JUNE // PATREON UNDER WAY // BLOOD TEST SHOW
In June, the mock orange by the barn blooms, sending plumes of its heavy fragrance drifting around the yard. I planted it because it reminds me of my Nana - my maternal grandmother Erna Johnson - who had one growing in her back yard in Brooklyn. Her parents, Alfred and Olga Johannson, were ethnic Swedes living in Finland, and immigrated to the US in 1900 to avoid Alfred being conscripted into the Russian army. They came over in steerage on an ocean liner, arrived with no money or connections, and settled in a Swedish neighborhood in Harlem.
Alfred got a job on the Manhattan docks, working his way up to foreman, but in 1915 he died of a heart attack at age 42, leaving Olga behind with four young children. Although she never mastered English, somehow she raised those kids by taking in laundry and doing other odd jobs she could do from home. She ran a tight ship, by necessity if not by temperament. My grandmother Erna was the eldest child and a brilliant student, but even when she was offered a full scholarship to the University of Michigan, her mother told her that college wasn’t an option for her; she needed to stay home and work her brothers through school.
She met my grandfather Royal Smith at work: she was a secretary in his office, and he courted her by leaving poems on her desk. They married in 1933 and eventually took over his family’s house in Flatbush. Royal was the son of a professional pianist and singer, and by all accounts a lovely and mild-mannered man. He had been recruited as a pitcher by the Yankees at one point, and was himself an accomplished musician and composer, but left both those dreams by the roadside for a steady office job. They raised their two daughters in Brooklyn and spent summers in a little house on a lake in northern New Jersey where Erna grew the flowers and Royal grew the vegetables.
Royal also died young, and Erna had a twenty-year chapter in the big Victorian house without him, which is how I knew her. She had a deeply irreverent streak and a mischievous sense of humor, a sharp intellect and a real curiosity about people. She’d chat up anybody, anywhere. On her 76th birthday my folks took her out to a Swedish restaurant, where she announced that in honor of her “year of independence” she’d be drinking vodka (an unprecedented move). Somehow she figured out that one of the kitchen staff was from her parents’ town in Finland, and he ended up sitting at their table for the rest of the night, reminiscing about the homeland. At Christmas she and her brother Verner would wrap and give each other identical cartons of Parliament cigarettes. She volunteered at Brooklyn Hospital for many years, and established the gift shop there. A bolt of lightning once came into her kitchen where she was washing dishes, and zapped the sponge right out of her hand.
Endlessly creative and up for anything, my grandmother was a kindred spirit to me throughout my childhood. She accepted all my imaginary scenarios with perfect seriousness, and would stay committed to any make-believe game for hours. At her house, we’d always eat dinner – lamb chops, canned potatoes, canned asparagus, and Yoo-Hoo – on a blanket on the kitchen floor as if it were a picnic, and we’d have our dessert first, because life is uncertain. Toward the end of her life she lived mostly in that kitchen, where she sat in her carved wooden rocking chair listening to the radio and smoking late into the night. She died just shy of her 80th birthday, when I was almost twelve, and it was the first big grief I was old enough to feel.
While the mock orange is blooming, I think about Erna every day. The scent transports me to her house in summer, the sagging back porch with big black wasps living under the eaves, where we’d eat fast-melting popsicles and crack up over private jokes. I wonder what her path would have looked like if she’d had as many doors open to her as I have, but it’s hard to imagine a bigger or more joyful life than the one she made for herself with what was available. I wish could lie on the floor with her, hoist a Yoo-Hoo or a vodka, and have a long catchup on all our real and imaginary worlds.
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PATREON UNDER SAIL // We’re off to a strong start over on Patreon. For one thing, it’s helpful to have a bit of reliable income coming in during this in-between time, when the era of livestreams has waned but in-person life is still in the process of firing back up, and I’m grateful to people for showing up and pitching in. But practical concerns aside, it’s really been fun to do a little dissection of creative work and life as a songwriter, and share some by-products of the process. In my mind, I’m framing it as a one-year project (although it could always go longer if that seems like the move) - so if you’re interested, head on over and sign up to be a part of it for any amount starting at $3/month.
BLOOD TEST // My voice is all the way back, and I’m ready to reschedule the Blood Test throwback show as soon as the time seems right. My sense at the moment is that between the warmer weather and the gradually opening horizons, people’s energy is focused out of the house. But maybe just a little later in the summer, when we’ve worn ourselves out a little bit, we’ll all be ready to get back on the couch for a night. Stay tuned and I’ll let you know when the plan emerges.
READING RECS // Two recent music-related books I really loved were Hanif Abdurraqib’s A Little Devil in America, a sweeping, emotional meditation on the history of Black performance in America, and Rickie Lee Jones’ memoir Last Chance Texaco, the story of RLJ’s truly wild life told in her own sly, smart, free-range style. Both great additions to any summer reading stack.
It’s a strange time, isn’t it? There’s so much optimism and relief but at the same time many of us are feeling tentative, disoriented, and/or exhausted. Seems like a good moment to offer kindness and try to cut everyone in our lives (including ourselves) a little slack. Maybe even have dessert first. *kd
UPCOMING SHOWS
AUG 28 - Green River Festival - duo set with Jeffrey Foucault Tix
