The Morning, Brilliant Blue

Issue #5 - Late January 2025

Michael Tomlinson

Jan 22, 2025

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In this issue, scroll on down to:

Welcome Letter
Mick Jagger Lady
A Little Birdy Told Me
For Yourself
Summer Day in Mukilteo
My Good Friend Ken
Our First Exclusive Treat for Paid Subscribers

Howdy Mid-January to you,

Usually, it’s easy for me to write about practically anything. I’ll remember some event in my life, a friendship or place I’ve traveled, and I’ll just start writing. After just a few minutes, it surprises me how much I enjoy what is suddenly there on the screen. In this letter I am now sending you, The Morning, Brilliant Blue, I do that sometimes. I also go back to my past for reminders, stories I’ve written and posted online since 2007. That’s a LOT to draw from. If I share some of those with you, I always read again and relive it. Which means that I will give it a rewrite or add something to it that wouldn’t fit the first time I posted it. I love those recollections and really, I marvel at rediscovering something I wrote and love reading it again. Maybe even more than when I first wrote it.

At the core of what I’ve wanted this to be since I first began Brilliant Blue is something that makes your life better. I know that’s a lot to ask, and I’m not assuming I will make some huge difference. But I do believe that sometimes my stories and my songs and my meditations, do leave readers and listeners feeling more hopeful. There is nothing higher I could ever reach for or accomplish than that.

As I told my close friends about this new endeavor, sharing stories with you year-round, I said to them, “I just want people to read through, breathe a little more calmly as they do, laugh a little or smile — but mostly, my wish is for people to know they are loved, to feel that their life still matters and always has, and to feel inspired so that something in my words may spark a desire to create something themselves.”

Creativity is so much more than what we’ve made of the word. Creativity is a desire for something to flow from you which pleases you, which gives you satisfaction, which feels as if it may make a tiny difference — and leaves you feeling you have added to your life. Creativity can come in any and every shape, sound, texture, smell, essence.

You may have a conversation with your neighbor where you are astonished that something you said seemed especially wonderful. That is creativity. You could say something which causes laughter. That is creativity. You could comfort another person by sharing some concept or memory or experience that just leaves you both sighing a little deeper, and grateful that you know each other. These things are all creativity. Alongside painting, playing music, sculpting, drawing, designing, building, repairing, sewing, dancing — at the same level of Creativity is a person feeling the wonder in life and the joy in being alive. Or caring enough to be present with the people you pass. That may be the highest creativity of all, for it sparks something in both of you.

Thank you for reading my words, stories. My memoirs and essays and fictional stories. Here is what I can tell you for sure — I LOVE writing them all. To me, it is love pouring out of my heart into my fingers as I type. And the journey from heart to screen or paper is so rapid that I myself am constantly surprised by what comes out. That’s how I want to write for you. Because that is without judgment or self-censorship. It is allowing. And I love it when I am in a space of Allowing. That’s where all those delights and surprises come out. And ultimately, that is the reason I love writing. I love what I am shown by my own heart and mind. And what I am shown is that there is no limit to my imagination or yours.

I hope you can feel that in each and every issue of The Morning, Brilliant Blue.

Your friend in the wind, Michael Tomlinson

Mick Jagger Lady

I WAS HAVING COFFEE and saw an impressive older lady, impossible to take my eyes away. If you saw her from the back, you could not help but think of Mick Jagger — just about to walk onstage. I know, that’s not what you imagine when describing a woman nearing 90. She was sinewy, lanky, skinny as a string bean. But what a party she was! This woman was the hippest person in the coffee shop.

She wore Lycra pants on the skinniest legs you’ve ever seen. White, with an extravagant floral celebration splattered all over them. It would have been easy to think of her attire as ludicrous. But you just couldn’t, because she had such confidence and character to back it up. Women a decade or two from her age were watching her with fascination. Over those skinny stretch tights, a kind of shiny, draping top sparkled. Jewelry and bangles festooned her here and there. Then slouchy high heeled boots, with faux fur around the tops. Her hair was the birthday cake though — the thing that truly set it all off. A punky little scruff of bright red, mussed with gel, just-so atop her head. There was not a thing accidental about that woman! I could not possibly have been the only human there who was dying to walk over and gently scruff that red hair a little!

It turned out she was there to meet a young woman who’d brought a laptop to show her something and they sat far enough from me that I couldn’t hear the detail of what they were speaking. But I saw the elder woman’s focus and presence and it was surprisingly strong and clear. Because she looked like a rock concert, I was a little surprised about her steady concentration. I kept looking up and she smiled easily and laughed readily with her young friend. She was kind of a wonder, really. I so enjoyed the mystery of her.

A little later an older man came in wearing a fedora. I love this fellow. I’ve seen him before and I always think of two people — Bill Murray and My DAD. Casually dressed, a neat little white mustache. That fedora at the right angle, not jaunty, but placed at a slight tilt by habit of the way his hand left it there. He just seems like the most charitable, friendly older gentleman you could ever imagine. We’ve never passed near enough to each other to talk. In fact, I doubt he’s ever even seen me, but I’ve watched him from twenty feet away a few times when I see him come in. He stands at the counter, chats amiably with whomever is on duty, then leaves with his coffee, smiling, taking his good-willed manner with him to some other lucky establishment.

Because I do so much of my work at home, writing songs, recording, creating meditations, communicating and writing stories on my laptop, for decades I’ve gone regularly to small cafes and coffee shops to be a part of the community. It’s really quite a joy and comfort to me. Sometimes there will be the unexpected wonderful conversation. Always, there will be at least a short friendly exchange and some memorable person to study from afar. Occasionally, like yesterday, I get to see someone walking around as if they have survived this life with surprising grace and humor and kindness and maybe even style. Hey, when you get old and there is enough energy left in you to exhibit a bit o’ style? That’s just pure joy you’re bandying about and I thank you for the inspiration.

The “Mick Jagger Lady,” wow. It must take some kind of powerful life force to be her. I’ll bet even young people look at her, 85 if she’s a day, and think, “I’d like to be that bold and spunky when I’m her age.” That’s kind of how I feel about the “Bill Murray/J.D. Tomlinson Guy” in the fedora, too. I hope I’m a bit like him someday. I do hope it takes me a while, but that would be a good direction to go. ~ Michael Tomlinson

Painting of Bungee by Donna Lange

A Little Birdy Told Me

LAST SPRINGTIME I had an altering experience where time and place shifted for me — for only a millisecond — but it shook me and I was instantly trying to understand what had just happened to me. I’m not completely sure how to describe it, but I’ll give it my best.

It was early afternoon and I’d been getting sleepy and was trying to decide whether to go ride my bike in the sunshine, or take a nap. In limbo between the two choices, my head chose for me. My eyelids closed and my head bowed and then — Bam! —something startling happened. In what seemed to be exactly the moment that I dozed off, I jerked wide awake, as if a loud noise went off. And I sat there shocked and blinking at what I’d seen and felt.

For just a millisecond — which seemed so much longer — I was alive 39 years ago and with my friend Ashley up on Snoqualmie Ridge. We were getting off of the ski lift and she and I were about to take our first run. I was completely startled that in the infinitesimally tiny opening of my mind, that experience had burst into its fullness — as real as today is today.

I knew it was not a memory. That’s partly what was alarming and confusing, because I was experiencing something real — but I had no understanding of how it happened. I sat there trying to hold onto it, the feeling and the excitement and tone of that beautiful day. Though it was only a moment’s burst of sparks, the whole day was there too. As if in that tiny window I could have looked around and seen myself early in the day and coming home that night. The timbre and tone of my life and who I was then shot through me and made me feel what it was like to be laughing and so young again. It left me with a revelation that we ARE still living our lives, even if they seem past.

Wanting to grasp what had happened and to share it immediately before I lost any of it, I reached out and began typing out what you’ve read above. My fingers flying and my heart pounding and my mind reeling, trying to find a way to describe it. And then something else happened . . .

Ten feet away, my kitchen casement window was pushed out at the bottom to let in the flow of spring breezes off of the sea. I caught a glimpse of motion and looked up — a tiny sparrow had flown in and landed on the sill. I stopped typing, my fingers still on the keyboard in my lap, and then the sparrow flew closer, lighting three feet from me on the very corner of a half-wall separating my kitchen from my living room.

I stopped typing and froze. I knew it was some gesture of wonder, related to what had just happened minutes before. The sparrow perched, looked right into my eyes, then quickly around. In an instant, the little bird darted back through the window, where it flew out into the sky. I sat in silence. I knew these were joined experiences. “What is happening?” I asked in my mind. Gradually, I turned my eyes back toward the words I had been typing. I was dazed by it all. Then I had a meaningful thought — where the little sparrow had landed occurred to me. I stood up and looked down upon it — a shiny stone with a beautiful painting upon it of my little dog Bungee who had passed away in 2011. The painted stone was a precious gift to me from a few years back.

I sat back down in my seat, not wanting to move since all this happened. The spark of memory, skiing with a friend. The wondering what that brilliant recollection-turned-reliving was. The visiting birdy. And then the revelation that there was some connection to my little dog who visits me in my dreams even all these years after her passing. Who can say what this all was? I just knew that the explosion of consciousness on a long ago day in the mountains and the little bird lighting upon the stone with a painting of my beloved dog was all connected. It felt like a beautiful gift from the Universe saying, “You’re on a good path.”

So that is what happened. I described it to the best of my ability. Yes, I write with a wild imagination sometimes. This is not that. I wouldn’t do that to you with something like this, because the whole gift of it is somehow connected to our awakening into unlimited wonder. And I want my sparks to inspire sparks for you too.

I would so love to have the experience again of that wonderful day skiing. Or some other day of my “past” which is not really gone. When we are through with these bodies, I have no doubt that it will be possible to relive it all if we wish. But I also would love to experience it now. At least some more tiny micro-seconds of it. I will not be surprised if some of you reading this have experienced that.

I wrote this out of my excitement, but also to help us all remember that we are living in a profoundly heart-and-mind-opening time, when there is much bleed-through between the planes of existence. We don’t have to understand any of it to be open to it and aware that there are gifts and healings and awakenings available to us. Thank you for reading this. I guess I’ll go ride my bicycle now. ~ Michael Tomlinson

For Yourself

There are so many things that we were mis-taught in our childhood that it takes a lifetime to unlearn them. Or to even question that we’ve lived for decades believing something that is not true. Yes, there are too many of these to count, but this one came up for me a couple of months ago, and several times since.

A friend was sharing with me some difficult time she was having. There was confusion and disappointment and maybe even some anger she was experiencing over a situation in the world. I listened quietly to her. “I hope you’re feeling better now.” She replied, “Oh, I was just feeling sorry for myself. I’m sorry.”

Instantly I said something that had never dawned on me before, “So who ever decided it’s wrong to feel sorry for ourselves? That can’t possibly be true.”

She seemed startled to hear me say that. For so long we’ve heard the opposite. I said, “You get to do that sometimes! You feel sorry for yourself because you love YOU and you don’t like it when you’re hurting and in a difficult place. If you felt that for a friend it would be admirable, so why is it not allowed for yourself?” It felt as if a huge sigh of relief had wafted over us, a cool breeze of forgiveness we could both feel.

Why on earth were we taught otherwise? We’re humans in a near-impossibly difficult struggle in a dense place, living in mass confusion in the Third Dimension where emotion is as thick as tar and as volatile as gasoline. That is a part of our condition on Earth. So yes, we may feel sorry for ourselves sometimes. Allow that! I know this; condemning ourselves never made us happier. Never healed us. Never helped us to actually feel love.

Since that day, I’ve shared this a few times. Pretty much any time I hear anyone say, “I’m just feeling sorry for myself.” To which I may reply, “Wonderful! How loving it is for you to allow that.” It always stops the conversation. People get dizzy. We’re just so deeply ingrained with holding ourselves in judgement for everything that somebody long ago decided wasn’t natural or healthy for humans.

I go back to my own boyhood and I can remember being told, “Stop feeling sorry for yourself.” Right along with, “Big boys don’t cry — so buck up and be a man.” “But I’m ten!” I think now, I wish I’d said it. But back then my tears were rising and spilling over and I was doing the opposite of a healthy thing when you’re feeling pain. I was trying as hard as I could NOT to feel it.

It’s all very connected to so many of the things we still believe, false teachings mistakenly taught to us, which we still suffer from. Now, at this point in my life, everything in me says, “You are loved as you are.” When we really feel that, breathe it in and receive the grace of it, we may start to see that we are the ones who imprisoned us. And we are the ones who can set us free to love ourselves and each other — and to help everyone around us see how very wonderful they already are. ~ Michael Tomlinson

Summer Day in Mukilteo

I FOUND THE MOST CALMING, PEACEFUL PLACE IN THE WORLD TODAY. I walked down to the sea from my home around 5:30 this evening and the breeze was cool and the water softly restless. Usually in summertime, there are lots of people coming and going from the two docks by the boat ramp. But today one of the long docks was empty. I walked out about three quarters the way and just laid down. The dock is joined in floating sections so there is a clunky accordion-like up and down to each section, undulating with the water and wind. My back against the surface felt like it was carved for me. I was just going to lie back for a minute, but once I got there it was just so perfect and inviting that I laid there for half an hour, listening to the sloshing water and the dull knocking of the dock against the tall pilings holding its sections in place.

I’ve been out there many times, but I think I hadn’t laid down before because I didn’t want to get walked on or stumbled over by landlubbers. You get wiggly legs when you’re out there a little while and I would have been a dock hazard. There were hardly clouds in the sky; only wispy, feathery ghosts of them up high. I could see a commercial jet that I was certain was headed for Alaska. It didn’t seem like there would be anything else to fly to in that direction. It was so tiny in the sky that there was no noise, and I could only see the faintest outline of it in the late sun. As if it was a plane the size of fine print.

A few times I started to get up and walk back home, but then I was magnetically pulled skin-to-wood, feeling how beautifully grounding it was, lying on the heavy timber which floats upon the ocean. Nothing will ground you to the earth like water. I kept my eyes closed and drifted with the undulation beneath me and listened to kids on the beach laughing and hollering from a ways away. It was much like meditation in that, once you get to the sweet spot, no one needs to encourage you to stick with it. There is just no place you’d rather be. That’s how it was with my back on the warm dock. You’d have thought the surface would be too hot, seared by the sun all day. And it was warm, but the sloshing cold water beneath was wetting that lumber down at the same time the sun was warming it. And the result was the perfect insulation of my thin shirt beneath skin, joining me so nicely to my napping surface.

I did slip near into sleep a time or two. It felt SO good, but I couldn’t trust how long I might sleep if I let that happen. So I finally did get up. I stood and walked a little drunkenly back to shore, shaky from having gotten used to the motion on my back — which my legs weren’t familiar with yet. On shore, I hiked back past the lighthouse and the people in line for ice cream and I turned south and headed up the hill to my place.

An hour and a half later, I’m still feeling peaceful from the experience. Kind of like when you’ve been swimming on a hot day and then later you’re very, very sleepy and slow moving and you know you’re going to sleep very well. I love that feeling. ~ Michael Tomlinson

My Good Friend Ken

As we go through life, we men do not as often make new friends as women do. Sure, there are exceptions, but in general, men hang onto high school and college friends, military friends, friends they work with for as many decades as we can. Somehow, we do not as easily gain new ones. Not like women most often do.

So it was a rare gift to meet Ken Wade 9 years ago at The Grateful Bread Bakery in Seattle. There is a sort of semi-outdoor patio at this bakery and as I’d gotten used to doing in the years when I had my sweet dog Bungee, I sat outside where dogs and myself are welcome. Even in winters I would be bundled up out there with two or three coats swirled around my little pooch. After Bungee became invisible, I still sat outside when I was there. I like it out there.

People from inside would gaze at the crazy fella wearing three coats and sitting out in 29-degree weather to sip coffee and eat quiche and read the paper. That’s when I started talking with Ken. He’d stop by my table and we’d talk and laugh. Then one day he sat down and we started to become friends.

Ken was in his mid-70s, kind of grizzled and gruff and a little cantankerous, even as he had a sparkle in his eyes and smiled and laughed a lot. One day he pulled a poem out of his pocket and asked if he could share it with me. It was fantastic. I asked him to read it again, slower. With cars going down the street and people opening doors and the roar of talking inside, it was not easy to give a poem the attention it deserves, but I did. I’d lean across the table and ask Ken to go a little slower so I could savor the scenes and phrases. In those early days of getting to know him he recited fast, like he’d better get it over with in case it wasn’t very good. No way. His poems were rich with earth, with human folly and love and character and sometimes tragedy.

That next fall I hosted a one day Gathering of Friends Retreat at Camp Long in West Seattle. About fifty folks came from various parts of the country and it was a lovely day of conversations, music, laughter, breathing and people sharing something they’d written if they wished. I had invited Ken to be my guest and asked if he’d like to bring a couple of things to read. He brought a poem and a story about a motorcycle wreck he’d survived several years back.

I will never forget what a pleasure it was to be in a room of fifty hushed people, listening to Ken read his poem and share his story. Others who came shared some things they had written and sometimes, passages from books they loved.

The next week at The Grateful Bread, every time I saw Ken he was writing, on napkins, lunch sacks, whatever he had handy. He would recite to me another poem outside and I’d marvel at the depth of his work. I told my friends I’d met this local guy who was a magnificent poet that nobody had heard. They’d ask what his poetry was like and I’d say, “If you heard one of Ken’s poems, you would swear he had to be Irish — and long dead.” That was my way of saying he stood among the greats.

A few weeks after the Gathering, Ken came outside the cafe to visit with me. I suspected that I’d become someone who people didn’t like to see coming — people who loved Ken. Because Ken Wade was the most popular guy there, usually joining ten or so people who’d push tables together and expected him to join them. Now he was spending more time outside with me at our cold table. He was holding up another napkin of poetry. I was so impressed at his constant creativity — at 75! I asked him about it. Ken said, “Michael, ever since your retreat, I just cannot stop writing! I write on everything.”

That filled me with gratitude. I’d hoped that when all those people at my gathering heard Ken, it would please him to read for others and inspire him to write more. It sure did that.

When Covid busted down the door and we could not go sit even on the cold patio any more for a year, I would call Ken and say, “lets meet up somewhere, I’ve got two camping chairs, just wear something really warm, we’re gonna be there a while.” We’d go to parks and parking lots. If it was raining, we’d pull up cop-style, our cars pointed in different directions and our windows open so we could visit and sip coffee without spreading Covid. Those were some wonderful times and helped us both to get through The Big Pan.

The very weekend before everything was to shut down and people wouldn’t be able to go inside cafes for a while — or for forever, as far as any of us knew — Ken and I met up in Wallingford in Seattle, just up the street from where the famous Guild 45th Theater was. We ordered sandwiches inside and sat out at a table on the sidewalk. That’s when Ken shared something that I never could have expected.

“Michael, I have lots of women friends. And I have a few men friends.” He paused a little, trying to figure out how to say it. “But I’ve just never had a friend like you.”

Is there anything greater you could be given in your life than that? I don’t remember what I said in return, but I understood what he meant. Ken was older than me and came from a different heritage, one where men often competed and didn’t necessarily speak of real things and experiences of living. I knew what he meant. There are plenty of things I have never learned how to do, but I could teach Master courses on Friendship. I don’t know why, except that since I can remember, friends are holy. They are sacred.

Ken was on my guest list for every event I ever put on. My in-person concerts and one-day gatherings and workshops. And then, when I began five years ago to host Breathing/Meditation classes on Zoom, Ken was always on my guest list. Just as I feel with all of my friends, if they show up, they are the greatest gift I could ever offer the people who attend.

Ken befriended almost everyone in those classes. He asked you how you felt, where you were from, what you’d done in life. At the Grateful Bread all the young women who worked there loved Ken and he knew all their stories. He’d stand up leaning over the counter and find out how their lives were. It was one of the most wonderful things I’d ever seen, the way Ken made friends.

He was not always well and ailments were coming more often. I think when he and his wife last went to Ireland he came home very ill. After months of hopeful changes and then bad news, in fall of 2022, Ken learned that he had inoperable cancer. It was a shock. He mostly disappeared, too sick to text or email or talk on the phone. He had once taken a picture of himself wearing a friend’s red beret and he looked so wonderful that I decided to try to find one like that and sent it to him. He sent me a picture of himself in it and it was awful. The beret was flat as a pancake balanced on his head. But what was more stark was the look in his eyes. Ken was seriously about to transition and you could see that clarity in his eyes.

I kept writing him and others did too. Most of us didn’t get to hear back from him again, but Ken saw one of my Breathing class emails I had sent to everyone. I was being humorous and affectionate about our dear friend we all were missing on Zoom.

To my surprise, Ken emailed me, “Michael, I read your email to the class and saw the way you’d described me. I saw “cantankerous” and thought, what? But then I burst out laughing when I realized that I AM cantankerous. Thank you, friend. ~ Ken”

That December I was preparing for my annual Christmas/Holiday concert on Zoom. I had just sung one of my songs in soundcheck and was thrilled with my voice, how it sounded strong and sure. The concert was to start in 30 minutes and I was in a wonderful place. We’d sold 150 tickets, which meant probably 250-300 folks watching and listening around the country.

Twenty minutes before the start of the concert, an email came in. It was from Ken’s wife Miriam. “I’m sorry to tell you that Ken passed today. . . “

At any other concert, in-person anywhere in the country, I’d have shared with my audience what I just learned, allowing them to help me through the night and understand if I was a little shaky in places. But I knew in that audience on Zoom were probably 30-40 people from our classes who loved Ken. And I knew I could not break it to them that way. My friend Barbi, who is based in Colorado and with whom I’ve shared a friendship for 40-something years, does all the admitting at these Zoom concerts, helps me with sound check and so much more. I remember what I said to her just before we opened the “doors” and started admitting people.

“Barbi, I don’t want to have to tell you something, but I have to. I can’t carry it by myself through this concert.” She said to tell her. “Our friend Ken just passed away.”

We were the only ones there who knew that night. I didn’t sing nearly as well as my sound check had promised. Losing Ken took something out of me that night. But that was okay, feeling loss and sadness as I sang Holiday songs. Ken had left this life for another. And he knew he was loved. He knew he was funny as heck. He had a family who loved and adored him and as many people at the Grateful Bread waiting on him to show up almost daily, as any fella could ever ask for.

I will tell you more stories about Ken sometime. And share a poem or two, But right now, this is what I have to share. Ken was wildly creative to the very end of his life. Seeing how happy that made him, how it kept his memory sharp and his life interesting. He inspired so many of us and I hope he inspires you now. ~ Michael Tomlinson