Dear Grace,

It's all greek to me.

There may come a day when it is not enough to touch you with words. In the 
meantime, I choose them carefully and recklessly. I look for the curves and 
the pulse in the language and try to wrap something around you that will warm 
you and cause your soul to arc, your spirit to spark. 

Yours and mine, God knows.

Look deep down your hollow belly inside and ask yourself in the dark if it's 
true: does any of this really make any difference at all?

Is the skin that separates your beating heart from mine really just the 
smoothest kind of barbed wire?

Wait. Just how alone are we anyway?

So what if I dream about keeping a journal with you? Would that make me your 
audience and you mine? We would write our secret universes within and so far 
only love can make me lift a pen anyway.

So here goes.

Write me.

You have to pick up the pen and move it, she whispers.

You have to leave a crumbtrail of words or you'll never find your way back. 
You have to step out into the words a hungry orphan and hold hands with 
someone along the way. You have to be as good to words as you know how and 
some night when you least expect it you'll find them being good to you.  Even 
later you'll learn to trick yourself into believing someone cares.

She looks away. Oh yeah, one more thing. Inspiration comes afterward, not 
before.

And this is the story of how my life became a true story.

Hello everyone,

It's me Oh Lord again and Jesus we are off to quite a start here, aren't we? 
Talk about "ripping handfuls of pages from ...memoirs and calling it music." 
I'm up here in the attic of the Grey Ghost, the rest of the house is asleep, 
and I'm looking out the window on an unremarkable morning, stunned. I have 
found the secret of eternal life. I now know how I want to live and it's so 
obvious I don't know if I should risk telling you this secret or not, but I 
will. Before I can talk myself down.

I am going to die.

These few words, if I embrace them, will tell me what I must do with this 
gift of too-large life I've been given. Oh, but it's so hard to hear. I
have to practice.

I am going to die. I, am going to die.

All of us here on this sweet terrain are terminal. I hold these words close 
and I am free. 

I'm thirty-five, so by the law of averages I figure my life is half over. 
Half of my life is virgin soil, untouched by any plow. Amazing. I was given a 
garden and I've only tilled up half of it. I was given a day, and the entire 
night remains intact, unlived. I was given a woman and she is only half 
undressed. The bottle of wine, half empty. The book, half written. 

The desire to write burns in me now like the burning bush Moses encountered 
in the wilderness: it burns in me always but is not consumed. I want to leave 
behind some token of gratitude for the time here on earth I was given. I want 
to tell my version of what it was like to be part of this family we call 
humanity. I want to say, Hey, I saw that. (Did anyone else?) It's one of the 
few gifts I can imagine giving to myself. It's one of the few gifts I can 
imagine giving to others.

Half over? And now life ups the ante and says, I am dimensional and careening 
and full of surprises. No man or woman knows me. No man or woman knows the 
day or the hour when the needle lifts from a particular spinning life, when 
the music ceases quite suddenly to play audibly. All quiet. 

In other words, I can't say for sure that I've only travelled half the 
distance. I may be farther along and further in than I know. So to live a 
good day is to live that day as if it were my last. This key can unlock the 
double-bolted door of what it means to be truly alive. Or as my friend Jack 
is prone to say, It's our last night on earth. Again.

So yes, somedays I flounder and lay about in the mud like a hog on valium. 
And I don't know why some days are so hard to redeem, to cash in. God looks 
down and says, This one's on me son. Enjoy. It's the gift of a brand new day 
or night and you'd think I'd make love to this day and we'd ride off into the 
sunset together, and I'd lean over and say, I'll never forget you. Ever. 

But maybe the day sits yawning out in the car while I'm standing in line at 
the bank with a fistfull of unpaid bills. Or the wistful new day walks in and 
her skin is glowing, she's lighting up the whole world and I'm thinking about 
filing my taxes, one of the cats just threw up, and the answering machine is 
full, blinking. The day wants to be swept off her feet and sometimes the best 
I can come up with is surfing the channels in some hotel room, half awake. Or 
maybe the day whispers, I came all this way for you, and it's a drive-thru 
for dinner?

But when I hold the given words close, which I do now increasingly, I become 
a student of life. I am given clues always now, and I try to listen. And the 
mundane begins to bleed together into a larger sense of purpose which I 
continue to discover. Somedays I choose wisely, the hours are my lovers and I 
am heartened. The rest of the time, I forgive myself and try to smile. I am 
going to die. But I'm also going to live for awhile.

OK, I should probably rein it in a bit now. This is an announcement list 
after all, so I should announce things. (Other than, I am going to...) But 
I'm addicted to giving you the best that I know how. I polish this string of 
five and dime pearls until they shine, get my courage up, walk across the 
playground and hand them to you, hoping for the best.

Maybe this is how my father felt after pouring his heart out in the pulpit 
like a bottle of perfume to the little church full of coal-miners in 
Fairpoint, Ohio. He steps back after the benediction like a blind man who has 
seen the face of God and lived, his soul raw and trembling but somehow 
strangely quieted and at rest. The sanctuary is still as a tomb. Somebody 
walks forward, turns around, and says, Are there any announcements?

Bubbles had a seizure again last Tuesday. The youth will roast wieners before 
the softball game.  The women's sewing circle is having a potluck.

I'll ease into it.

Starting with a few books... On Michael Wilson's recommendation, I picked 
Oscar Wilde's De Profundis off the shelf. I had been having trouble falling 
asleep after the tour ended. Wrong book to pick up before bedtime. I read 
until 5am, mouth agape. It has entered my short list of Most Important Books 
I Have Known. A rending document of utter loss and redemption. "Pleasure for 
the beautiful body, suffering for the beautiful soul..." Highly recommended. 
Am finishing Bird by Bird by Anne Lamott. Looking forward to hearing her 
speak at the writers' festival at Calvin College in Grand Rapids, Michigan 
next week. I expect to smile a lot. (Karin finished Travelling Mercies and 
praises it often.) (Karin and I will be performing after Anne's talk.) Also 
looking forward happily to seeing Maya Angelou perform again. There is no 
other word for what she does. She's a one-woman greatest show on earth.

Karin and I arrived home safely after sitting in again with Cowboy Junkies on 
their Winter Waltz, and doing more recording with them in Toronto. The 
daffodils are in bloom here in Ohio, although the weather has turned chilly. 
We managed to steal time to perform as Over the Rhine quite often while we 
were on the road. (Thanks to those of you who were able to look us up.) We 
enjoyed our trip to Seattle and Spokane, and loved playing in all those 
record stores here and there, little living room concerts.

And overtherhine.com has sprouted just in time for Spring. It has been fun 
watching this garden grow. We anticipate adding to it significantly, but it's 
a good point of departure for what we envision. Stop by. We welcome your 
feedback.

This summer, my old roommate from college will be working with me to 
transcribe many of the Over the Rhine songs that have become your friends in 
recent years. We will be developing a library of music which will be freely 
available at overtherhine.com. Those so inclined, will be able to print out 
copies of this new music and accompany themselves at a piano, or flesh out 
the songs with an acoustic guitar on the tailgate of a pickup truck out West. 
We've received hundreds of requests for printed music for songs like 
Rhapsodie, Little Genius, Paul and Virginia, Latter Days, Poughkeepsie, Weak 
In the Knees Across the Sky, Moth, June etc. We are finally getting around to 
addressing this need.

There's also a blank canvas alongside each recording at overtherhine.com 
where we invite listeners like you to submit your reviews of songs and 
albums. It often occurs to us that in the letters we receive, our music is 
discussed more intelligently and in-depth than it sometimes is when 
professionals review the recordings. If a song has made a deep impression on 
you, or you feel one recording stands out as the definitive OtR work to date, 
please take some time to share your thoughts and impressions. We feel our 
listeners' insights will be of interest to many. Including us. We've received 
a few submissions and are anticipating many more. Help us tell the story. 
Remember, the people here are not shy.

There's also a little out of the way place at overtherhine.com called Over 
the Radio. In this room there is a list of the radio stations currently 
playing the Virgin/Backporch re-release of Good Dog Bad Dog. Tune in and roll 
down the car window. Spring is coming. Most of the Backporch campaign has 
focused on college radio so far, but this will be broadening in coming weeks. 
If your favorite station isn't listed, consider giving them a call. Or e-mail 
us and we'll have Virgin follow up.

We've been fairly pleased with Virgin/Backporch so far. They recently 
surprised us by announcing the impending release of a compilation which 
contains All I Need is Everything. Other contributors include Peter Gabriel, 
Paul Simon, John Lennon, Crowded House, Cowboy Junkies--Hello! You can go to 
the site for more info which will be posted soon. Starbucks licensed several 
songs for in-store air-play and people have been commenting on hearing Over 
the Rhine while they contemplate the day's caffeine rush. And the release 
date for the new Over the Rhine recording has been set: September 12, 2000. 
The days promise to be quite full, and we may not be able to be in touch as 
often as we would like, so if you want to keep your finger on our pulse, 
overtherhine.com will be the place.

Finally, the most practical reason the website exists is to let you know when 
we can be together. When dates are confirmed we forward them to our webmaster 
and they magically appear the next morning. One date that was confirmed this 
morning may merit a special invitation. 

Over the Rhine will be taping another segment for CBS This Morning (now 
called The Early Show) on April 5th in Manhattan. CBS would like to invite an 
audience to be a part of the performance this time, and if weather permits, 
we are going to play outdoors around noon in a courtyard/plaza that holds 
about 150 people. (There is no charge to be part of the audience.) We'll post 
more details on the site as they become available. Join us if you can for 
this foray into television sets around the country.

More importantly perhaps, that same evening, (Wednesday, April 5th), Over the 
Rhine will be performing at a small off-Broadway theater in New York City 
called The Lambs Theater, at 130 West 44th Street between 6th and Broadway. 
("The Lamb Goes Down Easy on Broadway.") Doors 7:30pm, Show 8:00pm, Tickets 
$15 at the door. (General Admission, all ages welcome.) 

Karin and I have increasingly been contemplating living for a time in New 
York City. It is a city which you can positively become drunk on. You lift 
the glass, the wine runs red out of the corners of your mouth and down your 
neck and there is laughter.

We have learned to open our arms to the palpable energy of this place. We 
walk into the Met and everything changes. The subway pulls into Grand Central 
Station and something dies and is born again that we can't put into words. 
These waves of beautiful people pouring down Park Avenue--the city is being 
washed clean by the broken and renewed dreams of the many who are called 
here, and the few who are chosen. And we are adrift in this tide of humanity, 
unmoored and reeling. We are Americans in New York. And we dream of playing 
in this city more often.

Kiss an April day full on the mouth and join us in America's greatest city 
for an evening of music which promises a voice in full-bloom, earthy music 
crying out for roots in this weedy, overgrown world we love with our lives. 
(Some of us are born better lovers than others. Some of us long to be reborn 
so that we can love better.)

I think that's about it. There's a Weimaraner waiting for her run.

I long to hear these words sung, flung at the sky by a real set of lungs. I 
hope to see you.

In the meanwhile, live a little.

Still skinny as sin,

Linford

P.S. As I write this, nearing the end, I receive two phone calls, one from 
our office, one from Ric Hordinski. A friend of ours, Gene Eugene (Andrusco), 
died unexpectedly in his sleep. (He couldn't have been much older than I am, 
I think to myself.) I don't know what to make of this sad news. Gene fronted 
his own band, Adam Again, which was never widely recognized in the world at 
large. I saw people dance to this band after midnight who were so lost in the 
music that they couldn't have told you their own names, tears of joy stinging 
their eyes. Gene recorded and mixed a handful of Over the Rhine songs on
eve: Should, Sleep Baby Jane, Birds, June, Bothered. 

Gene, we only know that we must follow sooner or later. Thank you for the 
gifts you gave us. The Cuhahoga River on fire...

Farewell for now.     
y