Second Oversoul Guest Blog

Hey folks, it's not every day that my Oversoul decides to contribute to
this site...so I'll be properly impressed with this latest appearance and turn the mike over to her once again. First, however, there is a preamble by me and then she takes over:

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Tia: I read an email from a lady on a local email group that I belong to. In the email I read about how she'd met a man having a garage and basement sale...that they'd talked a bit and he had ended up giving her gratis a huge Webster's Unabridged. Inside the dictionary, she saw the name Nikki Silva, who the email writer recognized was one half of the Kitchen Sisters , NPR producers doing radio documentaries. It turned out the man holding the garage sale was none other than Ms. Silva's Dad. As it turned out, Ms. Silva had grown up right in my very neighborhood. I got a warm fuzzy proud feeling thinking of someone that creative got her start right in my own backyard so to speak.

That night I woke up in the dark as I usually do and turned on the radio to NPR. I hadn't tuned in for weeks...the recent rancorous election news was just too much for me to handle. Anyway, it was about 3 o'clock in the morning...and I was ready to hear a good story.

Broadcasting at that particular moment was a Francis Ford Coppella narrated production called Lost and Found Sound. It was a cool audio magazine in the vein of "This American Life". Coppella talked about how one of his collaborators', none other than Nikki Silva of the Kitchen Sisters had found some previously lost war recordings in her father's basement. That basement was in the same one referred to in the email I'd read this morning...in Ms. Silva's Dad's basement in my neighborhood. I was blown away by the immediate connection.

Regarding the recording found in the Silva basement...it was of a woman singing Can't Help Loving that Man of Mine, an oldie from the 40's. Coppella said that when we hear these voices from the past, they become universal. One person's mother becomes every person's mother. One person's grandmother becomes everyone's grandma. I heard the singing from that circa 1941 moment and remembered me singing it in 1979 in my bathroom in Burlingame (great acoustics) and then I remembered my grandmother humming that tune. Tears started flowing down my cheek. It was as if all at once Grandma was there again...speaking to me through this recorded woman's voice, speaking to me through Francis Ford Coppella, speaking to me through the email writer on the mailing list and finally through Niki Silva's Dad...here in my own neighborhood.

It all seemed so monumental right then...so effused with feeling. I felt,
whatever I do, I must do something with THIS. I mustn't just chalk it up
to being pre-periodic and sleepy. This has to do with my future...some
how.

It made me think about how I want to pass things down to the girls and the way my mother wants to pass things down to me. It all made sense.

Whether I stay at Megabucks Industries (which...I probably will) or if we
stay in our current neighborhood (which we probably will), this place, these places have now become hallowed ground, mostly by virtue of our just being here. They become us and this place is the place of our stories.

When we first arrived at work and at our house, these spots were where we made money and slept...but now they are our past, our history, part of our fabric...that fact can't be denied or edited out. No matter what I do from this moment on I would have always worked at Megabucks and I would have always lived in the house I live in now.

There is a sanctity to that...a sacredness that should be celebrated...and I...I AM TO BE THE ONE TO CELEBRATE IT. Others may also honor these places in their own fashion...but and I'm fairly sure this is my grandmother in the guise of oversoul saying this...

Oversoul: this is your mission, Tia. this is a large part of why you are here, why you've had the experiences you've had...why you've been drawn to places, to people and certain strange things. all of it has come to a concentrated, compact experience...and you have been given opportunities to use this life material...but you haven't so far. that's ok because we understand how sensitive you have always been. we know because we made you that way! being a thin-skinned child and young woman isn't the easiest way to go through the world..but you needed that consciousness to make you cleave to things you would normally have run from...your current home for instance (the very mention of it's name has made you paranoid) and having a family (families are rather uncommon for people who hate children!). you know that love alone was the one thing that kept you from fleeing...we made sure of that.

so now you're not a young person anymore. that's perfect. it's perfect because it's time to put all that training and conditioning to good use. all those memories that have been piling up...hey, no kidding it wasn't without reason or rhyme. now's the time to make sure of it. the red light of your life is blinking now boo-nu-nun-noos...it's time for the close up!

know that you do this for us and it honors us. know that you do this for those who come after you and it honors them. know that it honors all the souls in your life, past and present. your life is a testament to our hard work. put it to good use, ok?

you'll be glad you did, i promise, sweetheart.

ok grandma (or if you are more comfortable with it, oversoul) signing out.

big sniff and a kiss.