In a Time of War

This morning I woke up and rolled over in the comfort of my bed, in a time of war, to check my email.

Grex had sent me a video, in a time of war, of Hector Buitrago's "Damaquiel".

Damaquiel is a beautiful track, bodies moving, sending salutations, in a time of war, in a place of war, colors and patterns and hips and trees and guitars and resilience.

An Afro-Colombian man traverses the city and the the countryside, he dancingly shuffles, floats just above the surface of the earth, in a time of war, and his feeling is one of praise, he sings it, he shares it, his arms wave about to disperse it into the air, to bring it out in my own body moving in my room as the soundwaves hit my ears.

Here, in my room, i'm surrounded by my beautiful things, in a time of war, i'm surrounded by my purple and yellow dried corn wombs, watercolor paintings from my grandmother, painted wooden boxes, carved seed jewelry, a warm hoodie, my holy books, I'm going to get up now and make a pot of coffee in the kitchen.

I'm by myself with a cup of coffee at the round wooden kitchen table- I stir in powdered creamer, in a time of war, and the china bowl my grandfather bought in Germany in 1943, i open it up and scoop myself a heaping spoonful of sugar.

I think about my Grandma Kubota sharing a cup of green tea and some tuna sandwiches, in a time of war, last week with me and my Grandmother King in her green carpeted dining room with the green linen tablecloth.

I'm remembering, as the bread pops out of the toaster and I butter it, in a time of war, what my Grandma shared.

My Grandmother's class would take Friday's off, in a time of war, to go work in the sugar cane fields- all the young men were gone, they would carry their tin cups with them on their belts to get a drink of water out in the fields, in the humid Hawaii heat.

My Grandmother was required to wear a gas mas strapped around her tiny shoulder, in a time of war, just in case.

When the sun had set, the entire town had to pull their shades down and turn off the lights, so they wouldn't be easy targets, in a time of war, they even had to unscrew the light bulb in the refrigerator.

That little girl wearing the gas mask strapped around her thin shoulders, sitting in the back of the truck with her tin cup on her belt, jostling along dusty back roads, in a time of war, through sugar cane plants with razor sharp leaves 3 times taller than her on either side- there was a song in her head.

"There'll be bluebirds over...the white cliffs of Dover...Tomorrow...Just you wait and see...there'll be joy and laughter, and peace ever after...Tomorrow...when the world is free..."

I click on the link to watch Buitrago's "Damaquiel" once again, to feel the joy in the voice, to watch the heart glow in his hands, to move a little in my seat at the kitchen table, in a time of war, to think about what my Grandma shared about the white cliffs of Dover, how it gave her hope, how when they dropped the atomic bomb on Hiroshima, she didn't think about the cancer to follow, about how shadows of children playing outside were burned onto stone walls as bodies evaporated into an acrid smoke- all she remembers feeling was the relief that war, WAR was over... it was over!... WAR was over.

I marvel at music's contribution to the resilience of MAN, in times of war.