2004. Will you be sad to see it go?

I will, for these reasons: Anytime you have a child whose age is still in the single digits, every year hurtles by heartbreakingly fast, and every year they move away from you just a little more, and into their own independence. I wish I could do this kindergarten year with my son over a few times, just to soak in every tiny moment. He loves school so much, and he is so excited every time he learns something new. He inspires me to a new enthusiasm for learning in my own life. I have wished this same wish--to have 'do-overs', or to slow time down, for so many years, with all my children. Now that some of them are in their early 20's, I STILL wish it. It's the big secret of parenting, that no one tells you when they're small: how much you miss them when they move away from home, and how all the most vivid, alive and achingly pure moments of life are connected to small children.

Will I miss anything else? Well, the evolution of my children is a big one, and colors the whole year for me. Caitlin, my oldest, runs an independent record label in Santa Monica and also did a photo shoot for Elle Girl magazine, which will be out in the March issue. She has really hit her stride. I am constantly delighted by her. Hannah, my stepdaughter, got married in June. She had the most beautiful wedding in history, and married the most perfect young man. So, I will think fondly on that rainy June night in Nashville, and on her beauty, which is breathtaking, and her new life. Chelsea, my middle daughter, is a fledgling songwriter and musician, and an acommplished visual artist. She called to ask HOW she could be a musician and not lead a public life. I told her I'm still trying to figure that one out. She is a better writer than I was at twice her age. My youngest daughter, Carrie, turned sixteen. She is, without doubt, the sweetest person I have ever known in my entire life. Just to look at her gives me a rush of joy.

I made new friends this year, which is something I treasure as much as anything. I started recording a new record, with Bill Bottrell producing, and I fell in love with Bill and the musicians he assembled for our sessions: Dan Schwartz, the bass player, and Brian McCleod, the drummer, as well as my old friend Benmont Tench, on keyboards. Those sessions I did with them, in October and November, are high on my list of the top creative and satistying moments of 2004. Working with Bill, Dan, Brian and Benmont was a revelation. I can't wait for you all to hear it. The new record is called "Black Cadillac", and is due in the Fall of 2005. Recording continues in January with my better half, Mr. L, aka John Leventhal.

I did a lot of touring this year, from Switzerland to Houston, from Calgary to New Jersey. I loved most of them. I did not love the layovers in airports and the lines in security.

I took my son on a train trip through the Alps, after the shows in Switzerland, in March--just he and I. I signed him up for his first ski lesson in St. Anton, Austria. I will never forget that trip with him. I can still see his face pressed against the window of the train, looking out on an Alpine lake.

I had a memorial service said for my father at St. Luke's, here in New York City, at the first anniversary of his death, and it provided a catalyst for healing, and a balm for the year just past. I certainly won't miss the gut-wrenching grief that only started to subside when I got to that first year marker of my father's death.

Okay, friends. The end-of-the-year-list. This is really fun. I'm giving it all to you.

For 2004, my favorite Music: oh, just shoot me. This was hard, to say the least. The first two things that come to mind are Loretta Lynn and Ray Charles. The Jack White produced "Van Lear Rose" by Loretta was really, really good, and far exceeded my expectations. And Ray Charles: now and forever, truly great. Pick any record you want, "Modern Sounds in Country and Western Music", or "Genius Loves Company"... it's all brilliant. The soundtrack to the movie was wonderful. And I have to add a third record to the best of 2004: U2, "How to Dismantle an Atomic Bomb". Man, they are BACK. This is U2 at it's very best--intense, spiritual, irreverent, ROCKING. I LOVE this record.

Book: If you recall, I had a banner year for novels. I loved three novels: "The Curious Incident of the Dog in the NIghttime", "The Secret Life Of Bees", and "The Time Traveller's Wife". And the winner is......"The Time Traveller's WIfe". I LOVED this book. Cried when I finished it. Does it make me a philistine that my favorite book this year was a novel, and not an important political treatise? Just call me Ms. Philistine. Runner-up for favorite book of 2004: Bob Dylan's "Chronicles", part one. I'm still reading this, and loving it to death. If I had finished it, it would have been in serious contention for number one.

Best Live Concert: Okay, I have a tie. Jane Siberry at Joe's Pub here in New York CIty in December, and Blackie and the Rodeo Kings at the Calgary Festival in Calgary, Canada, in August. Jane for her transcendence of time and space, and for her ability to be absolutely succinct in summing up the most subtle and confusing emotions, and Blackie for rocking my heart and soul, particularly with their version of my dad's Folsom Prison Blues, rendered in the swampiest, grittiest arrangement you've ever heard. (Sub-category: Best live concert I gave myself this year: Hard to say, as I can't recall them all, to tell you the truth. But I have fond memories of Vermont in early April, Reno in September, and the Calgary festival in August. As my old friend Rodney used to say, 'sometimes it's magic, sometimes it's work'.)

Film: Also a tie. "Ray" and "The Door in the Floor". Both subtle, painful, revealing, redemptive. One with music AND lyrics, one with only music. One with Jamie Foxx, one with Jeff Bridges. One that covers the country, one that stays on the North Fork of Long Island. I like it all ways.

Favorite speech of 2004: Al Gore at NYU, in May of this past year. My God. A one man revolution. Thank God he exists, and deigns to talk to the rest of us.

Favorite purchase of 2004. Well, I thought of the category, and now can't think of the winner. Okay, I got it. A Tibetan-style three-quarter length yellow silk open jacket, with red paisley scrolls across the bottom half. I bought it at the Rubin museum gift shop, and wore it that same night at my show. Runner-up for favorite purchase of 2004: a new sofa, dark blue velvet, on sale at Ralph Lauren. Now if I can keep the cat from destroying this one, as he did the LAST one, I'll be in good shape.

Favorite charities of 2004. A tie between PAX, SOS Children's Villages, and Children, Inc. I have been a longtime sponsor of a child in Bolivia through Children, Inc, and I love their philosophy and committment. This year I also became a sponsor of a child in Burundi through SOS, and I am just awestruck at their integrity and mission. SOS has been nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize TWELVE times... I do hope this year they get it.

PAX, as always, inspires me with the single-minded goal of preventing gun violence to children. I am proud to be a board member of PAX.

Best song I wrote in 2004: hmmm. I wrote quite a few, which I am now recording for a new record, which will hopefully be out in September, at the latest. I think my favorite is a new song called 'The World Unseen'. Favorite song I co-wrote: one I wrote with John (Mr. L) called "House on the Lake".

Favorite trip of 2004: category one, work-related: See 'Alps', above. That was an amazing trip. After two shows in Zurich, the band and crew went home, and my son and I got on a train and went to Austria, where we stayed with friends in a cozy little chateau in St. Anton. My son had his first ski lesson. It was phenomenally beautiful. Then we took the train back to Zurich and stayed at the Schweizerhof Hotel, which is old-school gorgeous. We had a grand time.

category two, non-work-related: a tie between Ventura, California, for my mom's 70th birthday party in April, and a week in St. John in the Virgin Islands, also in April. Both were wonderful for different reasons.

Best overall event of 2004: the deepening appreciation of my family, my work, and my life that came from crushing loss and overwhelming grief. Grief is its own universe, I found out. And you have to be there as long as you have to be there, but when you start to re-enter the world, you do so with a heightened awareness of the beauty and fragility of those you love, and the temporal nature of everything. It was hard, but, as Jane SIberry says, 'Love is everything'. And as Dan Schwartz says, 'There is only love in the world. Everything else is just our resistance'. I'm getting there. "And drop by drop comes wisdom, through the awful grace of God".

My wish, for 2005, is that ALL our troops come home from Iraq. I hope, in 2005, to see the end of the war, and the last of American AND Iraqi casualties.

Let there be peace on earth, and let it begin with me. And you. Happy New Year!

Love from Mrs. L

"Once more my deeper life goes on with more strength as if the banks through which it moves had widened out. Trees and stones seem more like me each day, and the paintings I see seem more seen into: with my senses, as with the birds, I climb into the windy heaven out of the oak, and in the ponds broken off from the blue sky my feeling sinks, as if standing on fishes."

—Rainer Maria Rilke

The Wrong War
By BOB HERBERT
Published: April 19, 2004

But, no matter what you believe, or what your party affiliation, if you are not registered to vote, please, do it! Be part of the democratic process.

Love from Mrs L

Dear Friends,

Greetings from the frigid land of New York City. I don't remember a winter here with quite this level of sustained cold. It takes me twenty minutes just to get my son dressed in the morning. We live in a 19th century brownstone with radiator heat, and I swear you can see your breath in my kitchen some mornings. It is the cause of much bickering between me and my husband, mostly about how to remedy the situation without boarding up all the windows. He doesn't get cold very often. I am cold from September to May. Is this a gender issue? Are couples throughout the entire country arguing about where to set the thermostat lately? I am daydreaming of an island....

I have been a follower of the philosophy of Carl Jung for many years, and I recall something he said about dreams. He thought most people had about five 'big' dreams in their lives. Dreams that are so vivid that you remember them always, and that sometimes indicate a turning point in your life. I had two experiences like that in December--not dreams, but wide-awake events that were so powerful, and so out of time in strange ways, that I can only surmise that they were co=ordinated from the other world, by those I love or those who look out for me.

In early December, I went to Oslo to perform with the Chieftains at the Nobel Peace Prize concert. The Chieftains called me shortly after my father died to invite me, and I was thrilled, but so sad that my dad wasn't alive to know about it, as he would have loved the whole idea. He would have been so proud. A couple of weeks before I left, I learned, through my friends at SOS Children's VIllages here in the US, that there was a tribute concert being planned in Oslo to honor my dad, the evening I was scheduled to arrive. It was to be held at Oslo prison, and twelve Norwegian artists were to perform Johnny Cash songs. The concert was to be filmed and recorded, and any proceeds from sales were to benefit SOS Children's Villages Norway. I was completely bemused by this. I didn't know these Norwegian artists and didn't know if they were singing in English, or how this would all come off. I was startled, however, by the timing. It seemed shockingly synchronous that I would be in Norway on the night of the concert. I had only ever been to Norway once, about seven years ago to play a nightclub, and had no plans to return until the Chieftains called. The publicist at SOS Norway sent an email and asked if I would attend. I said I would.

Visit the Johnny Cash Memorial on the SOS Children's VIllages web site

I arrived in Oslo on December 9th. My plane was late, and I barely had time to shower and change clothes before I was picked up and taken to Oslo prison. I felt as if I had dropped out of linear time and into another world. It was pitch dark at 5 in the afternoon, and there was a thick mist hanging around the massive old stone building of the prison. It was icy cold and the streetlamps were glowing yellow around the entrance. I was taken in to a room full of musicians, all dressed in black, strumming guitars, smoking and pacing off their pre-show jitters. I was introduced around, and then taken to a seat in the auditorium, which was filled to capacity with an audience of prisoners. Then followed one of the most moving and musically transcendent evenings of my life.

These twelve Norwegian artists sang, in perfect English, a sampling of my dad's work, from "I Walk the Line" to "The Man Comes Around". They all obviously revered my father, and they delivered each song with tremendous grace and great musical invention and talent. I was stunned. I cried through the entire two hour performance. Towards the end, I was invited up to say a few words to the audience and the musicians. I could barely speak, I was so moved. What I did say, and what I will always feel, is that I did not expect to fly halfway around the world and find the spirit of my father alive and well at Oslo prison. It gave me so much hope, and filled me with so much pride to know that in any corner of the globe, when I least expect it, I may find my father. His spirit and his work will endure. I have a heart full of love for the community of roots musicians who thrive in Norway, and who sustain the work of Johnny Cash with the utmost respect and artistry. I was so excited when I woke the next morning, thinking of the concert the night before, that I called Rick Rubin (8 am in Oslo, midnight in Los Angeles. I knew he was just getting started on his day.) I told him about the evening in a rush of words, about which songs were performed and the arrangements and the musicians, and all of it. When I took a breath, he said, "BEAUTIFUL! In English? How do we get a copy?" Well, friends, it was recorded, and a CD is going to be released in Norway. I hope in the next few months to be able to provide a link for you to buy it from the distributor there.

And this was before the Nobel concert. It was almost too much to take in. I went to the prize ceremony and saw Shirin Ebadi receive the Nobel award; the first woman from the Muslim world ever to receive this honor. It gave me tremendous hope, that she was the recipient at this particular moment in history. It made me think that we might get through this awful time after all. She is a remarkable woman whose life is under threat every day, and who is ceaseless in her efforts to defend the rights of women and children in Iran.

At the concert, I performed my dad's song 'Forty Shades of Green' with the Chieftains. It was a beautiful and charged performance by them, and I just floated on that energy. I had goosebumps on the top of my head throughout the entire song. It was a remarkable evening. I got to meet the Crown Prince and Princess of Norway, as well as Madame Ebadi. Michael Douglas and I shared reminiscences of the film "A Gunfight", in which our fathers co-starred in the 60's.

I hated to leave Oslo.

But I told you I had TWO experiences, didn't I? I'm counting the Oslo trip as ONE.

Tune into this column in the next couple of weeks to read about my Magic Experience in Scotland.

Love from Mrs L

Dear friends,

Thank you for the tremendous outpouring of sympathy, love and respect for my father and my family. It has been deeply comforting. This has been a painful year for my extended family, to say the least. We lost my Aunt Louise, my father's oldest sister, in April. My stepmother June passed away in May. My daddy died on September 12th. Six weeks later my stepsister Rosey passed away. It has been, as an old friend of mine says, a 'season of loss'.

I am not close to understanding, or accommodating within myself, what these losses mean. I know that deep relationships, like the bond between father and daughter, do not end with death. I know that parents keep teaching us even after they are gone. I know my love for my dad is undiminished, and I sense the reverse is also true. But the physical absence, the emptiness where the voice and the touch and the laugh and the kisses were, is excruciating to behold. In a way I am blessed that I am of the age where many of my friends are also losing their parents, or navigating the illness of a parent, and we provide comfort for each other. I don't know what I would do without my husband and my friends right now. I assumed, wrongly, that human beings knew how to lose their parents, since it is in the natural order of life. I was--am--shocked at how little I actually know about letting go of someone I love so dearly, and whose DNA I carry.

My heart resonates with all of you who have lost a parent, as now I understand the depth of the loss, and the inner re-construction that takes place. I am just beginning that process, and I imagine it is life-long.

I hope you got a chance to see the CMT special of the tribute concert for my dad, which we taped on November 10th at the Ryman auditorium in Nashville. It was so full of his spirit, his dignity, grace and LIFE. I was very proud of the artists, the crew, and the whole show.

God bless you,
Mrs L

June 4, 2003

Dear Friends,

Thank you, thank you for all your cards, emails, letters, prayers and good wishes during this very sad time in my family. I really cannot express how much the outpouring of support and love has meant to me and everyone in my family. We are still reeling from the loss of June, and it will take some time before the reality truly sinks in. Every day has been a revelation for me. It is so odd and bittersweet that you don't really see the fullness of a human being, and what their particular gifts to you have been, until they are on their way out. My understanding of her impact on my life is unfolding in all its subtle layers, and it is breathtaking. If only I could see everyone in my life with the clarity and deep understanding with which I now see June, in her passing.

I have been doing a Carter Family song in my recent concerts, the one I sang to her on her birthday in Virginia. It is one of the more obscure songs, and one which we both loved passionately, called 'The Winding Stream'. I must say that I had to borrow some of her fearlessness in order to perform it, as I am not much of a guitar player and it requires a certain idiosyncratic rhythm that only a Carter could invent or perfect. I have done my best, and it's been a sweet moment in the show.

My heart has been heavy and sometimes unwilling to go out in public, as my strongest impulse has been to withdraw and ponder the feelings and the events in private. I have not really had that opportunity, as I had obligations I could not dismiss. But it has been good for me. I have been so deeply comforted by friends and strangers alike who have offered their love, their own appreciation of this remarkable woman, and their own stories of coping with grief. I am reminded again that the places we meet, on the deepest level, are often provided by the most painful of circumstances, and that in itself is what defines our humanity.

Much love to all

Mrs L