Padron Peppers/The Day the Music Died....

For such tiny peppers, these pack quite a punch by the time they turn red. I've left them in the bowl just because it's such a nice, albeit slow motion, show to watch them change color.

I have started to think about the beginning of this pandemic as the day the music died. It wasn't anything deliberate, perhaps because it was such a difficult time to listen to the news that we just stopped listening to anything. I don't really know what the reason for it was, but the music died. 

We were expecting Tim on Saturday which inspired me to resurrect the music, starting with a disc called ADIEMUS, Songs of Sanctuary, a collaboration between the London Philharmonic and the vocal sound of Miriam Stockley. The liner notes read,   Apart from religious connotations sanctuary means a place of refuge. This music is somewhere to escape to. This is not to say that the music is introspective and sombre. We believe the emotions to be wide ranging. (there were still such things as liner notes in CD's but you can also now find any kind of music on You Tube. Here's a sample) 

A good place to start. While I listened to this beautiful music which John bought somewhere in his travels because he knew I would like it, I went about resurrecting our little Bose speaker whose battery had been dead for a year and my playlist which had retreated into the cloud without telling me where it had gone.

 By the time Tim arrived I was fully engrossed and uplifted  by having music around again. I asked Tim if he could suggest something good that was more current than my rather eclectic and random list but it turns out that he gave his stamp of approval to 'world music' and collaborations. He's also a fan of blues and added a few blues tunes to my list

Today I listened to Paul Simon's 'Graceland' with Ladysmith Black Mambazo. All this fit nicely into my thoughts about gratitude. I am grateful for music that takes me out of myself and makes me happy. It takes a village to produce most music, but it takes a  whole world to find musicians from around the globe who are able to listen to each other and produce a beautiful sound.

I have lived with music since I sang in the youth church choir and a madrigal group in high school to the Berkeley Community Chorus after John and I were married. I think this not only gave me great pleasure and satisfaction but some appreciation of how much communication and collaboration is involved. There are a lot of unsung people who go producing into just about anything we appreciate, and I am recognizing for the first time all the people who make and produce music that I have taken for granted...

I am grateful for people who are able to listen to and respect each other for that is what is necessary to create anything from a pair of shoes to a piece of music to a functional government.