Finding Fair

Is there such a thing as fairness? Life seems so random on how fortune, looks, health, happiness and relationships are distributed. Even within the same family, siblings can have such different fates or the luck of the draw in personal assets and talents. It never seems fair to me. Some people are simply gorgeous, some are intelligent, wealthy, athletic, funny, etc., then you have the deformed, ugly, mentally challenged, impoverished or simply unhealthy range of people. When I think of this disparity in the human race, I am filled with gratitude. So much has been given to me and is often taken for granted. It is a humbling feeling every day.

Just think of how superficial it seems when young, healthy and beautiful people complain about a few extra pounds or not having a certain shaped nose or other body part. What are they really complaining about? Haven’t they seen the homeless, sometimes physically mangled person living on the street without a home to call his/her own? What about the person who lives in hunger not knowing when the next meal might present itself? Why have we become so hung up on things that don’t really matter?

Yesterday morning I saw an image of the brutal beating Rihanna had at the rage of Chris Brown. What on earth can any person do to provoke such anger? These are two beautiful, talented young adults with seemingly everything going for them. In any relationship, we are all meant to be tender with each other. What has gone wrong in this picture? Why would anyone want to hurt such a lovely girl? My heart cried out for Rihanna's pain and humiliation, actually for Chris Brown's as well...
Does anything seem fair?

I’m a Libra and always seeking balance. I detest injustice and anything ugly like racism, any form of violence, rudeness and mean spiritedness. Libras are lovers of fairness and harmony. However, I am acutely aware of the lack of fairness everywhere. It doesn’t make sense and it doesn’t make excuses, it is just life. Find fairness where you can, but it isn’t distributed evenly.

Unfortunately, there isn’t any way to fix the disparity in the world. The only thing we can do is live as fairly as possible. Follow the golden rule, don’t be seduced by superficiality, treat everyone with good will and live with an open, generous heart. Be tender, mindful of other people’s feelings, take interest in those around you, never lose your spirit and spread as much happiness as humanly possible. We only have each other and within that miracle of existence is the key to fairness. Create the world you’d like to live in everyday by creating the fairness you wish to find.

Davis and Dow Cd release of Loverly

On Saturday, February 21st from 9PM to 1AM come see Davis and Dow perform at

Upstairs at the Van Dyke Cafe
846 Lincoln Road (at Jefferson Ave.)
Tel: 305.534.3600
http://www.thevandykecafe.com/upstairs/UpstairsCalendar.swf

Multi award winning jazz duo DavisAndDow describe themselves as soul mates that are two strong halves of one BIG sound. They explore jazz and pop standards with a daring sense of abandon and share a style deeply rooted in the classic jazz tradition but with playfulness that keeps the music fresh and fun. “Playing music in front of a live audience is an increasingly visual medium. The artist has to interact with the audience and have them live through the music as they experience the song. The connection of the artist and audience is crucial unlike a recording where it just has to sound great. Live music requires full communication of the musical journey during each set or evening performance.” Believes Julie Davis of DavisAndDow and her husband Kelly Dow agrees with her.

It is apparent when performing, Julie will flirt Betty Boop style as she croons a Billy Holiday classic. Her playfulness is extended to a little boy, a security guard at the venue and a woman in a wheel chair with the same delight of sharing her melody. The band changes speeds into a samba with the ease and grace of Carmen Miranda to delight all the onlookers and they dance by an open air venue.

The DavisAndDow journey started when Kelly Dow began guitar lessons at the age of twelve. He joined a Top 40 high school band in which led him to study jazz in college at the University of North Texas. To Kelly, "Music is so amazing; it is a never ending quest and challenge. There is always a new mountain to climb." His early studies with Jackie King in San Antonio then later with Jack Peterson at North Texas were his greatest inspirations as well as the ultimate jazz record by Joe Pass “Two for the Road.”

Meanwhile, Julie Davis was growing up in a home infused with music. She told me, "We had an amazing record (vinyl) collection from when I was a little girl- they taught me so much." Julie and her siblings created shows for the family or for her stuffed animals when the adults were busy. Julie’s greatest inspiration was Ella Fitzgerald’s Live in Carnegie Hall Newport Jazz Festival recording from July 1973. It was the summation of Ella’s entire career, which led Julie to win her first talent show scatting to the song Lemon Drop.

Fate had the musical duo meet through a musicians newspaper add. Julie moved to Florida to pursue her career and her mom encouraged her to submit a classified for The Rag. It read, “Looking for musician…singer into Ella…” This solicitation stood out to Kelly who was docked for a break from playing on a cruise ship. He was the third call in response and when Julie heard his voice and that he studied at North Texas, she knew it would be a good fit. They met at an open mic event with Julie’s mom tagging along to check Kelly out. Both Julie and her mom liked Kelly instantly; the duo performed “How High the Moon” and has stayed together since that night. "I feel blessed, to get to play the music I love most in this world, with the person I love most in this world.” Said Kelly, “… now if we could just get the lotto numbers right."

Aside from being deeply in love, what keeps Julie and Kelly together artistically is their passion for improvisation and freedom in expressing themselves with music. They usually hire other musicians to work with them for percussion, base or violin and agree on certain issues like timeliness, dress code, being a challenging counterpart, passion and not being jaded in respect to musical performance. They also agree that the perfect audience consists of attentive, joyful listeners who are open to the experience and the performing arts in general. They told me, "We received a letter from a woman who would go on road trips with her father and listen to our CD. Her father had passed away and she just wanted us to know how much she and her father loved the music and how it means so much to her today, bringing back some special memories for her. That really touched us, and I think one of the purposes for art is to connect and share with people on a deeper level." And when they’ve given themselves entirely in an evening of music, they return home to their cats and some relaxation. Julie loves to exercise or work on different hobbies, while Kelly practices and further develops his guitar skills.

Fans can join their mailing list and find which venues they will be performing at their website: www.DavisandDow.com

A version of this article was printed in DUO Magazine in Summer 2008.

Pay Yourself First

Giving and generous people sometimes have the bad habit of forgetting themselves. I try to guide many of my friends in this respect from my own lessons learned. There has to be a healthy balance between nurturing others and taking care of ourselves.

The unfortunate consequence is that we become filled with resentment and disgust at our own exhaustion with spending everything we’ve got on others instead of ourselves. What is a solution? Pay yourself first!!

Don’t wait for someone else to take care of your needs. If you’ve made your loved ones, family, friends and colleagues believe you are the “together” one who takes care of them, they probably won’t even think of taking care of you. It is simply human behavior and habit at work. Learn to take care of yourself first and when others witness this change in your values, they might even help out!

All these issues are based on perception and when you pay yourself first, you teach others your importance by giving yourself that importance. It is all the example you give them. If you care about yourself enough, others will pick up on it and respond accordingly.

I must admit, this is the most difficult “Tuesday Topic” I have dealt with so far. It brings out memories of my “martyr” mother and other self-sacrificing, victims I’ve encountered throughout my life. It is not a comfortable negotiation for me to discuss the right to selfishness or promote living for oneself due to the stigma it has brought about on me for many years. The accusations of being too self centered stemmed from my natural tendency to be happy, my party girl youth, not having had children, having bohemian friends, living on South Beach…well actually the audacity of living my life!! I am the opposite of victim without being a victimizer. I actually enjoy my life and don’t play by anyone else’s rules, what an outrage!!

Yes, I have paid myself first!! Even being as giving, generous and nurturing as many of you know me to be. I’ve led a selfish life and mostly got my way through out it. Yet, I’ve shared my successes, credited my muses and benefactors, loved many people wholeheartedly and most importantly inspired and shared the best of myself with many people.

The strength of the support I’ve given others has stemmed from my conviction to lead the life I’ve led. It has not always been the easiest road or even that of less resistance, but it’s been a hell of a ride. If you can’t take it, there are many roads to choose from. No matter what you choose, remember to pay yourself first….without you and your needs being met, there isn’t much you can contribute to the rest of us here waiting patiently.

If You Forget Me, by Pablo Neruda

I want you to know one thing. You know how this is: if I look at the crystal moon, at the red branch of the slow autumn at my window, if I touch near the fire the impalpable ash or the wrinkled body of the log, everything carries me to you, as if everything that exists, aromas, light, metals, were little boats that sail toward those isles of yours that wait for me. Well, now, if little by little you stop loving me I shall stop loving you little by little. If suddenly you forget me do not look for me, for I shall already have forgotten you. If you think it long and mad, the wind of banners that passes through my life, and you decide to leave me at the shore of the heart where I have roots, remember that on that day, at that hour, I shall lift my arms and my roots will set off to seek another land. But if each day, each hour, you feel that you are destined for me with implacable sweetness, if each day a flower climbs up to your lips to seek me, ah my love, ah my own, in me all that fire is repeated, in me nothing is extinguished or forgotten, my love feeds on your love, beloved, and as long as you live it will be in your arms without leaving mine. Pablo Neruda

Refusal: A poem by Maya Angelou

Beloved,
In what other lives or lands
Have I known your lips
Your Hands
Your Laughter brave
Irreverent.
Those sweet excesses that
I do adore.
What surety is there
That we will meet again,
On other worlds some
Future time undated.
I defy my body's haste.
Without the promise
Of one more sweet encounter
I will not deign to die.

Maya Angelou

About My Love…

When my heart swells with longing for you, I can’t remember the past. My feelings overcome me as if I never felt any other emotion. The sensation blocks all other experiences and I feel engulfed in this journey towards you.

Slowly I discover the way you think, your patterns of behavior, the way you gesture or switch thoughts…the silences pregnant with longing.

I sometimes think of the intentness with which you touch my hands. How you study my fingers as if they could unlock some mystery.

The wait and anticipation of our next encounter grows as does our understanding. I’ve never felt so close to someone so distant, strange or unusual yet so familiar.

You’ve become part of my psyche with a flavor of eternal.

In short, Happy Valentine’s Day!

Kisses

Portrait of the moon by Deborah Carney for Loxly Galleries.

Patience is a Virtue, HA!!

When I was a little defenseless girl, the nuns at my school would tell me that patience was a virtue. It was meant to soothe my accelerated nature and actually frustrated me all the more. The reason being, I didn’t understand the concept. Unfortunately, I still don’t. What about being patient is so virtuous? What is the big deal? Is anything going to happen faster or slower due to one’s attitude towards it? I don’t get it!!

If I am dealing with someone who has some physical or mental deficiency, I know he won’t react as fast. By the same token I can’t move or think as fast as people who are stronger and brighter than I. Patience has nothing to do with it.

I couldn’t wait to make my own life decisions when I was an adolescent, and I had to wait until I entered my twenties to decide my own fate. Patience didn’t change that either!!

I yearn for certain hours and days to pass and it doesn’t change the measure of time. I long for the company of certain people and they manifest on their own pace. What I feel may attract them, but what happens and when is totally out of my control.

What does virtue have to do with it? Do things happen faster or better to those whom possess virtue or behave well? Isn’t that as empty as saying that blondes have more fun? Virtue has its own rewards by being good by intrinsic value. I still don’t see how patience plays a part in it…

I mean, if you’re hot, you want something cold. And when you are cold, you seek warmth. Patience doesn’t make the situation more comfortable. It might just delay relief. When I need to pay some bills or want a material thing, I seek earning the money I need for it. I don’t wait for it to manifest by my attracting the concept. Impatience imposes action, which is what is necessary to make things happen. How is that ever a virtue? Shall I just sit around waiting? I’d rather sleep or watch a video.

Let's not wait around...get up and do something!!