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.

Zen Out

There was much discussion this weekend of the multitude and magnitude of things that need to be done. The perceived need, of course, is largely self-inflicted. Truth be told, if we don't re-do the fireplace or rip up the carpeting the world will not shift on its axis. This is truth.

A year or so ago, I grappled with crippling depression and anxiety. I can speak from experience that this feeling is unthinkably awful. No one can see that you're struggling with moving the mental train forward just one track but you are. . . and each decision is seemingly mortal. Medication helped me. Talk therapy really helped me. I'm ok now, but the anxiety that I felt then raises a small finger from time to time. I'm just better and feeling it coming and coping.

Owning a home is obviously anxiety-inducing for anyone. With school starting this week (three classes), group therapy one night a week and weekends that will spent studying and reading and resting well. . . I see the time ticking backward down to zero. I feel anxious, but I also feel challenged. It's become important now more than ever than I find some zen. Zen to me is doing less and doing less for me is sometimes unfathomable. I told Marc I wake up and literally count back from midnight to figure out how the day will work. The perfect day.

The totally unobtainable perfect day that perpetually leaves me disappointed.

Oh my.

Writing has always been calm for me. And so it goes. But so has music. And not just background-while-cleaning or muting-traffic-beeps music, but really listening to music. For me, it's the lyrics and poetry and lilt and lull of the words. I'm getting to know The Avett Brothers, thanks to our cousins Amie and Andy. There's something palpable about the right song and the right time. I remember this about choosing our processional and first dance songs for our wedding.

So this week, it seems appropriate to share the words from "Head Full of Doubt/Road Full of Promise" and ask, what song is speaking to you right now?

There's a darkness upon me that's flooded in light
In the fine print they tell me what's wrong and what's right
And it comes in black and it comes in white
And I'm frightened by those who don't see it

When nothing is old, deserved or expected
And your life doesn't change by the man that's elected
If you're loved by someone you're never rejected
Decide what to be and go be it.

There was a dream
One day I could see it
Like a bird in a cage a broke in and demanded that somebody free it
And there was a kid, with a head full of doubt
So I scream till I die and don't ask for those bad thoughts to find me out

There's a darkness upon you that's flooded in light
In the fine print they tell you what's wrong and what's right
And it flies by day and it flies by night
And I'm frightened by those who don't see it