It is with some embarrassment I admit that I don’t like Christmas music. I don’t like to listen to it non stop, the minute my children's Halloween candy has been sorted through New Year’s. I don’t like to listen to it in stores, my car or my classroom. Something about the same old traditional songs, being redone an endless of many ways, sets me over the edge.

While there are a few songs that I do love, I have to be in the right frame of mind to be entertained. For me, music is all about memories. Songs record a time and a place for me. While some songs are happy to relive, some I’d really rather not. Perhaps they were overplayed and like a house guest who overstays his welcome, you can’t wait till he leaves and dread the next visit. These are the songs that, as soon as they come on the radio, I am onto the next station. Anything from REO Speedwagon has that effect on me. Their music carries me back to an awkward time in life, that I don’t really care to reminisce about.

Christmas is a complicated concept. As a child it was full of wonder and excitement. I remember hearing that for some it was the most depressing time of year. I couldn’t imagine how that could be. As I grew older and left the fantasy of the holiday behind, it became more about time off from school. The family piece was always confusing for me. While we got together with some of the family, it was actually at Christmas that we severed ties with half of my father’s family. No explanation, just no more. I missed that part of the holiday and never let go of the unanswered questions.
In college, Christmas was overshadowed by stress. For me, so much of the joy is centered around the anticipation and preparation of Christmas. With final exams, lengthy papers and research projects all due right before the holidays, I felt that they took away from my ability to focus on the true spirit of Christmas. Then it was all over in a blur, with just a faint echo of a Christmas carol in my mind.

With each passing year, the dynamics of Christmas changed for me, but the music remained the same. When else in your life does everything change except the music? As life changes, music changes. I think this is why it bothers me to listen to the same songs, year after year after year.
I always embrace a musical artist who releases a Christmas album without the traditional holiday songs. I don’t want to hear those songs anymore. I want to find songs that speak to who I am now. I want to be able to listen to them years from now and remember where I was and what was going on in my life. Just as a fragrance will take me back, music also floods me with memories.
Last year, I was very drawn to Sarah McLachlan’s Wintersong album. I had received it as a gift a couple of years before, but I never connected with the music. Going through some emotional changes last Christmas, Song for a Winter’s Night was a dialogue with my soul. I listened to Sara ache for her lover, her loneliness sending a chill through my own heart, bringing tears to my eyes and tightening my throat. I may or may not choose to listen to that song this Christmas, but when I do in the future, it will carry me back to 2009 and reignite all of the feelings I was sorting.

This Christmas brings different emotions. I am trying hard to keep it all in check and go through the holidays for my children. Today I picked up Sting’s new release, If On A Winter’s Night. I had no idea what was inside. On the heels of his Symphonicities album being the soundtrack of my summer, I was more than thrilled to place Christmas 2010 in his hands.
The album art is so serene. It depicts Sting and a canine companion walking through snow covered woods. When I look at it I can’t help but to think of Robert Frost’s poem The Road Not Taken. I think of that poem often when I am faced with a decision. Frost’s words echoing in my mind:

Two roads diverged in a wood, and I—

I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference

As I prepare to take a new road in my own life, I felt a connection with Sting, bearing the cold but focusing on the beauty of life. His album notes are so incredibly elaborate that I am not just listening to Sting and 6 other musicians, I am there. I am sitting in a chair alongside all of them in Sting’s old house that sits atop a Tuscan hillside. I hear the wind rattling the doors and windows of the home that has been his retreat for the last decade. I watch as they assemble their instruments around the kitchen fireplace. I share a cup of tea with them as he introduces me to each of his friends, and them to me. It is comfortable and I feel at home.

Sting tells me the story behind this album, the history behind some of the songs, and what they mean to him. Like many people, he tells me, he has an ambivalent attitude towards the celebration of Christmas. He talks about it being a period of intense loneliness and alienation. For this reason, he avoids the jolly, almost triumphalist, strain in many of the Christmas carols. He ties in his feelings of winter and how it evokes in him a mood of reflection, a mood that can be at times philosophical, at others, wildly irrational. He finds himself haunted by memories. At this point I am wondering where Sting ends and where I begin. He has just described myself with an eerie insight to my soul, having never even met me before today. I am sure our paths are crossing today for a reason.

I step away and let the music begin. I am swept away with emotion. The music is the blood running through my veins. The lyrics are the oxygen that I am breathing. This music is the Christmas of 2010 for me. While not a single note or word is familiar, it is what I need. I need this season to stand on its own for what it is. I need understanding. I need reflection. I need strength, as I take the road less traveled.

~Susan Sincavage Hall
11.14.2010

"Mirror, mirror...on the wall...who has the highest moral values of all?" Oh Snow White, you know it's you and certainly not me. Funny because you are my least favorite Disney Princess of all, did you know that? Yes. I don't like your hairstyle, your laugh or your dress. When I met you in the Magic Kindgdom, I laughed because you had the shortest line. While everyone was desperate to see Cinderella and Briar Rose, you had time to snack on poison apples. Little girls couldn't wait to meet Ariel and she isn't even a princess, but a FISH! I'd start to have some self esteem issues if people were more excited to meet a fish than me.

As a child I hated the story about Snow White and her Seven little dwarf men. Now looking back, it was that nasty queen and the mirror that really scared me. I doubt I ever even saw the movie. All I needed was that picture in the book and the words on the page. Come to think of it I don't think I even owned the book, it was my cousin, Jeannie's. But things like that leave deep seeded ideas in our minds. Opinions and ideas form early in our childhood. While we may not know what influenced an opinion we have as an adult, sometimes flashbacks give us clues.

There are times in our lives that we don't want to face the truth about who we are or what we are doing. We can justify our way out of just about anything. Even though circumstances do play into each situation, there is always the cold hard truth at the foundation. Sometimes we get so deep into the fairy tale that we need someone to get out the mirror and force us to face our reflection. What we see may be shocking and we may not be prepared. The truth can strip any self respect that we had and show our ugly flaws. The wound it leaves is raw and open. We withdraw into ourselves for a while and examine who we are and how others see us. We might even feel like we deserve the poison apple.

Every now and then times like these are necessary though. Being forced to face the mirror is a chance to take a good look at reality and to make some changes within ourselves. It may be a time to listen to someone else and a time to ask forgiveness. While we may never live up to Snow White's standards, its also a chance to forgive and love ourselves for who we are deep inside. We are, after all, more than just our mirror image. The mirror can't reflect who we are on the inside. It doesn't show how we feel or how we love, where we've been or where we are going. Our reflection is just part of the fairy tale. Two dimensional - a frozen moment in time.

I HATE GRILLING

As a follow up to my I HATE DINNER blog, I also am not a fan of grilling. Grilling is a man sport and I do not have a man who participates in sports, including grilling obviously. To me, using the grill is one big pain in the ass because I am trying to be in the the kitchen getting the rest of the pain in the ass dinner together and really cannot keep an eye on the grill, which, even though it is illegally on our deck, it is not in the kitchen where I am, getting the rest of the meal under way.

I have noticed over the years, when we have been at other people's houses for dinner, that the women are usually in the kitchen getting the meal under way, while the men are gathered around the grill with a beer in hand. This is how I figured out how grilling is supposed to work. If you have one person (the man) supervising the meat, then it has a better chance of being cooked properly. When I do it all myself, it is usually charred, or under cooked. In addition, whatever else I am trying to multi task in the kitchen usually comes out half assed.

I have finally decided to make life easier and just say NO to GRILLING. I use the George Foreman grill on the kitchen counter to do burgers, and I am getting pretty good at using the broiler with the smoke alarm only going off once. The kids are well trained at waving a kitchen towel under it to shut it off. My husband will often wander in mid preparation and ask, why aren't you cooking that on the grill? I tell him that I HATE GRILLING and that if I lived alone I would not even OWN a freaking grill.

On rare occasion when he has stuck around long enough to grill, he never stands out there with it anyway. He usually goes on about some other business, because unlike me, he likes all the meat way over cooked. Which in turn pisses me off, and I end up running in and out when he is supposed to be on grill watch, checking with a meat thermometer (so that I can have proof that the meat is actually done).

I also hate the way the grill LOOKS on the deck. It is just a big visual distraction to me.

So in addition to hating dinner, I hate grilling. However, I am a fan of the man sport of grilling, when done by a professional...at someone elses house.

Why I Hate Dinner...

The first step to admitting that you have a problem is admitting it. Right? Well I think that being a life time member of Weight Watchers would officially qualify me then, as having a problem with food. I have sympathized with Oprah for years, as I can feel her pain with being skinny one year, fat the next. I have seen 160 lbs (not pregnant) and most recently an all time low of 125 on the scale, in my adult life. I have been a size 12 and I have been a size 4. I can proudly claim, however, that I have never seen 200 on the scale (ok, so I was 196 the day I gave birth to my daughter).

When I got married, I took over the traditional female role of being the grocery shopper and the food preparer. I learned very early that I would have issues with being in control of what another person would eat. Having never really had experience planning and cooking meals, I'd have rather just gone about my life shopping from the healthy food groups and making sure that we both had our 3 proteins, 2 dairies, 2 fruits, 5 or more veggies, 2 fats and 3 breads. Back in the 1990s, that was how one ate on the Weight Watchers plan. It became very easy and I could go about my life with a mental food diary, knowing what I had left to consume after lunch. But my husband did not need the Weight Watchers Way of Life...and liked a more traditional way of eating 3 full meals, a few snacks and also had no problem sitting down to a dinner of meat, starch and vegetables at 9pm.

I battled with this new role in my life and saw the scale go up and down a few times in the first 5 years of marriage. Luckily, I got back below my Weight Watchers goal in 1996, just before getting pregnant with my first child.

Along with yet another new role in my life of motherhood, came a whole new facet to the being responsible for what another person eats. The first pressure was breast feeding. The pressure to do so was intense. I decided to give it a try, really wanting it to work out. Little did I know, my son's personality would be stubborn and picky right from birth. He refused to latch on and just screamed for the first several days of being home. As new parents, we cracked under the pressure and broke out the bottle of formula around 3am on day 4. As he sucked it down without any problem, I decided that I'd been starving my child for the first 4 days of his life. Way to go, Mom! Still feeling the pressure to do the right thing, I pumped breast milk and poured it into a bottle for him for close to 2 weeks. I hated it. I began to resent him. I was pissed right off at him. As I sat on the couch one Saturday night pumping a set of breasts that looked like they belonged to Pamela Sue Anderson...I told my husband that we'd certainly reached a new level of our relationship...sitting on the couch watching TV while I pumped away. The laughs only lasted so long. After 2 weeks I had had enough and packed the pump away. I was giddy to run to the store to fill my cart with formula. I could not WAIT to have my body back to myself.

As time moved on, and table food was introduced, we both commented how we never knew that feeding a child would be as exhausting as it was. The refusal to eat what we offered. The crying. The panic that he was not getting the nutrition that he needed in order to grow...it was all too much. After only so long, we'd fix him something we knew he'd eat...be it scrambled egg, pasta, you name it...but it was never what we happened to be eating that evening.

From there it was only the beginning. Add a second child into the mix along with a picky husband and I have spent many nights screaming I HATE DINNER!!!!!!! As someone is always complaining about the meal I have prepared and asking to have something else. Now that we have one on the verge of being a teenager, he has a couple of times walked out on dinner to go down the road to see what "Nana" is making. Oh, I know...to the outsider we have no control of our child. Guess what? You are exactly right. I lost control the day I hooked myself up to that *&^ *&%$ breast pump!

And the thing is, no one "gets it". I spend hours and endless amounts of money shopping for food only to come home and put a meal together that someone is crying over. I decided that I just cannot win. I have threatened to simply purchase a stack of frozen entrees (formerly known as TV dinners) and just let people pick their meal, zap it and go. No one thinks I am serious.

After tonight, where I had one child cheering for the pasta and meatballs I had made, and one crying because she thought we were having home made mac n cheese (that the other one refuses to eat)... my husband casually mentioned that he had spaghetti and meatballs for lunch at his mother's....

Did I mention yet that I HATE DINNER!?!??!!??!

I just want to go on record and say, it's not the snow. We live in upstate New York, and we get a LOT of it. We anticipate it, worry about it, and deal with it constantly. It is, at the very least, the opener of most conversations from December - March. We complain and complain and complain, and I will not make any excuses for myself, I am right there with the complainers complaining away. But, this weekend, I had a little bit of an epiphany about our friend snow. Driving two of our normal routes this weekend, Saturday from Home to Auburn, and Sunday from Home to Oswego, I noticed how much the snow lets us see our world differently. From the cozy warmth of my car, my favorite hiding place, I drove by a house I see all the time, but to see its rich, deep blue bordering on violet color against the snow made me see it for the very first time. Maybe not the color for a house, but it gave me a great idea for painting our bedroom. Then I took note of the snow while driving home from Auburn, at twilight, with a touch of a sunset on the horizon. It was exceedingly heavy on the trees and blanketing the ground, lending a peaceful silence to our drive, and dampening all sound from the rushed and hurried world. Today, on my way home from Oswego, at dusk, with a rather brilliant sunset dancing in the clouds, was when I realized it is not the snow that we hate, but the dark. With snow comes cloud cover and sometimes we do not see sun for days at a time. Sure, life brightens, but it never gains that full on glow that a ray of sun brings. Yesterday and today, a bit of sun ON snow was a beautiful thing. So thank you Mr. Winter, snow away. In fact, if you could muster up enough properly timed snow to help us towards a snow day, I would be much appreciative. But do remember to send us a little 'ol Mr. Sun every now and again.

-Cheryl

The Problem with Me and Country…

I haven’t always disliked country music. In fact, way back when, there was a time I liked some of it. My childhood soundtrack includes artists such as Glenn Campbell, Ann Murray, the Carpenters, the Lettermen, Johnny Cash, Donna Summer, Starland Vocal Band, Fleetwood Mac and the list goes on. Maybe it is just my faded childhood memory, but I seem to remember radio stations playing it all. There wasn’t a Country station, a Rock and Roll station, and a Pop station. You simply got what came in on your AM band radio and listened to what they played.

Today, if you choose the radio, you can fine tune your station choice to play a genre to your specific liking and even hand pick the artists it will play. Or so I am told…as I do not have anything fancier than the FM stereo choices in my car. Even so, I have my stations programmed to 93.1, 100.5 and 97.9. I channel surf around depending on the time of day and the day of the week. 100.5 plays unplugged on Acoustic Tuesdays, and 93.1 plays most of your current top 40 hits. Then there is Y94 which I plain and simply cancel out between Halloween and New Years as they play Christmas music 24/7. But one station I simply avoid, is 104.7. I cannot do country.

Now why this from the girl who grew up loving Kenny Rogers and doing the occasional sing along with Johnny Cash in her Dad’s truck? Why can’t I do today’s country music? My answer is two fold. First off, if there is one bit of twang in the music I have to escape immediately. The effect that sound has on me is the same as nails on a chalkboard to some (which, by the way, I am ok with). It hurts my teeth, my ears and the static noise starts to creep in as the room goes black. Okay, so maybe I am exaggerating just a little bit on the nearly passing out part, but not by much.

The other issue I have with country songs are the lyrics. I do not want someone’s life story in 3 minutes. I do not want to know about your alcoholic father, your abusive husband or your cowboy boyfriend’s horse. I just really don’t care. I don’t want full blown details laid out for me. I actually would rather think about the words and create my own meaning. Imagine that! In today’s society of fast food, instant gratification and no one being responsible for their own actions…some of us still want to think for ourselves! Some of us still would rather read the book than see the movie, hand write a thank you note than send an e-card, or bake a batch of cookies rather than swinging by the bakery at the store. Some of us still want to do it on our own!

I prefer my song lyrics to be like an inspiring painting. I want to stand and look at it, making my own interpretations. I can take in the colors and the emotion and try to experience what the artist was feeling, or better yet, what I am feeling. I love to look at Van Gogh’s Starry Night and wonder what was on his mind when he painted those swirling stars. At the same time I want to let my own thoughts wander and contemplate my life. I want to participate in the painting and not simply look at it.

One painting that I carry in my memory is a Manet I saw at the Art Gallery Ontario in Toronto several years ago. I was familiar with A Bar at the Folies Bergere, but in person it was so much more emotional. Something about the barmaid kept drawing me back. I really wanted to know what she was thinking about. I wanted to know more about her life. No one was there to lay it out for me in a country song though…I had to analyze all the information the artist left me with and draw my own conclusion. I spent a lot more than 3 minutes with the barmaid that day and walked away never forgetting her. Edward Manet gave me something to think about. Through his brush strokes I saw beauty, felt sadness and questioned life. I felt like I knew this woman, perhaps even shared her secret. All of this without a word spoken between the three of us.


When I choose music I do enjoy a variety. Music, to me, is like wine. While I am not really into sweet reds, there can be a time and a place for it. Really there can be a time and a place for just about any wine! But my music has to speak to me in a certain way. The only time I have ever felt a place for country was…was…okay so I have not found a place for country in my life up to this point.

Here are a few lyrics from some country songs that stand out as annoying me:

She was driving last Friday on her way to Cincinnati
On a snow white Christmas Eve
Going home to see her Mama and her Daddy
With the baby in the backseat

Here is an example of a song that is purely laid out step by step for us. We can’t even put ourselves in Carrie’s car and pretend that we are driving to Oswego with our dog to see a friend because she is telling us she is going to Cincinnati with her baby (legally in the backseat even) on Christmas eve to see her parents. We also get a full weather report and know that Christmas fell on a Saturday that year. The story continues to unfold and we find out even more than we wanted to know. She is almost out of gas and she is 50 miles away and she is speeding. All I have to say is Oh Jesus, please help us! Take Carrie’s wheel and tell her to SHUT UP!!!

And here is a song Reba sings that again, just way too literal for me:

I remember it all very well lookin' back
It was the summer I turned eighteen
We lived in a one room, rundown shack
On the outskirts of New Orleans
We didn't have money for food or rent
To say the least we were hard pressed
Then Mama spent every last penny we had
To buy me a dancin' dress

The song goes on and on and on only giving us every depressing detail including a starving baby, the mother’s illness and the father taking off on her. The lyrics stretch clear into next week needing an intermission just to get through them all. No thanks, Reba…I’d rather hear about someone throwing Johnny’s lunch box away. Then my mind can wander off to my Suzy Homemaker oven and wonder what the hell ever happened to that!

Speaking of Johnny. John Mayer is one of my favorites. He writes music, lyrics, plays guitar and sings. He steers clear or twang and lets us think for ourselves. He tells us that his music is not about his life, but our own. He wants us to bring our own experiences to his songs and get lost in them that way. Finally…someone who thinks like I do! I have been all caught up in his latest album, Battle Studies, on which this song is found:

Come out Angels
Come out Ghosts
Come out Darkness
Bring everyone you know

Ok…now we’re talking….the first 4 lines and we don’t know whether John is taking us to a Halloween party…or to a graveyard to hold a seance. My curiosity is peaked.

I'm not running
I'm not scared
I am waiting and well prepared

He is ready for anything that might happen with all of these spirits from the “other side”. Is he ready for death himself?

I'm in the war of my life
At the door of my life
Out of time and there’s no where to run

Now we know there is some kind of struggle going on. Could it be love? Could it be cancer? Could it be a major life decision to make….

The song continues on to let us think about our own life demons, the choices we have to make and the consequences we will face. He tells us to fight on. I go back and listen to the song again and again, each time hearing something a little different.

I got a pocket
Got no pills
If fear hasn't killed me yet
Then nothing will

He is totally on his own to fight this war…he is strong enough to win…and when he does there will be:

No more suffering
No more pain


Sometimes I am pulled in to just a single sentence or phrase from a song…John has so many of these. They stand on their own as well as being part of a whole…just a small sample of some of my favorites:

“By the time I recognize this moment….this moment will be gone…” -Clarity

“Whatever happened to my lunchbox
when came the day that it got
thrown away and don't you think I should have had some say
in that decision…? - 83

“I want you so bad I'll go back on the things I believe
There I just said it, I'm scared you'll forget about me…” Edge of Desire

Of course JM is not the only one whose lyrics I get lost in. There have been hundreds over the years, but for the sake of keeping this under 10 pages, I will close with a song from Norah Jones…one of my favorites musically and lyrically. Titled simply, Toes. Maybe I am drawn to it as I was inspired to spend my summer recording daily foot pictures, or maybe there is no reason other than it brings me pleasure. Isn’t that why we listen to music in the end? Because it brings us pleasure and takes us to a different place?


The current is strong from what I've heard
It'll wisk you down the stream
But there never seems to be much time
My toes just touched the water
My toes just touched the water

Daydreamed on the bank again
I was swimming with the fish
And I thought this time that it may be true
But) My toes just touched the water
My toes just touched the water
My toes just touched the water


Walked a mile just to find the edge.
Some place low enough to step right in
Now I'm here and I can't begin - to move

The spoiled sun up over there
It always has to have its way
And I know that the river's there to shelter me

My toes just touched the water
My toes just touched the water

Life is busy and there isn’t time to pursue the adventurous side of life. It is dangerous and a risk. I haven‘t been all the way. I’ve spent a lot of time dreaming about what it is I am wanting so badly to do…but I’ve still only just been part way. Looking for a safe way in…to avoid some of the risk…I’ve found a way but I’m still not sure I can take the plunge….God is there watching over me no matter what decision I make…

So that is my interpretation of what Norah is singing about. It isn’t a swim in the rapids…she is trying to make a life altering decision…what her life altering decision is we can’t be sure…but we can put ourselves into the song and make it be about whatever it is we need it to be at the moment.

I am all about symbolism and finding the obscure to define yourself. If I’d chosen the “country music” route when choosing a tattoo to represent my artist self, I would have settled for a paintbrush and a pallet. But that wasn’t good enough. I wanted something that meant art to me, but perhaps not to everyone else. I love when someone sees my horse and is left with questions. It is my way of keeping a little bit of me a secret. I don’t have to reveal my whole self to everyone or all at once. I can decide, based on who it is and how I feel about them, what and how much I am willing to share.

To me, country songs that lay out all the detail and don’t let you think for yourself are the coloring books with crayons of music. You are stuck with what they give you. The songs that give us open ended lyrics, obscure symbolism and wonder, challenge your mind, your emotions and your feelings. These songs are the blank canvases full of creative opportunity. Songs I will get lost in over and over…lyrics that will resurface in my mind unexpectedly…paintings that I will visit over and over. Now can you wonder how I could settle for anything less?

OK, just have to put a quick note in here, for documentation if nothing else. JUST finished watching the News Channel 9 Winter Weather outlook...they looked back at El Nino years, that also had cool wet summers and chilly Octobers...as we have. The years? 1965-66 - where there was a big blizzard in '66, AND 2003 was the year I went back to work after maternity leave with Gwynn - Feb of 03, and didn't work a full week until like MAY! Hmmmmmmm, will be interesting to see!

Musical Thankfullness

Yep, totally off the Thankful wagon...it may have been too much to ask of myself. Still, I do think that just verbalizing and beginning it made me mindful to keep Thanksgiving in November. I am already doing some preparation for Christmas, for survival sake, but my mind is tuning out the noise of holiday advertising and premature Christmas music. I think it is doing the mind good.

I went to see "This is It" with Sue last night, and do believe I am still recovering from it. In a lot of ways it did not live up to what I expected it to be, but it did turn out to be one of those experiences that gives a creative "shot in the arm," so to speak. I left the theater, again amazed by the musicianship of Michael Jackson. He had such an integrated understanding of his music and how he wanted it to sound. He felt his music, and perhaps related to it as much or more than he related to the real world, and as much as that may have been the real problem for him, it gave the world an amazing catalog of musical genius for eternity.

THEN there was Orianthe! Good God that girl could rock out. She was the lead guitarist for MJ's band and just oozed cool, along with playing some kick ass guitar! True to form and predictably, I ran home and downloaded her album, and have been rocking out to it all day. It was $7.99 very well spent.

Finally, a new webisode of "Live From Daryl's House" dinged into my email inbox this evening and I have been listening to collaboration between Daryl Hall's band and Fall Out Boy. Never had really paid attention to their music before, and really only knew of the one member that is married to J Simp's little sister, but now, whew! The lead singer, Patrick Stump, is also the songwriter, and I was really impressed. Probably more iTunes in my future...sigh. Where DOES my money go?

Still, as much as all of this may be my little sideline frivolity, it does make, like I said, for the creative shot in the arm. Every time a new LFDH webisode comes out, I am inspired. Every time I hear of a new and interesting artist, I am inspired. Every time I hear an old artist, or an old song, reinterpreted...or if I simply come across an old friend I have not heard, or heard from, in a long time, I am inspired. Music is inspiration, and, guess I am not totally off the wagon, because I am ETERNALLY thankful for that.

-Cheryl