An Abundant Life - A Life Of Music

Last week I wrote about my brother and his music. I've been on a journey of sorts, learning more about him and his guitars, about the music that meant so much to him and to me because he played it. I also have been on physical journeys, meeting with people to find out more about his guitars, the ones that he played and loved and made his music on over the years of his life from as far back as I can remember.

I'll be writing more in coming weeks about some of the wonderful experiences this quest has brought into my life, and of the people who have been surrounding me as I learn about my brother, his music and his guitars. For now, I wanted to share a photograph that I've had for many years that a shared with a few of these wonderful guitarists who have become friends as we talk and they share their knowledge and love of the instrument with me. Through sharing this photograph of my brother when he was a teenager, playing guitar on the front porch of the home where I grew up, I learned that he was a bass player first, before going on to play acoustic and electric guitars and to composing and arranging music.

The bass in this photograph was identified by several of these new friends immediately as a Hofner, and described to me as the bass that was made famous by Paul McCartney. When I heard that I joked that he was a guitar snob even at age 14 or 15. It as a joke of love because I know how much his guitars meant to him. He put everything he had into finding the best he could and customizing them. Music was his life and his guitars and his music were a part of him that will always be to me a deep part of who he was. 

My Brother

And His Hofner Bass

As A Teenager

Blessings,

Jannie Susan

An Abundant Life - A Brother's Love

One of the things I've found as I've been revisiting the memories of my childhood home is the music of my older brother, Paul. I was able to connect with a friend of his recently, and as we have talked I've learned more about him and his guitars, his history of playing music and being a part of the music industry, and I've gotten more of an insight into my brother as a musician.

There's something very interesting about being related to someone who is very talented. I knew my brother my whole life because he was ten years older than I am, and I always loved him, but though I knew he was someone who loved to play guitar and who played in bands for most of his life all over the country and the world, and though I knew he'd started making CD's and producing his own music and I'd really enjoyed some of the ones that he'd sent to me, the music he was making was in a way so familiar to me that it just seemed like something he did. It's not to say in any way that I didn't recognize his talent. I knew how skilled he was, but I also didn't quite grasp how important his guitar playing and his music was to him until I started talking to his friend and remembering and being reminded of my experiences of my brother from the past.

Paul was never without his guitars. He traveled everywhere with them. And it was the same with his music. I have listened to the music I listen to in large part because of what I learned from him, growing up and listening to the music he played, the bands and performers and records and then tapes and eventually CD's he was playing and making. In so many photographs I have of him he has a guitar in his hands, or if he doesn't you get the feeling that it's somewhere nearby and he's about to pick it up again.

In speaking with his friend, I've learned that not only did he make CD's, but he was always working on new tracks and play lists, adjusting things, tinkering with things, trying to perfect what he was creating. One of the first things his friend asked me when we first started speaking, was whether I could send him copies of the CD's I have of Paul's music because his had been taken from his truck. I wasn't sure if I'd be able to make copies for him of the ones I have, but I remembered a box of them existed in the home I grew up in, and I looked for them and found them immediately. It was almost as if it was somewhere in my heart and mind already, as if I'd dreamed it or knew it, or was being shown where they were by a brother who wanted me to connect more deeply with him between the worlds where we both live.

When I found the box of CD's I saw that not only were there copies of things that I had that my brother had sent to me years ago, but there was one CD that I didn't have a copy of and several others that seemed to be works in progress or what he was describing as rough cuts, or in some cases what seemed to be working versions of the final CD's. I started listening to the ones that I hadn't heard before, listening to the ones that were not titled, and downloading and sending music to my brother's friend as I discovered it. At one point he asked me to send him the song lists from the CD's because he thought that there might be some differences in the ones that he had heard before. When I opened up one of the CD's that was one I'd always particularly loved, I saw that there was a notation on it in my brother's handwriting, dedicating it to me. The copy that I have does not have that written on it, and my mother had never told me about it. It hit me so deeply to see that, to know that this particular CD that had already resonated so deeply with me for years was one that he had dedicated it to me.

It's been many years since he has gone to live in the heavenly realms, and as I wrote in a poem at the time, his spirit is still so much a part of my life that there is some reminder at many different times of him, of his music, of his voice, of the way he spoke to me, of the way he took care of me, of the way I now know he loved me. Having that love in tangible form, calling to me from memory, is a precious gift, and one I have to give thanks to his friend for too, because he cared about my brother and his music enough to ask me to make copies to share with him and to listen with me deeply and carefully to the music and stories and creative journey of my brother's life.

A Discovered Gift

From My Brother Paul

Bringing The Past

Into The Present

With Love

Blessings,

Jannie Susan

An Abundant Life - Flourishing Community

This past week I had the wonderful experience of two Mayoral Inaugurations in one day. The first at 1pm  was for the gorgeous Emily Jabbour, the new Mayor of Hoboken, and the second at 7pm was for the marvelous James Solomon, the new Mayor of Jersey City. I so much enjoy a wonderful celebration like this, and to have two in one day for two people who I admire was really a very special blessing.

During the course of the day, during the inaugurations and the different events surrounding and celebrating them, the topic everyone returned to was public service and how and what we do to support our communities and help each other and everyone to flourish and thrive.

In addition to the wonderful speeches and beautiful spaces we found ourselves in, there were musical performances of all kinds, including choirs and bands that celebrated the voices and talents of youth of all ages. Barbershop quartets, fife and drums, the Presentation of Colors, the Retiring of Colors, bagpipes, choirs, the Pledge of Allegiance, and speeches filled with encouraging words, all brought each one of us together in such a beautiful way. It was exciting to see and hear and enjoy every part of both events, and wonderful to experience and have so many beautiful memories of these two historic events.

Both Mayor Jabbour and Mayor Solomon, though well experienced and trained, are fairly young in years. I wish them both so well in their new roles, and am so excited to see and hear what they will bring to the two cities they now helm.

Two Wonderful New Mayors

And Two Wonderful Inaugurations

Mayor Emily Jabbour of Hoboken

And Mayor James Solomon of Jersey City

Celebrate With The Rich History

Of Their Two Neighboring Cities

Mayor Emily Jabbour

Hoboken, New Jersey

Mayor James Solomon

Jersey City, New Jersey 

Blessings,

Jannie Susan

An Abundant Life - Remembering Beauty

I didn't have a chance to post last week at the time I usually do because I was away from my computer for much longer than I had thought I would be. There were some things that I needed to attend to and meetings with people I needed to see, some very unexpected along with others that had been planned. In the process I found myself arriving back at my computer with so much that I needed to follow up on that there didn't seem to be a good time to sit and write a blog post. Instead I decided to write something very short for this week, and to follow up in a future one. For this week I wanted to share this photograph of my childhood home, and I will share more memories of its beautiful history and some special stories soon.

Remembering The Beauty

Of A Childhood Home

Blessings,

Jannie Susan

An Abundant Life - Dressing Up

On a recent holiday visit to the family home where I grew up, I found my Junior Prom dress. I had been looking for it for a while now, and it had been moved from where I had seen it before. As I went through some things with a childhood friend of mine, I saw it tucked away where I hadn't expected it to be, and seeing it again brought back so many memories.

As I was sharing about it with another long time friend, I looked in my collection of photographs and found one of me in that dress on the day of the Prom. I am standing in the yard of the house where I grew up, and it is such a beautiful late spring going into early summer day with the lushness of greenery growing profusely all around.

Looking at that photograph I remembered so many details of the story of that dress, and it is a special one. My family was very poor, and I had been working from a very very young age to take care of and provide for myself. But Prom dresses are expensive and an extravagance, and I didn't know how I would ever afford one. There were two dresses we had from the 1950's that had belonged to my much older cousins, and though one fit me perfectly my cousin was shorter and the style of the time was shorter. My Mother and I brought the dress to a woman in town named Maria who did alternations, and she made a longer chiffon net overskirt for the dress. On a trip to Saks Fifth Avenue I found a pink beaded clutch bag and pink strappy patent leather sandals in the discount bin and racks and my outfit was complete. I don't remember how my Mother had met Maria, but she was lovely, and the way she made that vintage dress look, I felt like a princess.

On a beautiful afternoon and evening, God provided a dress for this Cinderella to go to the Prom, and as I remember this story I remember that we can be blessed in ways we are not expecting. A cast off dress from a cousin, a lovely neighbor who is creative with the ingenuity of her seamstress designs, discount rack shopping, and the ability to be grateful and allow God to provide in a way I wasn't expecting made this dress and the memory of it all the sweeter. 

A Sweet Prom Dress Memory

With So Much Gratitude

For Divine Blessings

And The People Who Help Make Them So

Blessings,

Jannie Susan

An Abundant Life - Celebrating The Season

 I haven't had a live Christmas Tree in my home in many years. Though I've always loved them, and went out of my way to get one my very first year in my first apartment in New York and for many years after that, for some reason for while now it's just seemed too much. Too big, too cumbersome, too much work, too expensive, too much time and too much effort for something that doesn't last very long. And then there are the pine needles that get everywhere and still show up years later. For some reason I just haven't gotten one, though every year I think about how much I love them, and then in the past few years when I've had the opportunity to decorate at YES Gallery, I've decorated windows and tree branches and my vintage recycled wood tree, and I've decorated all over the gallery in so many ways, but not with a live Christmas Tree.

This year I was really feeling like I wanted a tree, a real, live one, but all of the just too much thoughts kept coming whenever the little girl inside said but I want one. She kept saying it, and I kept finding all the reasons to try to reason her out of it, but it was there all the same that I wanted a tree. Then one day last week, a few days before Christmas Eve, as I was on my way home a neighbor was giving away the most beautiful tree. It was just gorgeous and perfect in every way, big enough to feel like a real tree but not so big that I couldn't carry it the few blocks home and bring it inside. It also had a double top, something that my grandmother always said was good luck, and it was fresh and new and so beautiful that it seemed like it had fallen out of a dream come true.

Sometimes the things we want, though they may seem impractical to our very practical adult selves, can bring so much joy to that child inside that it's worth taking the time and effort for them. This tree is a double blessing and a triple and quadruple one, with the amount of joy it's brought me and with the unexpected blessing of finding it, a gift from a neighbor who for some reason decided to bless me with it. Answered prayer can come in so many ways, and when we allow God to answer them and open ourselves up to the miracles of possibility, a tree that we've been longing for might bring back beautiful times and memories and emotions we'd forgotten or didn't know we even had. This sweet tree has brought back so much to me, of joy, life, love and beauty, and of the memories of my first Christmas in New York and those before and after that made life feel rich and sweet and new and filled with the wonder of Christmas and this very special holiday season.

Celebrating Christmas

With A Very Special Blessing

Of A Live Christmas Tree

A Gift And Answered Prayer

From A Beautiful Neighbor

Blessings,

Jannie Susan

An Abundant Life - Holiday Walk

For many years now I've heard about the Holiday Train Show at the New York Botanical Garden in the Bronx. It always sounded like it would be fun to see, but with the cold weather and needing to travel there, somehow I never found the time or made the time to go there to see it.  Someone I knew used to tell me that it was a favorite thing to do every year as a family tradition, and I'd always see it and think if it was something people did every year I'd like to see what it was all about for myself.

A few weeks ago I received an invitation to the Bronx Greenup awards celebration, and part of the evening included a special private visit to the Holiday Train Show. I've belonged to Bronx Greenup for almost twenty years and have attended other wonderful events, seed swaps and plant sharing, tours and educational programs and other wonderful times sharing information and recipes and visiting and volunteering in local gardens, but this was the first time I'd attended something that included a visit to the Holiday Train Show.

The awards ceremony was really a beautiful time from beginning to end, with local gardeners and community volunteers and the staff who teach and share knowledge with everyone gathering together to celebrate the graduation of program and class participants. There was wonderful hot chocolate and fruit, cheese and sweeter treats before, and the celebration and giving of graduation gifts was joyous. At the end they announced that we could go over to the Train Show for our private viewing, and I went with the first group that walked over.

The day had been a beautiful one, warmer than it had been and very mild for the season. As we arrived closer to our destination, we could see the twinkling lights decorating the area outside of the Enid A. Haupt Conservatory, and the tiny trains on tracks making their winding way around and through the outdoor designs and sculpted plantings. That sweet scene would have been a beautiful one on its own, but it was leading us to the entrance where we walked into the Conservatory where the Holiday Train Show had transformed different areas into a wonderland of sparkling Christmas Trees, woodland animals and creatures, and room after room of train tracks that wound their way around small but very lifelike replicas of historic and well beloved homes and buildings and bridges in Manhattan and the other New York City boroughs as well as other New York and Upstate areas. Within and around these beautiful and creatively rendered buildings were plantings that were festive and native, and the buildings and bridges themselves were made thoughtfully of plants and vines. Each one was lit up from within our without, and had information about their history that shared the story about New York and the beginnings of its transportation and buildings to this day.

As I watched the wonderful trains make their way through this holiday landscape of the history of these areas where I and my own family's history have deeply been a part of, I began to think about roots and life and how we know certain things as part of our very being. Names I'd heard often and others of places where I've lived and been and traveled and marveled at connected together throughout this Conservatory garden by trains traveling along the tracks and circling around to return again.

As I walked back out into the lovely night to get my own train back to New York's Grand Central Station, I remembered a time when I was nine years old and my Mother had asked me what I wanted to do on a school vacation. I said that I wanted to climb the Statue of Liberty, go to Wall Street, and take a train from Grand Central, and so we did all three. On this wonderful and special holiday walk through the New York Botanical Garden and the Holiday Train Show, I saw all of those things in miniature and remembered my own past and present as I took my own train journey home.

At the New York Botanical Garden

For A Very Special Private Viewing

Of The Holiday Train Show

With So Much Gratitude

To The Staff And Volunteers

And Everyone Involved With Bronx Greenup And NYBG

For Making This Evening So Beautiful And So Special!

https://www.nybg.org

Blessings,

Jannie Susan