so i guess that is a good place to start...with the end of my final reflection paper for the semester...which led to a moment out in the woods with the djembe that rocked my world...more on that when papers are done...
...I began to sense in myself a glimmer of the force and presence that I would like to have the courage to bring with me wherever I go. It would not always look like confrontation, in fact it may more often be the courage of restraint and resolution, it is simply the courage to be what the moment requires whenever possible. It will rarely look the same way twice, the answers will often feel a little like questions, and the road where these questions and answers live is one we will always be traveling on.
It was here I recognized that the nature of this season of integrating the work, and the girl, and the world, the one I have recently entered, is directly connected to my struggle in this semester to find a flowing rhythm, to find my space in the group, and my place in my work.
My shape is changing so my space is shifting, my worlds are colliding and so my place is emerging, my song has new verses and so the rhythm is changing.
The time has come for me to beat my drum.
Tuesday, December 14, 2010
Thursday, July 8, 2010
yesterday marked a year since my cranky little rosetaina went from being a living and breathing part of my life that i missed every moment i wasn't with her to an idea and a memory that i miss every moment i am not with her. more time has passed since she died than i spent with her while she was alive. i have spent more time with the bird sketches and trinkets i have created and gathered to remember her by than i did with this precious creature herself. yet even as she becomes less and less a physical reality and more and more a collection of memories, images, and sensations in my mind and my body the bigger the space in my heart for her seems to feel. she grows into a bigger and bigger part of my life, part of who i am becoming...even as our moments together become a smaller and smaller percentage of the live i have lived. she died without knowing any words, but she speaks into every part of my life. she never learned to walk, but she always seems to go with me. i understand her death ended her suffering but it started a pain in me that i am still at a loss to understand. a year later i can look back and see how much my life has changed for the better because of knowing her, even because of losing her...but in the moment, any given moment she comes to mind and heart, i find myself with a hole there that no amount of purpose or understanding will ever sufficiently fill. last night i realized i have tried to fill it with a lot of that, and a lot of other things too. someone very wise told me the day she died that hurt and sorrow carve out space in our hearts for greater love.
i believed her.
while i packed that hole in the year since with reasons and everything else i could find, i waited for that love to grow in.
it didn't.
and if anything it felt like the love i already had was leaking out through the space and for all the clutter i was stuffing into my heart, it was emptier than ever. but that beautiful spirit who braved it with me as i first waded through the new waters of this ocean of loss wasn't wrong. she just didn't tell me the whole truth. she couldn't have then. i wouldn't have been able to hear. but as i walked the spaces of my heart last night, examining on this anniversary how my life has continually remodeled them i found it for myself. the sorrow created the space, and love is definitely the only thing that can fill it - because it is the only thing that makes me miss her this way, that makes me glad i knew her, and glad she threw up down my shirt so many times, and glad she preferred my chest to any pillow, and happy to do everything with one arm because she was in the other, and that makes those few months seem like a lifetime. a really big crazy abandoned humiliating supernatural love is the only thing that fits the shape of her in my heart. but it was me who supposed to fill that new space with that greater love. and since she left that space the girl who wasn't afraid of anything and who had happily devoted her life to loving has been afraid of that kind of love. not only did that require me to go against my very nature, it invited the destruction and confusion that always accompanies fear.
no wonder i have been such a disaster this year.
yesterday was the anniversary of her death and the day that would have been her 3rd birthday is just days away. i can't think of a better way to celebrate her life than to do something with all this revelation.
so now, like almost always...the answer to all my problems comes down to rejecting fear and embracing love.
i guess i'd better get right on it.
i believed her.
while i packed that hole in the year since with reasons and everything else i could find, i waited for that love to grow in.
it didn't.
and if anything it felt like the love i already had was leaking out through the space and for all the clutter i was stuffing into my heart, it was emptier than ever. but that beautiful spirit who braved it with me as i first waded through the new waters of this ocean of loss wasn't wrong. she just didn't tell me the whole truth. she couldn't have then. i wouldn't have been able to hear. but as i walked the spaces of my heart last night, examining on this anniversary how my life has continually remodeled them i found it for myself. the sorrow created the space, and love is definitely the only thing that can fill it - because it is the only thing that makes me miss her this way, that makes me glad i knew her, and glad she threw up down my shirt so many times, and glad she preferred my chest to any pillow, and happy to do everything with one arm because she was in the other, and that makes those few months seem like a lifetime. a really big crazy abandoned humiliating supernatural love is the only thing that fits the shape of her in my heart. but it was me who supposed to fill that new space with that greater love. and since she left that space the girl who wasn't afraid of anything and who had happily devoted her life to loving has been afraid of that kind of love. not only did that require me to go against my very nature, it invited the destruction and confusion that always accompanies fear.
no wonder i have been such a disaster this year.
yesterday was the anniversary of her death and the day that would have been her 3rd birthday is just days away. i can't think of a better way to celebrate her life than to do something with all this revelation.
so now, like almost always...the answer to all my problems comes down to rejecting fear and embracing love.
i guess i'd better get right on it.
Saturday, July 3, 2010
so what now francis?
this summer i spent a few weeks visiting my sister in her new place out in the collection of mud and tarps and tin and thatch and concrete that houses the love and the life that is jubilee blanc. i think we had internet maybe twice during the trip...
but the real reason that we didn't upload pictures and statuses or post blogs is that each moment there demands to be lived in a way that just doesn't allow for the commentary we have become accustomed to here...
in fact...i was inexplicably sick for much of the trip and i am starting to understand that my body was not reacting to germs or conditions...i have faced all that before without such debilitating effects. it was the overwhelming truth of that place and that life that i think my body no more knew what to do with than my heart does. the unrelenting and overwhelming rawness of life i am always confronted with in jubilee...that rawness that can at once be both essential and unthinkable...beautiful and awful...so real and surreal... it is somehow both the reality my heart and body crave but also the truth that is often more than one heart...and one body...can even hold.
i used to say there were two kinds of hippies in the world, the ones who went out and just lived in the woods cause things are bad...and the ones who wouldn't go and just live out in the woods yet cause things are bad...i probably never admitted judging the first kind, probably stopped with how much i didn't UNDERSTAND them. i thought they were all hiding from the truth, giving up, but the more of the world i actually get out and touch, and let touch me, the less i judge, the more i understand, and the closer i get to eating all my words and hauling ass to the woods before i do any more harm than has already been done by would-be world savers before me.
changing the world is hard. and the more intimately you try to know the world, the harder it gets. and forget whether we are capable or not, whether we have enough faith or not, whether we want to or not...what even needs changing...and how much of it is actually out in the world and how much is in our own hearts?
some of those people who i thought were hiding really are...but some of them have have been brave enough to get out and take this look inside and do something with what they found.
i love the ideas of change, about how beautifully simple it can be, about how we can empower and be empowered, about how changing our own world can change the world of everyone who knows us which changes their little worlds which changes the world of everyone who knows them and so on...these lovely swirly ever growing bubbles of truth and goodness and light annoying enough for a coke commercial that i would hate about changing the world. i love believing in change and in truth and rightness. i love sharing that. i love hacking away at my life to make it look more and more like a life that could change the world. i love discovering how much doesn't actually need to change...the unbelievable amount of good and right that only need be returned to or nurtured, brought to light, given space, and invited to grow.
but i talk too much, and even when i am living it, i get sick of how much i talk about it sometimes.
this month i visited my sister in jubilee. she doesn't talk very much. you won't hear her talk much about change, and certainly not about bubbles of goodness and light, but if you are smart enough to shut up a minute and follow her around you will hear something amazing.
the sound of the world quietly being changed.
i would love to say that i was this smart...but it was probably only the fever and fatigue that kept me quiet enough to hear...
everything about lala's life in jubilee screams love and truth and honor and jesus. the way she teaches phonics, the way she pays kids to pick up trash, the way she makes them do it some days for free. the ways she gives out pop tarts, the way she cleans a wound or lances an abcess, the way she eats, the way she doesn't eat, the way she hangs out, the way she gets mad, the way she problem solves, the way she bathes in a bucket on the porch, the way she poops in a hole in the ground...the way she does everything she does honors both the goodness in the life of jubilee that existed before she got there and the potential that exists yet unused in every soul she meets. it says a humble yes to all that is right and good about life there, all that we could learn from that place and the people in it, and a bold and unwavering no to evil and to fear and to everything that is the enemy of hope. she isn't worrying herself with every detail, she isn't agonizing over politics or theology, she isn't wasting time being annoyed with everything that is wrong with...well everything...she isn't thinking about changing things with her life, she is just living her life in a way that changes things.
she says she wouldn't be where she is and doing what she is doing if it weren't for me...and i believe her. at least i believe what she means by this, but i know she could have gotten there in other ways. lots of other people would have believed in her even if i hadn't. but i did, and i am louder than lots of other people...and we have shared a bathroom for most of our lives so i have been around more than lots of other people. but student has most definitely become teacher and little sister has gotten awfully big (yes lala, i am calling you fat :)
she has gone out and just started doing everything she claims i taught her...the stuff i have been learning too much to remember how to just do...watching her reminded me that if i don't feel equipped or fulfilled doing all that analyzing...its probably because it is someone else's calling.
i have been home a while. well, i have spent time in several places i call home since i left hers in jubilee. this summer has given me the courage and the humiliy to go back into the woods a while, my woods anyway, and finish that long look inside i started last year. my body has largely healed, though that "not quite right yet-ness" that comes after illness still lingers...i suspect its source is in my heart maybe as much as in my lymph nodes...so it has been slowly that i get back in tune with the beautiful, crazy, terrible, wonderful noise of the lives i have chosen here on this side of things. all the while, one sound still rings in my ears and i hope i will keep everything else harmonized to it...
...the sound of the world quietly being changed.
i love you lala...more than djeff loves your boots.
but the real reason that we didn't upload pictures and statuses or post blogs is that each moment there demands to be lived in a way that just doesn't allow for the commentary we have become accustomed to here...
in fact...i was inexplicably sick for much of the trip and i am starting to understand that my body was not reacting to germs or conditions...i have faced all that before without such debilitating effects. it was the overwhelming truth of that place and that life that i think my body no more knew what to do with than my heart does. the unrelenting and overwhelming rawness of life i am always confronted with in jubilee...that rawness that can at once be both essential and unthinkable...beautiful and awful...so real and surreal... it is somehow both the reality my heart and body crave but also the truth that is often more than one heart...and one body...can even hold.
i used to say there were two kinds of hippies in the world, the ones who went out and just lived in the woods cause things are bad...and the ones who wouldn't go and just live out in the woods yet cause things are bad...i probably never admitted judging the first kind, probably stopped with how much i didn't UNDERSTAND them. i thought they were all hiding from the truth, giving up, but the more of the world i actually get out and touch, and let touch me, the less i judge, the more i understand, and the closer i get to eating all my words and hauling ass to the woods before i do any more harm than has already been done by would-be world savers before me.
changing the world is hard. and the more intimately you try to know the world, the harder it gets. and forget whether we are capable or not, whether we have enough faith or not, whether we want to or not...what even needs changing...and how much of it is actually out in the world and how much is in our own hearts?
some of those people who i thought were hiding really are...but some of them have have been brave enough to get out and take this look inside and do something with what they found.
i love the ideas of change, about how beautifully simple it can be, about how we can empower and be empowered, about how changing our own world can change the world of everyone who knows us which changes their little worlds which changes the world of everyone who knows them and so on...these lovely swirly ever growing bubbles of truth and goodness and light annoying enough for a coke commercial that i would hate about changing the world. i love believing in change and in truth and rightness. i love sharing that. i love hacking away at my life to make it look more and more like a life that could change the world. i love discovering how much doesn't actually need to change...the unbelievable amount of good and right that only need be returned to or nurtured, brought to light, given space, and invited to grow.
but i talk too much, and even when i am living it, i get sick of how much i talk about it sometimes.
this month i visited my sister in jubilee. she doesn't talk very much. you won't hear her talk much about change, and certainly not about bubbles of goodness and light, but if you are smart enough to shut up a minute and follow her around you will hear something amazing.
the sound of the world quietly being changed.
i would love to say that i was this smart...but it was probably only the fever and fatigue that kept me quiet enough to hear...
everything about lala's life in jubilee screams love and truth and honor and jesus. the way she teaches phonics, the way she pays kids to pick up trash, the way she makes them do it some days for free. the ways she gives out pop tarts, the way she cleans a wound or lances an abcess, the way she eats, the way she doesn't eat, the way she hangs out, the way she gets mad, the way she problem solves, the way she bathes in a bucket on the porch, the way she poops in a hole in the ground...the way she does everything she does honors both the goodness in the life of jubilee that existed before she got there and the potential that exists yet unused in every soul she meets. it says a humble yes to all that is right and good about life there, all that we could learn from that place and the people in it, and a bold and unwavering no to evil and to fear and to everything that is the enemy of hope. she isn't worrying herself with every detail, she isn't agonizing over politics or theology, she isn't wasting time being annoyed with everything that is wrong with...well everything...she isn't thinking about changing things with her life, she is just living her life in a way that changes things.
she says she wouldn't be where she is and doing what she is doing if it weren't for me...and i believe her. at least i believe what she means by this, but i know she could have gotten there in other ways. lots of other people would have believed in her even if i hadn't. but i did, and i am louder than lots of other people...and we have shared a bathroom for most of our lives so i have been around more than lots of other people. but student has most definitely become teacher and little sister has gotten awfully big (yes lala, i am calling you fat :)
she has gone out and just started doing everything she claims i taught her...the stuff i have been learning too much to remember how to just do...watching her reminded me that if i don't feel equipped or fulfilled doing all that analyzing...its probably because it is someone else's calling.
i have been home a while. well, i have spent time in several places i call home since i left hers in jubilee. this summer has given me the courage and the humiliy to go back into the woods a while, my woods anyway, and finish that long look inside i started last year. my body has largely healed, though that "not quite right yet-ness" that comes after illness still lingers...i suspect its source is in my heart maybe as much as in my lymph nodes...so it has been slowly that i get back in tune with the beautiful, crazy, terrible, wonderful noise of the lives i have chosen here on this side of things. all the while, one sound still rings in my ears and i hope i will keep everything else harmonized to it...
...the sound of the world quietly being changed.
i love you lala...more than djeff loves your boots.
Sunday, May 23, 2010
eating utensils for thought
i read a story today in a book about group psychotherapy that described a man's imagined tour of heaven and hell...they were two rooms that looked exactly the same....people sitting at a table around an abundant meal each holding really long handled spoons...
in hell the people were starving and despondent, able to reach the pot with their spoons but unable to reach their mouths...
in heaven the people were happy and well fed, joyously enjoying the meal and one another...they had learned to use their spoons to feed one another...
what if heaven and hell aren't dichotomous points on some supernatural map but what happens depending on how we interact with who and what is wherever we are? what if they are just created by what we do with our spoons?
and what if god did not designate these eternal destinations? what if he just created us...and the meal...and the spoons?
in hell the people were starving and despondent, able to reach the pot with their spoons but unable to reach their mouths...
in heaven the people were happy and well fed, joyously enjoying the meal and one another...they had learned to use their spoons to feed one another...
what if heaven and hell aren't dichotomous points on some supernatural map but what happens depending on how we interact with who and what is wherever we are? what if they are just created by what we do with our spoons?
and what if god did not designate these eternal destinations? what if he just created us...and the meal...and the spoons?
Saturday, May 22, 2010
its like that grab bag at the dollar store,..you aren't sure what the point is but there is all kinds of stuff in there...
yesterday someone told me that her hair started growing curlier after her second child and my response was "maybe i should have another kid"...like i had already had one....which was weird because i haven't physically had one...it was so striking to realize that even on a body level i feel like a woman who has had a child and lost her...the importance of the time i spent with her and the connection and memories i have with her actually override my knowledge of my body and experiences...im like a walking dance movement therapy thesis...and i miss her.
i have secured a clinical counseling internship for the fall semester at an alternative high school program in keene. i am really excited about it, i feel like i am going to learn a lot and enjoy it too...for those of you who have been awaare of the process...the way it has come about has also reminded me that my way of doing things can be different from someone else's without either of us being wrong...what would be wrong would be for either of us to try to change our way simply because of the difference....i don't do things the way a lot of people do, especially other graduate school students...this shouldn't have been a surprise :) but instead of seeing the value in my way and allowing it to serve me in a new set of circumstances i wasted some time trying to assume a whole new way and being frustrated that it wasn't working. this internship process really brought me out of that sillyness and back into doing life the way i do it best...that is feeling pretty darn great...
i have found my inner beyonce...and i have to admit we get along better than i thought we would.
i have booked a place ticket to be in haiti for the month of june...well most of it...and i discovered i am much better at being present in this world when i have a ticket to that world in my back pocket (read email inbox - we all know no one gets tickets anymore and that there is a good chance i am not wearing any pants)waiting for me. interesting.
i told someone about my work in haiti. he offered me his ak47 as the best solution. i didn't kill him. i didn't mame him. i didn't even raise my voice. in fact, i didn't engage him at all. i think i have reached some new plane of consciousness. take that mama T.
(that last part is for nancy who will unfortunately probably not read this - no actual disrespect was paid to mother teresa during the writing of this blog.)
i start the great migration on monday....i am super excited to get back to ga...new england is a great experience but the south is home...
this whole grad school thing was supposed to be a journey of self discovery...and the first thing i discovered is that while it is super hard...a sure fire way to find your truest self is to get good and lost first...and i succeeded brilliantly...i think i am turning a corner in that maze and i like where i am headed. for everyone who has walked along me at some point, or who i might meet on the miles ahead...thank you and bless you for wisdom, grace, truth, honor, and love...i have received much and i am always open to more...may i repay every kindness in how i live every moment i am given.
i have secured a clinical counseling internship for the fall semester at an alternative high school program in keene. i am really excited about it, i feel like i am going to learn a lot and enjoy it too...for those of you who have been awaare of the process...the way it has come about has also reminded me that my way of doing things can be different from someone else's without either of us being wrong...what would be wrong would be for either of us to try to change our way simply because of the difference....i don't do things the way a lot of people do, especially other graduate school students...this shouldn't have been a surprise :) but instead of seeing the value in my way and allowing it to serve me in a new set of circumstances i wasted some time trying to assume a whole new way and being frustrated that it wasn't working. this internship process really brought me out of that sillyness and back into doing life the way i do it best...that is feeling pretty darn great...
i have found my inner beyonce...and i have to admit we get along better than i thought we would.
i have booked a place ticket to be in haiti for the month of june...well most of it...and i discovered i am much better at being present in this world when i have a ticket to that world in my back pocket (read email inbox - we all know no one gets tickets anymore and that there is a good chance i am not wearing any pants)waiting for me. interesting.
i told someone about my work in haiti. he offered me his ak47 as the best solution. i didn't kill him. i didn't mame him. i didn't even raise my voice. in fact, i didn't engage him at all. i think i have reached some new plane of consciousness. take that mama T.
(that last part is for nancy who will unfortunately probably not read this - no actual disrespect was paid to mother teresa during the writing of this blog.)
i start the great migration on monday....i am super excited to get back to ga...new england is a great experience but the south is home...
this whole grad school thing was supposed to be a journey of self discovery...and the first thing i discovered is that while it is super hard...a sure fire way to find your truest self is to get good and lost first...and i succeeded brilliantly...i think i am turning a corner in that maze and i like where i am headed. for everyone who has walked along me at some point, or who i might meet on the miles ahead...thank you and bless you for wisdom, grace, truth, honor, and love...i have received much and i am always open to more...may i repay every kindness in how i live every moment i am given.
Tuesday, March 30, 2010
spring cleaning
my room mate has discovered a genius way to clean our floor...she blows the scented bubbles left over from our most recent parade and once they land on the floor luke licks them up. its working great and his breath has never been better. i just have one concern, luke just turned 5 yesterday...what are the laws about child labor and how to they translate to the canine community? he is already doing our dishes and bouncing most of our parties. he also does a little modeling on the side. i want to make sure we aren't exceeding his allowed work hours for the week. maybe there is some kind of form i should fill out?
Sunday, March 28, 2010
baggage...and claims...and the stuff we carry
so over spring break i did what all wild and crazy grad students do...i headed down to haiti for my share of earthquake dust and 7 nights in the way more than five star starlite motel...the rating scale of course being how many stars you can see from your bed - or your bath. anyway, as per usual when heading to my beloved ayiti, i put everything i didn't want to lose into my purse and carry on and then covered them the chosen duct tape of the trip...in this case red. since my bag was on its last seams, it even got an extra dose of this wonderful identifying adhesive...
my bag and i both made it into beautiful haiti...just not together. i would find out later that we both made it out of haiti too, again, just not together. for all that i saw and felt, all that happened, all that i experienced with people i love so much in this nation that i love so much that has just been through so much...this dumb bag somehow remained a focal point. that was really annoying to me, even as i would mention it i was wondering why - it wasn't nearly as important to me as any 50 other things happening at any given moment there...or as any 50 other things i could have been telling someone who asked about my trip. even now i am kind of annoyed that this is the first blog about the trip that i feel i have to write. but for some reason, in this bag was more than cheese for dorothy and chocolate for keziah...more than martha's pantaloons and all the underwear i own (with one notable exception of course :). i have gotten so much stuff out of it even though i never actually unpacked it...as a lost bag it carried so much of what i needed to remember about haiti right now and so much of what i needed to realize about myself right now...talk about a heavy load...good thing i lost it before it became such a metaphor...i would never have been able to lift it.
my bag and i both made it into beautiful haiti...just not together. i would find out later that we both made it out of haiti too, again, just not together. for all that i saw and felt, all that happened, all that i experienced with people i love so much in this nation that i love so much that has just been through so much...this dumb bag somehow remained a focal point. that was really annoying to me, even as i would mention it i was wondering why - it wasn't nearly as important to me as any 50 other things happening at any given moment there...or as any 50 other things i could have been telling someone who asked about my trip. even now i am kind of annoyed that this is the first blog about the trip that i feel i have to write. but for some reason, in this bag was more than cheese for dorothy and chocolate for keziah...more than martha's pantaloons and all the underwear i own (with one notable exception of course :). i have gotten so much stuff out of it even though i never actually unpacked it...as a lost bag it carried so much of what i needed to remember about haiti right now and so much of what i needed to realize about myself right now...talk about a heavy load...good thing i lost it before it became such a metaphor...i would never have been able to lift it.
Sunday, March 7, 2010
Saturday, March 6, 2010
Tuesday, February 9, 2010
"i always have a pile" -carrie loucks
so its been one month and four days since i last put keys to screen here...an important trip to haiti, a humiliating end to what i believed was a special relationship, a holiday crisis intervention, an earthquake, a difficult journey back to school, a birthday adventure...all things i have managed NOT to write about...and now i sit dwarfed by this pile of words in my head that would have to be sorted and stacked and sealed together with commas and "dot dot dots" to even begin to try to construct my experiences and thoughts here in a way that might be of use for the greater good. maybe it is because i have talked about them too much to no real avail, maybe it is because i have been sitting with my own stuff too long to be motivated to devote any more creative energy to it, maybe i am just lazy...but when i imagine building that tower of words it feels about as useful as stacking up all the bricks that have fallen in haiti during this month that has gone by...they will be all together but still a mess...and still in the way....and nothing new will have been created...but tonight i had new thoughts that i did get excited about exploring...that pile of words just seemed to be in the way, even before i sat down to write...now that i have made a path around it i am going to leave the pile where it lays...for now...you never know...and the birthday adventure is a pretty good story...the birthday miracles just keep comin...thanks for the new shoes state radio :)
as for these new thoughts...
i was sitting in an african dance class...i just realized how backwards that sounds...to be sitting in an african dance class...but i was...just taking a break to witness (and breathe...i am thirty you know now...hehe...and just a little sickly this week)...anyway...there were three men all drumming in a row on nearly identical djembes and i noticed the most interesting thing...
...the youngest and newest member of the group sat with a straight back and played his drum solidly and almost formally, like they were strangers. it seemed each stroke was a risk or an offering to the drum, to see what the drum might do with it..
...on the other end a white haired man played his drum more comfortably, like and old friend. it seemed he wasn't so much playing the drum as the drum and his hands were having a conversation...
...but the man in the center. he didn't play his drum at all...he moved with the drum, and the drum with him, like it was part of his own body. as he played there was so separation between his movements and the movements of the instrument or the sound it made...he was not putting rhythms onto the drum but seemed to move through the drum, drawing out of it a rhythm as naturally as taking a breath..and letting it draw rhythm from him just as easily...
watching these men and dancing to the music they created showed me something beautiful and powerful...there is so much there i won't begin to try just yet...it was a picture so big i am still taking it in...
as if that were not enough...
on the way home i turned up the radio just in time to hear michael stipe singing "its the end of the world as we know it, and i feel fine"...and i had the weirdest reaction...i immediately saw haitians standing all over the capitol and countryside singing this at the top of their lungs...in english...with R.E.M. backing them up...i told you it was weird. it gets better...as they sang i realized that all the crumbled buildings had melted into fresh clay. i had this childlike urge to dig into that clay and help to shape it into something fun and wonderful before it dried in the shapes of the former buildings...
i would be the last person on earth to want to say anything that even hints at diminishing the pain and loss of what is going on in that nation that i love so much...to those people i love so much...so it is with some caution that i say that in that moment i realized that i have more hopeful and excited thoughts than ones of despair or sadness as i thought of my beloved haiti tonight...right now haiti is experienceing devastation and suffering that can never be measured. it will never be the same...in many ways that is heartbreaking. but in others, i feel way more than fine about the idea that things might never be the same. i would be more than fine with an end to power systems based on fear instead of fairness, an end to poverty rooted in poor choices by foreigners made centuries ago, an end to struggles of fellow humans being ignored simply because those humans have nothing we want, an end to cycles repeating because education it unavailable to the next generation. if we are talking about the end of that world, i do feel fine. doors have been opened and systems have been challenged, and the world has been changed because of those 40 unimaginable seconds. i would love to the many evidences we have seen of strength, love, creativity and resilience have wide berth to grow and flourish and become "the norm." and this is not just about haiti. be it earthquakes or recessions...revivals or revolutions....i think things are happening all over right now that might feel like the end of the world as we know it...what if that is the beginning of a world like we never dreamed...these struggles are revealing a goodness that we didn't know or remember...what if there is room being made for more beauty and more harmony and more love than we would have ever anticipated possible in the world as we know it? just. what. if.
as for these new thoughts...
i was sitting in an african dance class...i just realized how backwards that sounds...to be sitting in an african dance class...but i was...just taking a break to witness (and breathe...i am thirty you know now...hehe...and just a little sickly this week)...anyway...there were three men all drumming in a row on nearly identical djembes and i noticed the most interesting thing...
...the youngest and newest member of the group sat with a straight back and played his drum solidly and almost formally, like they were strangers. it seemed each stroke was a risk or an offering to the drum, to see what the drum might do with it..
...on the other end a white haired man played his drum more comfortably, like and old friend. it seemed he wasn't so much playing the drum as the drum and his hands were having a conversation...
...but the man in the center. he didn't play his drum at all...he moved with the drum, and the drum with him, like it was part of his own body. as he played there was so separation between his movements and the movements of the instrument or the sound it made...he was not putting rhythms onto the drum but seemed to move through the drum, drawing out of it a rhythm as naturally as taking a breath..and letting it draw rhythm from him just as easily...
watching these men and dancing to the music they created showed me something beautiful and powerful...there is so much there i won't begin to try just yet...it was a picture so big i am still taking it in...
as if that were not enough...
on the way home i turned up the radio just in time to hear michael stipe singing "its the end of the world as we know it, and i feel fine"...and i had the weirdest reaction...i immediately saw haitians standing all over the capitol and countryside singing this at the top of their lungs...in english...with R.E.M. backing them up...i told you it was weird. it gets better...as they sang i realized that all the crumbled buildings had melted into fresh clay. i had this childlike urge to dig into that clay and help to shape it into something fun and wonderful before it dried in the shapes of the former buildings...
i would be the last person on earth to want to say anything that even hints at diminishing the pain and loss of what is going on in that nation that i love so much...to those people i love so much...so it is with some caution that i say that in that moment i realized that i have more hopeful and excited thoughts than ones of despair or sadness as i thought of my beloved haiti tonight...right now haiti is experienceing devastation and suffering that can never be measured. it will never be the same...in many ways that is heartbreaking. but in others, i feel way more than fine about the idea that things might never be the same. i would be more than fine with an end to power systems based on fear instead of fairness, an end to poverty rooted in poor choices by foreigners made centuries ago, an end to struggles of fellow humans being ignored simply because those humans have nothing we want, an end to cycles repeating because education it unavailable to the next generation. if we are talking about the end of that world, i do feel fine. doors have been opened and systems have been challenged, and the world has been changed because of those 40 unimaginable seconds. i would love to the many evidences we have seen of strength, love, creativity and resilience have wide berth to grow and flourish and become "the norm." and this is not just about haiti. be it earthquakes or recessions...revivals or revolutions....i think things are happening all over right now that might feel like the end of the world as we know it...what if that is the beginning of a world like we never dreamed...these struggles are revealing a goodness that we didn't know or remember...what if there is room being made for more beauty and more harmony and more love than we would have ever anticipated possible in the world as we know it? just. what. if.
Wednesday, January 6, 2010
new year...old canvases
i could talk about 2009 so many different ways...part of me is astounded that it has been a year since my amazing surprise party 20 days before the big day and the other part of me feels like a lifetime has gone by in these last 365 days...both the not good and good of this year have been pretty heavy and there is just so much there...frankly i am relieved to welcome 2010 if for no other reason than to start fresh and breathe a little...i am actually super psyched to turn 30 oddly enough... something about it just seems like a great idea...i don't think i am very good at being twenty something anymore so i guess it is time...anyway...i feel like a year that has been so much deserves some attention but at the same time i feel a desperate need to look ahead right now and not back...so this is kind of a slippery slope for me...but before i can go forward i did have to go back to that party this time last year...to something about 2009 that is going to be really important in 2010and probably every year after...the night i first put paint to canvas.
god told me to paint around the time he told me about what i could do with dance if i wanted to...and about the time he told me i could go to haiti...i don't have a lot of fears...but blank canvas scared me...or at least intimidated me...
i am the kind of girl who loves to take whatever junk is already laying around and fix up a room but has no ability for interior design when the palette is mine to create...i could color inside or outside the lines with great flare but something about the openness and freedom of new white canvas stopped me short. but the thing in me is a new thing...not like anything i am going to find in the world already...and if i want to see it happen i am going to have to start drawing my own lines to be colored in and around.
and so god said to paint.
that was at the beginning of last year. and some of the beautiful people i am so blessed to know surrounded me one night in early january with supplies, and snacks, and songs, and love and we all embraced the canvas together. we shared palettes and pages and our faces and hair even became each other's canvases before the night was over. it was a glorious introduction to the new thing, this new season, and this new way of life. it has been freeing, it has been messy, and it has forever changed me. it seemed appropriate that i was painting again on that day this year...a much quieter night but as we poured ourselves anew onto last year's canvases a lot came to mind about what painting teaches me everytime i pick up a palet knife...so here is 2009 from the angle of the easel...
anything important to you requires space...there should be spaces in your space for the things you love...spaces to paint...to dance...to play
there are no rules in art...but just like everywhere else...there are consequences
you can go too far...the hardest thing to do is stop painting and let it dry a while but if you don't you end up with busy, blurry, or brown...
you can always paint over it....but you can't take it back...and that isn't the same thing...whether it is hidden completely or becomes part of a new picture you will know what is under there...
if you are afraid to spill you won't paint to the edges...
your favorite jeans can be your paint jeans too...or not...either way is fine
creating paintings is like creating dances...songs...lives...sometimes it is hard to tell what it is going to be until it is done...
you can try to wait to clarify your vision but often if you will just start the vision makes itself real...
art is messy...but the mess is part of the beauty...and the most authentic things in this world both on and off the page are usually more messy than not
as i move into a new year, a new semester, and a new decade of life...i am looking at a lot of fresh spaces waiting for me to bring color to...i am also holding more than one old canvases to be revived with new strokes...
im moving to a new house when i get back to new hampshire and in addition to a great location, and a great roomate, i will have a great space for painting...and i am really looking forward to filling it...and all that could come out of that...
PAINT this year...i dare you!
god told me to paint around the time he told me about what i could do with dance if i wanted to...and about the time he told me i could go to haiti...i don't have a lot of fears...but blank canvas scared me...or at least intimidated me...
i am the kind of girl who loves to take whatever junk is already laying around and fix up a room but has no ability for interior design when the palette is mine to create...i could color inside or outside the lines with great flare but something about the openness and freedom of new white canvas stopped me short. but the thing in me is a new thing...not like anything i am going to find in the world already...and if i want to see it happen i am going to have to start drawing my own lines to be colored in and around.
and so god said to paint.
that was at the beginning of last year. and some of the beautiful people i am so blessed to know surrounded me one night in early january with supplies, and snacks, and songs, and love and we all embraced the canvas together. we shared palettes and pages and our faces and hair even became each other's canvases before the night was over. it was a glorious introduction to the new thing, this new season, and this new way of life. it has been freeing, it has been messy, and it has forever changed me. it seemed appropriate that i was painting again on that day this year...a much quieter night but as we poured ourselves anew onto last year's canvases a lot came to mind about what painting teaches me everytime i pick up a palet knife...so here is 2009 from the angle of the easel...
anything important to you requires space...there should be spaces in your space for the things you love...spaces to paint...to dance...to play
there are no rules in art...but just like everywhere else...there are consequences
you can go too far...the hardest thing to do is stop painting and let it dry a while but if you don't you end up with busy, blurry, or brown...
you can always paint over it....but you can't take it back...and that isn't the same thing...whether it is hidden completely or becomes part of a new picture you will know what is under there...
if you are afraid to spill you won't paint to the edges...
your favorite jeans can be your paint jeans too...or not...either way is fine
creating paintings is like creating dances...songs...lives...sometimes it is hard to tell what it is going to be until it is done...
you can try to wait to clarify your vision but often if you will just start the vision makes itself real...
art is messy...but the mess is part of the beauty...and the most authentic things in this world both on and off the page are usually more messy than not
as i move into a new year, a new semester, and a new decade of life...i am looking at a lot of fresh spaces waiting for me to bring color to...i am also holding more than one old canvases to be revived with new strokes...
im moving to a new house when i get back to new hampshire and in addition to a great location, and a great roomate, i will have a great space for painting...and i am really looking forward to filling it...and all that could come out of that...
PAINT this year...i dare you!
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