what ever happened to
My sister Sandy texted me a while ago, 5:18, offering a “Stay safe”, and a link to ominous weather news here in the golden state. I dozed in the lop-sided recliner, afterwards, for a bit, response to wide awake much of the night, the falling rain out in the streets for company.
The music group The Shangri-Las has a song I like a lot, “Out in the Streets.” Their lead singer, Mary Weiss, just passed away, back a few weeks ago on my birthday, at age 75, the same age I turned that day. I don’t know about you, but it feels the planet’s diminished a smidge with Mary gone. Making sure I was honoring the spelling of her name correctly, I saw a news story that James Brown had once hired The Shangri-Las as a backup band, and was surpised when he first met them that they were white. I was still white the day I turned 75, and again this morning amidst all the California rain, but, being from Wareham, Massachusetts, I totally get Jame’s confusion, the great gift of growing up around lots of color, like, we all get to bring the same thing to the day.
My idea of “staying safe” this day – back to all this rain – is wildly open to change. Should I stay or should I go? Dont-know mind, they say, being most intimate. Either way, at some point I’m going to listen to a lot of Shangri-Las, grateful they’ve been part of this life of mine for a long, long time. And I texted Sandy a thumbs-up emoji, and a heart.