FEEL, INTUITIVE. oil on canvas. 16” X 20”. 2018

Our hearts are the most sophisticated organ in our bodies. They carry a brain component smaller and more powerful than the one in our heads. We are just learning the extent of its capabilities.

Hence, intuition, and in my case, a bit of clairvoyance, inform what talents lay uncharted for each of us when we can hear the music of our stories. 

My friend Danni was headed to celebrate what would have been her brother’s 45th birthday. He died when they were teens, but she would never talk about it.  

In the moment she she finally explains that she feels she is responsible for his death. Her folks had a messy divorce and her mother was always either working or emotionally unavailable.  On the night he died, Cal asked Danni for a lift.  But she was tired and didn’t feel like going out, so he took his motorcycle instead. The minute he left, she had a sinking feeling she would never see him again. She was 19, he was 17.

A message from him for her came through me in the middle of the night. Cal beseeching her to understand it was an accident. 

In the morning I decided to write the words on a $2 bill. I put the bill on a floral stick with a purple flower - an inside connection. It also occurred to me that I needed to give her another $2 bill in a picture frame. 

I delivered my offerings and she turned sheet white.  How did I know?  Collecting $2 bills was Cal’s thing.  At his funeral, her mom gave Danni, her other brother, and each Cal’s closest friends a $2 bill from his collection, in a picture frame, so they would always have a piece of Cal with them. 

At his funeral they played his favorite song, Gorky Park’s 1990 hit “Try to find me”…

So here we are, all of us, right? Desperately trying to find ourselves and each other. Music is our universal language. Listen with your heart…