Twenty-five years ago we felt compelled to write a book together. Unfortunately, we didn’t have any idea what it was about or why we should even try. But, that certainly didn’t stop us—in fact, the absurd challenge of it all just made us more determined. So, we filled a bag full of old journals and went away to a quiet place where we could start reading them aloud to each other. Day after day we read, talked, laughed, cried and wrote some music. Before long we began to write stories. The two became one and we’re still writing musical stories to this day. The “Musical Book” was born!

Never Sleep (The first song we ever wrote together)

As each month and year passed we found the idea behind the book was continually changing. Now, from the perspective of 2023 we find ourselves looking back at how the ideas actually took shape. In a way, everything we did was backwards. As our ideas shifted, we would just develop a new working title along with images that would clarify our intention and hopefully inspire us further. Always a work in progress, we were literally making it up as we went—naïve to say the least, but the spontaneity and the curious surprises that popped-up as a result were largely why it was so much fun.

The first idea for the book was called “Trencadis” which is a Catalan word for a particular mosaic style created from broken pieces of discarded china and ceramics. The technique was invented by the famous architect Antoní Gaudí in Barcelona. We had visited and studied his projects and were inspired by his ceramic art. For us, it reflected our own situation—two people who had been happily married for 25 years, yet, like most of us, we still had many broken pieces and parts (definitely requiring therapy) that kept us from being our best—important topics that needed to be processed in order to make our union work for the long haul. The internal work was an essential part of our process that had to come first, out of necessity.

We imagined ourselves picking up the various broken pieces and turning them into a beautiful personalized “mosaic” of sorts, integrating the two of us as we moved into a more whole “partnership”—something we had never even considered before. We combined ripped sections of our own masked images, into a patchwork portrait of the newly invented duo—a personified Trencadis mosaic. It was a challenging but critical process that provided a lot of inspiration in the early days of our searching. Doing the work to integrate two very different personalites is no small feat, as we all know.

Within a year, we found ourselves broadening the perspective. Rather than focusing solely on the integrated partnership, we started looking outside ourselves. For the first time, we were questioning what we would actually DO in the world—how we could serve a higher purpose and make a broader contribution. Hmmm. We had already moved far beyond that bag of journals and wondered whether we had possibly reached the end of the journey.

Continuing to use Gaudí’s architecture as metaphor, we shifted our attention from the mosaics to include the intriguing windows of his Colonia Güell Chapel in Barcelona. We had been there several times in the early morning hours of dawn and were inspired by the striking colors cast from the bright glass panes. With integration still in progress, we began writing more about the external expression that was now possible. We called the new expanded vision of the book “Window At Dawn,” to reflect more of an outward orientation—an opening into the world. That mysterious imagery became our new inspiration as we continued to write.

Some months later, the story shifted once again from the “Window At Dawn” into imagining—what if our partnership was literally a building? What would it look like? Rather than seeing ourselves looking out through a window onto a new dawning, we were figuratively forming a complete three-dimensional image to live out of—a “Home” of sorts for the new partnership. We let our imaginations play with what that might look like, rendering a fanciful place of dreams. Those days represented a whimsical freedom of expression, longing to forge a “place in the world” that was truly our own. In addition to being tailored specifically for us, we envisioned that it would also be a freely shared space without  expectations—an unconditional gift to the world.

Several years later, we arrived at our seemingly final view of the project. We called it “Time To Partner.” That name captured all of the evolving  ideas up to that point: 1) partnering within ourselves (individual therapy), 2) partnering with each other (“Trencadis”), and 3) partnering in the world (“Window At Dawn”). We wanted the book to speak of the seamless merging of those three perspectives, moving from deep within ourselves to externally as far as we could reach. However, it appeared as if that ink and paper project wasn’t really the final “book” after all.

Years later we realized that the “book” we had been writing and physically making was actually without an ending.  What? That was a sobering and somewhat confusing notion for us to wrap our heads around. We recall talking about Jack Kerouac’s famous book called “On The Road,” which was more like a scroll than a book—no pages. Rather, it was an endless roll of paper.

That became our new inspiration. We transferred everything to date into a digital format with the ability to just keep adding paragraphs, music, video, art and more. It would be like a spooling of life—pull the “relationship string” and it just keeps on spinning. Of course, we immediately changed the name, calling it “Uncommon Promise,” and that’s where you’re reading this piece of the story today. The format retained all of the original focus on “Partnership,” but also had the global reach we always dreamed about. Everything in one place and without end. Incredible. For us, the “book/site” has become an ongoing evolving reality—done but never done. In effect, the UP site is a digital rendition of that fantasy home we sketched so many years before.

The door remains open. All are invited to come in and sit for a spell where everything is free and conversation is plentiful. Step inside and join us. No matter what stories are being told, you can count on one common thread that runs throughout: PARTNERSHIP/RELATIONSHIP. We make an uncommon promise to never lose sight of the all-important relationships that remain at the heart of this strange shared endeavor. After all, that’s what it’s all about.