for me in 2023. “Time for touching home” now means coming back to my own home — rather than the home of my family of origin.
touching home
minutes, hours, days
Again, in this construct of a new year, I ever more carefully commit to the minutes, hours, and days.
“It’s only when we truly know and understand that we have a limited time on earth — and that we have no way of knowing when our time is up — that we will begin to live each day to the fullest as if it was the only one we had.”
Elisabeth Kübler-Ross
what became “Totems”
This body of work, Totems, took a long time. Many obstacles to overcome — but the songs are here now. I’m grateful I had the courage, little by little, to put the pieces together. Thanks always to Ian Hattwick for helping me through it all.
Now comes the hard work of putting it out there.
Music Connection – New Music Critique
“McMath Is a straightup compelling artist whose work takes unexpected turns, from soothing to unsettling.”
Music Connection Review / Volume 34, No. 7 July 2010
there but for
A broken ear, matted greying fur, a scrapper of a dog flinches
a crouching jump — startling to look at me. Almost growling,
a tentative curl to his upper lip, his jaw tosses and chomps
on a morsel of detritus from beside the dumpster
in the Motel 6 parking lot. With starving purpose, he sniffs
and claws to hold and lick the inside surface of a grease-soaked
paper bag. I notice the panting breath of his ribcage,
gaunt and skeletal, beneath his thinning coat. The elegant tendons
of his back legs are poised, trembling, as he finishes, licks his chops,
and scrutinizes me again.
How long has it been? Will someone pick him up — or off?
From wild eyes, he concludes his last, long look at me, and turns
to lope away with a crooked, limping gait.
And in some distant recess of my inner ear I hear a whisper,
keep going, keep moving, don’t stop.
- there but for hear paula read: there but for 1:20
a letter from Dad
The first and last letter my father ever wrote me, when I was 16 — and my most prized possession.
a letter from Mom
This is a letter my mother wrote to me, when I was 16, which I publish here on Mother’s Day. I do this, with courage and vulnerability — and to honor her.
why say anything?
Why not keep it to myself? Who will read it — or listen? — or hear?
And yet, who doesn’t feel like this?
I identify with the voices who ask these questions. Who will care? What have I even said?
I struggle to put into words that this is an offering.
And yet, I recognize why I write such things down — and even dare to share them. I recognize my “aloneness” in these feelings and, in doing so, I know I’m not alone.
Who feels like this? I do.
Maybe you do too.
safety in abstraction
avoidant — get into the flow of it — keep making work — keep making something — anything — work — feed myself — walk — do it now so that I’ll never have to do it again — until the next time — if I want to — make a mark — as old as humanity — write shit down — it all falls away — even whole books fall away
“you’re alive.”
Sometimes it’s easy to complain about the mundane things, “the dailiness of tasks”, that must be attended to — in the interest of sustaining oneself. When I feel myself falling into that old pattern, I remember my father’s words, from years ago, when I did the same…
I finished speaking my litany of complaints — about all the things I “had to do” — and asked some “question” that I can no longer summon to my memory.
Yet, I vividly remember Dad’s answer, “You’re alive.”
Full stop.