In Christina Blust’s music, the darkest days are illuminated by the sudden flowering of a friend’s amaryllis. Magnolias dream of flowering under the snow. Her accordion conjures the hoodoo of a hurricane- ravaged New Orleans where she once volunteered.
And the cancer that once plagued Blust’s mother and sister — now, thankfully, in remission — is wished away, becoming poppy seeds, a wooden desk or a cotton skirt.
“It just seems to me that, of all the things a group of cells could be, why would it want to become cancer when …