SIRI BARDARSON, Feb. 8, 2013

“Love in the Time of Polypro”

Valentines Day is upon us.  Love doesn’t seem possible when the mercury hovers around freezing but driving around Whidbey Island on your way to Island Recycling, have you noticed the tips of the willow and the alder?  You haven’t?  Hmm, yes I know.  You are chewing your bottom lip in a worrying, percolating and wintery way; hunched over the steering wheel as the car’s heater hasn’t kicked in, and is it really your turn to do the recycle, you ponder?  The radio is tuned to something radical and you are way to crabby to be anything but irritated by what you are listening to. Hey, I’m with you, separate out the plastic, stomp on the corrugated cardboard, be good, do it right and so what?

The “dailyness” of the daily and the grayness of the gray can rut us out.  Like the ponies on the pony ride at the fair: around and around on the little path.  You know that is not the pony’s true nature to have a day dictated by the constructs of habit rather than spontaneous combustion.  I know this from an experience when I was ten and a friend’s family boarded a team of ponies on their property.  The ponies looked so damn cute and manageable and little.  Believe me, nothing is what it seems. I have never been on an animal that bolted so fast to the nearest stretch of barbed wire just to rub me off and leave me in the grass to cry.  The look in that pony’s eye from under her poofy forelock as she wrenched a tuft of green grass was nothing short of mischievous payback.

The good news is that everything is changing for you.  On your next trek up to the recycle, open your eyes.  Actually, open your eyes and then squint and blur them a little as you gaze at the stand of alder and willow; the tips of the willow are yellow and the tips of the alder are red.  Yes, the sap is rising and you need to get tuned in because, like I said earlier, Valentines Day is just around the corner.  As always, Mother Nature is on top of it and Valentines Day is her seasonal kick-off party, the re-statement of her vision for us.  It is an exceptionally simple mission statement;

“More!” she commands to her brood of flora and fauna.

Mother Nature has major, undeniable love mojo!   Baby it’s cold outside in February but she stands there grinning in a heavy coat with a box of Diamond wood stick matches and she is about to light the fuse of spring.  If you unbuttoned the top button of her winter coat you’d bump into some pretty steep lingerie or more smooth skin than you could handle.  I’m mean really!  What do you think is going on underneath her ground?  It’s not plain dirt, it’s not plain dirt packed down in the rut of the pony ride, there is stuff down there and everything is heating up again.  Soon it will be Spring’s big glorious blue-sky chance to give it all another go.

Don’t let a crocus beat you to it.  Apply some chap stick and stand up straight.  Turn off the radical radio and start listening to some love songs.  I mean like the Temptations or Sam and Dave.  For 99 cents you can go out to bleeptunes and download your favorite song from ninth grade.  For me that would be the Zombies and “Time of the Season”:

It’s the time of the season, when love runs high
In this time, give it to me easy,
And let me share with pleasured hands….
To take you and the sun to
Promised lands
To show you every one
It’s the time of the season for loving

Mother Nature is never credited with co-writing any of these songs, but she is responsible for many major hits.

I’ve got sunshine on a cloudy day.
When it’s cold outside I’ve got the month of May….
I’ve got so much honey the bees envy me.
I’ve got a sweeter song than the birds in the trees.
I guess you’d say
What can make me feel this way?
My girl (my girl, my girl)
Talkin’ ’bout my girl (my girl).

Well, you catch my drift.

Love is so much better for our creative selves than being gray and good.  Can we really afford not to pay attention, not to listen to a good song, not to squint our eyes and catch the subtle change in color and hear the strike of the match and the hiss of the lit fuse?  However you get down – alone, with many, with one – just do it.  Don’t be down; get down!  The wise one with the burnt match is grinning; she has plans for you.

Happy Valentines Day!

Siri Bardarson is a musician devoting this year to creative projects that synthesize her classical and popular music backgrounds via her new electric cello.  She is ecstatically happy!

Valentine’s Day week music and wine on on Whidbey:

• The annual Sweetheart Big Band Dance with live music by the SWHS and LMS jazz bands is at 7 to 9 p.m. tonight (Feb. 8) at South Whidbey High School New Commons, a fundraiser to enable their participation in the Bellevue College Jazz Festival and the Lionel Hampton Jazz Festival in February.  Tickets are $10 per person or $30 for families of 4 or more; Fancy desserts, refreshments, a raffle and door prizes included! Also, enjoy some Swing-dance Instruction with Walter and Celina Dill. For tickets call (360) 321-825 or get them at the door.
• Red Wine and Chocolate Tour, hosted by the Whidbey Island Vintners Association is Saturday, Feb. 9 and Sunday, Feb. 10/ Saturday, Feb. 16,  Sunday, Feb. 17, and Monday, Feb. 18 from 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. each day, with a tour of  local winery tasting rooms at Comforts of Whidbey, Spoiled Dog Winery, Blooms Winery, Taste for Wine & Art, and Holmes Harbor Cellars. Tickets are $20 advance /$25 day of and are available at www.brownpapertickets.com/event/316256 (or at the venues) For more info call: (360) 321-0515. Visit www.whidbeyislandvintners.org.
• Live electric cello and vocals with Siri Bardarson and guitarist, Steve Trembley from 3 to 5 p.m. Sunday, Feb. 10 at Blooms Taste for Wine and Art at the Bayview Cash Store in Langley.
• Singer, songwriter Eric Christensen plays the Front Street Grill in Coupeville from 7 to 9 p.m. Wednesday, Feb. 13.
• Prima Bistro in Langley hosts a romantic Valentines Day evening with dinner and  love songs et vous! Trio Nouveau will play starting at 6 p.m. with classic swing, love songs to create a romantic ambiance for a lovely Valentine’s evening. Savor Prima Bistro’s French inspired cuisine, special Valentine’s desserts and fine wine. C’est magnifique! Reservations: 360-221-4060.