The Place I Want to Get Back To

is where

     in the pinewoods

          in the moments between 

               the darkness

and first light

     two deer

          came walking down the hill

               and when they saw me

they said to each other, okay,

     this one is okay,

          let's see who she is

               and why she is sitting

on the ground, like that,

     so quiet, as if

          asleep, or in a dream,

               but, anyway, harmless;

and so they came

     on their slender legs

          and gazed upon me

               not unlike the way

I go out to the dunes and look

     and look and look

          into the faces of the flowers;

               and then one of them leaned forward

and nuzzled my hand, and what can my life

     bring to me that could exceed

          that brief moment?

               For twenty years

I have gone every day to the same woods,

     not waiting, exactly, just lingering.

          Such gifts, bestowed,

               can't be repeated.

If you want to talk about this

     come to visit. I live in the house

          near the corner, which I have named

               Gratitude.

-Mary Oliver

Memory

My dirty feet carry me today

The residue mirroring that which

Remains on my soul

An escape to the north, to the wide open space

To a lake, masquerading as an

Ocean

To a hill, pretending to be a

Mountain

In the desperate freedom of my imagination,

They are both.

My feet find the mud

Plunge into its murky

Depths

Surrender to its squishy

Darkness

They come alive as they leap from rock to rock

Bask in the sunlight, fresh air

Relish in the flow, deep below the surface of the cloudy stream

Here, they are finally at

Home.

Could it be that this is where my soul dwells?

Could it be that it is housed not in my head, or in my chest, but

Here, where my body-clothes grasp the earth,

Here, where my trunk sends down its roots,

Here, where the weight teeters and balances

Here, where the trail is blazed, where the wandering begins

I will leave the dirt lodged between my toes

The mark of my

Baptism

A reminder to my forgetful eyes

That I am not just where I am

Going

That I am also where I have

Been. 

of deep breaths and dry-cleaning

It's 6:45pm.

Finally the end of a jam-packed day.

I am exhausted, to say the least.   Worn out from so many hours of being "on" - of being in charge - of people looking to me for leadership - of counting under my breath as I sightread - of mouthing the words to myself and making mental notes of vowels and consonants to correct - of trying to play and listen at the same time, so as to have some sort of constructive feedback to give when all eyes turn to me, as they inevitably will.

I've stayed late to coach 2 more singers, and thankfully, one of them brings some reciprocal energy to give me an added boost to make it in the last hour.

But now I am spent. Ready to go home and crawl in my bed, and feel the heavenly sensation of something softer than the unforgiving wood of a piano bench underneath me.

And then it hits me.

It's Wednesday.

Wednesday.  As in, the day I'm supposed to pick up my dry-cleaning.

Let me pause here to say that it's a miracle I even found the time to TAKE something to the cleaner's - and that when I took it in, I had a voice in the back of my head that said, "It will be Christmas by the time you actually remember that you have something to pick up when you actually have a spare moment to pick it up."

My body protests.  Can't you go to tomorrow?  Nope, I've got coachings until 9pm.  What about Friday?   Nope, headed to Seattle after work, so I'll want to leave as soon as possible so as to hit the pass at a reasonable hour.

It has to be today.  It has to be now.


Suzie is her name.  My dry-cleaner, that is.  She is about my height, and all legs - with a stoop in her shoulder and a long sweater that hangs loosely on her frame.  She is sweeping the floor when I come it, and it takes her a little while to realize that I am standing at the counter.  She's just a wee bit hard of hearing.   I tell (read: "yell") her my name, as her eyes peer up at me over the rims of her glasses.  I spell it 3 more times, and finally, she gets it. She jots down the number and shuffles into the corner.  After a minute or two of searching, she's found my dress.  As she puts it on the rack next to me, she makes sure to remind me to be careful when carrying it. The plastic bag is just about as tall as I am, and she doesn't want me to catch my foot on it and slip.

I wait as she tinkers with the cash register, trying to process my credit card.  It takes her a few tries, but finally, the receipt prints, and she holds it down as I sign it.  As I hand it back to her, she smiles, and with all the sincerity her sweet, gangly self can muster up, she says, "Now you have a lovely evening."

As far as location goes, Suzie's shop is convenient. It's not too terribly far out of my way on my drive home from work.   As far as cost and efficiency go, it's probably not the most competitive.  Meaning, I'm paying more for my dry-cleaning than I ever have in my life.

In fact, the thought of going elsewhere has crossed my mind more than once.


But as I stand there, watching Suzie shuffle around, digging through racks and racks of clothing, I realize that after a day of going, going, going, I am being forced to stop.  Slow my hurried pace.  Just...be.  Breathe.

Sometimes, it takes a full day of rest for me to really breathe deeply.
Sometimes, it takes a morning hike in the wilderness.
Sometimes, it takes an afternoon curled up with my journal by the fire.

And sometimes, it takes 5 minutes in a dry-cleaning shop.

Sometimes it's scary to stop.
Sometimes we're afraid that the load we've been carting around (you know, the one we're in a wee bit of denial about) will slam into us from behind.
Sometimes we're worried that if we don't hurry along, we'll fall behind.

The world around us prizes convenience and efficiency.   The world around us glorifies busy-ness.  The world around us says, "you are what you do."

But as I stand in that little shop at 7:00 on a Wednesday evening, the voice (of truth) inside of me says, "You have a more than a few things to learn from this woman."   
She's not in a hurry, and she assumes you aren't either.

There is time.

There is time to have a real conversation.

There is time to take care with your work. 

There is time for deep breaths. 

There is time for simple kindness.

There is time to look another in the eyes and exchange mercy.

                                         Photo Credit: Chinwe Edeani  www.photosbychinwe.tumblr.com

the white belt

The Sabbath is setting on this, my final Sabbath before the school year begins. The lanterns around my living room are lit, and I am finishing off a glass of wine as I close this day, this season, of rest.

I was on campus briefly this weekend and felt the nervous energy of freshmen and their parents as they moved their life’s possessions into their tiny dorm rooms. I know that energy well; I was one of them, once. I know the intensity of the schedule – the orientation events, the placement exams, the ensemble auditions, the dorm initiation activities. It will be a whirlwind few days, and then on Wednesday, thirty-five students will stumble into my classroom – excited, nervous, terrified, bright-eyed and bushy-tailed, hoarse from the yell-off and Mock Rock, loving life more than ever before, wondering if this is really for them.

Truth be told, I am not ready for them. Sure, my syllabus is posted, but I was smart enough to write “SUBJECT TO CHANGE” at the top. How you are supposed to plan the activities and readings and assignments for EVERY SINGLE DAY of class before you have even seen the whites of their eyes is still completely beyond me. So it has been submitted to the powers that be – but there are still lessons to plan, lectures to write, exams to create. 

There are certain things I must cover this semester – concepts they must learn, skills they must acquire, knowledge they will be held accountable for. So I have planned and planned. I have sat and stared at the calendar, wondering how it’s possible to fit so much into a mere 14 weeks. How many days can we afford to spend on seventh chords or non-harmonic tones? I have grown dizzy as I have tried to figure out the best order for introducing various concepts. Lord knows I’m still torn on whether or not to explore minor scales before our discussion of the circle of fifths. I have spent hours wondering how much I will be able to fit into one hour of class time. Will we be able to cover all four triad qualities AND discuss the qualities of triads built on the various scale degrees?

With all this planning and preparation, it would be easy for me to begin this year with the mindset that I am here to teach my students something.

But the truth is: I am here to learn. I am here to learn their names and their faces. I am here to uncover their abilities, their strengths, their weaknesses. I am here to listen to their stories, their dreams, their passions.

As I sip my wine this evening, I turn, as I have often done at important moments in my musical development, to what I have come to refer to as my “musical Bible” - a book called “Zen Guitar” by Philip Toshio Sudo. My copy has been well-loved; its pages are browning, the cover is wrinkled, and there are hundreds of underlined phrases, sentences, paragraphs and notes in the margins.

This particular evening, I find myself flipping to the chapter on wearing the white belt, the color worn by a beginner. As he works and learns, his belt gradually dirties and eventually turns to black – the color worn by a master. But he does not stop there; he continues to work, and as he does, the belt fades and eventually returns to white. It is a never-ending cycle. It is not about “arriving” at a destination – but is instead about being faithful to the process.

My choir director in college used to refer to us as “wearers of the white belt” – those who have, as Sudo describes, chosen to “set aside all knowledge and preconceptions and open [their minds] to learning as though for the first time.”  Wearers of the white belt come with empty cups, ready to learn and receive.

We've all known the people who’ve come in with all the answers. We see them coming, a mile away, and we start heading in the opposite direction. We’ve also been those people. We’ve come in with everything figured out, ready to teach the class or flaunt our vast wisdom and experience. And oh, the things we’ve missed. The lessons we haven’t learned. The nuggets of wisdom we let slip through the cracks.

Sudo says it well: “The moment you think you know everything there is to know, you will have lost the way. The beginner’s mind is the mind of wisdom.”

It’s true – I do have things to teach, wisdom to offer, experiences to share. But I also have much to learn, new perspectives to discover, fresh insights to gain.

On Wednesday, 35 students will stumble into my classroom.

On Wednesday, 35 teachers will stumble into my classroom.

So tonight I don my white belt.

Tonight I empty my cup.

I am ready to learn.

Photo Credit: Chinwe Edeani www.photosbychinwe.tumblr.com

let evening come

It's my favorite time of day.  Or, my new favorite, I should say.  I will never abandon my undying love for early mornings, but living in a westward-facing home has brought with it a new appreciation for the dusky, twilit world.

The work is done...or at least laid aside until tomorrow.  The dishes are dripping their way to being dry.  The sun is bidding his final farewell as he peeks out from behind the ridge. My wineglass grows more illumined by the second as the candlelit lantern sends its flickers across the table.  My feet are up.  My hands are overflowing with fresh grapes from my garden. And Puzzle, the cross-eyed cat (yes, it's true), has come to say 'good evening'.

I spent yesterday evening in this same spot, catching up with a friend by lantern light after a 6-year hiatus (actually, probably really more like 10) from each others' lives. We reflected our individual journeys, as we recounted what has brought us to this point in time.  And here we are.  In the same city.  In similar seasons of life.

She commented on the way I didn't hide the messiness or the tension as I recounted my story of the last few years.  "That's life," she said, "We want it to fit nicely in boxes, but it doesn't."  We want there to be airtight solutions to the problems and easy answers to our nagging questions.  And it would be nice if it was all wrapped up with a beautiful bow on top.  but that's not life.


And maybe this is why I am coming to love evenings.


The mornings are full of pent-up potential.  There is room for hope, possibility, fresh starts.  I love the unknown.  The anticipation.  The energy of the stillness.  When I look at the day through my morning eyes, I am filled with gratitude.

I've never really liked evenings.  I have always associated them with weariness, heaviness, the weight of the day's work and failures.  The unknown is now known.  The morning's stillness has been replaced by a cacophony of voices. The din has undone me.  When I look at the day through my evening eyes, I am quick to see the negative - it is all-to-easy to latch on to the faults and failures.

But, the longer I sit, the more I force myself to pause and remember, the more I start see the beauty of the day.  A word of affirmation.  A shared moment of laughter.  A surprising turn of events.  An unexpected gift.


Over the years, as I have explored the idea of "Sabbath" - I have come to love the idea of the Sabbath beginning at sundown.  I love that it begins with rest. I love that it begins with what is, by American standards, the most unproductive thing we can do.  I love that surrender to the darkness and the stillness serves as the link between days.   I love that even in the hours that hold such terror and dread for so many - the moments when we are left defenseless and vulnerable - this - even this - is the time to begin anew.

And so, I say, let evening come.  Let it come and bring with it an awareness of our failures and shortcomings. Let it come and bring with it the weariness and weight of the day.  Let it come and bring with it the recollections of quiet moments of beauty in the chaos.  Let it come, and let us embrace it.  Let it come, and let us yield to the darkness, to the stillness.  Let it come, and let us lean into the grace that holds us.

Let it come, as it will, and don't

be afraid. God does not leave us

comfortless, so let evening come.

 - Jane Kenyon

Photo Credit:  Chinwe Edeani

the gift of presence

"Then I sit quietly for a while, appreciating the beauty of the place, looking at or handling sacred objects on my table. Mostly what I keep are small gifts from people, things that remind me that my presence has mattered, that I have touched people, that I am connected, that I am so incredibly blessed."

 - Sabbath, Wayne Muller

Over the last 10 years, I have been diligent to keep the Sabbath. That is to say, I set aside 24 hours each week to rest - no practicing, no homework, no to-do-lists, no technology.  I am quite convinced that this practice has kept me alive, healthy, sane. 

And in the last few weeks, I have been learning the importance of Sabbath seasons.  I haven't had one in at least 4 years, maybe longer.  I was talking with a friend this week, a member of my former small group - the same group that walked with me as I attempted to work full time AND apply to graduate school simultaneously (this involved starting my practice time at 6AM every day).  "You haven't rested in a long time" - and she should know...she watched me struggle to keep my eyes open each week during small group.

I picked up a new book on the Sabbath last month, and I have enjoyed exploring different perspectives and Sabbath traditions. This morning's nugget seemed to leap off the page.  The author was describing the Sabbath practices of a friend of his (named Mary, no less). The above quote describes a portion of her Sabbath morning ritual.

One phrase resonated deeply with me: things that remind me that my presence has mattered.

I find it interesting that she says her "presence."  Not what she's done.  Not what she's given.  Not even what she's spoken.  Just simply her existence. The fact that she showed up. The fact that she shared a space with others, breathed the same air.

Isn't this what we all want to know?  Not even that we are wonderful or amazing, but simply that we matter. That something is lost if we are not present.  That there is intrinsic value in us that is involuntary, independent of our actions.  That our presence has had an effect, whether we intended it or not. That we are connected, in ways that cannot be put into words.  We are each made in the image of God, and when we rub shoulders, we cannot help but pass on a little bit of the divine.

As I have sorted through my belongings during my moving process, I have come across boxes of letters, cards, messages scrawled on scratch paper.  The written word has always been the most powerful love language in my life - and this collection of notes speaks of my need to know that my presence is needed - necessary.  So I hold tightly to them, to remind myself that I have mattered - and to fuel my hope that I can matter again.

And as I reflect on those who have affirmed my value, I am suddenly aware of the power we hold over others.  It doesn't take much to affirm someone's value.  A squeeze of the hand.  An arm around the shoulders.  A held gaze.  A simple sentence:   "I'm glad you're here."  "I've missed you."

It doesn't take much.  But the effects are far-reaching.

And it's made me think about the souls that will be present in my classroom this fall.  I was a bit overwhelmed to learn this week that there could be as many as 50 of them.  I will be studying my picture roster every night, attempting to learn names.  They will come and they will go - and I may not know all their stories by the end of the semester.  But I hope and pray that in some small way, I can communicate to them that they matter - not just their work or their opinions or their contribution to class discussion or their grades. Just their presence.