It’s all about relatives & music this Saturday

I’m looking for relatives, yours and mine, as I practice reading from Sundagger.net and my brand new, upcoming Dreamers into my tape recorder, trying on characters and scenes as if they were dresses, hoping for the perfect ones.

I’ll start with mothers and sons in Sundagger.net. On the first page, Sara McLelland, a mother of a grown son and a teenage daughter, arrives at an Indian sweat lodge. Sara feels at home there. Two Crows, the sweat lodge leader, greets her with the Lakota welcoming words, “Mitakuye Oyasin,” which means “All my relations.” This speaks to Sara. She feels comfort that we are all relatives and send prayers for her son, Dan, who is traveling in the Middle East in the wake of terrorist threats after 9/11.

I could read a scene about mothers and daughters too. I’m thinking of when Sara takes her teenage daughter, Elana, on a weekend trip. In a swimming pool on the beach in Southern California, Sara learns more about her daughter and herself than she is prepared for, seeing Elana in a new and vulnerable way.

And I have to read from Dreamers, a dangerous romance of the ’60s. It’s full of relatives. I’ll begin with the Prologue. Annie sits in the Pittsburgh airport waiting for her long lost love to come through the Arrivals gate, reconnecting with herself, her memories and especially her father.

I must include birthdays too–My last selection will be when Annie gives her father a present on his birthday, the same day as Mozart’s, and shares some news Dad welcomes without having any idea what it really means.

There’s so much to choose from–So many relatives! So much music!  What a night.