It’s Monday, and we are “On the move” again! If you are just tuning in, Sarah and I recently created a new project we are calling “Mondays On the Move” to promote freedom of movement. Each Monday, we choose a different place to perform one of the migration songs we have written with refugees and…
Category: Poetry
Mondays On the Move
It seems that since the beginning of human time, movement has been a natural element of the life cycle. Humans are moving beings. It’s an innate quality of the experience and essence of what it means to be human. We walk. We dance. We express ourselves through our hands (some of us more than…
Pandemic Publishing
The last time I shared an update on all things songwriting in my life was January 23, 2020. At the time, I had no idea the larger world and my own circle within it would literally come to a halt in the middle of March. At the start of 2020, I was feeling inspired…
Magic carpet of music
Sarah and I spent two hours yesterday afternoon at the Fedasil Arrival Centre in Brussels, taping together page after page of poetry and songs into an enormous magic carpet of hope. Upon these pages were words from the hearts and minds of people from many places, all having traveled to Belgium with the hope of…
A wild idea: Welcome
A few weeks ago, on a particularly gloomy and frigid Monday afternoon, Sarah and I began writing words on a blank page we had posted on the wall at Petit-Château. Our “wall” is really two large wooden doors, but we have found that the packaging tape we use attaches far better onto the door than…
From Africa it’s a long story
The sun shone over Brussels yesterday afternoon, and I experienced the rare occurrence of being too warm for my jacket, scarf, and hat at the tail end of December. I set them on the bench by our open “office” space at a corner of the covered corridor at the refugee asylum center known as Petit-Château…
Life is long
This Monday at Petit-Chateau was grey, rainy, dark, and dismal. The previous Friday evening, I had visited the center for the volunteer appreciation dinner and joined staff and volunteers on a tour of the arrival portion of the center. We walked from one station to the next, learning about the process whereby those seeking asylum…
She will walk again
With the recent very cold front that has swept over my little corner of Belgium, it’s difficult to imagine the warmth and sunshine that illuminated my November 25 Monday visit to Petit-Château was warm and sunny. As I sit and write from my kitchen table, a cup of coffee and big, white husky at…
Before the music
This Monday at Petit-Château was about as dismal at a November afternoon in Brussels can be. A friend came with me who had wanted to experience our poetry and songwriting for a long time. I am always nervous on these occasions because I want them to have a positive experience. My first snafu was nearly…
What gives you hope?
Monday at the refugee center was hopping. When I first began volunteering in January 2017, it had been a residential center. There were residents who have been living there for years, waiting to hear if they would be able to stay in Belgium. Over the past nearly three years of volunteering, I have seen the…
Guiding Song 