~gardens and gifts of music~

The night-blooming cereus that is happily flowering this week in my South Carolina garden is the same plant that I had years ago, that sat on a brick wall at the front of my house in Blacksburg where I lived when I went to graduate school.  The garden was simple, a few pots of geraniums (I remember one with beautifully variegated leaves) and a few cactuses, including the night-blooming cereus.  My boyfriend during that time tended this little garden with me - and he is someone that I have maintained a friendship with throughout the years.  I think, hopefully, that most of the people that enter into our lives leave a trail of gifts behind them (even if untentional) - perhaps ones that are not noticeable at first - but that become apparent throughout the years.  This person definitely left me with the gift of music - the gift to appreciate music, all types, all tempos - as he dragged me, reluctantly at first, into the student radio station at the university (WUVT) for the first time.  Two years and alot of music later, I signed off from my last blues show 'No Escape from the Blues', turned in my thesis and left Blacksburg.  During that time I grew to love John Coltrane and Duke Ellington and Ruth Brown and The Dead Kennedys and Sam & Dave and Muddy Waters - I even grew to love Doc Watson and country music with lyrics that made me laugh but that I grew to love.  What a gift that was, that trail of music.

Tonight, after returning home (yes, I did remember to attend my own class this afternoon) and letting the dogs run around for awhile, I came inside and got a call from this friend (you can find him over at 3Dsound).  We had talked months ago now about him posting podcasts on my blog - it was a tad selfish of me to make such a request:  first, it would keep me from even boring myself with some of these posts, and second, I missed the exposure to a wide variety of wonderful music that he always managed to find.  We never did podcast posts (the whole illegal thing) - but on an evening where I find myself feeling world weary he suggested that he start contributing music posts to my site - a suggestion that I jumped on and am thrilled about.  The music will be eclectic, basic, quiet, fast, traditional, obscure, familiar - in other words, who knows what it will be.

I'm looking forward to his posts.

Comments

[layanee]

I'll be looking forward to them also!

[Kim]

"John Coltrane and Duke Ellington and Ruth Brown and The Dead Kennedys and Sam & Dave and Muddy Waters"... one of these things is not like the other. :)

I can't wait to see what your friend comes up with for site music. Sweet.

[Pam]

Layanee: I hope you enjoy them.

Kim: Yeah, you've got a point there!