A Special Day to Thoroughly Remember. . .

Today they got up early. To get ready to be remembered and to remember.

But the average middle-school kid polled said that Memorial Day is the day when the pool opens and school closes. It's for shopping. Big sales, you know. It's for welcoming summer.

When folks say to me have a Happy Holiday. A Happy Holiday? I think. For Memorial Day?

Memorial Day is sad. It is hard reality. Cold truth. Tears for loved ones who gave themselves for this country. It is somber. It's about fighting and struggle.

Please review this photo journey:

http://picasaweb.google.com/chromecowgirl/MemorialDay

Then click on "slide show" - it's best to see it that way if you wish.

"Do non Veterans recognize the significance of Memorial Day?" This rhetorical question was pondered during a service today that I heard on NPR. "It is our job to keep it in their attention span."

I went to a service here in Nashville. It was poorly attended. Though there was quite a number of folks there before I arrived, still, it was poorly attended. There were a sea of seniors, with tears in their eyes. There were families. Some camped out at the gravestone of their soldier. It is another world to be at the veterans cemetary.

If this is a Holiday, then it should be observed the way Easter or Christmas is savored. There are no big stores open on that day. Just as Jesus was born and died and we remember, let us remember who gave their lives so that we can have life.

A note to me from my Aunt Olive, New Yorker born and bred:

Thanks for the great pictures. It isn't often you see WAVES any more. Like the men, we are losing many of the best ones. I was sad on Memorial Day because I could hear the taps and the guns from my house. I love the parades. We used to watch the parades from our window in Brooklyn. They were big stuff in those days. Now it seems like it is a dying art. Sometimes the Veterans bring tears to my eyes. They gave up a lot. Some were only teenagers when they left home. I was stationed at the Naval Hospital in Bethesda, Maryland and saw many wounded sailors and marines. Their spirits were always great. No matter what they always had a kind word. I sometimes wonder where they are today. Oh well, just reminiscing!!!! Hope all is well, Love Aunt Olive

God bless you, treasured souls who have passed and served this country. God bless you, treasured souls who have served and are serving now. U R LOVED.

Thank you so much for giving and sacrificing...

To my Rolling Thunder friends, I missed you this year. Bravo on a successful record attendance for the 20th annual.

-Sasha

Keep away from people who try to belittle your ambitions.

"Keep away from people who try to belittle your ambitions. Small people always do that, but the really great make you feel that you, too, can become great.." - MARK TWAIN


Yes! So true this quote! When someone begins to tell you NO and starts emitting negative vibes, you just turn up the YES volume and awash a WAVE OF CONFIDENCE and DROWN OUT THAT negative energy. Just stand up to it.

WHO THE HECK IS ANYBODY TO TELL US NO AND CRUSH OUT LITTLE DREAMS AND GOALS? NOBODY. Everyone has opinions, just like hiney cracks... And alot of times those opinions STINK. Just odorous noise.

Stay in the GARDEN OF HOPE with your dreams! ladeedadeeeeeda! Nurture the seeds with the food of inspiration. Water the roots with faith. Then SMILE A SUNSHINE POWERFUL grin all over them so that those little dreams and goals will GROW UP TO BE BIG! FILLED WITH FRUIT! FILLED WITH BLOSSOMS!!!!

Then weed out those that try to CHOKE OFF YOUR LIFE LINE. PRUNE THE SHOOTS THAT ARE DRAINING THE ENTIRE GOAL.

Make sure that your life is carefully filled with flowing rivers of divine inspiration from our GOOD Father in HEAVEN. The great UNIVERSE is filled with righteous information -- gormeut morsals of moral sustenance. Eat 'em up.

Anything BAD for you, creates BAD energy. Negative = BAD.

Now there's BAD to the BONE, as in Beautiful And Divine - that sorta BAD is way different.

I'm talking about the disgusting taste of crap that people season on your dreams....to make that delicious divine nugget taste awful and you think WELL I CAN'T SAVOR THIS DREAM. It's awful! It tastes like it'll never be a delicious experience.

NO NO NO! Don't let ANYTHING OR ANYONE belittle your precious ambitions. EVER. You pray about those things that make you feel like you can conquer the mountain as you strive for your goal. Oh yes....keep on keeping on. PRAY about direction for those precious little thoughts.

When a person comes along and says, to your heart and soul ambition, NAH, it'll never happen...for whatever reason. Remember to take those words and let them crumble and fall right in front of you AS IF THEY NEVER EXISTED. Those terrible words just shatter because they are the mirror of the ONE telling you such misery. SO THEY DON'T EXIST FOR YOU!

AND MOST IMPORTANTLY: Don't EVER speak those negative words or thoughts to yourself about your precious beautiful dreams and goals! THAT'S THE SAME AS SPEAKING TO YOUR PRECIOUS CHILD AND CRUSHING THEIR DREAMS. Because, in reality, we must become child like and innocent, with great hope, with great imagination, with great gleeful energy, thinking that we can do whatever we wish that makes us joyful and feel on top of the world. We don't think little, we think big...because even the very biggest ambition, is precious and little and tender and amazing in it's own way. Like a star in the mass canvas of heaven, twinkling and dancing in the evening. LITTLE but enormous power.

Anyone who trys to belittle your ambitions and comes to you like a fading light...dim and nitwit....you just amp it up and overcome that darkness, my friends.

Love love love! To all!
Sasha

and read this: http://www.damselsinsuccess.com/ac/default.aspx

Marriage.

Okay.

A Southern Man asks a Northern Chick to marry him. Be with him FOREVER. He's a gentle giant....loving dude. Just loves me for me. Doesn't want to change me in fact encourages me to be even more of myself than I even knew that I was. The dude loves New York City. But he has to live here in Nashville, for his job, his job as a professional, touring musician. He's on the road all the time! So a great deal of the time I'm pretty much alone working on my art projects and so on. That's when I get wrapped up in my thoughts and wondering where I ought to be in life...you know. But he's a pretty strong draw and a safe haven...all that love he blesses me with is so DIVINE. This freespirit is such a freebird. And he wants me that way. Has no desire to change me....encourages me to fly and experience life full throttle. "Jest call home, baby," he'll say in his South Carolina drawl.

I've NEVER been married. Neither has he.

hmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm.

He's an amazing person. Very loving, kind, social, extremely talented -- a good ol' boy. His friends are also really great. He's a care giver in the most charming sense of the world. He's everybody's rock.... loves to love and be friendly.

Dude loves me so much that he just stares at me with a big smile and tells me how pretty I am. All the time. How smart I am. He encourages me to be high voltage, high octane silly and pure as a Sasha belle can be ... Pure in the sense of : the truest form of little ol' me. And he's brought out some nice flowers in the garden of this Eve. Flowers I didn't know I could be.

The other night, I was all wound up -- going at 200 miles per hour. I was all emotional about missing my family, friends and home. Well, that man just swept me up in his arms and feather lightly placed me in his arms and just caressed me and stroked my hair and my face. Well, I was OUT like a light. His touch is like a DRUG, people. He would say sweet things to me while he was lovin' me up like that. I felt like a tiny faerie in his arms because he's such a big guy. His voice is all soft and deep and completely healing.

I think he's an angel. Truly. An angel in disguise. He let's God use him all the time for things. And you know what, he's rarely ever been to church. Doesn't know a lick of the bible. But he's more Christian than many Christians I know. He loves Jesus very much, even though he doesn't intellectually know much about the Son. He knows the Son, believe me.

So, this idea of marriage is a big one. That would mean that I would have to live in Nashville, though, he's thinking of buying an apartment in the outer banks of Brooklyn together someday, which would be awesome...out in the hood somewhere. I'd live out in the hood for sure. Near the water...oh yeah. I'm make it work. It may not be Manhattan, but, folks, to be near my beloved amazing family and super friends up North, in addition to being a Southern chick, okay...that sounds peachy. Plus my man would be able to take those stellar musical skills and jam with my many jazz and rock music friends in NYC.

So, once again, I consider, "Who Said A City Girl Can't Be Country?" especially when she has a gentle giant music and motorcycle chrome charming, as her southern rock.

And, quite frankly, I don't need any other rock...but my southern rock.

Sometimes, you can't go home.

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/05/10/nyregion/10rent.html?em&ex=1178942400&en=54d190f9afd3696c&ei=5087%0A
Oh, NY is for the rich only. : ( all of us artist's are being pushed out! It's soooooooooo SAD. We love NYC so much. Even Brooklyn, Queens is becoming too expensive for US! The BRONX is the only reasonable $ place left? Sigh.

and read this latest article from Crain's NY
http://www.crainsny.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20070514/FREE/70514009/1059
Tell, me, why every rich person in the world is buying up all the apartments and renting them for insane $$$$$$$????? So now the most amazing city in the world is ONLY for the wealthy who USE our gorgeous, bohemian town as a place to invest and shop. While we artists and natives LIVE and BREATHE NYC....it's in our blood. It's our pulse. These people...those with the money to buy up our little Manhattan ISLAND. . . .don't even know what it's like to ride a subway or a bus. To be ONE with the beat and the rhythm of this tiny little piece of land that is the most important influence to us native artists there.... We're being driven out!!!!

We CAN'T go home!

Being away from my hometown, is being away from my family. My mother, my father, my sisters and brothers, nieces and nephews, and life long friends. It's being away from all I know and love.

Maybe I chose a way that is, well, too hard? What the heck. I don't know. I'm so confused sometimes.

My hometown is New York. My hometown all of my adult life has been New York City. My mother comes from Long Island. My father is from Queens. My Grandmothers are from Brooklyn. Oh we bounced around alot, just outside of New York; my dad moving whereever he could find work in the early days.

New York...the boroughs....New York the lifestyle. These are my roots.

Since losing my NYC apartment to circumstances bitterly beyond my control, it has been a struggle on a daily basis to accept my life in Nashville.

I had to leave behind sentimental furniture in New York because I couldn't afford to move it. I could barely afford the gas to go and get my things. It was an emotional hell, I tell you. I left New York with an ol' 82 dodge cargo van peeing oil, and she decided to overheat and stop rush hour traffic, at, yeah, you got it, the Lincoln Tunnel. Lucky for Port Authority, they guided me to get me out of the way of the Tunnel's mouth leading to New Jersey. There I was, at their rescue garage, near broke, all my shit packed up in this ol' van...having coffee with the rescuers, thinking.... okay, I've got to be strong and get through this....

That was last year. Last May. It's been a year since. And it doesn't get any easier. Even though it will...I have to have faith about it. I lost my tiny apartment on 82nd Street, while I was living temporarily in Nashville, working on a music project and just taking a break in the south.

Yep. I want to go home. I want to be at home in New York City. My mother earth. But I cannot go home. Read the article above. And you'll know why. It's so painful. It's a knot in the stomach. I miss summertime at the Jersey shore and out in the surf of Long Island.

Oh, don't tell me about it's meant to be. If everything operated on the "meant to be" trip, then we'd have no freewill, no choice -- and things wouldn't occur just on circumstance. Meant to be is reserved for those who truly surrender their will to GOD. To the FATHER.

If you surrender your will, and say, Lord, only thy will be done...then things are, meant to be. Your will entirely becomes the will of the Lord.

But it doesn't save you from the trials and tribulations of life. No, it helps you to cope with them.

Is it the Father's will that I'm here. In Nashville? Maybe. I'm renting a fantastic cottage. It's spectacular. Though I can't afford to pay my gas bill from this past winter.

I have a hard time coping with the loss of my New York City apartment. Yeah, I shed tears about losing my home....that was only about 400 square feet in size anyway. But, it was my home...nestled in a city that was mother earth to me.

But now I have to find a new home, maybe? And new roots. Could it be Nashville. Folks, I don't know. I don't know if I fit in here. I'm too artsy fartsy...

Nashville and New York City. Can it go together? Well, according to the CMA it could with the CMA Awards going to NYC two years ago for Country Takes Manhattan. But they didn't care about us country musicians who actually live in Manhattan....we were left out of everything, except the mayor's office invited a few of us citybillies to his mansion for a CMA shindig he was hosting. cool....but I was here in Nashville at the moment...working on a music project.

Well, me being here is: Manhattan takes Country. And I'm called a Yankee anyway. I feel like I'm in a meadow, alone. Just me and my art, and Miss Gypz Jingles, my cat....and Tigerlily, my motorcycle. Miss Tigerlily had to surrender her beautiful NYC license plates two weeks ago. Sigh.

Who Said A City Girl Can't Be Country? - Well, who cares?

I just want to go home and have a delicious Katz knish with spicy mustard, and a plate of crispy french fries. I want to go see my friends play at 55 Bar, Hank's, at SouthPaw, at Pete's back room, at the Baggot Inn.

I want to curl up in my dad's lap and watch the news. I want to annoy my mother with my silly antics that make her laugh anyway. I want to have a Starbucks with my big sister, Donna, and race around the Hamptons in her corvette that her awesome husband bought her for her birthday. I want to play cowboy and Indians with my nieces and nephews. I want to get ridiculously silly with my two sisters and brother Linda, Lou, Brian....and laugh, laugh, laugh.

This weekend is my nieces communion. In Yorktown Heights.

I won't be there. Fu*k.

I want to go home. But I can no longer afford home. And I don't know where else to go.

So I stay in my home in Nashville and do my artwork. I hoola hoop in my yard. I bartend at a local bar in Antioch. I pick up odds and ends work whereever I can, while I do my art. I'm in the land of $8 - $10 an hour.... $20 below what I made in NYC. And they say it's because it's cheaper to live in the south, that's why.

Bullshit. Gas is still nearly $3.50. Food costs just about the same. So does utilities. The only difference is rent. And, let's see, last time I checked you're still talking about somewhere between $700 - $900 for a decent place to live here in the South. In NYC, it's far more money now....but still. Who can make ends meet on $8 or $10 per hour? Anywhere!

That's why our economy is in such trouble with this false reading that it's flourishing. IT'S BECAUSE OF CREDIT CARD PURCHASES. I don't know one person, outside of the socialites and celebrities, who can live on their income. NOT ONE. Most people have credit cards, or have inherited money, or something like that.

But, here I sit trying to figure it all out. Where the hell on earth do I belong? Nashville is okay....but I NEED friends and family. I've got to get out and make friends...but WHERE? Sitting at a bar? Gosh....no I need to figure out the art community here....burst onto the scene somewhere and find some cool people to hang out with.....

Oh, how I miss my little piece of earth in NYC. The little piece of earth that I hung onto for years....the humble one room that I rented for $975 per month...so tiny and incredibly modest. It's gone...long gone...now being rented for over double that. God, what to do?

Dig into Nashville, perhaps...yes...okay! ? It's a sweet little town. I can get used to it....but,

I want to go home. But can no longer afford home. But that's where the decent jobs are that I can secure that support my art. The jobs where you don't have to have a degree. It's all about experience. Now the ratio of income to rent price is so off kilter. People are living in their offices, folks. Or you've got a one bedroom shared by four or five people....just to engage in a job that is the ticket to a strong career? Oh my goodness....is there any government person that cares what's happening to our world? When one can't go home.

I don't know where to go. I don't know what the f*ck to do.

CHOOSING THE HARD WAY.

Most people do not choose to go the hard way.

The challenging way.

The way where there is no definitions.

The path where the outcome is so blizzard over and one cannot see beyond the bend. Or else it's empty with seemingly no direction, except the inner divine compass that's often times so hard to read and accept, but yet the most resourceful tool. Maybe there is fog...as in foggy notion if the desired result will be achieved. There is nothing sure about the path. The only thing that is sure is the path leads to a summit, a goal, a rainbow's end maybe. Something desire is at the end of the path, that branches off to a new found perspective, once all the challenges have been overcome, once one has been pushed to the limit. Once one has burst through their life experience boundaries and accepted that there is much more than meets the eye, and the unaware mind.

The climbers on Everest right now so deeply inspire me. The soldiers in Iraq so deeply make me wonder. The plight of genocide now assaulting African communities is deeply troubling.

Let me talk about the Everest climbers, of which within the Himex climbing expedition there is my very dearest wind sister, Betsy Huelskamp. She is climbing Mt. Everest. But, I'd like to discuss the PEAK. The SUMMIT. THE TOP OF THE MOUNTAIN that seems so near impossible to attain. It puts the human spirit, mind, and body to an extreme test of will, of faith, of power. Pushing past limits. Climbing is an extraordinary of activity because the most demand is placed on the body first. Then the mind. Then the spirit. Because the spirit can achieve many things, beyond what the mind and body are capable. Because the mind will place insane limitations...the mind, the filtering system of earthly existence. The mind that makes choices that governs activity.

If we attempt goals that we know will be ridiculously difficult, but the will we have inside and the confidence that we possess suggests that we have a fair percentage of achieving the desired summit, what a beautiful way in which to test are abilities and fully live life. So many of us have bottled our extremely precious energy and reserve it for nothing.... It is dormant. We do not allow ourselves to think beyond our own psychological limitations based upon our experiences...whatever they maybe....based upon the good, bad and ugly there are definitions of what we can and cannot do, without even trying we decide and make the choice to close a chapter of our lives that begs to be explored. To close the door of opportunity or slam shut the window of possibilities, because there is a degree of discomfort so we'd rather seal ourselves up in the fake comfort zone. Like rolling the windows up and blasting the aircondition so that NO real clammy, hot, discomfort can reach us; or we blast the heat in our sealed container, so that NO nasty COLD can make us shiver -- and experience deeply the sensation of a chill.

The climbers are fully exposed to the grueling climb to achieve their dream to summit the mountain. How can we fully expose ourselves to gruely climb and achieve our own dreams which nag us on a daily basis....to summit...to narrowly edge along a slim traverse, to hoist ourselves up the ropes of that cliff and climb, climb, climb! Whether we make that summit all the way to the tip - top, or not....it is the attempt and where will that lead us? What other path or summit awaits us near or at the top?

The soldiers in Iraq who are engaged in battle. Who are laying down their lives. Who are not sure of the outcome and cannot see the destination at all. It is a gigantic mystery. But they are serving, selflessly. They are sacrificing so much. They chose this path of service. To defend. To protect. To be like Archangel Michael. There is no guarantee. You skirt death. If you can. You greet each day with the angst of the mission. But you march on. You wonder what the day holds. You wonder about many things back home where it is comfortable and secure, but now you are locked into the mission. There is no time for self. Only service. The is choosing the hard way. Especially when death and mystery surround you.

Death and mystery make me wonder. We know that we die and depart the earth. It is a mystery. It is a path. And we think we can choose the easy way out of this. There is no easy way out. The mystery is in the living. Well, and as best as one can. And in service. I believe that service should be incorporated into daily living. Some kind of service. In our jobs, no matter what we do for a living, we are servicing someone of something and we should do so to the absolute pure degree of perfection. Of pushing ourselves past the limits of mediocrity and be as the highest skilled craftsman who take enormous pride in their work. We need to take our activity in life and execute it to the degree of perfect beauty...to the absolute purest ability to do so. We can because we have the freedom to choose and do so. We can choose the way in which we live based upon our physical and mindful ability to do so. And I say the very absolute purity of our physical and mindful ability. If we are born with a challenging physical disability, we find the purest ability within it so thus there is no dis-ability, but pure ability within the uncontrollable disability. For example, the great scientist, Professor Stephen Hawking, has Motor Neurone Disease and Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis. But this does not stop the great Professor http://www.hawking.org.uk/ - his mind and spirit explodes into the greatest absolute purity to overcome his physical limitations. The challenge is beyond comprehension as he painstakingly sits in his wheelchair and composes books, with an assistant, who must read his facial expressions in order to understand just what word he intends to "write" while composing a volume of scientific findings and theories via a special computer program with pull down word choice menus. Professor "speaks" at 15 words per minute through a synthesizer. This is choosing the best possible way in which to live, which is far difficult than our lives.

So how do we choose our lives? Many opt to place unnecessary challenges that are illusions.

The plight of Darfur, however, is not an illusion. www.savedarfur.org - this is absolute hard way imposed upon a population. This from their website:

Darfur has been embroiled in a deadly conflict for over three years.
At least 400,000 people have been killed; more than 2 million innocent civilians
have been forced to flee their homes and now live in displaced-persons camps in
Sudan or in refugee camps in neighboring Chad; and more than 3.5 million men,
women, and children are completely reliant on international aid for survival.
Not since the Rwandan genocide of 1994 has the world seen such a calculated
campaign of displacement, starvation, rape, and mass slaughter.

Since early 2003, Sudanese armed forces and Sudanese government-backed
militia known as “Janjaweed” have been fighting two rebel groups in Darfur, the
Sudanese Liberation Army/Movement (SLA/SLM) and the Justice and Equality
Movement (JEM). The stated political aim of the rebels has been to compel the
government of Sudan to address underdevelopment and the political
marginalization of the region. In response, the Sudanese government’s
regular armed forces and the Janjaweed – largely composed of fighters of nomadic
background – have targeted civilian populations and ethnic groups from which the
rebels primarily draw their support – the Fur, Masalit and Zaghawa (notes about
our use of ethnic terminology).

These are people climbing a mountain of faith and hope to get to summit where they will find they way to peace and community; to free will and the safety of their heritage before the violence. These are a people who have been robbed of their ability to experience life and live fully and wonderfully. The horrific experiences that they must survive on a daily basis is beyond out comprehension. This is a vastly different definition of what it means to choose the hard way. Because, these dear people, they have NO choice to live. The don't even have a choice to escape this genocide.

When you hear about these terrible episodes around the globe, remember, people, to step out of your comfort zone and pursue those goals that seem impossible, and expand your horizons because these precious and incredibly innocent civilians of Darfur cannot. . . Though it may seem like a mountain to climb, choose to serve in some way, those who are so less fortunate due to circumstances beyond their control.

So, with this my dear friends I say choose the hard way which helps you to expand and grow and reach beyond your limitations, beyond your comprehension, the path whereby the resistence is simply overcoming your fears, inhibitions, and conquering self-doubt, hurdling over the moments when you feel like you cannot forge onward because your legs are tired from climbing, your arms are tired of trying to embrace the wall you wish to scale.

To reach a goal in life is not easy. And anybody or anything that tells you that life is easy, is not explaining something well. You see, what we gather along for the journey, such as the ropes to help us climb, the experience to scale a larger mountain, the basic training in order to serve, etc., are the skills that assist us to achieve our goals set forth.

Don't let life pass you by because you want everything comfortable and easy. Step out, climb the wall, serve, and be sure to realize that we are all one. We need to be the best we can be in this life so that our contributions can be used to better this world, can inspire, encourage, and give breath to purpose.

Peace.
-Sasha