It’s been nearly ten years since the first time I visited the island of Sardinia where I performed with my band, Blame Sally. Situated in the Mediterranean Sea, the island and its people stirred up memories of a childhood summer spent on another Mediterranean
island, Mallorca, my mother’s birthplace. Though one belongs to Italy and the other to Spain, the islands have more in common with each other than they do with their respective mainlands, including their dialects, but more importantly, their island ways: cautious,
suspicious and remote if you are a stranger; warm and generous to a fault once you’ve been defined as friend.

A beautiful visit that woke up a part of me asleep for so long ended with the shock of the Twin Tower bombings and a surreal overnight ferry ride with Tom to the mainland, the two of us trying to glean any bit of information we could from the Italian-language news
shows that ran non-stop on the boat’s big-screen TVs. At the time, I had no idea how our own lives were going to mirror that abbreviated combination of discovery and joy mixed with profound loss and sadness.

I began this album as an homage to the Mediterranean, or more accurately, to the Mediterranean as it lives inside of me – through my Mother and the world she delivered to me by words and by paintings – through my own memories of two islands, two visits separated by 3 decades. But several years ago, my partner Tom was diagnosed with an illness that has changed the trajectory of our lives completely. As a writer I have never tried to control the outcome, I respond to what is, and what is, is complicated: memories, hope, sadness, loss, fear and joy. This album is dedicated to my mother, Pilar, to my late father, Walter, to my sweet Tom, to the late Jane Barrett who inspired “Bird”, and to those “little rocks” in the middle of the Mediterranean Sea, Mallorca and Sardinia.
Monica Pasqual, 2010