The Cloud of Unknowing

I love David Garland. When I lived in Brooklyn, I used to listen to Evening Music every night on WNYC. Now he's on only on the weekends, and I rarely get to hear him.

I delight in the music he chooses, and I always learn something from what he has to say about musicians and compositions. I don't mean I learn facts, I mean I learn about the poetry of music.

I have zero musical training, so I have depended on other people to introduce me to music through their own eclectic tastes and spotty knowledge. If David Garland's playlists are any indication, his taste and sensibility match mine. Since I have so much to learn about music, that connection is a mysterious and precious gift.

Last night I got an e-mail from someone I've been concerned about. His surprising and touching note relieved me.

And lifted me.

I needed to walk around to think. I went downstairs, turned on the radio.

David Garland was interviewing James Blackshaw for his Sunday show, Spinning on Air. As they talked, I peeled cold, wet globs of clothes from the walls of the washing machine, shook them out, and dropped them into to the dryer. I've never heard of James Blackshaw. If I had known about him, though, I would have chosen his 12-string-guitar ragas (don't even know if that's what they are) to articulate how I was feeling.

Someday I'll learn how to upload music, but not today. For now, listen to the show or go to Blackshaw's MySpace page and click on the second song, called "The Cloud of Unknowing." They deserve the hits to their web pages.

"So beautiful," David Garland said on my behalf. "Just the sort of sound I was looking for."