“Love Is a Traveler”
After the event (accident or not), it was at least a couple of years before the healing pathways of creativity began to flow again…
The poem/song you will hear below, “Love is a Traveler,”—which I created and perform with my colleagues in the Naturalz—is an amalgamation of relationship dynamics and memory symbols, fueled by a desire for healing and breakthrough. In hindsight, it may also have been a prescient message about the life-altering concussion I later experienced when I fell off my mother’s bed.
This poem-song foretells a potential unbearable parting. It speaks of being at a breaking point and seeking relief. The dynamics in my relationship at the time I created this song included a feeling of unbearable waiting; the longing to find our shared rhythm and timing; a desire to understand the archetype of our relationship. The song also reflects a need to find each other’s love language and trust it—as well as not knowing, and to tolerate being in a state of limbo. To honor the state of waiting for the message means there is one. And it’s worth waiting for.
Could it be that the concussion experience itself re-wired my brain, and I was able to see the poem in “wider,”“more magical,” “expanded creative ways”?
Memories:
I think of our old family dog, Kim, in France, who waited for us when we went on vacation for a month in the summer. Each day, I was told by those who were caring for him, he would slowly walk out to the end of the driveway and wait. At nightfall he’d retrace his steps back to the house. He pined, as we all pine, for unknowable answers.
I used to greatly admire a small bronze of a girl playing a blindfold party game in a store window in San Diego. That charming image of being innocently, playfully blindfolded worked perfectly for the “unveil my eyes” bridge/verse. I am asking for my vision to be restored, and for relief.
No one else can truly know what it’s like to navigate the miasma of concussion. Each person, each injury has a unique story. I keep going and rejoice that I have the arts in my life to heal and reveal me and keep me moving. So here’s to the evolutionary/revolutionary mystery of life!
Lifelong writer, composer, and performer Holly Burke a/k/a “Nature Girl” of Holly Burke and The Naturalz writes and performs with humor and insight about the inspirations of nature, human passion, and transcendence. Holly’s been on the scene in Canada and the United States for decades, producing creative, texturally rich, and evocative music that often transcends genre. The Naturalz garnered several global internet radio play awards (Power FM Global #1, KXRL L.A#1) for their tunes “Serengeti” and “River of Stars.” Holly also shares an International Broadcast Award from the Hollywood Radio and Television Society. She has worked with the legendary Linton Garner and Clark Burroughs, lead tenor of the Hi-Lo’s, and acknowledges the influence of the late, great Paul Horn, as well as that of her multi-faceted family, including her father, writer and CBC newsman Stanley Burke.In 2015 Holly experienced a life-changing concussion. Nevertheless, in 2018, she was (just) able to write and perform a one-hour collaboration with Qi Gong teacher Jacob Larmour, called “Kozmik Keyboards” based on the imagery of Qi Gong. The Hard Rubber Orchestra commission co-written with Bill Runge, entitled “Lagoon,” followed that. Thanks to a Canada Council grant awarded in 2022, Holly and Bill were able to realize Dreamride, a collection of Twenty Etudes for the Contemporary Pianist.
Writing and doodling have been best friends to Holly all her life. At their best they’ve provided a wonderful catharsis and ongoing journey to self-knowledge. She is only now beginning to look into the thirty books of writing she’s amassed over the years. She’s surprised, delighted, and honored to be publishing her first poem/performance with Persimmon Tree magazine at age 70.
Photo credit: Gorav Ram Photography
This year we celebrate the bicentennial of the birth of a great American composer. Born on July 4, 1826, Stephen Foster came to life on the same day that Thomas Jefferson and John Adams died. His “Oh! Susanna” became the banner song of forty-niners during the California gold rush. “Old Kentucky Home” and “Old Folks at Home” are still the state songs of Kentucky and Florida. “Camptown Races” and “Beautiful Dreamer” are sung today, more than a century and a half after they were written.
But troublesome lyrics in some of his songs risk diminishing his legacy. In Foster’s day, blackface minstrel shows were the popular entertainment, and songwriters who didn’t write for this medium would have had difficulty introducing their music to the world. The lyrics in Foster’s minstrel music, while indefensible, comprised only a small portion of his work. And decades ago, the Center for American Music revised Foster’s lyrics to omit offensive language.
It's hard to overstate the influence Foster had on American music as one of its first popular composers. Composer-lyricist Irving Berlin and composer-pianist George Gershwin both took inspiration from his songs. The tunes are timeless and the lyrics often speak to enduring and universal truths. It would be a shame if Foster, who wrote the defining music of his time, were deprived of his rightful place in history.
For this aging, vagabond author, Foster’s songs take me home to Suwannee River country in North Florida, where ancient, moss-clad oaks and palmetto scrub line the riverbanks a few miles from my grandparents’ homesteads. This book, “Beautiful Dreamer,” is my tribute to him.
Available from Amazon, Bookshop.org, or from your independent bookstore.