A Thank You to Charlie-Anne Hopkins

Dear Charlie-Anne,

I hope you don't mind if I go on a bit about Impossible Surrender. The photograph has stayed with me ever since I saw it, and I feel compelled to talk about it.

First, I find myself wondering how you chose the title and what surrender looks like to you, and whether you see it differently now than you did when you created the photograph. At the same time, I imagine the photograph holds one meaning for you and another for me, and I guess that's part of its power. For me, it feels like an Intoxicating Surrender!

What do I love about it, other than everything?

For me, the HUGE white flag for one.....and it's not a symbol of defeat. It's a symbol of surrendering the stories I told myself about who I should be. For years, I measured myself against some twisted cultural ideas of success and worried constantly about failing as wife, a mother, a teacher.

The white flag feels like freedom from that. Not giving up, but letting go.

Your relationship with Magpie and the landscape speak to me as well. In middle school, horses were my great love. I knew their smell, their sounds, their loving spirits—forged relationships with Francine, Thunderbolt and Buck. As I grew older, that part of my life faded into the background, but your photograph brought it rushing back. The grassland, the gentle hills, and the mountain on the horizon feel every bit as important as the figure and the flag. Together they awakened something I hadn't felt in years. In an instant, forty years seemed to collapse, and I was reunited with the part of myself that knew its own worth without question, the girl who felt most at home in the company of horses. 

My brother wishes the flag was red, but I love that it's white. When I look at you on that horse, I don't see defeat. I see someone who has laid down a burden and found peace. The image feels strong, defiant, and deeply free.

As I mentioned before, in my own mind, another title for the piece has become Intoxicating Surrender. There is something almost euphoric about finally releasing expectations that no longer serve us.

Thank you for creating this!

Still Smiling,

Cheryl Ray

www.charlieannehopkins.com

Neil Diamond

For 51 Years, I Thought Neil Diamond Was a Serial Killer

This morning, for no reason, Neil Diamond’s “Play Me” was running through my head.

So I played it.

Then I played it again.

And again.

I’ve loved this song since I was about twelve years old. I’m 63 now, which means I’ve been listening to it for roughly 51 years. I’m also an English teacher, a fact that makes what I’m about to admit considerably more embarrassing.

For 51 years, I completely misunderstood the beginning of this song.

In the little movie that has been playing unquestioned in my head since approximately 1975, someone has discovered her dead body beside his bed, and he just rolls over and says: Come take me.

Off to jail he goes.

What’s remarkable is that I never questioned this. I continued listening to what is obviously a beautiful, deeply romantic love song without ever wondering why Neil Diamond had chosen to begin it with a homicide.

This morning, after listening to the song over and over, I finally heard it.

Oh.

It’s “one morning I found her lying beside my bed,” and then he softly says, “come take me.”

Take me.

Not take me into custody.

Take me with you. Take me into your life. Lead me somewhere new.

Suddenly the rest of the song opened up too. The woman has changed the direction of his life. He has chosen another road, one he describes as “thorned and narrow.” And the refrain I have always loved— “come play me”, this idea of one person being the song and the other asking to be played—becomes an act of surrender.

It’s beautiful. It’s also a bit corny. Maybe that’s why I was fine with the murder.

And it only took an English teacher 51 years to figure it out.

I think there’s something wonderful about discovering that a piece of art you have known for most of your life can still surprise you. We hear words through whatever story we first attach to them, and sometimes that story becomes so familiar that we stop hearing the actual words at all.

Then, one morning, we listen again.

I’m writing Neil Diamond a letter.

I feel he deserves to know that for most of my life I have loved his beautiful song while simultaneously believing that it begins with a corpse and a confession.

I’m happy to finally have it straight.

And I think I love the song even more now that I have realized nobody died.

Literally, anyway.

What about you? Is there anything in your life that you have misunderstood until recently?

CLR 2026

These are some very early rocks of mine. Neil Diamond and some women. I wondered, which one did he murder and how did he get away with it? Not really. But these are from 2019 ish. That’s true!