My daughter Luna

I just realized, now that she is 12 weeks old, that I never posted a birth announcement on the blog!

So here it is: LUNA IS BORN!!! And healthy and doing so well. I'm sooooo happy. She was born on November 18th, 2009 and cried right away, given to my arms to hold and kiss and never give up.

It has been so healing to have her. She looks like her brother, Otto, and this makes me miss him so much and yet, it gives me a chance to love him some more, and talk to him when I talk to her. She's a happy baby, we spend most of our time together. I sing to her all the time, songs that go:

Luna, luna luna baloona, luna luna luna baboona, luna luna lovely luna Luna halleluna.

The melodies are great, and I think the lyrics are pretty cool too.

I've played piano for her and she kicks and smiles and cries. She's amazing.

I'll be learning how to arrange things so I can write music and take care of her, and I'm not worried about how it will work out, because my heart is so full. I'm used to years of waking up with anxiety, a little melancholy, and now I wake up to a laughing little one who I love so much. It's quite a change.

I thank her for changing my view of life, of the sun, the grass, the clouds. She gets very quiet and observant when we go outside, the built in appreciation of the sacred earth. I love her wonderment and passion over the simplest things in life: eating, and being together.

Much more about her soon.

Much love to you all!
Jessica and Ryan and Otto Luna and

This Paper Boat

This Paper Boat
by Ted Kooser

Carefully placed upon the future,
it tips from the breeze and skims away,
frail thing of words, this valentine,
so far to sail. And if you find it
caught in the reeds, its message blurred,
the thought that you are holding it
a moment is enough for me.
------------------------------------

This poem feels so much like life to me...so easily blown into places we don't expect. Bringing us to people we didn't think we'd know, and love, and then at the end, let go. I don't know about you, but I often ask why I'm here. And why we love so much just to have to let everything we love go at the end? Somehow this poem uses just the right words for me to feel satisfied for a moment about being a paper boat on water, my message blurred, and held for a moment by someone I love.

Petracovich Opening for Nick Flynn - The Ticking is the Bomb

Last night, with my 10 week baby in tow - Ryan and I packed the car and headed for the city of San Francisco, to play some banjo tunes to start off Nick Flynn's reading of his new book, The Ticking is the Bomb.

After 4 months of nesting (and wonderful months they have been) it was exciting to drive over the Golden Gate bridge and to the Zen Center for the reading, to see the bright lights of the city over the Bay.

We were greeted with smiles by Susan, a warm woman from the Zen Center, and Nick himself, with a big smile and hug. We met him several years ago on tour, in Tucson, where he happened to be at a show. We've kept in touch through email, and it's a great compliment to me that he's listened to the music while writing, since his books have inspired songs of mine as well. (Particularly Heaven Help the Day from Crepusculo was inspired by his amazing memoir Another Bullshit Night in Suck City.)

After nursing Luna I grabbed the banjo, headed up to the stage, tuned and started to sing. Eyes closed, relaxed, happy to get to be doing what I love, I thought of the full moon outside, I thought of my son Otto and my daughter Luna, I thought, "I just want to be in this place, of contentment with the world."

The people in the audience quieted, and listened. And this is rare and always feels wonderful and kind, to be able to present a song from my heart to people who accept it gracefully. Thank you! I think I should always play for literary Buddhists. It's a change from the bar scene.

To play for my little girl, see her in the audience, sitting thoughtfully in her daddy's lap, brought me straight to the center of my happy heart. She makes me so happy, everything else is just extra, and I can really enjoy it.

Nick Flynn read from his new book, about his upcoming fatherhood (his daughter is now 2) and the torture of Abu Ghraib. He was writing about Abu Ghraib when his daughter was conceived, and the two experiences ran together, opening up new places in his heart, of love and fear, which informed the stories he heard from those who survived torture. I can't WAIT to read it.

For someone who has gone through much loss and disappointment in life, he is a sparkly person, a warm person, someone I admire for his keep-goingness in life as well as his story-telling.

And so went my first outing as a second-time mama, and I'm so glad we rallied to do it.

Petracovich Mockingbird on Melrose Place 12/8/09

Listen to
Mockingbird (free)

This song is featured on the 12/8 episode of Melrose Place in the scene where a dude breaks up with his woman to pursue his career. Who knew a sweet lullaby about a bird would mingle with Hollywood?

So, mockingbirds get their name because they imitate sounds they hear, like phones or tools or other birds. They're pretty cool. Could you do me a favor and imitate them? Retweet my tweets about this? Woohoo we'll get the word out!

Echoes of songs: PHASE ONE of writing

After I finish an album, there is an intimidating space.
I've talked and written about and played and played the last album,
and there is only silence ahead for the next.
Every time I wonder , "How did I do that?", and then I remember.
I went into the garden and stared.
I stared, for the hours I set aside for music, as long as I needed to.
To get over the fear, to be in the space, to stop trying.
To let things float in.
This time, I wait for my baby to come.
I have hours to spend, with tiredness, dreaminess, tears, contractions that pull me into a deep dark.
I remember to lift off the pressure of writing anything "usable".
Just sound
Just play.
And of course, press record.

I just worked on a piece, the piano sounding loud in G, singing, singing.
and then stopped to drink water and pay some bills.
As I answered an email, the song comes back to me in echoes,
It echoes like a distant siren, music from inside another house.
And I want to open it again, and add to it.
I am happy that I remembered how to do this!
The biggest and most joyous part of writing,
Letting ideas evaporate off of me, without my mind involved at all.
The first phase, just letting it out.

Touching Review from the Feminist Review

Feminist Review
The Feminist Review is a great bunch of writers and editors from around the world who review books, albums, by communities that remain on the margin. I'm really liking their recommendations and am honored to be included in their reviews. This one brought tears to my eyes, it's hard for me to hear about others' losses, to know that they keep going in the world. But I am so honored to be any part of a healing process for that. Feels good.

PETRACOVICH - CREPUSCULO

It’s a treasure to stumble upon new music that for one reason or another resonates deeply within you. I selected Crepusculo after learning that Petracovich singer Jessica Peters Malmberg had made the album while pregnant, and then tragically lost her son shortly after he was born. Grieving a recent miscarriage myself, Crepusculo did for me what only those rare special albums can: it comforted me, let me cry, helped me heal, and taught me to create a place in my heart for what I had lost.

Crepusculo (Spanish for “twilight”) utilizes the standard drums, guitar, and bass setup and is richly textured with a multitude of other instruments, including piano, cello, trumpet, harmonium, and banjo. Described as folk pop, this latest album from Petracovich accomplishes an earthiness that brings each song to life. The songs are powerful, thanks to masterful lyrics and Malmberg’s stunning voice that is at times soaring and smooth and later hushed and reverent.

“Heaven Help the Day” is the opening track, and it begins with an upbeat piano that propels the song to a quick crescendo. It’s a perfect match for the empowering lyrics about an absent father. Malmberg warns the father to beware coming back to the family, and if he does, she sings “I’d make you love me then I’d leave you all alone.” A compelling and driving banjo opens “Sleep It Off/Lie Down,” in which Malmberg sings out a challenge to “try to make me unsad/just try making me glad.” It’s a song that wonderfully depicts embracing sadness and revels in the beauty of fully experiencing human emotion.

While Crepusculo undeniably deals with painful losses, the beauty of the album is that there’s a sense of lightness and fun throughout the record. For example, in “San Rafael,” Malmberg dreamily imagines floating above traffic and “over dew and honey grass and sleeping deer; over rollers, hills with backs like dinosaurs.” A sense of whimsy threads itself through many of the songs.

What the music in this album accomplishes is a spirit of graciousness. It’s a snapshot of what it means to be alive, and that is a welcome solace. Crepusculo is an album for everyone that offers an unforgettable joy listening to each song as it magically unfolds.

Review by Beverly Jenkins-Crockett

Comment on Review HERE

Secret Songsketch: You Waited For Me

Download You Waited For Me

I wrote this song for Max's wedding, ( Max, the excellent drummer for Petracovich.) It was an honor to be asked to play, and to write a song for your friend that isn't total cheese is no easy task, but I love how it turned out.

This tune a mix of inspirations of Max and Ashley's 10 years and my own love story (I met my husband in Europe when in a wheelchair and he was the crazy guy climbing on everything.) It's all done on one mic on my home piano, captures a summer moment, and all my gratefulness for my dear love. Free DOWNLOAD

Heather, the wonderful cellist, and I played it on a beautiful July day in the redwoods with speakers 100 feet up the trees, the sounds coming down from the heavens, it was like fairyland.