Dad's Lullaby

Sir Robert Mansfield

A master of nicknames--mine was Hez--
he wore a Robbie roby,
fashioned of plaid flannel blue and gray,
and sang of a shiny pony
as he paced the hall of our ‘60’s ranch,
my febrile head at rest on his shoulder.

A savior from sickness and avengers,
in the Smokies he gunned our Impala at the boulder
to keep us safe from Chief Falling Rock and his mob.
“Only once in your life tell off a boss.”
So much advice from a man named Rob
there’s an eponymous book, his Rules of Order.

A city boy allergic to the farm,
at the track he explained all things pari-mutuel,
not my musings on cell division.
And he bought his form at a package store in Buechel.
Though in school he studied the catechism,
the nuns they cracked his knuckles with rulers.
His hands never healed and his joints were his fate.

A Southern man in blue seersucker,
his white Cadillac with the “Go Cats” plate, a fave.
The scourge, it put my father too soon to the grave.



Go to sleep-y, little baby/
Go to sleep-y, little baby/
When you wake/
You'll patty-patty cake/
And ride a shiny little pony.

Into the Mystic

Writing challenges me more than anything else I know. Making reality fit intention wrestles on the page with letting magic trump reason.

When I’m running on empty I turn to poets and troubadours for inspiration.

My dear friend Susan gave me a book of poems, and the poem for June 18 was written by Percy Shelley. The last year of his life, he wrote this poem for another man’s wife after hearing her play the guitar he gave her:

Though the sound overpowers,
Sing again, with your dear voice revealing
A tone
Of some world far from ours,
Where music and moonlight and feeling
Are one.

The magic of that world of music can evade on the written page. I need magic in my novel manuscript because it’s about music, that intoxicating elixir.

I’ve turned to writers like Gabriel Garcia Marquez to study the trade. I’ve enjoyed reading books, like Bel Canto, that try to capture on paper the aura around a singer. The three sci-fi writers in my Raleigh coffee klatch told me that the cow can’t suddenly jump over the moon on page one hundred.

Seeds. I had to plant seeds early so as not to spook readers later.

Most of my friends know me as a girl caught in the two dimensions of what she can plainly see in front of her face. It’s not just that I have to open up and believe, but I have to take my readers down with me.

Nature does her share. Carolina feeds me daily. While I’m working on feeding a family in the kitchen, sycamores and pines beckon to me from a southern-facing window.

One morning last month I rose craving miracles and I turned to the miracle-maker: Mother Nature.

My camera could hardly keep pace with the wonders.







Most days I feel like my writing conveys a tree in a forest



But what I really want my readers to see is the mystical light on the tree trunk,





and that kind of sun just doesn’t shine every day at my keyboard.

I want to rock your gypsy soul/
Just like way back in the days of old/
And together we will float into the mystic
Van Morrison, "Into the Mystic"

The Memory Stax

Whatever is going round and round your head, I bet there’s a song with it.

The DJ of our life is that man in our mind—I think he is Jonny Mambo’s great-uncle—who takes a memory and pairs it with a song from our mental Rhapsody player. He also works in reverse. He can take a song and run to the stacks of our life memories and pull out a day that fits the song. It’s an acoustic rhorschach. For me the exercise goes like this:


I hear “Itchycoo Park” and I remember sitting on my mother’s lap at the dining room table in the morning before heading to montessori.



I hear, “My Old Kentucky Home” and I remember standing at the Kentucky Derby, the first one after my mom died, and watching my dad brush a tear from his eye with his handkerchief.


I hear “Strange Magic” and I remember making out in the backseat of a parked sedan while another couple made out in the front seat.

Inevitably, the association evokes an emotion, and so the full reaction plays out:

The Small Faces' "Itchycoo Park"—Mom’s lap—filial love

ELO's "Strange Magic"—parked sedan—young passion

Stephen Foster’s "My Old Ky Home"—Dad’s handkerchief—loss

Gin Blossoms' "Follow You Down"—Phoenix hotel clock radio –ironically, excitement about moving to a city where I was not following anyone

Steve Earle's "You’re Still Standing There"—missing someone while driving a rental car in Nashville--achingly smitten

For some songs I can also layer on a specific sense:
The sax of "Bahia"—a lover’s apartment –lusting full tilt—the smell of garlic sauteing with onions

Over the years friends have shared their acoustic memories with me. One told me the song he heard on the road in his car the moment he found out on his cell phone that his child had Down Syndrome.

What’s playing on your station today?


She gets rock n’ roll in a rock n’ roll station for a rock n’ roll dream/ She’s making movies on location/She don’t know what it means/ But the music make her wanna be the story/And the story was whatever was the song/What it was/ Roller girl, don’t worry/D.J. play the movies all night long

Mark Knopfler, "Skateaway"

Naked Valedictorian

A naked valedictorian. I was not a naked valedictorian, but Matt the Electrician sings of a valedictorian who sheds her clothes and says, “This is who I am, and I’ll never see any of you ever again.” I heard Matt sing the song live in Raleigh a few summers back. When I told Matt I was the high school valedictorian, the lady sitting next to me at the bar said that she was, too. We’re out there at Matt shows, the former valedictorians.

Last night my daughter was stressing about writing a speech she’ll give at graduation, and it was taking me back to a time when Andy Dumstorf and I tried to write my valedictory under the influence of Pete Townshend.



Actually, if I had to write a speech today I would call on Andy or Tim Culver or Kelly Ford to help me.

I did flounder a bit with my valedictory. The nuns rejected the first copy. So I wrote the speech with fifteen minutes to spare before jumping in the sedan to head downtown with my parents.

And while I was driving around in North Carolina today, thinking about this blog, I heard a gospel singer named Mary Williams sing on The Story on NPR. Her voice immediately reminded me of that of my beloved classmate, Cathy Hughes.

I got to know Cathy personally sitting next to her on the bus. Buses deposited us at a common stop on Bardstown Road and Grinstead Drive every morning. My first bus came from the Fern Creek area, and hers came from downtown. Together we rode on the second bus that took us to Sacred Heart.

Cathy did not graduate from high school. A river washed her away one summer in Tennessee. A river—think of that—something to be enjoyed and loved—something that should inspire. In this instance the river was the reaper. It ended Cathy’s story. Cathy had so much vocal talent that one can only wonder where that voice would have taken her.



We had a teary memorial service for her that August, and we sang “Candle on the Water.” The ever-composed Jean Cassidy led us in song. It was a song that was supposed to make us feel better. Every time I have an acoustic memory of Cathy singing “Sometimes I Feel Like a Motherless Child,” I get a deep down sorrowful feeling of loss.

And today on The Story, Mary talked of how gospel music can give you the courage to go forward. Mary talked of troubles present. World problems. Dick Gordon and Mary decided a song can be a way to a solution. We need a world of song today.

And wouldn’t you know, after longing to hear Cathy sing “Sometimes I Feel Like a Motherless Child,” Mary sang it on the radio show today. She sang it from the bottom of her toes, the very depths of her soul, the way a song should be sung. I heard Cathy again.

I’m thankful for singers like Mary Williams and Cathy Hughes. They give us the courage to go forward. And that’s something that today’s graduates need.

Principals and counselors close in, trying to avert a scene/
She just keeps on sticking to her speech, feeling like a prom queen

“The Valedictorian,” Matt the Electrician