When I lost my voice in November this past year, I felt like the sky was falling. I wrote about that before, but while I was in a dark place, someone told me about a Vipassana Meditation course. 10 days of silence to learn this technique. And because I’d been rendered silent, somehow this struck me as not only a good idea, but a necessary one, and I decided to sign up for the next available course, and give it to myself as a birthday present.

At the tail end of February, I found myself driving 9 hours to Jessup, Georgia to the Southeast Vipassana Center for a 10 day course. I had been excited, but as the days grew closer, I became anxious and then afraid. White-knuckled driving, not knowing what an entire day would feel like without sound, not to mention more than a week. No reading. No writing (no writing?), no talking? Terrifying.

I played Darrell Scott’s song “Colorado” over and over and over again as I drove the windy backroads to the Center. “Colorado I need healing from this sorrow I’ve been feeling…” Felt like it was the appropriate last piece of music to hear before I turned the sound off.

I arrived to this lovely place, clean and very well-kept, a small pond lined with benches and willow trees, walking trails through woods, dorms and a cozy dining room. The registration hours were not silent, but I felt hesitant to talk to anyone, warming myself up to go inward. The place is run on volunteer efforts. It does not cost to do this course. You donate after you complete or you offer service of your own. It’s incredible and it’s worldwide. I found my dorm room, which I was to share with 2 other women, connected to other rooms and other women. Clean and sparse. I set my bed up with my linens and pillow, unpacked my suitcase and joined the other women at dinner, our last chance to talk before the course began. There was buzzing of conversation, introductions, a few women who had done this course before who were giving glimpses of what was to come, a bit of advice. I can’t remember talking to many. I told a few people who had asked where I was from or what I did that I was a ‘writer from Nashville’. Otherwise, I was quiet, trying to concentrate on breathing and not give into a last-minute panicked ditching of this crazy idea. The only thing that kept me there was that my fear of being deemed a quitter is greater than my fear of actually doing something terrifying. Leap…

As we passed through the meditation hall for the first time that night, being shown to our assigned mat/seat, I knew the Noble Silence had begun and a grief welled up inside of me. Like so much of what I experienced that week, it completely took me by surprise, my fear, my sorrow, my anxiety. My breath became shallow and I checked around at the others’ faces to see if anyone else was feeling my anxiety. Everyone looked so calm and I felt more alone than I’ve ever felt. Passing through that door we were asked to accept the five precepts of the dhamma:

Abstain from telling lies
Abstain from stealing from others
Abstain from killing
Abstain from sexual misconduct
Abstain from taking intoxicants.

Part of this was Noble Silence (meant to help us with the first precept). So much more than not talking to anyone, it encompasses not being in communication with anyone at all — no gestures, side looks, etc. To stay completely within yourself for 9.5 days (we broke Silence halfway through the last day). I was more anxious about the No Writing rule (they ask you to not bring anything to write with — writing and/or reading takes away from the practice of really going deeply within and investigating a new kind of silence). But I didn’t really miss not writing or reading. Never even thought about it after the first day. However, I have never felt so lonely and alone as I did on that first day. I can honestly say that Day 1 of this course was one of the longest days of my life. I did not think I could make it. I kept in my head that I’d run 2 marathons and survived a pretty harrowing trip to Cambodia years ago. I kept saying to myself “If I can do THAT, I can do THIS.” But I will admit that the first 7 days were like mile 18 of the marathon — never ending, painful, and very very tough. I thought to myself many times “why the HELL am I here? I am never going to make it.” But on the other side of it, it was one of the most important experiences of my life so far and very very worth the challenge. The world would be a better place is everyone did one of these courses.

This is what a day in Vipassana looks like. The morning gong rings at 4am. By 4:30 we start our meditation in the hall until 6:30. The gong rings, and we’d walk silently to breakfast. 8am -9am is a mandatory group one hour sit in the hall. 9-11am is a meditation either in the hall or in our rooms. 11am is lunch (the last meal of the day). 12pm-1pm we can interview with our assistant teacher for 5 minutes if we wish to request clarification of any of the points of the technique (I was there everyday). 1-5pm: more meditation. 5pm is a tea break with fruit. 6-7pm meditation. 7-8:30 is the evening discourse given by the guru Goenke (via videotape). And the last sit of the day ends at 9pm and then we are in bed. 11 days of this. Basically, there are 3 mandatory one-hour sits in the hall. The other meditations you could choose to sit in the hall or do your practice in your room. I chose to always stay in the hall as the one time I tried to meditate in my dorm room, I just fell asleep. Before this course, I was unable to sit for even a 15 minute meditation on my own. Now an hour flies by….

So what happens? Men and women are segregated so we had no contact with the men the whole time. There were about 25 women. All different ages and ethnicities. I got to know the backs of their heads from meditation. Or the rhythm of their walks from our walking path. I made up stories about them, some of which ended up being very accurate. One woman, Jenny, I felt very bonded to, even though we didn’t speak nor look at each other for 10 days. There was something about her presence that calmed me and I felt like we were friends. I’d see her in her army jacket over her patchwork skirt and I felt like I was going to be ok. I felt deeply compassionate for my roommate, a young punkish girl of about 20 who reminded me of Oliver Twist. Our job in the course is to learn Vipassana: a technique taught by Goenka in the ancient tradition of the Buddha, to meditate by observing your breath and ‘scanning’ for sensations as they arise on various parts of the body. This is a technique to develop a physical understanding of the present moment, of the truth of Impermanence (everything changes) and to bring a balanced mind to this understanding (Equanimity). And that it would eradicate suffering and bring about liberation. It’s not just a kind of ‘om shanti’ing’ your way to calm and peace and enlightenment. It’s an extremely concentrated process, demanding the most exacting of attention and awareness. It is hard work, I won’t lie. I fought it for 7 days. My mind does not slow down. My mind chatter does not shut up. I went there to try something completely foreign, to try something different. I’m always up for an adventure and this would be another one. I’m not very religious, and have been searching to find some relationship to spirit that was far away from the Catholic God I had to fire a few years ago. I was not lost. I was not bereft. I didn’t feel broken. I went there to add more to my life, in essence, by paring down.

I brought with me years and years of ‘monkey mind’ — the spinning chatter of that voice in my head. I brought with me people I had wronged. People who had wronged me. Heartbreak and sorrow. I brought people who I didn’t want to come with me. Does this make sense? I fought these people in my mind like demons as I tried so hard to stay with my breath and the sensations in my body. And then my mind would drift to anguish or anger, sometimes joy, to lists of what I would do when I returned home, to conversations I should have had, that I would have. And I would try to bring a friendly and gentle touch to bringing my mind back to my breath. I fought this every minute of every sit for those 7 days. My back ached. My legs fell asleep. I thought “what the hell am I doing here?” I was bored. I was restless. I was in physical pain. I was angry at my own restless self, then I’d try to give myself a break and try again. And I’d get frustrated again. I would get up off my mat and go for a walk in the woods and find myself crying uncontrollably there. A cardinal would appear (of course…). And I’d feel somehow graced by something other than myself. I began talking to my grandmother (gone years ago…). I talked out loud a few times just to hear the sound of my voice. It cracked. I heard my own lyrics come back to me, in phrases that seemed like messages from my younger self or a future self. I lost my appetite. I barely slept.

Then on day 7 my tooth cracked and fell out. And without any drama, I was able to walk through the next few hours of figuring out if I had to leave or not (I was able to speak to our course manager, a volunteer who was extraordinarily calming and helpful). If I left to see a dentist, I wouldn’t be able to return to the course. I’d have to start over. And believe me, this was not a time I wanted to leave. So, after she had a conversation with a dentist friend of mine on my behalf, it was determined I could stay and deal with it when I got home (I wasn’t in pain, the root wasn’t exposed). As my teacher told me, “this is a storm and this is part of the practice.” And something else broke that day. As the panic rose both from a real fear of pain and also from a fear of failing, I used the technique and it did change. Impermanence. I watched as things changed. And I was able to get balance. And blissfully and gratefully I thought “It worked!” I almost danced…

From then on, something else happened. The practice opened up a deep reservoir of strength in me. A calming balance. I was able to see my past choices and mistakes as part of this great river of being that was necessary for my own path, so far. I saw where I had a part in the wrongs I perceived others’ did TO me. And I clearly saw where I had wronged. And why. My music came to me, the new songs, and a vision of the next record followed me on the walking path one afternoon. I thought “I wish I could write this down” but then I also felt this deep sense of letting go — I’d remember if it was important and if it wasn’t, then it wasn’t… Not having the ability to record every thought on paper or guitar was actually a blessing. I slowed down. I felt grief over things I’d been grieving but instead of get choked up in it, tangled in a knot, I let the tears fall and thought “this, too, will change” and then watched the grief make space for a calm. By Day 9, I can honestly say I have never felt so at peace, so ok with my world, my body, my life as I did those last days. The last few meditation sits were the most profound experiences I have ever had. Deeply profound. In and out of my body at the same time.

The last day is a day of Metta — love, and we broke Noble Silence and are taught another kind of meditation, “loving kindness” and it was a magical day. I found Jenny and we both had the same feeling about each other, like we were sisters. We laughed and told each other about our lives. Feeling so alone and so much like everyone else was having these amazing enlightened experiences, I found it incredible that everyone was grieving and crying and hurting and freaking out just like I was. And that we all got to the place where we were able to let it go. Had we been talking to each other through the whole week, I doubt I would have found the reservoir of self-reliance I found. Now I see why Noble Silence was absolutely essential to the course. The 10th day was such a day of light and healing and deep, deep bonds with these women who I had not spoken with at all. Turns out, a few of them were curious during the whole experience “what was the writer going through?” One woman, who sat behind me in the meditation hall told me that I was her angel. She said that I seemed so strong and calm, my back was such a presence of grace and strength. I admitted to her that I was falling apart and how the hell could she have gotten grace and strength out of that and she just smiled with tears in her eyes and said, “You and your back got me through this.” I felt the same way about Jenny. And my Oliver Twist-like roommate, who was there each and every sit, straight and determined, coughing from a bronchial infection, but never complaining. The night of the 10th day, we stayed up till 2am talking and sharing our lives. It was deep.

I was looking forward to the 9 hour drive home alone, where I could call friends and babble about the experience, but a 23 year old boy needed a ride to Nashville and he joined me. Turns out it was a blessing. He had done 3 Vipassana courses in his young life and his insight into the after-effects of this course were really necessary. I asked him a thousand questions before dropping him off in East Nashville.

I have been meaning to write this blog now for over a month, but my need to write has shifted a bit since then. I turned on my computer that first night and the Facebook home page came up and I felt bombarded with reality and had a bit of a freak out. Life. Reality. Gossip. Professional envy. The world spun too fast around me and I had to turn the computer off. That first week home I was up every morning at 6am to meditate for an hour. I felt changed. I came back to my same life, but I felt I had changed. That was my goal: to not change the circumstances surrounding me that were challenging, but to be able to change myself within them. I was able to do that as long as I stuck with my morning sit. The continuing practice is to do a one-hour sit twice a day (morning and evening). I have not yet been able to do the evening sits. And I haven’t been able to keep up the practice every day, especially on the road, but when I miss a sit, I can feel how much I wish I had done one. It is a magical centering for me. I utilize Vipassana when I feel conflict or anxiety, or just when I’m driving these long drives. The meals there were vegan and without coffee or alcohol, two of my ‘vices’. On the long drive home back to Nashville I stopped by a coffeeshop, eager to get a cup, as it had been 11 days. I took a few sips and felt it course through me like a poison. I threw the cup out. A few weeks later, I tried coffee again and again, felt it through me like molasses. I just felt off. Since then, I have not had a cup of coffee. I’ve become a tea drinker, something I never thought I’d be. I have gone back to eating meat, but I definitely feel it disrupt my digestion. And wine, I’ve gone back to, but again, I’m more aware of it’s effects and I’m cautious. The course made me very aware of my body, my soul, and how I walk through this world. It wasn’t like a magic cult where everything changes and all of a sudden you reach enlightenment. I’m not walking around in a white robe with a pacifist smile on my face. I just feel like I gained some new tools when life throws an elephant or two on my head.

A few nights ago, here in New Jersey, visiting my brother and his family, I was walking back to his house after we were having dinner with his neighbors. I had my guitar on my back and my niece and nephew, 3 year old twins, were in front of me, when I heard a crack from the sky. A branch had broken off a tree, about 50 feet above my head, and I felt a sharp pain and then heard a loud crash. It fell on my head then bounced to the garbage cans, crashing and breaking. I was stunned, my knees buckled a bit, and I sunk to the driveway for a moment, before realizing what had happened. My sister-in-law came running to find out if I was ok. I was, but I was stunned and a bit shaken. I was ok. No real damage. But I thought how fortuitous that the branch struck me rather than the 3 year olds, who were literally inches in front of me.

I don’t believe that there’s a cosmic reason for everything. I believe in some amount of chaos and planetary indifference to our little journeys. But I like to indulge sometimes in symbolic games. To attach meaning to chaos. It makes for a more interesting, poetic narrative to the random. More agnostic than atheist. Someone said to me, “Religion is for people who are afraid of hell. Spirituality is for people who have been there.” I like that. It has been a hard year for me. Those who are close to me know this. I’ve been walking through a year of elephants right and left, trying to hold onto the path, accept the elephants, sometimes bring understanding and compassion to them. But I’m also trying to step out of the way and allow the elephants to splat on the ground and then step over them sometimes. It is so hard to know when to take the punch and when to turn your back. I’m learning. Slowly, it seems, but I’m accepting that this is my journey. Others may take it a different way. This is, I guess, why I write. To make sense of the senseless. To make admission of the confusion and the failings so that others may reach out their own flaws and we can all see that in the end, through the joy and the sorrows, we really are all made of the same stuff. To accept the What Is rather than crave the What We Wish It Really Would Be. That’s the hard stuff for me. Because I live in the “I Wish It Were….” That’s where suffering comes from. Goenka lectured that the Buddha taught that suffering comes from craving and aversion. Enlightenment comes from acceptance. Funny how therapy and recovery and meditation and conversations swirling around me all say the same thing. Acceptance of the What Is. I craved an outcome that clearly isn’t mine to have. In many things. Don’t we all? I am greatly blessed to have a way of making a living (meager though it may be) through doing and creating something I am passionate about. But there are sacrifices to every choice and it can be a dark place to sit in the “What I Don’t Have” for too long. We all do that. I wish things were different. I wish to stand on a tall mountain and defend myself, to demand what I want, to get what I want, to rail against the unfair. Also wish to sit quietly, for an hour or two every day, and listen to the nothingness tell me that what it is right now is exactly what it should be. Maybe sometimes we need a knock on the head from some elephants to remind us of that….

I’ve been toying with this as metaphor. Like Saul/Paul the apostle struck blind. I once was blind but now I see? Maybe in the quiet hours I will find my voice, a truer voice? And I’m not talking about singing here. I feel like I’ve been on the path of truth-seeking for a while. “Who isn’t?”, you might add, but I’ve been like a warrior on this quest. Stumbling and tripping over myself and others, doing my best to stay directed like a flashlight at the hope for clarity. Or something in the near vicinity.

The throat chakra is Vishudda and when it is opened it is said to transform negative experience into wisdom and creativity. When it is closed, it is grief and death.

I’ve been writing a lot lately. Songs, stories, letters I won’t send. Grieving things I’m letting go, grieving the road not taken. I remember loving that Frost poem. My grandmother would read Frost to me and I’d think of myself as a warrior child: that I’d be the one to take the road less travelled by. I knew I would. My grandmother lived long enough to see me not only take it but to earn enough success on it so that she could rest easy, knowing that I would eat and pay rent by it. I never thought that the other road, the road of stability and family and children and a mortgage and routine, might also live in the ‘less travelled’ by stanza. Mostly, I can with confidence say that I wouldn’t change a thing. And yet, there are times when the grass might seem greener and I regret things, missed turns, lost friends. I spend my life driving and flying to shows, mostly alone, sometimes with others. And I am passionate about what I do and I am blessed to earn a living from my ‘bliss’. But, there are days when it is too quiet and after the gig and the silence in my hotel room is hard to take and, at least for right now in my self-imposed solace, that there’s not someone calling to check in and say goodnight is my reminder of my aloneness: the shadow of loss like a bedtime prayer. When I sometimes long for weekends of playing with children in leaves, shopping for a family dinner…I can even mythologize the water cooler conversations at office jobs. The grass isn’t really greener over there. It’s just a different plot of grass.

In the midst of this silence and solace, and an admitted financial crisis that kicked my knees out from under me for about a week, came the death of an old friend, Michal Friedman. A sudden, shocking, completely tragic death. Which, just as my legs were getting a bit stable and I was healing the voice, kicked it all out again.

I say old friend. My friend died in childbirth, leaving twins (healthy) and a husband I never met, didn’t know existed. You see, this was a woman who was a friend of mine in a particular time of my life. Her sister was my better friend, but when she moved to NYC, she was also a musician, we were the same age, we played the same clubs, we temped, we’d go out and I seem to recall drink wine and talk about boys and music and clothes and Buddhism and she was sharp and smart and intimidating and tiny and stunningly beautiful like a cartoon character and seemed stronger than I. My then-husband was smitten by her and loved her music and we were all part of this loose gang. My best friends at the time were my fellow Expanded Arts Theater Company actors and her sister was a fellow actress. I was just beginning my journey into music and was starting out in the clubs in NYC. So was Michal. We were broke and idealistic and loud and competitive and she was single and I was married (but not rooted and clearly unhappy) and we spent time together. Not a lot. She wasn’t a ‘good’ friend, nor a ‘close’ friend, but she was a friend and she was most certainly an integral part of that time for me. I realized, upon hearing of her death, that I hadn’t talked to her or seen her play in over 6 years. I started touring full time in 2005 and once that happened, I saw my theater friends once in a while. My day-to-day friends became my band, the fellow troubadours on this winding road. My theater friends kept at it, plugging away, some kept with it, some left to do other things. And eventually, they got married too and most had babies and I lost track of if they were even acting anymore. Michal kept at music and though I didn’t talk to her or keep up with her, I’d see her on Facebook or I’d hear about her show from my now Ex husband, who loved her music. Or I’d get curious as to what she was doing and I’d go searching. I knew she was acting and doing voiceovers. I didn’t know she was married. I didn’t know that she was pregnant.

This happens. Life moves forward. One path goes one way, the other the other. Just different shades of green. At some point, I looked around at with whom and by what I was surrounding myself, felt increasingly like I was on a train bound for a brick wall, and, growing weary and feeling older, I lit a match and burned it all down. Moved out. Got a divorce. Left a band. Left a label. Left management. Meditated. Started yoga. Felt the right thing come into my life on many levels and followed those winds. Moved south. Started over at 41. Lost track. Let go. Grieving the old. Wrote an album about all of it. Was proud and happy of that birth-giving, and have watched its stuttering journey through the world as it lingers, well received but not necessarily changing anything. I have watched that halting movement with pride and grief. Questioning…

And then, silenced by a swollen throat, still channeling the warrior, this time gently singing myself back, I hear of this untimely death of a girl who should not have died. A girl who was part of my world for a brief but very very important part of my life. I feel like I should not even be writing this, as it is her husband, her sister, her family, her real friends that remained, that grew with her, that ate Sunday dinners together and struggled to make ends meet 10 years later — those are the real grievers. Maybe my grieving isn’t for a loss that’s mine, but for their loss. For the loss of this water sprite with a big howler of a voice who laughed easily.

But its also the loss of time and choices and I recognized with a deep kick of a growing pain that life is short and as I’d say, “Oh, I’ll see them all next time I’m in town” there is sometimes not a next time. I’m reminded of my father and his twin, my beloved uncle, their 70th birthday dinner a few years back. I was offered a very important show during the Sundance Film Festival and instead of joining my entire family at the birthday dinner celebration, I took the show. Which ended up being far from important. It yielded nothing but a dent in my credit card. I said, though, “Oh, I’ll make the 75th dinner. THAT will be something.” My uncle passed away a year later, suddenly, of a heart attack.

One of my deepest regrets in life is that I missed that dinner.

And I do my best to not miss important dinners anymore. I learned the hard way that No Gig is that important.

So to the quiet. And the solace. It gives me the opportunity to see the connections. To accept and acknowledge the connections from my uncle to my friend to my financial woes to my voice to what I love and what I put time and energy into and this long road I keep running up and down, rock heavy up the mountain each time, falling back upon me, still lifting it wearier yet fighting the negative to the light and hope. I’m not getting off the wheel. That’s not what this is. But perhaps the mute is like a flag waving: pay attention.

So I will. I will pay attention to whatever this is supposed to mean if anything. And I will make some very long overdue phone calls to people I love. And I will not regret that I stood on a high peak and spoke of a true love, regardless of the outcome. And I will meditate on all of this and let it sift through grieving and doubt and fear and lonely and pride and anger and loss and love.

And I will wish Michal a safe journey to wherever she is going and hope that her husband and her twins and her entire family and current community will grieve and mourn and then grow and find light and love again and have a beautiful life.

Excuse me, I’m going to go call some people, voice or no voice.

A Time To Talk
Robert Frost
When a friend calls to me from the road
And slows his horse to a meaning walk,
I don’t stand still and look around
On all the hills I haven’t hoed,
And shout from where I am, What is it?
No, not as there is a time to talk.
I thrust my hoe in the mellow ground,
Blade-end up and five feet tall,
And plod: I go up to the stone wall
For a friendly visit.

Facebook

Clementine: This is it, Joel. It’s going to be gone soon.
Joel: I know.
Clementine: What do we do?
Joel: Enjoy it.*

The other day I hit the return button on my laptop while trying to figure something out on Facebook, committing to something before I was ready for the commitment, and whoooooop — in a moment I was erased. Completely. My personal profile: gone.

[Side Note: before the helpful hint comments begin, let me explain. I was trying to merge my so-called Friends, all 5,000 of them, from my Personal Profile to my Music Page and then recreate a Personal Profile with only real friends and family, so that when I post something it doesn't go to strangers. I tried doing that at first: when I got a request from a name I didn't recall, I'd send a nice brief message: "hey, if we had a conversation, shared a beer, met in passing at a festival, please remind me..." but honestly, it just took too much time. Time that I wanted to be spending writing songs. Not that I really care that much about having strangers (or fans) be Friends, but my niece is getting to that age where she may start wandering onto my Facebook page and I want to protect her from certain elements, like the creepy "Friend" that IM's me asking what I'm wearing who might find her and do the same. I mean, I know I can defriend them, and I do, but its become a bit of a pain and I felt the need to go into a bit of hiding. I had downloaded all the info on my Profile Page before doing this, so all was not lost. But it did feel like a petite mort...]

At first: panic. I wanted to retract. To get myself back. I spent hours (literally) wandering through the labyrinthian so-called Help section. Which was no help. The Community Pages are a bleak terrain of shared ignorance. Because nobody knows how to fix anything, everyone’s confused and lost and the folks who might actually get paid at Facebook to help out this global community sit drinking their Lattes and don’t answer us. And keep changing the terrain (and redefining privacy without asking our opinion).

Its like an acid dream where you are stuck in Oz’s chamber, nobody behind the curtain, screaming “IS ANYONE OUT THERE LISTENING?” and then all of a sudden you are swept into “Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind” and you can’t un-erase your erasing.

I’d thought about this step. I’d been talking to other friends who went underground, creating clever pseudonyms and re-friending real friends. Not any of these friends are famous in the global sense of fame, but they are musicians out there touring, one was on a national TV show, and even in the non-famous world of folk music, boundaries and privacy are a concern. Facebook has been increasingly feeling this way to me and to some of my friends. We kept joking about turning it off. Walking away. A few had. One even encouraged me to take the leap off the cliff into pseudonymetry.

I’d challenge myself to not open Facebook until my morning routine was complete (meditation, journaling, yoga, a bit of writing, emails that were important, etc.). I could waste hours there, following threads of friends of friends conversations, peering into photo albums of old classmates, real friends, ex friends, ex lovers, current lovers of ex’s, until I felt like Pandora and felt like I’d snuck into a stranger’s underwear drawer and found secrets I’d rather not have seen. I think every one of us has had some moment of personal relationship drama upon seeing someone else’s post, or changed status, or photo. I spent a whole day in an airport reeling, fighting anxiety and fear about a post on someone’s wall, waiting to have the phone conversation to clarify something and believe me, I felt like a childish asshole starting out with “Ok. I know this is gonna sound strange, and I know its gonna sound petty and childish, but I saw something on your Facebook page…” It has already been written about by better writers than I that our false sense of community has lulled us into complacent connection. We all stumble around snippets of strangers and almost-friends, checking in on loved ones, peering through the veil. It can feel sneaky and dirty and sexy and claustrophobic in that maze.

There’s good there, too. I’m not just complaining. I found new friends, reconnected with old friends. I got invited to parties. I found out about shows I’d not have known about. Found new music, read cool articles, felt a collective tug of belonging as we all complain about the stupid posts going about. Kindling and rekindling. I felt a real loss once I was booted out. I felt like the world had gone on without me and I wasn’t able to get to the party. It was weird. I missed logging on and seeing the posts of people I kind of knew but liked from afar; I felt close to people I barely knew. You get a sense of someone’s style from their posts. Their quips. Their sense of humor. Their spirituality, sometimes. Their pathos. Their sarcasm. I loved checking in on Susan Werner, who in real life is an acquaintance, in that I like her, she likes me, we’ve maybe had two or three brief conversations before shows, but because we shared about 500 friends and she saw my posts and I saw hers and we’d comment back and forth, I felt like we’d skipped a few steps in the dance of friendship and perhaps one day, in real person, we could hang out and drink wine and laugh together like old friends and I’d say “oh remember when you posted to my wall….” Of course, there’s good and bad to the skipping of the dance. The dance is part of the fun.

So I re-emerge on Facebook as another name. And this time I can define the parameters of who I want to be in my conversation. But after having 4,980 friends, having only 11 right now is feeling thin. I admit: I feel left out. And that’s an old feeling that goes back to being picked last for the Kickball team in elementary school. And the truth is, I can still connect through my Page, where I’ll post this. But I have to say, I do feel freed of something. And only by deleting myself, albeit accidentally, did I realize how tied (perhaps, addicted) to my own sense of belonging I was. To let go…to TRULY let go…has been a real lesson in what I was holding onto.

I’m collecting my strength, one day I shall manage without her,
And she’ll perish with emptiness then, and begin to miss me.
(from ‘In Plaster’, Sylvia Plath)

* dialogue from the movie “Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind”

Karaoke King

I’m in Flint, Michigan at the Super 8. They apologized when they told me that this is the place they were putting me up. They said, as if it were a shrug, “We got you reservations at The Super 8. Its not super classy, but its nearby.” As if it were an apology. Like, “She’s got an…um…GREAT personality…” But did they know? Did they know what a vortex of awesome they threw us into?

We were hungry. We asked. “Is there any place that will still serve us dinner at 10pm? We drove straight from Nashville. 9 hours. With a time change. We didn’t eat.” (well, that’s not true: we stopped for a moment, or …it was supposed to be a moment…at a Subway in Nashville, Indiana…yes, that’s Nashville, Indiana…however, the moment was to be just that –a moment– but the woman behind the Subway counter–perhaps, 19? 18? 25? Let’s just say, her future in sandwich-making is suspect. It took her 30 minutes to make a 6″ turkey-no-cheese-light-mayo-sub)

They said, ‘well, at this hour, in FLINT, there’s, um Applebee’s (immediately, I remembered that everything there is fried and the veggie sides are always broccoli–FROZEN and then STEAMED–ick…watery and really really chewy…yick.)’ I shake my head, ‘Anything else?’ They say, ‘Oh! Next to the Super 8 is a Wally’s, a family restaurant. Oh and connected to that is a bar/grill.’ Thomm, who wants a beer, says ‘perfect!’

We drive the 3.4 miles to the Super 8. We see the place. Wally’s. Then, even better: The Firkin Fox. A kind of British Pub. Sort of. In Michigan. In Flint. Oh yeah. I want a glass of wine. Thomm wants a beer. I’m hungry.

Bonus: Its Karaoke night. We settle into this place, booths, but red velvet as if we’re in Shropshire or London. But decorated by the ex-designer for TGIFriday’s after they took the flair down. Seriously. Karaoke. Big screens. Loud. An MC Hostess. Some dude grabs the mic. The wireless mic. And dances his hip-hop-singing-Usher-pretending self over to some pretty lady at the bar and lays it on thick. THICK. With a really good voice. Seriously. Like, not totally in tune, but I’m sure with monitors and a bit less whiskey, the dude would sound great. Thomm and I watch, as if this is a 3-D movie and we are just there, like watching The Boy In The Plastic Bubble or one of those After School Specials where you sort-of relate, but sort-of are glad you don’t live there… He’s good. This Karaoke guy who I’m sure comes here every weekend. I sure hope if that’s not his girlfriend he gets lucky tonight. He deserves it.

So to Karaoke and the subject of that. Thomm says, “What’s your position on karaoke.” And I say, definitively, “I don’t do karaoke.” End of the discussion.

Now, I love singing. Its my greatest joy. Second only to lying in bed with a lover and reading the New York Times Sunday edition, section by section, with nothing to do the rest of the day but just that, and cuddle and more, and make coffee and nap and watch football. But I digress….

I love singing. I don’t love karaoke. I feel like an ass. The keys are always wrong. So I’m singing out of my range. And I don’t dance. I play guitar for a reason. I like standing behind the guitar. I don’t like dancing. I don’t want to dance. I’m no good at dancing (well: that’s patently untrue. I love dancing and in my fantasy-land uber-self I’m an excellent dancer. But I will never live up to my ideal of the greatest dancer in the world. Debbie from my college class. Cute Deb, who I remember for a time became one of those Doctors-Without-Borders-Saving-The-Planet and I thought….really Deb? really? You had to do THAT? You couldn’t just rest on your “I’m the cutest girl who’s non-threatenening and EVERYBODY likes me AND I stand in the center of the dance floor and you will stare in awe at my dance moves. Really, Deb? You had to go save the world and be perfect? Leave the rest of us something, ok?)

I once tried Karaoke. I was in Port Jervis, NY. Kal and Dana and Rob and I had gone to Port Jervis to tube down some river with beers in a cooler in its own tube. We drank a bit and decided to not drive home to Hoboken and instead, stay in Port Jervis, get a room or two, eat a good dinner and go to …. a local Karaoke bar. Good idea, right? Well, for Rob, yes. Because Rob is one of the smartest people I know. He’s a scientist. He’s a professor. He’s good looking. He’s tall. He’s funny. He’s ascerbic. And in his fantasy-version of his life, he’s an actor. So he says, “YES! Karaoke! I’m doing “Thunder Road”. I realize we’re gonna be there for a while. (seriously? who does Thunder Road at Karaoke…?)

There’s a guy there. Everyone watches him. He’s in a 3 piece suit. Sears. Shiney greyish blue. With a red tie. Tall and skinny. Slick, black hair. He sings “Sweet Caroline” with 3 girls with enough Mousse between them to float the Parthenon, who sing the backup parts and dance in too-tight acid-washed jeans. Flourescent green shirts shirred at the bottom, showing just a touch too much belly around the button, if you know what I mean. The Karaoke King. He’s there. He’s always there. Rob’s wife Dana pushed me out there, had signed me up for some Sheryl Crow song. I admit: I’d had a few tequila shots. I sang. I was out of tune. In my own head. But I was laughing and it was fun. All I wanna do….

So…afterwards, I excused myself to go to the ladies room. The 3 KK’s backup singers were there, spraying their feathered bangs. I say hello. They start in on me. You’ve got a good voice…you can sing…you should do this…etc. At first I simply say thank you, while drying my hands, but then I feel like an imposter, so I confess. Say, “Oh this is what I do. I’m a singer.” And they stop, mid-spray. Like as if in a movie. Look at each other. Smile fakely. “ooooooooooooooh” They say in a three part harmony arc of discovery “ooooooohhh”. I smile and leave. Go to my friends. The Three Muses scurry out, scoot to the 3 Piece Suit. Whisper in his ear. His head whips to me. They point. I’m laughing with my friends. And then it happens:

I’m called out by the Karaoke King.

I sense a presence. A shadow. Stetson wafts over me. I look up. There he is in all his greasy glory. He taps me on the shoulder. I look up.

“So…I hear you’re a ringer.”

“Excuse me?”

The Three Muses nod and twirl bits of their Ogilve perms.

“I’ve been told you’re a professional.”

“Singer?” I ask.

“Yes. Ringer. Singer. Yes. From New York.” He threatens. His pointed Capezio toe taps, in exasperation.

A beat.

Another beat.

His eyebrow raises. I try to not laugh. Or burp.

“Um…yeah…but …. really… I’m…well, I make NO money…I’m EMERGING….” I try to explain….

He is having none of this. And he looks at me with complete indifference.

“I’d better not see you in Wilkes-Barre next week for the $500 prize. You get that? You get it?” And then he leans in, finger wagging at my face: “Wilkes-Barre”

And so, ladies and gents, my story of having been threatened by the Karaoke King in Port Jervis, NY. And why I will never, ever, ever sing Karaoke. And that’s why I sat and ate my Mushroom Swiss Burger and drank my house cabernet at the Firkin Fox in Flint, Michigan, listening to the good folks of the bar make their attempts at 20 year old songs like that bee girl song by that band I forget their name but it was really sad because the lead singer committed suicide and I never liked that song anyway but the video with the bee girl was hard to not love… or one of my favorite 90′s songs by DeLaSoul or Arrested Development. And then I think, why doesn’t someone bring back Arrested Development, because that album, that first album with “Tennessee” on it is, um, kind of relevant today. Isn’t it? Or is just me being nostalgic.

In my show, I talk about getting off the major highways in order to find better food options than Cracker Barrel. But what I love is getting to go to a place like this tonight and check out the scene. And it may seem like I’m mocking. But I’m not. At all. I heard some amazing voices tonight. Seriously. And I heard old songs I miss. And there was a scene there. I can imagine those 4 guys who are good singers meet there every weekend to sing.

In high school I was in show choir. Oh yeah. I’ve got the photos of me in the red and white sweater with my name embroidered into the bust. Very Mickey-Mouse club. Or, now, Glee. Oh yeah. I was that girl in Glee. I wanted ALL the solos. I was pretty damn amazing at the jazz hands, step-ball-change. I sucked up to Mr. Gallup and Ms. Herrick to get the part of Maria in “West Side Story”. I wanted to beat out Stephanie Sikora for that. It was my life’s ambition. She was good. Stephanie was a great singer. I was kinda jealous of her. Seriously. And tall. And thin. And beautiful. And I was short and didn’t feel pretty. I could sing. But I wanted to sing like Stephanie. So when I got Maria and she got Anita. I have to admit to a very petty feeling of superiority. Hell, its 25 years later, so I’ll forgive myself, and I’m pretty sure, although I haven’t seen Stephanie in 25 years and I don’t know what her life is like (I hear she’s a veternarian), she probably didn’t care as much about that as I did. But yeah. I’ve seen a few episodes of “Glee” and saw myself in there. And I went to high school in a small, cloistered town. And I haven’t really been back. And my 25 year reunion is in a few weeks and I doubt I’ll go. Even though, I have to admit, I kind of want to…just to see….

The Karaoke King. At least he knows he’s the King of something. Most of us are lying in wait to sit in confidence at our own royalty.

Everyone has a story, everyone was somewhere. Of great importance. Of no importance. Witnesses and eavesdroppers.

Somwhere, in a box of rolls of undeveloped analog photos there is a roll I never developed. It might be in one of those forgotten boxes full of knickknacks and bits of nostalgia, hastily packed in the upheaval of separation and moving. I’d love to find that roll of film. There would be my friend Amy, her blonde hair and blue eyes against the blue blue sky. Out of focus, blurry, twin streams of smoke over a wide river, black fog cutting into blue sky behind her head. Hazy, like my memory of that day.

I was living in Hoboken, New Jersey. At 1116 Hudson Street, one block off the river, across from the 20′s in Manhattan. I was playing music, not yet for a living, but certainly working towards it. For a living, I worked as a temp secretary in NYC law firms. Downtown and uptown. Monday night football ran into double overtime and that night, I remember having a … well, now I might in retrospect call it a premonition…then, it was more like a mental hitch. A little voice that suggested I call in ‘sick’ to my temp job, play hooky, take the day off. So I did. I remember the quiet argument that ensued the next morning when Kal woke early to shower and get ready and I lingered in bed, making excuses. He worked about a mile away, in Weehawken, in a glass office on the river with a clear view of Manhattan. He walked to work. He left around 7:30 am and I remember his annoyance. It was a usual silence between us. We were navigating the uncomfortable non-fitting of each other after a few years, neither of us ready to say aloud what was creeping around like an undercurrent.

I got up, made coffee. Our two dogs, Clyde and Siggy, needed to be walked and our dog run was in Elysian Park, on a hill overlooking the river. I took my time with this part of my morning. I loved our kitchen. Black and white tiled backsplashes, an old 60′s era refrigerator, wood floors, a 4th floor fire escape overlooking the courtyard. I drank my coffee slowly, enjoying the idea of a full day off. Then I took the dogs down the 4 flight of stairs, down the block, across the street to the park to the dog run and let them go. A familiar woman walked toward the run from the edge of the park, closest to the river, and with a concerned look said to me, “Where is Kal?” I said, “At work.” She said, “Where? He’s in finance, right?” I said, “Yes” she said, “where?” I said, “Weehawken. Why?” Her face was ashen. She said, “A plane hit the Trade Center. Call him.” She might have said planes and centers, plural. I can’t remember. I got my dogs and ran to the edge of the park and saw the smoke and then ran back to the apartment, ran up the stairs and turned the TV on. My downstairs neighbor, Amy Fairchild, another singer-songwriter, heard me bounding up and came running up as I turned the TV on.

To be honest, I don’t remember that much. I remember we watched TV together for a while. I’m not sure what we saw on TV and what we saw in person. What was happening was happening a stone’s throw away from my open windows. The TV seemed surreal. I remember the newscasters talking about a small plane, then terrorists, and then Amy and I grabbed our cameras and headed to the river, just across the street and down the curve of the road a bit.

We joined a small crowd that had gathered. About 20 people. Someone had a transistor radio, Bloomburg radio I think. I barely remember. I could swear as we sat there we watched a tower, maybe both fall. I remember that moment, the silent scream inside my throat, caught in the lump, looking up at the sky, wondering when the sky would fall. I remember someone saying something like “there goes thousands of people”. I remember the urge to laugh. To really laugh outloud in that shock-wave kind of giggle that happens to me when something out of the bounds of understanding punches me in the gut. The completely inappropriate laughter that masks a keening wail.

It was only the week before that I had ridden the elevator up to the top of the Trade Centers, to put my face against the glass at Windows on the World, to look down, the air around me closed in and I experienced a wave of vertigo. In the years I’d lived in NYC, I’d only gone to the top once and it was the week before they disappeared.

I don’t know how long we sat there, but both Amy and I took photos and neither of us have those photos. Neither of us ever printed them.

I remember walking down Washington Boulevard to meet my friend Karen who worked in the towers but was, thankfully, late to work and didn’t make it in that day. I sat with her in her apartment with another friend for hours. Then we walked up the boulevard, men and women in business suits caked ash grey and wet from being hosed off as they disembarked the ferries that dropped them in Hoboken. The bars in Hoboken were full and silent of these chalky faces. It was a beautiful, warm September day.

We walked to the hospital to give our names to give blood.

We made a list of everyone we knew who worked downtown. We tried to call people but our cell phones wouldn’t work.

I sat for hours alone later that afternoon, staring at the black streaks in the sky.

I thought about the stores underneath, the greek man who sold me coffee in those blue paper cups and a pre-buttered raisin bagel wrapped in cellophane for $1.50. The man at the flower/newspaper kiosk where I’d buy tulips after working at one of the law firms in the towers. I thought of those people I’d seen on days I’d temp, crammed into the elevators, crammed into the lobbies.

Later that night, we went to my brother’s apartment in Hoboken as our gang gathered, waiting to hear from all of our friends who worked in the Towers, a bottle of Jack Daniels was passed. We were all sober-drunk. Nobody was crying. We were all in shock. We waited for Harry. I remember waiting for Harry, who was the last to show up, at midnight, piss-blind-drunk, in complete shock.

Kal and I walked home to our apartment after that. Silent. There was already a crack in our earth, but that day opened the ground below us into a canyon we wouldn’t quite understand nor recognize for years.

I remember that I had a cough that lingered for month. A bronchial infection. There was an acrid smell to the air for a long time, a burning. We went to the city as soon as the subways opened up again. We went to the Union Square makeshift memorial where photos were taped to a wall, where candles and flowers lay. Where “Have you seen ….” notes were taped anywhere and everywhere. We awaited news of rescues that never came. I remember how New York City wrapped itself tighter around itself like a hand-knit scarf on a chilly Autumn day, including all. I remember noticing that people looked each other in the eye from that day forward. There was kindness everywhere.

What I wrote that week, the only thing I wrote was this:

I just watched Dan Rather break down on tv tonight. Of all the things that I’ve witnessed and heard about this terrible and unbelievable week, that was the most jarring to me. Its like seeing your father cry. It makes the world less safe.

I didn’t go down to that area of the City for a full year. Then one night, I was driving home from a gig and got lost on my way to the Holland Tunnel and found myself driving down near the huge holes in the ground and looked up to two towers of light, illuminated from the ground up, dissipating into mist in the starless sky.

Ten years….

It’s called Virga. Wisps or streaks of water falling out of a cloud but evaporating before reaching the ground. A dry microburst. Like a tantrum cut short.

We wake with plans. We wake thinking our day will go a certain way. We plan for these plans. We make lists and schedules and abide by rules and we have dates and dinners and deadlines. We allow for chance and change. Or so we think. But rarely do things blindside us. Truly blindside us.

I woke this morning having no idea I’d be here at the end of the day, in wisps of wonder.

I had 3 hours of sleep, frustrated by plans being delayed, travel not running smoothly the prior night. I woke in a rush, 25 minutes to catch an airport shuttle after a night that went later than I’d wanted and too little sleep for comfort for the long day ahead. At the last minute thought a shower might wake me up (how prescient). I wore my most comfortable “sleeping on a plane” outfit, hues of greys and browns, baggy and invisible. I’d packed my overstuffed bag of everything but the guitar and the backpack holding the essentials and the laptop. No extra clothes. No medicine. No guitar gear. A well-thought out travel plan: a flight from Baltimore to Memphis, a tight connection to Omaha, pick up the rental car, drive 4.5 hours to McCook, have 2 hours to spare to nap, shower, change, soundcheck, do 2 sets of music. Easy peasy. Cept the flight was late getting into Memphis due to storms and I sat at the back of the plane watching people slowly get their gear and amble or saunter off the plane, as I waited and waited for my guitar to be brought off gate check, the minutes ticking, as I realized my flight to Omaha had left without me, as I went to plea my case to the Delta ticket agent, Ursula (I won’t soon forget her) who informed me she couldn’t help but pointed apathetically to a bank of phones under a “Customer Service” sign. I went to the phones and none worked. Ursula came over and slowly (I mean s-l-o-w-l-y) tried each and said “Huh” as if surprised (did she not hear me?), “These do not work” and then shrugged and went back to her desk. I was busy on my mantra “Don’t make it worse, don’t make it worse” so that I wouldn’t get all Jersey on Ursula. I called from my cell to find a lovely operator who helped me, insomuch as she couldn’t possibly redirect me to any flight into either Omaha or Denver earlier than late afternoon, making it totally impossible for me to make the show. Plus, I was adamant that I had to be on a flight where my bags would be able to make it WITH me, as I’d be leaving Omaha (or Denver) to drive 4 hours to the middle of nowhere so I couldn’t risk having delayed bags. I was defeated. I accepted that I’d be stuck at the Memphis airport for 5 hours, waiting on the afternoon flight to get me to Omaha without enough time to get to McCook and make a show I was really looking forward to (as I’d played there last year and had a great time) and I slunk to a restaurant to get coffee, to wake my sleep-deprived and getting cranky body. I called my manager to deliver the bad news. He made a joke:

“Well, you’re going to Nebraska. Isn’t there some cropduster that can take you there?”

When I called the owners of the cafe I’d be playing to tell them I wasn’t going to be able to make the show, one of them said, “Maybe there’s a private pilot that can help out. I’ll make some calls and get back to you.”

An hour later, I had the name of a pilot who’d be meeting me in Omaha to take me on his private plane to McCook. Dick Trail. A stage name if I’d ever heard of one. Dick Trail is John Wayne’s best friend in a movie set in Utah or Wyoming. Dick Trail is the trusty sidekick who’s always got the answers, has the fastest horse, the best gun, never leaves your side, will bloody up some enemies for you. I’ll never forget this name.

I got to Omaha to meet a smiling gentleman about my father’s age, in a red, white and blue button down who carried himself with the sturdy deportment of an ex-military man, patriotic and steady. Dick Trail. He carried my guitar, was friendly and direct. We went to collect my bags, which I’d been informed were “certainly on the plane ma’am, I eyeballed them myself” said the steward in memphis at Gate A16. However, no bags showed, and I was back in the Kafka-esque nightmare. Dare I add to this saga that my monthly cycle had begun and mine comes on like a hurricane: all gale force winds and tempest storms, both physical and emotional and at this point, I ducked into the ladies room to make a call to a friend to collapse emotionally. I blamed the night before. I blamed Delta. I blamed myself for taking too much on, for trying to do everything. I blamed my love life. I blamed my parents. I blamed everyone and fought the darkness and splashed water on my face and walked outside faking it. No gear. No merch. No clothes. No toilettries. And Mr. Trail would be flying me to the middle of nowhere. I got 25% sassy and the Delta baggage claim dude promised me it was coming in on the next flight and they’d deliver it to McCook in the middle of the night, and Dick Trail offered his address, this stranger who reminded me so much of my father, was taking me under his, em, wing.

So we drove from the Omaha airport to the smaller private airport, Dick pointed out Warren Buffett’s hanger, and we went to another where his Piper was lodged. And I almost fainted. I’m afraid of heights. Not all but some. And I’ve got a small fear of flying, no matter that I fly all the time. And I’m definitely a chickenshit when it comes to small planes. This would be by far the smallest plane I would be in. A 2 seater (w/ 2 jump seats in the back), Dick handed me a pair of clunky headphones w/ a mic and told me I’d be co-piloting. He said, “you’ll be getting your first flying lesson today” and I was astonished. What? I said. Then he went onto tell me his history. Born in 1937, graduate of the first Air Force Academy class, tours of duty in Vietnam, a commercial pilot, a lifelong teacher of flying. He wasn’t kidding. I’d be working on this 1 hour 58 minute flight. There was no time for nerves. Dick Trail was a man on a time frame. The engine started, the propellers started and we were taxi’ing down the runway and I was learning immediately how to steer with my feet and Dick took his feet off his pedals and allowed me to steer us down the runway to our takeoff point. He gave me a few quick lessons in reading the instruments, what was essential, what the feet control, what the hands control, fuel gauge, etc. and vrooooom, the plane took off and we were up there, in the sky, the blue blue sky, over the rolling green plains of Nebraska, our shadow below us, up 3800 feet into the columns of cloudpuff. Dick let go and I was steering the plane by myself. He pointed out the line of dust that looks like a horizontal cloud but is really particles, the line where the heat is captured. Told me of how thunderclouds form, how to read them, how to read the air and the mists and the bumps of the sky. He pointed toward a tophat cloud and said, “Go through it!” I said, “really?” he said, ‘Yep” and then, I was pointing the plane directly at this large white pufffield and we were INSIDE THE CLOUD and for a brief moment everything went white and I couldn’t see and then we were through to the other side and I let out a 5 year old “Whoooop” and tears ran down my face. I’d never ever ever even entertained a flying fantasy. Never had that in me. Never thought about it. It wasn’t on my bucket list. But there I was, piercing a cloud with this small plane, coming through the mist and the blue of the sky burst open and the ground below rolled by and I was floating on air, literally.

And so the hour and fifty-eight minutes went by and we followed the North Platte River as it wound around the plains and Dick pointed out where Lewis & Clark were and I imagined looking down at bountiful plains of plenty with animals and grasses and no roads and no buildings. I watched the sky change, I watched the ground go by, towns go by, and soon we were near McCook and I was rocking the plane back and forth, rolling it down the descent, comfortable now with the feel of the wingspan. We talked of history and life and Dick asked me about my life as a musician and said, “Now see, we’re the lucky ones. We found our passion. Yours is music and mine is flying and I’ve been flying my whole life” and I immediately thought I want to stay in touch with this man and his family. And then, safe and sound on the ground, I was whisked to the show, just in time, in the same grey-hued clothes I’d been in all day, no makeup, not a brush on me to smooth my hair, no jewelry, nothing fancy. No tuner or mic or DI. No set list. No anything but my bare face and my unadorned guitar and a sold-out crowd of people waiting for me.

It might have been the best show of my life.

And the following day, today, I went back for my second lesson. This time on a smaller plane. A champ. One that felt thinner and more vulnerable, but more…I don’t know…’sporty’. Like that scene in “Out of Africa” where Meryl Streep is sitting in front of Robert Redford as he flies her low over the Kenyan grounds, antelope herds below them, the shadow of the plane trailing behind and her scarf waving in the wind. That was my plane. We flew low over the grasses, the earth opening up in fissures, rolling hills with crevices. We flew over creeks and lakes, flew over Dick’s parents’ house, where he grew up, his elementary school, his house, his neighbors’ house (where we flew low and pretended to be landing only to bank upwards at the last minute, laughing). We flew over trees and over bare earth and over water and up to the sky and down again, low enough to see the sunflower fields and the shadow always there, like a movie scene. I didn’t close my mouth the whole time: it was set somewhere between a laugh and a cry and sheer joy. That kind of joy you got when you jumped on a trampoline or went on a roller coaster. And today, I landed a plane. Three times. I also took off. Three times. I landed a plane on a grass runway. Me. The girl who was afraid to fly. And Dick Trail presented me last night at the show with my Pilot Log Book, signing for my hours of my 2 lessons on the first page. I met his wife Ann and hugged her as if she was my own family, as he’d told me stories of his great-grandparents homesteading there in Nebraska and her own family’s farm and their life together and children and land and history. Mr. Trail’s hangar has his Champ, a wall of photos of his history, his first car (a 20′s Model T), and looks about as sacred a space as my music room with my guitars hanging on the wall, my piano, my photos of inspiration leaning against windows and walls.

In the end, I never got my luggage. I still might not find it. And there are things in there I need, but I spent two shows not thinking about what I looked like or what I was going to play and instead enjoyed myself even more in the moment. I laughed and stayed present. And just maybe I’ll get home and get rid of some things. In the end, I turned around to see the batallion of strangers and friends following my plight and offering to help, or helping, or just offering solace. I had strangers in a small town in Nebraska calling friends and strangers helping me. And I had a stranger teach me something until 24 hours ago I thought wasn’t essential in my life and now feels as natural as breathing.

And as I was flying over the ground I thought of love and how wonderful it is when it comes and fills your skin with breathing and no matter the challenge of it, when it comes full like that and natural and fits in that way that you just know it fits, that regardless of the circumstance, you celebrate it and move toward it and allow. I remember when my Dad said to me, “Life is short. Follow love.” And I feel like in so many ways that’s what I am trying to do with my life, with my choices. How appropriate that a man who reminds me of my hero Dad, Republican and strong-minded and patriotic and funny and full of life, was the one to help me ride the sky.

The rain bursts above our heads in the highest part of the sky and falls just a bit and evaporates before landing. Or changes into hail. The rain goes its own way, making trails of cloud or dustspray, like curtains against the blue. We think we have it all figured out, or at least we hope we are in the query. And then something blindsides us. Or someone. Someone unexpected. Someone we don’t expect who washes in like a big tsunami and changes everything and suddenly all plans are out the window and life rearranges itself into something unrecognizable and sometimes unmanageable but always always wonderful. And so it is with weather. And so it is with love. And so it is with clouds.

Farmer's Market

There are days…I’m sure we all have them in each of our chosen fields of work…or our relationships, with our family, our friends, our community…or our bank accounts…you know those days when you find yourself whining, even softly to yourself so that nobody can hear, even with an outward smile of “Everything’s fine here. Nothing to see. Move along.” But internally you are throwing yourself a ticker tape parade of a pity party. The ‘why me’ the ‘how did I get here’ the ‘when does the monkey get off my back?’ days. Everyone has them. I just read something in a beautiful book by Pema Chodron called “When Things Fall Apart” that we NEED those days. We should lean into those days. Those moments. Of course we should. Duh. That’s where growth happens. But still, in the midst of those days, don’t we all just want to jump off the treadmill we’re on and say “UNCLE” to the skies? I did yesterday. I’ve been off the road for a few weeks, home, counting my spare pennies, worrying about the paucity of my (cough cough) savings account and the future of that in this lovely world of Folk music where, as the joke goes, ‘there are hundreds of dollars to be made’. I got in my car yesterday, admittedly an hour later than I’d have liked, to drive a few hours to Eastern, Tennessee for an outdoor show. Late. I figured I had about an hour to spare, I’d be fine. That is, until I hit I 40E and the parking lot it had become due to an accident or Bonnaroo..who knew. All I knew is that I’d NEVER make the gig. Karma, I thought, karma for being late. Karma for being distracted while packing. Everything was going wrong and I couldn’t even possibly get my ass out the damned door on time. Karma. And the dark clouds started to pile up above my head. I got off the highway, found a winding road that seemed to be leading absolutely nowhere, and my GPS lost the trail and I was just about to scream Uncle when signs to I 40E appeared. I’m not a big pray-er. But in that moment, I put my hands on the top of the steering wheel, palms up, looked up at the blue sky and whispered, “Ok. Help. Please.” And as I veered off the ramp onto 40, the road was clear. Somehow, I’d diverted around the parking lot of stuck cars, and I was free of it all and doing 75 towards Jonesborough, TN and I was going to make it in time to this show.

That was the first sign.

Then a phone call. And angels come in unlikely places. Terri Hendrix was calling me. Do you know Terri Hendrix? She’s one of the most open-hearted songwriters I’ve ever met. She and Lloyd Maines are a great duo and we had the pleasure of working together at the Iron Horse in Northampton, MA a few years back. I’ve maybe spoken a few sentences to Terri. I can’t claim to know her well, but I sure do like her and Lloyd and they are always very friendly to me. I can remember the first time I met them, at the hand washing trough at Kerrville. We were both playing the mainstage that night and I had never seen her perform, but I knew her name (she’s a big deal in Texas). I was wearing my embroidered hippie jeans with a tank top. Didn’t realize that was Terri’s signature outfit (how embarrassing for me). She and Lloyd came up to me and introduced themselves to me and told me they had my CD (it was “Songs For Bright Street”) and that they really liked my music. I was floored. I was floored that anyone I’d heard of had heard of me at that point. I knew they were well known here in Kerrville and this would be my first time playing that stage. They made me feel at home and welcomed. So yesterday, out of the blue, it was Terri on the phone. And remember, I’d looked up to the sky and pleaded for a bit of mercy. Just a break in the clouds in my head. I won’t tell you our whole conversation, and I really hope I don’t embarrass Terri by telling you this, but she simply called to connect, to tell me that her lines were open should I ever need anything, it was the simplest gesture of an open hand of friendship and I could have cried right there. I told her I was having a bit of a hard time with ‘all of it’ and she kindly and with humor told me if I ever thought of quitting she’d come and find me. Then she reminded me why I do this in the first place. And its not like there is any way in the world Terri Hendrix would have known I was having my doubts. She’d just called for her own reasons. But there it was. A brief reaching out that meant the world and turned my day completely around. Might have turned more than one day around for me.

As if that isn’t enough, I pull into Jonesborough, TN where my show was last night. A series called “Music on the Square“. I got there 15 minutes before the show was to start. There was Steve Cook, the promoter, with a huge smile on his face, helping get me to the little stage. Everything was already set up. Sarah Jane on sound was right there to help. It took about 3 minutes to do a ‘sound check’. There was a big crowd of people too, from senior citizens to 20 something hipsters, healthy babies and people in wheelchairs and a wonderful young woman named Summer who told me stories of when she met Amy Grant and Vince Gill and she kept hugging me. Something Terri said connected and I looked out and I was able to find that thing in me that wanted to do this so long ago. I don’t know if it was my best show, but it sure felt good to me. And afterward, I met Summer’s mother, and the man who showed me the photo he took of his father in full military dress visiting a visiting display of the Declaration of Independence, and my host for the evening’s brother who had just moved here from Texas after losing his wife a year ago, and people who had lived near the town I grew up in, and people who asked about my father after hearing “Peace by Peace”.

Later that night, back at the Franklin B&B where I was put up, I sat and drank a glass of wine with Dona and Chuck and the two women who were visiting from Murfreesboro and Nashville, and I heard stories of New Orleans and Hurricane Katrina, and the history of Jonesborough. And I slept better than I have in about a week.

This morning, I took a run along Main Street and saw the Farmer’s Market and gorgeous little cottage houses with gardens that ran along a creek and couples young and old strolling the brick sidewalks. I had breakfast with Dona and Chuck and the two TN women and a pair of sisters, one of whom told me stories of taking her children on around the world trips, staying in host housing all along the way, staying with families two nights at a time, sometimes being on the road for a full year, sheep shearing in New Zealand, staying with older people in Bulgaria, getting homesick in Spain. Over strong coffee and the fluffiest Quiche I’ve ever had (“Heavy cream,” said Dona, somewhat apologetically), Chuck told about being a little boy visiting New York City, staying in a hotel on Times Square and being astounded by the lights. “But back then,” he said, “the lights flashed and strobed but they were just black and white. No kaleidescope colors like today” and I had to excuse myself soon thereafter to run and fetch a pen and my journal so that I could start writing the verses that were spilling from my head about “Times Square in Black and White.” And Chuck’s story elided with some of my own father’s — his childhood memories that he is writing for a course on “Sharing Your Story with Your Grandchildren” at the local community college that I keep begging him to send me. I’m reading them slowly and the stories are living now in my head: I can see him bareback on the horse in the backyard of the farm with his brother as the blue sky overhead turns black the day the planes flew over low, heading out for D Day. Kaleidescope skies, once in black and white. Photographs. Memories. Stories.

And as I took a post-breakfast walk, I happened upon the National Storyteller’s Museum, smack dab in the middle of this little town. Of course I did. And I remembered that storyteller we had in elementary school back in Minnesota when they took the 6th graders for a week to Camp Isabella up near Lake Superior in the heart of winter, to learn to read a compass and wander the snowy woods in snowshoes, and make igloos and rappel off rock climbing walls and at night, we’d gather with hot chocolate by a big fire and this bear of a man in a red and black buffalo plaid with a huge beard would tell stories of Grizzly Bears and Indians and Fur Trappers and Scandinavians and loons and elk and I was enraptured and I think that’s when I caught the bug that I wanted so badly to be THAT whatever THAT was…an actor a storyteller a musician a writer a whatever…

And so, again, I reconnect with where it all began. The reason.

And I think about the tour bus that carries musicians who make much more than I do and that tour bus winds down interstates at night, depositing their crew onto the stages of small and large towns just in time for the soundcheck. Those musicians sleep on that bus or in nice hotels. And those musicians make a lot of money. They might not sit on their front porch like I do, counting the pennies, wondering how to pay their bills. Maybe they do. But its at a different level. And I’m not saying I wouldn’t love to have one month where I’m not working it all out on a daily basis with a calculator. I’d love a bit of a cushion for sure. But in the meantime, I get to stay with people who tell me stories, who share photos of the house they renovated. Who sing me Irish songs because they want me to learn their favorite one. People give me ideas for songs, they offer me lyrics and history. I don’t play Carnegie Hall, but I play Music on the Square. And for now, I like it that way.

Its a funny thing what the universe will offer you when you surrender and whisper a plea.

Then there are the acts you open for and you stand aside, not quite as peers at least on the ladder-rung-level of success, but you feel a kind of equanimity kinship backstage in that there aren’t separate dressing rooms, they don’t have the star thing going that makes you feel like you can only put your bag in the teensy corner of the room that doesn’t disturb their shit. The cool folks who share their Rider (i.e., popcorn and bottles of wine) with you, who say “oh, definitely try the Tempeh Thai salad…it rocks! Do you need to borrow some purple eyeliner?” without missing a beat.

I opened for zeitgeist It Non-Couple The Civil Wars last week at The Grey Eagle in Asheville and I’m here to report: Wow. Just fucking wow. a) they’re the nicest people on the face of the earth. b) Joy recommended the Tempeh Thai salad and she was right c) they’re the nicest people … and d) they BROUGHT it. Two voices and one guitar and they BROUGHT it. I walked out onstage before them to a veritable sea of 20 somethings. The youngest, largest crowd I’ve played for. Hipsters and hippies, drooling on the lip of the stage. And they were even nice. They didn’t yawn through my 45 minute set (which, truth be told, I wished had only been 25 minutes. I really believe 6 songs is enough for an opener. 45 minutes pushes 8 songs and that wears the waiting crowd down, even if you’re spectacular. I prefer 25-30 minute openings myself). They actually sang along, got quiet, moved their heads, bought CDs. It was amazing.

But then, the Civil Wars walked onstage in their black gothic Americana outfits–Joy, all black eyeliner and alabaster skin, teeteringly high heels and a short-skirted ballgown; John Paul in a black Billy Reid outfit. They looked spectacular. And to be honest (and if you know me, you know I’m a huge critic) they were incredible from the start. Beautifully fluid voices that were meant to sing together. Arty songs that made me wonder how the hell did hipster 20 somethings find these guys, cause although they have a few very commercially obvious (and in a really good way) songs, including well placed TV soundtrack stuff, they also have beautifully elegant almost-Parisian Jaquel Brel like Art songs. I don’t get it and I’m so glad that somehow its caught fire, because it IS fresh. Someone said to me, “I dont’ believe it”, meaning, I’m sure, that these two aren’t a couple and the chemistry — although perhaps underlying is real –is perhaps exploited for show…who knows. What I know is what I see. And I saw passion and emotion bursting into flames and dripping all over the stage and I don’t care that these are two separately married people making music, having been put together. I woulnd’t care if they were the Backstreet Boys’ 2nd cousins. I just felt something like a shiver watching them, thinking, wow. I haven’t seen this before. This is kinda fresh. I’d buy their album (if I hadn’t already).

That’s the thing. Its simple. 2 voices. One guitar. A whole helluva lot of sensuality. Dress it up or not, its pretty cool to watch from the sidelines.

The charcoal from the grilled chicken gyro cart on Seventh Avenue. A bit of exhaust fumes. Dank air rising from the subway grates. Orchids and $6 2-dozen roses, multicolored gardens wrapped in plastic under a green awning deli on every corner. Someone’s hand-rolled cigarette, stamped out but still wafting underfoot.

Coco Chanel could roll all that into one oil and call it Manhattan. Or Paris. Or London. Just exchange the food from the cart. Add in a few taxi horns, and some chatter, and you’ve got yourself a strange mystical perfume.

I miss this City. Not always. But I do miss it. I don’t miss the schlep. I don’t miss the small indoor spaces where for 18 years I always felt claustrophobic (and didn’t even know it) and longed for a bit more room for my books. Where I didn’t necessarily ever just come ‘home’ to my 400 square foot apartment, take my shoes off and want to hang out all night. I always wanted to leave, to wander the sidewalks. The apartment was not a place of landing, more of a place to change your shoes, grab a coat. I don’t miss the constant noise. I do miss the hum. Different than noise. I miss the people-watching, the walking, that slightly arrogant feeling you get after finally getting your city feet under you and helping out a tourist, that “Oh yeah. I’m not FROM here but I KNOW this place” cocky confidence. I miss the food. I miss that food is available even after 9pm. I miss the languages, the accents, the skin colors. And I miss the edge: the anger or the impatience, the hurry, the moment of kindness in the edge.

A dinner with a friend on a familiar street playing catchup. A drink in the cafe I’d pass on the way to therapy every week where I’d think “I want to stop there sometime and linger”. A pair of boots I can’t afford at one of my favorite shops. Yankees hats and street hot dogs.

Not that I don’t love where I landed but it doesn’t yet fit. I get back to the Village and I breathe in the fumes and feel like I’m 23 again. Or 33. I’m beyond that and I don’t belong here now. But it gets in your skin and stays like a tattoo or like an old scar that you can run your hand over and feel the groove. A mixed tape from an old boyfriend that even though the love is long faded, you can’t bear to throw the tape out, warped and inksmeared.

I remember the last big ‘Royal Wedding’. I’d been grounded severely. My whole family had gone off on vacation somewhere. A beach, probably. Who knows. But I was grounded. Probably for insubordination. That’s what it always was with me. I fought the law. The law always won. But I kept fighting. Usually I was talking back (“sassing” they called it) to some moronic elder with a playground sense of justice. I’d call out the injustice. I’d get cut down by “you shouldn’t talk back to adults” and I’d counter with “if the adult had something to Say…” and of course, I’d get punished. Truth be told: nine times out of ten I was right. But who likes a smart-ass 8 year old? So I’d get the punishment. This time: I was sent to my cousin’s house. My mother’s cousin. My godmother Mary Ellen. Now, Mary Ellen’s house was no punishment. Mary Ellen and her husband John were the coolest. Washington insiders, they were intellects, and later I’d find out that, at least John, was the sole liberal (amongst myself) in my extended family. So I could talk to them. And in their house: Reason ruled. So there was debate about Right and Wrong. And I loved my cousins, Mary Ellen was like my Aunt, but my favorite Aunt. My Mom’s childhood best friend. And her husband John was smart as shit and funny as Robin Williams and really really liked me. Made me feel like I belonged and cared. He was like the coolest Uncle ever. He was like a college professor, smoked a pipe, drank scotch, wore suede padded tweed jackets. Knew the President. And their kids, my 3rd cousins, were awesome. All Irish red and freckles.

So on that weekend, I was grounded, I remember being woken up at like 5am or something, coffee being served and we all parked ourselves in front of the television (no cable at this point in the 80′s, just rabbit ears). And I remember the dress: the pooofy sleeves, the red of the carpet. She was ordinary. I loved it. I had her haircut. Bangs and short hair. Brown in a really dirty water way. She was nothing special and that’s what made her gorgeous to me. An ordinary girl. Like me. And she was a princess. He was nothing special. Who really cared anyway about Prince Charles. It was Diana we all wanted to be. To be like. To be.

My sister got married in 1997 and the after party of the wedding was at our hometown’s Sheraton bar and I was sitting in the booth with one of the red-haired freckled cousins, my brothers and my soon-to-be-husband and the news came on that Princess Diana had died in a car accident. The shag carpeting of my Virginia cousins’ house where I watched her wedding came back and I felt sad for time passing and sad for a life, a waste really of time and so much, gone in a tunnel chase. I missed that girl with the brown hair and the bangs. I’d stopped caring once she became a glamour queen.

So to tomorrow’s wedding. I won’t wake early. If I had a daughter, I’d probably not wake her. Fairy tales are nice, but they can screw you up. Jung wrote his essay, which reads like empirical truth, on the wake of a late life affair with a younger woman. Of course he wanted to break apart the ‘myth’ of the Soul Mate. Its best to read the Greats with knowledge of where they were coming from in their personal lives. Sometimes Great Insight is really just the rantings of a pissed off lover dumped.

So I may not watch the wedding and certainly my belief in fairy kingdoms and castles is long gone. As is my belief in the ‘soul mate’. That was a sad one to let go, and I don’t mind admitting that. We all make our choices and we find ourselves in lives we didn’t expect or anticipate or plan for, but here we are nonetheless, and there’s no use in building sand castles. All kingdoms crumble. Its for the best and doesn’t have to be a nihilistic argument for not caring and not trying. But if we know that really, under the poof and taffetta, there’s just two people who survived a few breakups and getting back together, two ordinary people with some money who will do their best. And that’s enough right? We do our best, knowing our own flaws, our own misguided beliefs in false fairytales, but also, knowing the wanting those myths to be true guides our poetry.

Oh hell. I’ll put the coffee on early…