A BLUE TOMATO WORLD

A Blue Tomato World

Welcome to a Blue Tomato World,

a world of music and design.

Humor and Hollywood nostalgia.

I’ll just start by saying that

writing songs is more about

being born with a broken heart

than anything else.

I know it’s hard to think that

a baby can come out of a womb

so sad, and all, but I did.

It was like having a port wine

stain on my heart, 

except that no one could see it,

especially me . . . not until later.

That’s when I wrote my first song

“Yesterday’s Love” at 16.

So take a look around my house

and listen to a song I composed
on this piano.

“I Really Miss You, Tonight!”
This is a new arrangement

I made on a Yamaha Keyboard
with saxophone, guitar, piano/vibraphone.

Don’t think I still feel sad.

I love making art out of sad stories.

When I was 8, I was to be in a May Festival

with my first long dress.

Mother got a free trip

to her home office in Omaha

and a side trip to Chicago.

She was gone for a week.

She had never left me before.

I had to sleep on an old cot, because

a neighbor came over to stay with Grandma..  

and she slept in our bed.
I missed her so much that week.

So here's the song from YouTube

That's what Blue Tomato music is about.

Thanks for visiting.


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“Was Sisyphus Happy?”

and

“How Then Shall I Live”
~~

Was Sisyphus Happy?

Was Sisyphus Happy?

He was condemned to heave a

huge round stone up a hill

only to have it 

roll back down thunderously,

over and over again.

 In Albert Camus' essay.

The Myth of Sisyphus

Camus writes: 

“The struggle itself toward the heights

is enough to fill a man's heart.

One must imagine Sisyphus happy."

~~~

Rollo May’s interpretation in his book

The Cry For Myth, writes,

“For Sisyphus is a creative person

who even tried to erase death.

He never gives up but always is devoted to

creating a better kind of life;

he is a model of a hero who presses on

in spire of his or her despair.

Without such capacity to confront despair

we would not have had Beethoven

or Rembrandt or Michaelangelo

or Dante or Goethe or any others of the

great figures in the development of culture.”

~~~~~

May’s interpretation inspires me

and makes me feel like I’m not so alone

in writing songs, especially when they

 may never be heard.

Yet, composing music out of despair

gives my life meaning.

I see from this journal entry

 I was once again

 disappointed

but continuing to create.

 Here's a new

YouTube Creation.

I took some photos of my art attempts.

I’ve Waited So Long For That Day

is The song behind

Blue Tomato Creations

I wrote that song thinking of

what someone would sing if they’d won

the American Idol Contest.

(opening lyrics)

I’ve waited so long for this day,

It seemed so far away,

I’ve found a place where I belong

Someone to hear my song

Someone to hear my song.

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HOW THEN SHALL I LIVE?

Thoughts at Thanksgiving

I have been aware for ever so long

of my mortality.

I don’t mean lately,

I mean since I was thirty.

Knowing I Shall die,

how then shall I live,

and what will I do

 with my one wild and precious life?

I will take photos from inside my bedroom

and outside

to remember this red dogwood in Autumn

to remember the lavender verbena

I will make an arrangement from

fallen coleus leaves

And be grateful for my life

especially at Thanksgiving

for the friends who support me

who cheer me on.

~ ~ ~ 

And I will be grateful, too, for one special person,

Steve Jobs

for his attention to detail and design

for his incredible life.

He is an inspiration

because owning a MacBook

has made all my talents

come to life.

~~~ 

Lastly,

The Prologue

 to the Memoir I’m writing

speaks to this theme

How Then Shall I Live?

~ ~ ~

"Confessions of a Blue Tomato"

Back in 1946, to me, the American Dream

was about being a hero of some kind.

I was sure, if you were a boy,

 you had to do some kind of feat.

Lindbergh flying across the Atlantic.

Get a Purple Heart.

Work your way up from the mailroom,

climbing some kind of ladder of success.

And if you were a girl . . . well,

I mostly knew what I didn’t want to do,

like be a teacher or nurse or secretary

and what’s left then?

How could you prove your worth?

Silently, I dreamed of being tapped on the shoulder

by a Hollywood Director,

at a lunch counter

in a white angora sweater.

I kept those dreams during my

Betty Crocker Years

~~~

In my mid 30’s I had a great fear,

 that I would be dead at 40.

That fear led to my making changes in my life,

 like getting a divorce.

~~~

As I neared 50

 I believed my life line indicated

 I was going to die at 55.

I was so disturbed by that,

I made changes in my life again.

 This time it led to walking out a corporate door

with no early retirement

no severance package.

I was 52.

I believed I could live off my savings.

~~~

I have come to know

 those fears were coming from my instinctual self,

 from the wise, intuiting woman

 in the knowing cave

  where the bones reside.

I was right to have heeded.

~~~

Gradually I began to relax

 to sense the rest of my life

 on the tip of my tongue, so to speak.

I had a great sense that my life

 had five distinct parts

and that the last part

would be the best,

if only I could manage to get there

 and discover what was around

 that last bend.

This book is that story!

~~~

and this blog is part of that story, too

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