here's to the mess we make

Today I marched.

We came armed with instruments: a banjo, a jingle fish, a frog rasp, some spoons, and our voices. And we sang the whole way.

I was reminded of one who went before us. I had the honor of sharing the stage with him once, albeit not in the traditional sense. He shuffled up to the podium in his tweed coat, and glanced back at the sea of graduates behind him on the stage. There was joy in his eyes, as he paused to take us all in, a new generation of musicians, ready to raise our voices. And in that moment, I felt the mantle pass.

His remarks were simple and brief.
"If there is a human race here in a few hundred years, I think one of the few things to save it from its own foolishness will be the arts."

And so we carried his mantle today. We stepped out as artists and did what we do best. For the better part of an hour, we sang the words that he made famous (he did so together with his banjo that "surrounded hate and forced it to surrender").

Finding myself the caller, I started with his verses. We shall overcome. We'll walk hand-in-hand. We are not afraid. We shall live in peace. But as we continued to sing, new words poured from my lips. We shall live in hope. We shall be the light. We shall speak the truth. We shall live in joy. We shall live in love. I will stand with you. We shall overcome.

Others chanted. Some cheered. Many carried signs. And we sang on.

Gathering at the end of the march, we welcomed the crowd with our music. We circled up, and our numbers began to grow, our sound multiplying as more voices joined our ranks.

Truth be told, I did not agree fully with everyone that I marched with. But honestly, that was the beauty of it. I don't have to agree with you to love you, to stand with you...

...or to sing with you.

See, there's something about music, about singing, in particular. It shatters your defenses, and brings unity in a way that few things can. There is something about raising our voices together in song. There is something other-worldly about it. There is something heavenly about it.


This week, I made my annual appearance at a movie theater and saw La La Land. It had been billed to me as one of those "every-artist-needs-to-see-it" kind of films, though I honestly didn't know much about it. I think I was expecting it to be a feel-good-Hollywood-ending kind of experience. What I got was a journey through the war of art.

I found myself tearing up many times throughout the film, the conversations and experiences of the characters resonating so deeply with my own life experience. But what finally sent the tears flowing was the scene in which one of the characters is trying to get the other to come back for one more audition...probably her one-thousandth. The two argue a bit, and he finally says, "Why won't you do it?"

"Because it hurts too much."

In the scene that follows, she sings a song that traces her journey as an artist.

A bit of madness is key to give us new colors to see 

Who knows where it will lead us?
And that's why they need us

So bring on the rebels 

The ripples from pebbles 

The painters, and poets, and plays 

And here's to the fools who dream 

Crazy, as they may seem 

Here's to the hearts that break 

Here's to the mess we make

It is indeed messy in my studio. The floor is littered with wrong notes and failed phrasings and tears. I spent awhile crying with Mozart this week. I may have yelled at Schubert a time or two. I fought some battles in myself, even just getting myself to that bench to begin with...let alone keeping my butt planted on it for any length of time.

But here's to the mess. Because today in that crowd of people, I knew for myself, This is what I can do. This is what I must do. Because Pete was right: we need those crazy artists and the foolish dreamers. Because it's hard to argue with each other when you're singing together.

thin places

"...music is about as physical as it gets:

your essential rhythm is your heartbeat; your essential sound, the breath.

We're walking temples of noise, and when you add tender hearts to this mix,

it somehow lets us meet in places we couldn't get to any other way."

- Anne Lamott

I make music. For a living.
Sometimes I forget how great that is.

Because, truth be told, there's a lot that's not so great about it.

There are moments, days, weeks...seasons....when I question what I do. Why don't I just go get an office job that wouldn't demand so much of me...that I wouldn't care so much about...that would actually give me a decent salary, and dare-I-say-it....benefits?

My hours are long...and irregular. It's not uncommon for me to work 12-15 hours a day, 6 days a week. I often wonder what it would be like to work 8-5 and actually leave my work at work and have...a weekend. When I don't have a gig, I have rehearsal for a gig...or I should probably be practicing for said gig.

My work is never done. At this moment in time, I am responsible for roughly 400 pages of music. So really, when I say I make music for a living, what I mean is, I juggle music for a living. I live from one performance to another. I've barely got time to celebrate one recital, before I'm prepping for the next one.

I am constantly being critiqued...by my colleagues, employers...and myself. I struggle to remind myself that while my daily performance is important - and while I should absolutely strive to bring my best to everything I do...my worth is not found in how many right notes I play, or how dazzling my technique is. I struggle to remember that I am more than a musician.

It is not easy to be a musician in today's world. Musicians (and artists of all kinds) are forced to burn the candle at both ends. We juggle full schedules of rehearsals, lessons, performances. And when we're not practicing, rehearsing, performing or teaching - we become advocates...trying to convince our society - and sometimes even ourselves - that what we do matters...that it is necessary.

I make music. For a living.

Sometimes I forget how great that is.

Even as I sit here, I have begun and erased at least 2 dozen sentences, as I attempt to express my wonder, my joy - my sheer delight in the fact that someone actually pays me to do what I love. I honestly don't even know where to start.

I get paid to interact with poetry and melody. 

     To absorb it - let it affect me, change me, become part of me.
I get paid to create. 

     To paint with colors of sound.
I get paid to collaborate. 

     To journey with another - and cultivate something new together
I get paid to tell stories. 

     To give voice to another's, to reveal my own.
I get paid to express. 

     To speak hope, joy, freedom, comfort, truth.

The Celtic mystics use the term "thin place" to refer to a sacred space - one where the veil between the material world and the eternal world is thin. 

Poet Sharlande Sledge describes them this way:

"Thin places," the Celts call this space,

Both seen and unseen,

Where the door between the world 

And the next is cracked open for a moment

And the light is not all on the other side.

God shaped space. Holy.

I think I am beginning to realize that my work is one giant "thin place."

I spend my days on the edge of the divine. Of course, we're always on the edge; the divine is always present - all around us, within us.

But somehow, when there is poetry, when there is music - when they swirl and resonate together - when we add the tenderness of our hearts to the mix - the veil becomes so thin, you forget it's even there.

and the light spills out from the other side. 

I make music.  For a living.

Sometimes I forget how great that is.

it is what it is

I hate blank walls.

Always have, always will.

So it should come as no surprise that one of the first things I do when I move to a new place, even before all the boxes are unpacked, is start laying out picture collages on the floor.

My father, ever the photo journalist, captured one such humidity-and-exhaustion-soaked moment 2 years ago this week as I settled in Baltimore.

I love this part of the process.  It centers me and settles me, to acquaint myself with my new floor, surrounded by old friends, familiar faces that have followed me on my journey.  After the craziness of moving, my little introvert self is thankful for the chance to absorb the quiet, to reflect, to remember, to fit the pieces of the puzzle together, to make this new place my own.

But as I finally had the "aha" moment and found the perfect place for one little piece of artwork this evening (it has been sitting, homeless, on my desk for weeks), I realize that I have also come to love the change. The paintings and posters and picture frames that call my walls home have found their way to a plethora of different walls over the years - and have hung side-by-side a vast array of different objects.  And though they have remained unchanged over the years, they look different each time I put them up. The light hits them from a new angle. The walls behind them highlight their vibrant colors in a new way. The pieces they are now paired with bring out parts of them I'd never noticed before. 

I love how there is change in the constancy.  I love how you can look at something a million times and not really see it until you look at it that million-and-first time.  I love how everything eventually finds its place - sometimes where we least expect it to.

And isn't this true in life in general?  We bring the same set of strengths and weaknesses to each table we encounter - the same personality quirks - the same set of baggage.   The older I get and the further I travel, the more I am dismayed to find out that I am the same person wherever I wander.  Somehow, even though I attempt to leave it behind, my storage unit full of complexities and idiosyncrasies and selfishness and fears finds its way into each new town I call my home.

But there's hope. There are fresh starts.  There are new circumstances and new relationships and new walls to decorate.  The light falls differently and offers a new perspective.  Weaknesses become strengths.  Fears become motivators.  Shadows are chased away by sunbeams.  They are not bound by their former identities. They have been redefined in the present.  And sure, we cannot change the past or its long-lasting effects on us. And we lean, depend, feed on our hope for the future.  But the fact of the matter remains: we only have this moment.  We only have the present.

In the year before I left for Baltimore, my dear soul sister and I would, at times (OK, often), find ourselves overwhelmed by life.  There were days when we gave up on words and just laughed.  And there were days when we gave up on words and just cried.  And amidst fits of giggles and streams of tears, our mantra became, "It is what it is."  And for us, at the time, I think it meant "I'll take the hand I'm dealt; it's out of my control anyway." "I will accept this reality and trust that it's not forever."

Shortly before I left for graduate school, I found a little wooden sign that said just that: "it is what it is."  So off it went with me to Baltimore. And every morning, as I brushed my teeth, I pondered it.  For two years, I pondered....and also I cried and I laughed (a bit more of the former than the latter).  And for those two years it took on a new meaning: "It is what it is, so I will choose gratitude."

Today that sign has found a new resting place on the shelf beside my dining room table, to the right of my mug collection, just below my produce basket full of Walla Walla sweet onions, to the left of two pictures of my soul sisters.  Today, it reminds me of the tears and the laughter, of the fight to stay grateful.  And today it takes on a new meaning: "it isn't what it was."