In our house, every sill and shelf and table is a gallery, Maria is the curator, our home a place of art and color and light. Our garden is just beginning to come up, but we buy each other flowers every other day. I got these white tulips at our food co-op, and Maria put them on our bedroom window.

It is a beautiful thing to wake up to.

Today is Aretha Franklin day. We’re going to see Amazing Grace, the legendary concert performed by Franklin at the new Bethel Baptist Church in Watts, Los Angeles in January, 1972.

It took this long for director Alan Eliot and others to struggle through the many legal and other issues to get this documentary made. It is said by music critics to be one of the great musical performances of all time. I’ve cried every time I’ve listened to Franklin’s out of this world version of the great hymn Amazing Grace.

I’ve had the album for some time (it’s also on Apple Music) and it is the most powerful single performance I can recall hearing in my lifetime.

“The effect is ecstatic,” raved Variety, “she sounds like the holiest of trumpets, with every note piercingly bright yet as soft as velvet. Listening to Franklin, you feel like you could ride that voice into the heavens. She’s not just a singe, she’s a human chariot.”

Every word of this review is true.

I almost met Franklin once, I was on a book tour in Milwaukee and she was singing in a nearby casino  – she was plagued all of her life by money and other problems. I went over to say hello and two enormous bodyguards emerged and pushed me against a wall, and almost to the ground.

She did wave at me. I’ve been waiting a long time to see this movie, we’re going later this afternoon. First, I’m going to get some flowers for the Mansion aides who are working on Easter Sunday, brighten up their day a bit.