Asleep and dreaming (Magnetic Fields cover)

Haven't had time to cry.mp4

/lyrics/

I am not out from under it/ the weight of your tenderness/ the way you listened/ and heard the same silences/ 

our bodies side by side on the bed/music and words filling our heads/ knowing we were filled/the way of knowing/ the weight of being known/ I thought I was out from under it/

now you are gone/the weight of us/ breaking/ the heaviness/ of lost seeing/ of being open/ in the wet pain of being known / only by one who did not have space/ for knowing/ 

it was enough to have our heads/ side by side on the mattress/the lyrics from the radio a shared blanket/ will I ever be known again/

will I ever be known again/ and want to be /to crawl inside another's head/ inside an open wound/ wet/ bodies beating into the bed/ 

in time/ pain inflicted/ on each other the way/fingers callus /by putting weight/ on strings/ under the weight/ under weight is when/ feeling is made/ into song

// will I ever be known again/ will I know/ when/ will I ever be/ when/ will I be known/ again //

I thought I was out from under it / under the weight / under the heaviness/ of knowing/ your tenderness

Out From Under It demo

Poem from Easter, 2021

Easter 2021

I have a bowl of pea soup in my lap
It is the first day it is warm enough
To sit on my deck and read in the sun
As it sets
But not warm enough to do so
Without a blanket

My landlord believes in aliens
And reincarnation
That everything new is connected to what once was
And that we cannot possibly know for sure
About the Big Bang

He is 84 and has lived so much more than I can fathom
I can't really argue 
I say actually I might agree 
But what we really agree on
Is that being heard by someone who sees the same world as you
Is the most valuable thing you can have
That Rising is the other side of Falling
In a glass half full

Really, he says,
Electricity is God

He tells me how as a young boy in pre-war Hungary,
Growing up poor and landlocked,
He drew ships on the edges of his father's newspapers 
Because they couldn't afford paper

At seven years old he would 
Carve wooden boats for himself
Use feathers as sails
Clock mechanisms as motors
Knifed holes in the wood to fasten them together

Walked miles to the nearest pond just to watch them float
Piled the top of his miracle boat with teenage polywogs
Who waited, out of shock or politeness,
Until they were out to sea
Before jumping back into the water

The star magnolia is blooming,
And the daffodils, and the forsythia and
Amaryllis as big as my face
Lazlo is so proud to have had a hand in the blossoming 
That he is blooming too, aglow with life

Sitting on my deck
Reading "Mad With Yellow"
My soup is cold on my lap now
The sun mostly gone
I know I do not know
Suffering, not the way 
My old self thought
How blessed I am to sit under the wind chimes
Wondering  about Lazlo's summer garden
If he will let me help him harvest

The chickadee calls fee-bee
The bunny who lives in the backyard
Starts from his dinner when I sing
"I think I will draw boats tonight," 
Find the space in the margins 
Pile on polywogs to watch them jump off
As I float, feather-sails unfurled

Easter 2021

Cover of Joni Mitchell's song "A Case of You", mixing her original version with James Blake's arrangement, with me on vocals, and Brad Bensko on guitar

A Case Of You (Joni Mitchell / James Blake cover)

A look at the inner workings of a unique annual event at the Eastern Cemetery in Portland, Maine.

Audio and production by Christie Flemming. Made in Pro Tools 10 at The Salt Institute. November 2014

Inside "Walk Among the Shadows"

Rachel Lehmann rejects one of Christianity's most common tenets while still pursuing her Christian faith.

Christie Flemming

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