sad songs happen, too

i’ve always enjoyed ‘roses are red’ poems, in my later years especially.  they can pretty much say anything that you need them to say, in a stripped down simple way, like a framed photograph.  the very fact that it’s in a frame makes the morsel in it that much more wise and special.

i have a very special relationship with sad songs, because they are a true joy to write.  the sadder the song, the more satisfying the victory.  and it is a victory.  you have taken something destructive and difficult and turned it into something beautiful, something creative, something forward moving.  you’ve created breath, or, more so, simply allowed the space for it.  

sometimes i wonder if the only true sadness comes from creating nothing.  life is creation; breath is creation.  the very act of creating is nourishing to us, regardless of what we are making.  

it’s trust, it’s surrender to the incredible force that runs through us.  it’s believing that things can change, that things are change (some just go slower than others! :)  it’s taking a chance that you can make something worth having in the world, something that someone, somewhere will find some good in (even if it’s just you :)  

will found some bumper sticker paper in a box the other day and i am quite joyful to anticipate making one that says: 

sad songs happen, too.

and i’m so, so glad they do. 

Thomas Rucker

on a twenty minute commute from work there is only one gas station that’s easy to get to.  i work in a neighborhood that is predominantly black and i enjoy stopping at this one because i’m usually wearing something tye dye under overalls and covered in paint, and i like the interactions i experience.  i’m often called sweetie, and once held the door open for a man coming out who practically scolded me to “get on in here” with an assertive wave of his hand.  

it was about a month ago that i was approached by a young man asking for change.  sixty cents, to be exact.  he said he needed it to buy pencils.  “oh now i’ve heard it all,” i thought.  i didn’t in a million years believe him, but he was polite, and sixty cents--no big deal.  

the next week i was approached by the man again, and as i was getting sixty cents out of my wallet i commented, with a hint of “oh really...” that it was the same amount he asked me for last week....for pencils.  he remembered, and said he had gotten those pencils.  he described them somewhat awkwardly to me, saying he preferred the mechanical ones for his art.  i asked him about his art, and am forever grateful that i did.

he said it wasn’t on him but it was around the corner.  i said i’d love to see it, and said i would wait.  he came back with a collection of drawings unlike anything i’d ever seen.  they were truly remarkable works of art.  the way he described his methods, and seeing how he had gotten from beginning to end, was utterly fascinating.  he was so humble that i was having a hard time believing what i was seeing.

i don’t know Thomas Rucker that well yet.  i stopped by on christmas eve to ask if i could buy a print from him and was grateful that he agreed.  he signed it and everything.  

everyone has a story.  everyone is someone, deeper than circumstance, deeper than the hands they’ve been dealt, and the hands that they hold.  it’s a lesson i’m glad to learn over and over again, until i wonder, with awe and respect, who everybody is.  

who are you?

there is no other life

we were talking about the new year last night, as people do on new year’s eve and we both acknowledged and agreed fully that it’s just another day.  every day is, though every day a new beginning; every moment a new beginning.  

what i continue to learn is that no matter what transformations i go through, no matter how difficult a thing i conquer, no matter how deeply i learn to love and let go, here i am.  i still see with the same eyes, hear with the same ears, speak with the same voice.  my hands don’t change, my face doesn’t change.  not until i look back, over a lifetime of infinite moments and intangible evolution.

i am a flower in bloom, and as petals grow forth from the center they eventually reach the outer rim, and fall silently to the ground.  new ones push forward, through heartache and joy, through certainty and doubt, through winter and spring, through breath and through song.  

we live here and we live now.  there is no other life.   

can life really sometimes be best described by a list of the things around you?  eggnog coffee in my favorite mug, kristin allen-zito's "the atlas"serenading the now empty house, the soft hum of the heater when i should really just put socks on.  my upper body is as sore as it's ever been (except the time i was certain i had a broken rib it hurt so bad) from painting a whole house the last few days with a brush instead of my favorite roller (boss's wishes :)  my mama is on her way to austin as we speak, to embark on a road trip to atlanta, GA where we will learn to be empowered and shape our businesses just the way we want.  but before that happens i need to cut a hole in the wall to hopefully find and fix the leak in the bedroom window frame.  someone's gonna have to do it, so why not me?

i've been wondering lately when i might actually start to feel like an adult.  i know that word can have some negative connotations to it (ha! :) but i mean it in the sense that i will no longer feel like i'm 29 going on fourteen.  fourteen was awkward, and frustrating, and i was anxious to grow up because i thought i'd grow out of it.  ha ha ha....ha.. ha ha......right.  so here i am, training myself to see ME a little differently, because really, i am what i see myself as.  (so THAT'S what the whole "i think, therefore i am" thing really means!)

make everything brand new.  it's hard but possible.  and as long as something is changing, you're going forward.  don't worry about how small the steps might be.  just steer the ship.

i'm off to cut that hole in the wall now.  

i have a song

how did i come to believe that enjoying the spotlight means being self-indulgent?  or that asking for people to listen means both that they didn’t actually want to hear me in the first place and that it’s totally out of the natural flow?  i know people say a lot that they want things but they don’t want to have to ask for them.  i feel that, too, more than i’d like to admit.  because if I ask for something then the pressure is on me to make it turn out well, whereas if it is simply given then i don’t have to be responsible for the results.  what a way to go through life, taking as little responsibility for it as i can!  waiting.....to be discovered, to be lifted, to be convinced that i am seen and heard and appreciated.  because then it’s not me telling the world i’m worth hearing, ‘cause if i tell the world i’m worth hearing then i’m telling the world that i’m good, and humble people don’t tell the world that, and good people don’t have to.  i’m terrified of exuding the characteristics that i don’t care for in others, or worse yet becoming them!  (because of course no one is actually jealous of anyone they “don’t like”..... :)  

somewhere, somehow i know it is possible, and so, so desirable for asking to be heard to be nothing more than acknowledging that i have a song, and, well, songs are meant to be heard.