As summer approaches and we fling open our doors and send our youngsters out into the world, it’s nice to be reminded that it’s not only ok to pull back, it’s good for them. I have been trumpeting this philosophy of child rearing since the beginning days of this blog and it’s validating to read a well reasoned article supporting what I’ve always assumed were personal views shaped by my own gut feelings and a splash of laziness.

Letting kids figure out how to get around – even if it means getting lost and having moments of uncertainty – is empowering to them. Letting them brush up against strangers allows them tune into their own gut reactions and lets them feel and understand that balance of good versus bad in the world. (Hint: there is overwhelmingly more good, but you’d never know that by listening to the news). Falls, scrapes and collisions teach lessons about physics, physical boundaries and self care.

A little freedom is our way of saying to our kids: we trust you, we trust people, we trust our city. Even if we DO whisper a hasty Hail Mary prayer from time to time.

You will want to read this.

I think I need spring. But for the time being, I’ll just continue to suffer through these frigid days and find my warmth in music. For me, Rhye was love at first listen. Coup de foudre. I stumbled upon these guys quite by accident and had downloaded their latest album, Woman, within minutes. Seriously. The video hadn’t even ended.

A duo out of LA, they sound like Sade, but the singer is a boy and the vibe is thoroughly modern, while steeped in smooth early 90’s R&B. I kind of love how unapologetic they are about going there, like there there, like easy-listening, bearskin rug in front of a fire there. And yet, totally cool and thought provoking.

It’s exactly what I want to be listening to right now – slow, easy, sexy, warm. Damn.

And boy does this video tell a story. Enjoy your new make-out music.

Click here to view the embedded video.

I fell for this song the very first time I heard it. It’s got everything I love: a rocking male falsetto, a sexy decrescendo and falling chords. Just makes me want to put my arms up, my booty down and groove. Which is exactly what I did.

Enjoy.

Click here to view the embedded video.

This Valentine’s Day marked 21 years of our being together. My math man also pointed out that we have now been together more than we’ve been apart in our lives. I have spent more than half of my life with Dash at my side. It’s staggering. We didn’t meet that young and we’re not that old now, so how can it be? Yet there it is. It’s simple math, and it blows my mind.

We spent Valentine’s night with the kids and we usually do, and I cooked steaks with blue cheese sauce as a small nod to our wee beginnings. We’ll get our proper date night on Saturday night when we go see Book of Mormon and then out for bites in some twinkly bar. I can’t wait.

I suppose I could say how different things are from way back when, but they don’t seem that different. Aside from more responsibility and less flannel, he and I are pretty much the same. I still look forward to seeing him at the end of the day, stepping out with him on a chilly night or lingering at the table after dinner while the kids bounce about not really clearing like they’re supposed to. Actually, when I picture any after dinner scene, I guess it is different. Perhaps I’ve forgotten how footloose and fancy free we once were.

But you grow, adapt and live, with the days piling up behind you at an alarming clip and then one day, you tip. Which means not much more than a moment in time to look back and to look ahead and be grateful.

I love you, Dash.

Sometimes I’ll happily bust out something new in the kitchen and he won’t bite. I mean, he’s never as effusive as I’d like him to be. Even when he loves something, he won’t come out and say it with many many descriptive words and animated gestures like I would. Imagine.

I dig this band. A lot. But to quote Dash: They’re a little too Corey Hart for my taste. To which I say, you can never be too Corey Hart.

I understand that he’s not as drawn to a dramatic, diversely coiffed, divaesque, daredevil lead singer with delicious derring do as I might be, but he’ll come around.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Brubeck seemed impossibly old and impossibly sweet. Also, impossibly talented. I remember we both loved it, but I don’t remember much else about the night. What strikes me now, in retrospect, is how little of an inkling I had about how much going to see music was going to be our thing. Like in our marriage. As a couple. It’s just something he and I have always done together, in every city we’ve lived in and in many different venues.

I do not take this for granted. I do not take it for granted that my man will scootch up behind me in a big hot crowd at a loud loud show and be as happy as me. I do not take it for granted that he’s always turning me on to new music. I do not take it for granted that he’ll humor my incessant need to put words to what I hear, to attempt to describe and compare in order to understand. I do not take it for granted that he’s willing to take a gamble on some band or some person just because I have a notion that it’ll be good – and vice versa – because it is good, better than good, 99% of the time and fully worth it 100% of the time.

And so it was on Friday night when we had tickets to see Solid Gold at First Ave. Putting aside a long, busy, tiring, under-the-weather week, we drank a cup of green tea, tucked in the kids, sealed up the house and stepped out into the brisk winter night at 10:40 pm. The band was awesome – dashing and cool, loud and swoon-inducing, but very graciously Minnesota and obviously beloved by the crowd. We danced and cheered and clapped and were filled up with beautiful, heady, music – I’m still thinking about the show three days later.

The shimmer.

And I don’t take that for granted.

Enjoy a little Dave Brubeck. Enjoy a little Solid Gold. Two stops on my musical romance with Doctor Dash.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Click here to view the embedded video.

In honor of our national election . . . get it? I know, LAME. But these guys are anything but.

I’ve been meaning to throw The National some Music Monday love forever. They are a long time favorite of both Dash and mine. Both albums, Boxer and High Violet, are on frequent rotation at our house.

Their music is, flat out, beautiful. And on this tense, gray, damp autumn day it sounds just about perfect.

I’ve got tons of pictures on my laptop, but as I scrolled through vacations, lazy days in the backyard, snowmen shots and birthdays, I realized I wasn’t actually in very many of them. My first reaction was to blame poor, hapless Doctor Dash. I swear, sometimes that guy does not know what dramas, unilateral brawls, injuries and slights have unfolded in the time it takes him to walk down stairs and say hello to me in the sunroom. He is a patient man. But also, there are a TON of pictures of him and he looks like a handsome devil in most of them. It’s totally unfair.

It’s like I don’t even exist! I railed.

What about this one?

UG! That’s hideous!

What about this one?

Humongous zit!

What about this one?

Next.

What about this one?

Could I look more olive green?

What about this one?

Double chin.

What about this one?

Fugly.

What about this one?

Horse face.

That is only a mild exaggeration. Turns out, there were actually some pictures of me, just none that I liked. And as I thought about it more, I realized I’m usually the one holding the camera, which makes it very hard to be in the picture. But if I am being completely honest with myself, there are also many times Dash might have offered to take my picture and I might have demurred. After all, I am far from picture ready most of the time. Make up, hair, outfit and mood rarely come together so that I’m jumping in front of the camera. I rarely put pictures of myself on this blog because it feels showy and self indulgent and also, post-worthy pics of moi are about as rare as hens teeth.

So when I read this LOVELY piece by Allison Tate over at the Huffington post, I thought Oh my god, she is SO right. She writes:

“I’m everywhere in their young lives, and yet I have very few pictures of me with them. Someday I won’t be here — and I don’t know if that someday is tomorrow or thirty or forty or fifty years from now — but I want them to have pictures of me. I want them to see the way I looked at them, see how much I loved them. I am not perfect to look at and I am not perfect to love, but I am perfectly their mother.

When I look at pictures of my own mother, I don’t look at cellulite or hair debacles. I just see her — her kind eyes, her open-mouthed, joyful smile, her familiar clothes. That’s the mother I remember. My mother’s body is the vessel that carries all the memories of my childhood. I always loved that her stomach was soft, her skin freckled, her fingers long. I didn’t care that she didn’t look like a model. She was my mama.”

I just love that. The idea that your mama’s body is the vessel that carries the memories of childhood. The idea that our physical beings are beloved to someone, even if not to ourselves some of the time. I am all about women, mamas, being kinder and gentler to themselves and yet I’m not sure I practice what I preach.

So here’s a reminder, for you and for me – get in the picture, mama.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Directed by Kevin Mac Donald (did you ever see The Last King of Scotland? Oof. Good.), the movie revealed a shy, complicated, charismatic, spiritual and talented man. I guess I knew about as much about Bob Marley as could be gleaned from a poster in a college dorm room: dreads, weed, great tunes. His short life was about so much more and this movie was not only a great way to learn about his message, Rastafarianism and Jamaica’s struggle for unity, but chocked full of awesome concert footage and photos – a complete joy to listen to and watch.

Stir it up, little darlin’.

And speaking of stirring it up . . . Supergirl and Little Red totally played me and Big Red yesterday. They came home from the park claiming that the other mother wanted to take one last dip in Lake Harriet. How well they understand their mothers. Supergirl knows how fixated I am on the “lasts” of each season – and I played right into her hand. Big Red is just always super game for an adventure, so she was an easy catch too.

It was a gorgeous night down at the lake, so unfortunately we had quite an audience as we cringed our way into the frigid water. The lake is low, making a quick and dramatic plunge impossible. With so many eyes on us, we couldn’t very well back out and we were left to awkwardly Nestea plunge into two feet of water. Of course there was no avoiding the guttural shrieks of pain, but it felt great – and the balmy 65 degree air felt like a warm blanket allowing us to sit on the beach wrapped in towels as the sun went down.

Those stinkers. It was perfect.

Let it be written. October 21st, baby.

We were 21 – young enough to claim this album and this band as our own, but barely. For people who were teenagers and preteens in 1991, this is it. All of it. Hearing any song off this album out in the wild (and by that I mean out in the world) never fails to give me shivers. This is music by youth, for youth, of youth.

And just listen to that bass. Lithium.

Click here to view the embedded video.