Mass of Blues

(Disclaimer: Poems are best read aloud. This one is inspired by a recent Patty Griffin/Buddy Miller concert at the House of Blues.)

Buddy lifts his best acoustic above his head

toward the stained glass.

It's a cliche to call it an offering but at that moment

I was willing to sacrifice with him.

Patty swings low on chords and they paint meaning

with yodels and riffs.

It was my thought to take the hurt he feels, this man next to me,

roll it up in my hands

and throw it upward.

It would careen toward the heavens of who-knows-what religion.

Maybe the winds up there would know how

to speed up the sad,

slow down the good.

In the crowd we sway as if to build momentum

toward letting it all out. Alley oop!

Being here sets us loose, a confession in applause,

in the smiles the spotlights show.

A lower case gospel for the skeptics.

Willing to bow to Buddy who bows only to the glass above him.

Because the light comes in,

and in that is something we all believe in.

A Complicated Sense

In class this week we explored the psychotherapeutic techniques of Virginia Satir, a renowned family therapist with a Midwest upbringing. She can only be described as overtly "touchy-feely" (I think one of my colleagues called it "handsy", clearly a very clinical term). We observed her working with a family wherein one son struggled with heroin addiction. Therapists call this the presenting problem, as the cheese never stands alone. There's always more to the story than one bad seed.

But the touching. It was enough to make many students gasp and snicker. Satir reached for clients' abdomens, embraced snugly the shoulders of the mother and son, had them standing, sitting facing each other, holding hands and kneeling. And she was in the mix in a way that would make most of us, well, uncomfortable.

Except for the fact that amazing breakthroughs happened on this tape. Perhaps not because of the touching alone but it was the touch that pushed assertions over the edge; confrontations into the open; tears down the cheeks. There's something about touch that many of us are averse to (one dear friend of mine refuses to get massages) that unlocks a vulnerability. It turns the question of whether we are connected into a statement: we are connected. You can't deny touch.

Of course, I'm speaking of touch when it comes from someone genuine. Not necessarily someone you know but a place you know to be honest and true. I sat with a young woman this week who has spent the past two weeks sleeping on a couch in her aunt's kitchen, under a roof that houses a total of eight people in three rooms. She is tired. Physically for sure, but she is depressed and anxious, unsure of who she is and "going crazy". We would have her on pills, talk therapy.

I talked to her, listened mostly. Agreed that she is in hell; that it's scary and it's survival. And then I reached out my hand to her and held hers for minutes as she convulsed in tears and an uprooting of shame and fear. The touch literally opened her up to heal. Well, I can only assume she had a little healing because there was a smile the next day.

Moving toward touch is hard for many. An upbringing without it might make it unnatural. But I'm convinced once one harnesses the power of touch and institutes it in their life that there is an opening for improvement. For change. We snickered at Satir's methods because society tells us that it's inappropriate and invasive to touch someone (and sometimes it is). But not outright. Think about how many times you thought to touch someone. . . and didn't. What if you had?

Can I Do This

It's hard to describe precisely the confluence of emotions I felt stepping into the classroom. A girl had just thrown a fit just outside the door, throwing expletives like darts at two female security guards. I'm guessing they're ladies because touching can't be interpreted. The girl storms away and I'm beckoned to enter.

I walked past old circus performers, night walkers and junkies to get here. At 10 a.m. Fully freakish in front of Uptown Baptist. I remarked at the crater in the street that would soon swallow my ankle and leave me limping for days.

Maybe I should have stopped there.

It's a sea of obstinance in the art room. Palpable anger and apathy. Seniors are sprinkled among juniors, visiting eighth-graders and a row of kids with CP in wheelchairs. I'm there to talk about how to get a job, and how my agency can help you. No one cares, but more than that, there are whispers of violence. Yard sticks are swung and scissors are sharpened. Defiance is omnipresent. And the teacher? Sitting atop his desk, sullen, sulking even. . . alone and content to watch it unfold.

I got scared. Then I got angry. Then I became complacent and shrugged. I couldn't do much with this group. It wasn't my classroom. But what if it was? How would I handle it? Send RaShawn to the principal's office. An empty threat, only effective if the call to a parent goes answered, assuming there are parents in his life.

My message was one of hope. One that would lay a brick toward self-sufficiency, but their ears were clogged with incidents and obstacles far more prescient, more violent. I can't blame them. I can't blame anyone.

I just want to help fix it. I just want to feel like I can. I want to shake loose whatever semblance of motivation might still be chirping inside, bleak and near ash but still aglow. Seeing this sea of apathy and dismay, different than what one might expect from teens so close to graduation. . . I had to pause and think about the truth. They have a lot to be angry about. Now what?