After several years without melody, I have returned to the songs that have become part of my soul. I recently subscribed to Amazon Music, and I added to my Playlist: Folk music of the 60s, but Amazon also began playing music from Carole King’s Tapestry Album–which I consider to be music of the 70s. From my choices, Amazon suspected that I also love Carole King, and Amazon was correct.
When Carole King’s song Tapestry played, I listened with every part of my being:
Listen:
Hear:
“Once amid the soft silverSadness in the skyThere came a man of fortuneA drifter passing by…” Carole King
Carole King is a poet–not merely a rhyming queen, but she speaks lyrically from a depth within herself.
I cut my teeth on music that speaks to my soul, and Carol King’s Tapestry is milk and honey for my spirit, As I listened to Carole King’s Tapestry, I recalled the first time I heard that song and how over the years, I have sifted through its lyrics to discover the greatness within King’s words:
“As I watched in sorrowThere suddenly appearedA figure gray and ghostlyBeneath a flowing beard,
“In times of deepest darknessI’ve seen him dressed in blackNow my tapestry’s unravelingHe’s come to take me backHe’s come to take me back.” Carole King
When I initially discovered Carole King, the tapestry of my own life had recently taken on a darker hue. Soon, music became painful for me. Every song I loved was wrapped in a unique story, and those stories became the soundtrack of my earlier life. As setbacks and disappointment fell upon me, I initially tried to stuff my reactions to what was becoming of myself, and I became a bloated balloon filled to the max. With trepidation, I carefully hovered above life, and my greatest fear was that a tiny pin would prick my surface and my balloon would explode, allowing all my stuff to blast into the air.
When I listened to the music I had loved for many years, I associated many of those songs with memories, and I began to sense that music might be the tiny pin I feared. As an effort to secure myself, I quit listening to my music.
Yesterday, I met with a friend I had not seen since my college days 50 years ago. I posted the following on Facebook :
“Here’s a little piece of my heart: I spent the afternoon at BTC in Water Valley with an old friend from college, Byron Ellis. Alexe had to throw us out. It takes a while to make up for 50 years. Byron was a pilot, and we talked our way around the world. Byron carried me to some of his favorite haunts in France and in other places. How very special.”
An inordinate bunch of my friends responded positively to my post, and moments ago, one of my friends wrote on Facebook:
“Special friends, the long-term ones.”
From somewhere “in the autumn mist,” the response came to me:
“The long-term friends become threads in our DNA.”
With those words, thoughts about my post for today began forming in my mind:
Autumn Rose – Jacki Kellum Textile Art
In my textile art, I often draw with satin cords, and my work becomes a hand-sewn contour drawing on fabric. My textile art is a distant cousin of tapestry.
Threads and Tapestries
“My life has been a tapestryOf rich and royal hueAn everlasting visionOf the ever-changing viewA wond’rous woven magicIn bits of blue and goldA tapestry to feel and seeImpossible to hold…” Carole King
Night Roses – Jacki Kellum Textile Art
Night Garden – Jacki Kellum Embroidery
Night Garden – Jacki Kellum Embroidery Detail
I often use black in my textile art.
“Black is the Queen of Colors.” Unknown
Black allows other colors to shine.
While I don’t paint with black paint, I paint with a black-like color that often frames and or punctuates the rest of my paintings–much in the way that black paint would.
“It is always darkest before the dawn.” unknown
Morning Has Broken – Jacki Kellum Acrylic Painting
In the same way that I quit music for years, I often quit painting periodically, and I am not painting now.
When darkness enters my being, I become like Rip Van Winkle, and I sink into a season of dark and almost endless nights. But invariably, the morning breaks again, and I begin walking in the light once more. That’s when I paint again.
And yes, like Carole King’s Tapestry, my own tapestry is many-colored, but it also has darker threads running through.
I like to tidy my work as I go and to clip loose ends, and I fear that at this point, I have not brought this post home. My goal is to share something that I have learned about writing a memoir. I know from my life’s experiences that writing a memoir can be difficult for many people who have painful pasts. I understand the need to TRY to repress the painful memories, but experience has taught me that repression will not yield a vibrant memoir. I agree with the distinguished Mississippi Writer:
“The past is never dead. It’s not even past.” William Faulkner
For years, I did not play the music I loved, and I elected to TRY to mute it, but on some wavelength deeper than the well of life, the soundtrack of my life kept playing. Finally, I turned up the volume, and there it was–my old friend. The music is back and it is, indeed, a DNA-like thread in the tapestry of my life.
Here is the nougat of gold: Once you open yourself and begin viewing your life objectively, the light beams through every window.
It may take months of anger writing to get to the point where you can become more objective in writing about your life. But In my opinion, writing a memoir is not about opening a vein and bleeding. To revisit your past does not mean that you need to waller in your pain. That kind of writing is never productive for me. My best memoir writing happens when I open a window [not a vein] and allow the light inside.
Final Thoughts on the Many-Colored Tapestry of My Life
Most of my paintings and other art are not about blackness or darkness, Most of my art is vibrant and colorful:
Janis Joplin – Jacki Kellum Watercolor – Sold
At one of my art shows, someone said to me: “I can tell by your art that you are very happy.”
My response was: “Perhaps what you see from my art is that I create, trying to be very happy.”
My memoir writing is reflective, and I weave in and out of various emotions, but I try to avoid angry whining. Rather, through my memoir writing, I sift for some nougat of gold within my experiences, and if I look deeply enough there is usually a nougat of gold somewhere. My memoir writing is not the Good Ship Lollipop, but through my writing, I try to paddle toward the light: 
On Silver Sheets, I Sail
by Jacki KellumJust before I open my eyes,
I float along the misty skies.
I reach, I feel the soft, white hair
And fairy wings that flutter there,
I listen. I hear the slumber song:
The angel band that plays along.
My dreams are in my pillow-pail.
On Silver Sheets, I Sail.
“My life has been a tapestryOf rich and royal hueAn everlasting visionOf the ever-changing viewA wond’rous woven magicIn bits of blue and goldA tapestry to feel and seeImpossible to hold…
“As I watched in sorrowThere suddenly appearedA figure gray and ghostlyBeneath a flowing beard,
“In times of deepest darknessI’ve seen him dressed in blackNow my tapestry’s unravelingHe’s come to take me backHe’s come to take me back.” Carole King
The Painting above the lyrics is: Farmhouse in Winter – Jacki Kellum
[My Autobiography in Oil]
In closing, my life, like that of many others, reflects many brilliant colors, but that is not my full story:
“In times of deepest darknessI’ve seen … [it] dressed in black.”
And that’s the rest of the story – worded adeptly by Carole King,
Discover more from Jacki Kellum
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