most boring post, ever

So while I think of it,

let me paint a thank-you on my palm

for this God, this laughter of the morning,

lest it go unspoken.

The joy that isn't shared, I've heard,

dies young.

--anne sexton

***

The pleasures of consumption, which involves the destruction of another animal or plant into smaller and smaller bits that are then swallowed and digested—kissing is this without the destruction, consumption, and assimilation of something that was once an animal doing its own thing. Real eating is a one-sided pleasure; for one side, it is a good encounter, for the cow or egg or nut, it is not so good. Kissing is eating as production, as creation.

A bad kisser is either (1) a person who actually eats you or (2) a person who does it all wrong. The second type of bad kisser puts too much of their teeth into the moment, or their tongue behaves like a panicked lizard, or their mouth can never strike that wonderful balance between rough and soothing. A bad kisser often means the deal is over. We disengage because we see them as socially inferior—they remove the magic from the risk. The bad kisser reveals their soul: They are a bad person. A good kisser is always a good person. A kiss that lasts for five minutes burns 10 calories.

--charles mudede

***

On Self-Knowledge

      And a man said, "Speak to us of Self-Knowledge." 

      And he answered, saying: 

      Your hearts know in silence the secrets of the days and the nights. 

      But your ears thirst for the sound of your heart's knowledge. 

      You would know in words that which you have always know in thought. 

      You would touch with your fingers the naked body of your dreams. 

      And it is well you should. 

      The hidden well-spring of your soul must needs rise and run murmuring to the sea; 

      And the treasure of your infinite depths would be revealed to your eyes. 

      But let there be no scales to weigh your unknown treasure; 

      And seek not the depths of your knowledge with staff or sounding line. 

      For self is a sea boundless and measureless. 

      Say not, "I have found the truth," but rather, "I have found a truth." 

      Say not, "I have found the path of the soul." Say rather, "I have met the soul walking upon my path." 

      For the soul walks upon all paths. 

      The soul walks not upon a line, neither does it grow like a reed. 

      The soul unfolds itself, like a lotus of countless petals.

--kahlil gibran, the prophet

i've got this butcher paper mural, full of multi-colored and sparkly sheep, drying over a chair, in my office.  there's a box full of wicker crosses that have been decorated by busy little hands, bright and cheery little things covered in silk flowers that will never wilt or die.  in the basket with the red-thread work quilt (featuring scenes from the life of Jesus, and sewed by the women in my granny's old bible study) and the grey prayer shawl, there's the sock monkey one of my seventh graders gave me for Christmas.  boo boo monkey (so named by three little blonde cherubs who have about four teeth between them) helped me explain how G-d sometimes takes old, ratty, smelly things and turns them into something entirely different for us to love and hold close.  there's a plastic container full of bazooka bubble gum, sticky frog-feet things from oriental trading company, and a basket full of groucho marx glasses/noses and kazoos sits on my desk, ready to be ravaged by marauding children and teens.  and all my random toys are in here--my austin powers' bobble heads, my wonderwoman outfil (it's ornament sized...don't get any crazy ideas...)the nun that spits fire, the little wooden nativity set mrs uumstaddt found in vienna and just thought i HAD to have, the cut-glass bowl my friend jennifer gave me for my thirtieth birthday, the little porcelain owl i painted during day camp...and i sit here, at my dad's old desk, looking across this office at a picture of him and my mother on their first date.  and my books, and books, and books...

i love my office. 

it's almost may.  i can't freaking believe it.  i'm a profoundly lucky girl.  i wake up every day, and remind myself of that.  and i remind myself that everything it took to get me to that moment of opening my eyes and seeing the new day in front of me  was worth it.  because it was.  and it is.  and all things shall be well.  

also, i wish carl jung would get the eff out of my head...i'm just saying...jebus, he's louder than the college kids in the apartment up above me.  that's pretty damn loud.  

mil besos,

rmg

neutral ground

April is the cruellest month, breeding

Lilacs out of the dead land, mixing

Memory and desire, stirring

Dull roots with spring rain.

***

Blessed sister, holy mother, spirit of the fountain, spirit of the garden,

Suffer us not to mock ourselves with falsehood

Teach us to care and not to care

***

you neglect and belittle the desert.

The desert is not remote in southern tropics

The desert is not only around the corner,

The desert is squeezed in the tube-train next to you,

The desert is in the heart of your brother.

***

Ohm, Shanti, Shanti...

-ts eliot

today felt like i was walking around in a pair of shoes with no traction, on a super-slick floor, and having to fight like the dickens not to go head over heels into a heap in the middle of the hallway.  some days are like that, and for no good reason.  but, like i told the fairy godmother/bosslady: we didn't lose any ground, and that is no small thing.  

there are no small miracles, no small victories, no insignificant gains in this life.  sometimes, planting your feet and refusing to move is about the best any of us can do.  figuring out the balance between fighting the good fight and being a pain in the ass is hard.  sometimes, i have to take a sober second look at what i'm doing, just to make sure i'm not totally off the reservation, and spinning my wheels.  sometimes i discover i have done just that...spun my wheels and dug myself into a doozy of a rut.  it's hard to resist the shame-spiral that threatens to follow that kind of realization.  some days, i don't make it out, and have to cry a little and write a little and play my guitar at top volume for at least an hour, and remind myself that while lots of people think i'm super-smart and super-capable, i'm just some girl who's trying to make a life she's proud of, just like everyone else.  and there are days when i am not awesome.  

but every day, regardless of the circumstances or the reasons or the caveats or the excuses or the allergies or too much coffee or not enough sleep or just because it's thursday, and we're all a little strung out, here...we have the chance to bring out best selves, our wildest and most vivid dreams to the table.  some days, it's chicken salad, and other days...it's chicken shit...but as long as the sun keeps coming up, and we find ourselves on the green side of the grass, as long as we remember that even when we feel most afraid, we are never alone, never toiling in solitude, we can find ways to celebrate that work, find a way to live fully and fearlessly into where and who and how we are.  

there are days when we will take the hill, and days when we will end up bruised and bloody, back at the bottom. and then there are neutral days, days when all we do is hold our ground.  

and that is no small thing.  

mil besos,

rmg

driving ms crazy

The car has become a secular sanctuary for the individual, his shrine to the self, his mobile Walden Pond.  ~Edward McDonagh


You can't see anything from a car; you've got to get out of the goddamn contraption and walk, better yet crawl, on hands and knees, over the sandstone and through the thornbrush and cactus.  When traces of blood begin to mark your trail, you'll see something, maybe.  ~Edward Abbey


Your arms are water. 
And you are free 
With a ghastly freedom. 
You are the beautiful half 
Of a golden hurt. --Gwendolyn Brooks


my poppy bought my first car well before i turned 16.  it was a 1982 vw rabbit convertible, and it ate a quart of oil every two weeks.  i loved this car--psychotically loved it the way only a teenager can love something.  that car represented such freedom to me.  trouble was, i had no idea how to drive it.  like a bunch of other kids who grew up in rural america, i'd been driving for years (on the hunting lease, backroads on Sundays when my parents were too tired to argue with me and we all needed to get out of the house), but all those cars had been automatic transmissions.  this thing with three pedals and six gears was WAY out of my depth.  


it was a good thing we had a huge backyard. and by "huge backyard", i meant we had an entire acre of wide open space, in the middle of town, and already had a driveway running down the middle of it.  mom and dad decided i could learn to drive on the lots, and so, for the summer before i turned 16, that's exactly what i did.  and my dad didn't have to mow all summer.  and i think i only bought three tanks of gas, because i never got above second gear...


the first afternoon lesson did not go well.  it ended with my mother rolling her eyes and going back inside the house, and my dad looking at me from the passenger seat, shaking his head in frustration and moderate disgust that this fruit of his loins was incapable of figuring out the mystical relationship between the clutch and gas pedal.  the harder i tried to get it right, the worse i did, and the more frustrated he got.  i vividly remember trying my best not to cry, when the car died ONE MORE TIME, and i came to the cold and clear understanding that i was never going to understand how to drive this car, my parents would make me sell it, and i'd end up living at home, never go to college, and die of shame because i couldn't learn to drive this car.  


i put my head down on the steering wheel, heard my father mutter something under his breath about hysterical teenage girls, felt him very lightly pat the top of my head, and exited the vehicle.  and OH HELL NO, YOU'RE LEAVING ME OUT HERE?? i remember actually yelling that at him, and him looking back at me, and giving me the face he always gave me when it was time to put me in my place, "queenie, would it really matter if i stayed?  you've got to do this on your own, because nothing i'm saying or trying is working. you know what you need to do, and kind of how to do it.  now, you've got all afternoon, and mom and i will be right inside.   it's just not worth you being this upset, honey.  you don't have to do this.  you don't have to master this in one afternoon.  you've got the whole summer to learn how to do this. you can do this."  that made me cry even harder, because now, i had not only failed learning to drive my car, but i felt like i'd worn my pops down so much that he left me in the back yard.  i went from bereft to totally pissed off in about two point five seconds.  that's a lot of pick-up...


flash forward to forty-five minutes later, and my parents come bursting out the door because i've figured out the magical ratio of gas-to-clutch, and am driving about thirty miles an hour in a half-mile loop, kicking up dust and degraded granite for all i'm worth.  my face was still blotchy from crying, but omg...was i livid and thrilled at the same time...and DRIVING...AND I TOLD YOU I COULD DO IT and i really didn't want to allow my parents the satisfaction of telling them they were right, and i was wrong, but i did deign to slow down, and heard them whooping and hollering from the porch.  


i'm sure i would have eventually learned to drive the car, with mom in the backseat and dad in the passenger seat, simultaneously trying to explain to me the art and science of vehicular operation.  it would have been a much longer summer.  there would have been lots more yelling, and i probably would have ended up saying "fuck" in front of them a lot earlier than i actually did. 


it was a lesson i had to learn on my own, once someone had given me the basic outline, because no one, not even if they've driven my car or one just like it seventy-five thousand times, can tell me how the clutch feels under my feet, once it engages.  no one can tell me exactly what it feels like to know the engine is about to choke, because i've just barely missed the magical recipe for shifting gears.  it's a thing i have to feel under my own  feet, and understand that feeling all the way up my legs, all the way to my brain.  people can give me practical advice, watch my feet, listen to the engine, and shout orders at me all day long.  but until i put my feet on the pedals, and try to make the magic happen, it's all just a bunch of theory and nonsense.  


the first time i actually drove the car, for real, on the streets and in broad daylight, i was terrified.  i was shaking like a leaf, and it was bad enough that my mother noticed.  she told me it was ok if i didn't feel ready yet, that she was more than happy to drive us to sonic in her car.  i knew if i didn't just get in and go, and do this thing, no matter how scared i was, i'd never be able to look myself in the eye, again.  being afraid is nothing to be ashamed of, but being frozen by my fear is.  so, we jumped in my little rattle-trap, and i stalled out twice in the sonic parking lot (i managed not to die from embarrassment, but just barely...), but i had done this thing, even though i was scared out of my mind the whole time i was doing it.   


i rarely think about learning to drive, anymore.  that little girl seems so far away, sometimes.  i see pictures of her, read her old journal entries, remember saying things out of her mouth, and i wonder how much of her is left at the bottom of my deepest self.  because the truth of the matter is that she was a brave girl who knew exactly who she was, even on days when she wasn't.  i like to believe that the fifteen year old who taught herself the art of manual transmission driving is still a little bit around, and is much more a part of who i still am than i imagine...not because i need her drivel or flights of fancy, you understand.  it's just that she's young enough to understand that it's ok to be afraid, and barely old enough to know she's got some serious moxy (with which she already knows she must use great care...), and that now that the hard part of actually learning to drive is over, she's got the whole summer to leave the top down, perfect left turns, and get a killer tan.  she's a world beater, that one...and when i see her, peaking through my eyes, when i have to look in the mirror, and get my nerve up, ask myself hard questions, dare myself to be the girl i know i am, she reminds me that i am, too.    


mil besos,
rmg

both

American Heritage Dictionary:

a·lo·ha

Top

(ə-lō'ə, -hə, ä-lō'hä') 
interj. Chiefly Hawaii
Used as a traditional greeting or farewell.

"...she said. 'In Quadling thinking, one plus one doesn't equal a single unit of two. One plus one equals both." 

     --Gregory Maguire, Son of a Witch

so often, i feel like i'm asked to choose between two things that on the surface, look very similar, but at the bottom are really worlds apart.  i feel like i get asked a lot of "mayo or mustard" kind of questions, and answering "both, please, but not too much of either one" is kind of bratty, even when that is the real and true answer.  i don't think it's any wonder my favorite color is grey--like that pewtery silvery underbelly of a good rain cloud, kind of smeared with a darker blue-grey at the edges and in the center. it's a good background for noticing patterns or pops of important colors.  grey is committed, but not immovable.  grey connotes movement, from one thing to another, and sometimes knowing whether the move is from black to white, or white to black, or any of the colors in the paint box is something we don't get to know.  the swing is still in motion. 


i made a flying trip home yesterday to check on the folks, and a less-frenzied drive back, this afternoon...a lady is tired.  the drive down was really nice, in spite of the reason.  the mowers had been doing a lot of work, these last few weeks, and the hay fields were full of round, golden bales of hay.  ranked up for acres, backlit by the sun on it's way back west, with the gold seeming to make the blue of the sky even more vivid and spring-time crisp, and edged by the green, green growth at the edges of the field and road, they reminded me of the last series vincent van gogh painted.  i love that series, even though it makes me sad to look at it, sometimes.  the colors are so vivid, and this does not look like the work of a man who's about to leave this life.  this looks like the work of a man who can't stop painting, who can't stop mixing colors, who can't keep his eyes wide-open enough.  it's funny how things look, sometimes...like those graceful swans who seem to cut right through the water.  down below, they're in constant and consistent motion.


it was nice to be in my mother's house, for how ever brief the time.  i slept so hard that when i woke up at four, with the kind of cotton mouth only real actual tex-mex can give me, i had to remind myself that i was sleeping in my little girl bed, in the guest room, and the bathroom was just out the door, to my left.  i was surprised i was that far/deep asleep.  that almost never happens, ever.  i suppose it goes to show that no matter how old i get, there is a deep and profound sense of safety and security that comes from being near my mother and grandmother.  i sleep like that when i'm at my granny's, in alabama, and at my aunt nea's house, too.  and at camp.  it's a full stop.  it's waking up with half my body asleep, and the other half bearing a sheet crease from temple to toe.  it's that muzzy wake up that takes a good five minutes and then sends you running to the bathroom to give seabisquit a run for his money. it's that gracious acceptance of the end of one day and the conscious and willful intention to be recklessly hopeful about the new day that is beginning, even when the day already looks long, and it's not even 7am, yet.  it's knowing that even while i put my waking body to rest (with the weird dreams i've been cranking out--almost all of them underwater...not like mermaid underwater, but like regular life underwater...weird...or not.  whatever..., a lady's mind is SHO not on siesta with that business...first whales, and now underwater?  really?  i'm not complaining, i'm just saying...parenthetically, weird dreams.) my sleeping body was hard at the work of resting and rebuilding, putting that guacamole to work on...something. 


and the earth was still busy spinning on it's axis, hurtling through this arm of the milky way, speeding out in space, nestled in the palm of this G-d i can't see or explain, but want to know more about and love better, who i can know because i know Jesus, because i see so much love around me in the world, but still feel like i can't really get a grasp on what all that really really means, down at the bottom, because i also see so much  hurt and meanness, too...but all of that is true, every night when i close my eyes, and it's true when i wake up in the mornings.  even so, it's hard to remember that.  i wake up so many days and believe that the universe turns on when i open my eyes.  we look to be standing still, a lot of the time.  sometimes, the movements are so subtle, we don't even notice...but we are moving, constantly. we are bodies in motion, the earth and i, and until we are acted upon by an outside force, remain in motion. 


it's hard to get my giant girl-hands around that, and most days, i feel like the bulk of it goes trailing behind me, like a little kid taking ALL her toys down the hall, and not realizing that the travois she made out of her blankie is spilling a wake of plush carnage from her bedroom to the living room.  because even though it's kind of cute, someone is going to have to pick that shit up.  and if you leave it to that little kid, it's going to take nine and a half hours of whining and poking and prodding, hauling one precious little stuffed bear at a time back to the designated rallying point, and she's going to low-grade whine about it the whole time, too.  and she might kick the wall.  lightly, ever so lightly, but she's going to mean it. she'll be moving...but it's not nearly as charming as the swans i mentioned earlier.  


bluebonnets and cactus and blue sky and lost pines, and the way my grammy smells, and sharing a bathroom with my mom while we both got ready for the day, vanilla cokes, driving with all four windows down, singing really loud and not caring i was at a stop light, having the dog pee on my feet (and shorts, this time...), clean gas station bathrooms, hay fields, big bang theory, phone charger, laughing until my face hurts, pep talks, righteous indignation, family love, old books, old songs, favorite green shirt, the brazos river, sharing stories...that was today.  i never stopped moving.  and i have to tell you, it was, in all honesty, a really nice day, even the hard parts. 


i'm super tired.  i'm ready for baby chapel in the morning.  i'll probably dream about the good shepherd, herding sheep...underwater... 


mil besos,
rmg

the sixth timed run: blather and a play list

this is the part where i make a shameless plug for the couch to 5k app, on my iphone.  it has been worth every nickle.  it's high on the list of favorite material things, at the moment.  i'm not crazy about the voice cue, but that's the worst thing i can say about it.  the guy tells me when to run and when to walk, and the rest of the time, he shuts up and listens to my playlist.

under the playlist is the sound of thomas park...the pick-up soccer match in the middle field, the giggles and squeals from the playscape and swing set, the chit-chat of pairs walking or meeting to walk or finishing up a walk, the low hum of the vehicles and the almost-silent sissss of the bicycles on the street, and birds calling back and forth to each other from the oak trees that line the park.  i love this park.  i found it totally by accident, and it was exactly what i was looking for.  i love running in this park.  i have to make myself not run on my off days.  that is something that i'd never have imagined i would feel about running, not even after i had really committed to training for the marathon.

i know that at some point, in the not too distant future, the distance i am capable of running will outstrip the third-mile track i visit every other day, and i'll have to move to the trails at wolf-pen or start running at bee creek, instead, and start running bleachers.  but that's at least another month away.  and that's ok.  i can imagine that i'll still run thomas park, every so often, just because i'll want to.  it's been a safe place to relearn how to run, to hold my body, to breathe, and feel settled inside myself.  and it's easy, in this little park, just off the main street in happy valley, to remember that it's not important how fast i run, or how far i run.  what is important is to run well.  to push hard enough to know i'm working, but not so hard i can't walk the next day, to remember my form, to integrate all the movements, to remember it's not about anything but right this minute.  running and yoga and praying feel like a lot of the same things to me, right now.  to find that still and quiet place inside myself, so that i can reflect on the day, the hour, the minute, the second...and then, get to that place that's just...quiet.  that's worth a lot of ice for my screaming knees.  a lot.

it's this little magic spot, in this ordinary neighborhood.  this city does a really, really, really phenomenal job on their parks.  i am a fan. i like running around 7:30 or so, at night.  this time of year, in this part of the world, that's magic hour, and if the clouds and the sun and the trees and the grass and the angels all sing just right, you'd believe you could run for a thousand years, and die with a smile on your face.  it's this incredible silvery, lush grey, with spring green and muted blues and shy pinks and it's one of the ways i know G-d loves me.

and these are the songs i listened to, when i was running at thomas park, today:
   1. under my thumb--the rolling stones (it's a good song to use as a wind up)
   2. chest fever--the band (...like you didn't see that one coming.)
   3. atlantic city--levon helm (...i know...i know...so good)
   4. hold on, i'm coming--sam and dave (that hook KILLS me in the best possible way, every single time)
   5. righteously--lucinda williams (she's kind of a badass, and i LIKE running to this song, because the solo   just SHREDS.
   6. case of you--joni mitchell (oddly a really nice torch song to run to, i was skeptical about putting it this close to the end of a run, but it was a nice steady pace, and that dulcimer is just SO sweet.  graham nash was a lucky guy.)
  7. highway 61 revisited--bob dylan (again, no shocker.  this is my favorite song to put at the end of a run.  it's a great little kick to finish with, and sometimes, i feel sassy enough to sing along, in my head.
  8.  DON'T JUDGE
       whatcha say--jason derulo (i hate how much i like this song.  i LOVE imogene heap's original.  that whole album reminds me of my apartment at camp, and that absolutely insane and wonderful summer.  this song, though...well, it's up there with jill scott's"hate on me" for making me feel a little bit sassy.  that was a good thing to feel at the end my run, today.

i'm writing a lot.  i'm reading a lot.  i'm playing a LOT of music, and i have GOT to go buy new strings, this week. i'm spending a lot of time on the phone.  i'm constantly and pleasantly surprised by grace, peeking around the corners of my life.  i feel like i'm stretching out into this place, and this season in my life.  it's like finding my stride, again, after not having run for so, so long.  it's familiar and brand new, all at the same time.  i'm incredibly grateful.

mil besos,
rmg

...and all the people were singing...

Ram"ble (?), v. i. [imp. & p. p. Rambled (?); p. pr. & vb. n. Rambling (?).] [For rammle, fr. Prov. E. rame to roam. Cf. Roam.]

1. To walk, ride, or sail, from place to place, without any determinate object in view; to roam carelessly or irregularly; to rove; to wander; as, to ramble about the city; to ramble over the world.

He that is at liberty to ramble in perfect darkness, what is his liberty better than if driven up and down as a bubble by the wind? Locke.

2. To talk or write in a discursive, aimless way.

3. To extend or grow at random. Thomson. Syn. -- To rove; roam; wander; range; stroll.

---

Ramble (Page: 1186)

Ram"ble, n.

1. A going or moving from place to place without any determinate business or object; an excursion or stroll merely for recreation.

Coming home, after a short Christians ramble. Swift.

2. [Cf. Rammel.] (Coal Mining) A bed of shale over the seam. Raymond. <-- 3. A section of woods suitable for liesurely walking. muskrat ramble -- a dance -->

--webster's revised unabridged dictionary, 1913

my love affair with The Band started my senior year in college. it was the year i turned 21, took an obscene number of course hours, and tried to figure out just what was going to happen after August, when i would be a college graduate.  i remember watching a lot of VH1's "behind the music". when i say "a lot", what  i mean is that i skipped more than one class and put off studying for SEVERAL tests to watch episodes i hadn't seen, before.  i vividly remember sitting on the denim-covered couch (come on...it was just barely not-the-90's, anymore) watching "behind the music: the band", and realizing that i knew those guys.  i just didn't know that i knew them, before.  

the sound this band generated (and the sound generated by levon helm, in particular) was a sound that was as familiar to me as my own mother's voice, the ebb and flow of the cadences as wise and weathered and insistent as the rise and fall of my father's voice.  the stories they told with their music were familiar stories to me, even though some of them were brand new stories.  and there's this bearded general, somewhere between General Sherman and General Lee, driving this chariot of sound and fury up your driveway, and all the way through the back wall of the garage, burning a swath of carpet a mile wide through the middle of your living room, shattering the plate glass window, and finishing with a wink and a big wet kiss at the bottom of your swimming pool.  greil marcus said once that they were the best band in america.  and to that, i must add a very emphatic "you're damn skippy."  

what the band created together, when they were at the top of their game--deeply engaged in the business of being each others' business, was something that was bigger than just being bob dylan's band.  not that that's a bad job.  i mean...seriously?  bob dylan's band.  but they were their own band, firstforeverandalways.  what they pulled out of dylan was incredible.  what dylan pulled out of them was incendiary.  what they made together took everything that rock and roll had been before and made it louder, harder, deeper, and fundamentally impossible to ignore.  and while it sounds hackneyed and tired, the fact remains that that sound changed everything.  

everything on "music from big pink" lets you know that this album is special.  i feel like it's the musical equivalent of  landing on the moon.  there was always the chance that the doing of the thing would be the undoing of the doers.  but...the expected and intended outcome was worth the gamble.  listen to any track, and whether you know the song or not, i'll bet you dollars to donuts, the music will sound familiar to you.  you'll catch yourself humming little snips of it for the rest of the day.  it'll change your life, if you let it.  

when i started therapy, and really making space for myself inside of my own life, claiming it, as it were...i needed a lot of security blankets.  "music from big pink" and "the  last waltz" were albums that i could cuddle up inside of and rest.  some of the songs are incredibly sad, and there is always an undercurrent of angst or otherness or tension in rock and roll.  that's what makes it rock and roll--the speed and the volume that come out of some of our blackest emotions.  when i hear "the weight", i feel like i know every person in that song.  every single character has some weirdness about them, but they are each necessary in the song.  "long black veil", "chest fever", and and "i shall be released" are further examples of the deeply personal and universal stories the songs celebrate.  i love that album.  i run to tracks off of it, all the time.  i listen to it when i'm in the shower.  i listen to it in the car. at least one track from "big pink" is on almost every play list i've made in the last three years.  and when i was at the oldest bar in houston, last friday night, they played the entire b side.  THE. ENTIRE. B. SIDE.   

true story: 

"the last waltz" was filmed the same weekend my mom took my dad home on approval to my grandparents. levon helm sang "the night they drove old dixie down" in public, for the last time, the night my dad asked my poppy if he could marry my mother.  i love that.  there is something so primal and elemental about that song. the song crawls up out of the woods, with the tangy reek of pine resin and the faint after-taste of something someone's uncle carries around in a mason jar, trying to explain how things got to be the way they are, and with an apologetic tone that ranges from the jeremiad to the lovers' lament, we come to understand the profound effect war and poverty take on people, regardless of the era, because levon just can't help but tell you this story.  and when levon is singing, you believe he really did work on the danville train.  you can hear the sadness in his voice, the exegesis of emancipation and reconstruction and deconstruction and trying to make something meaningful out of the scraps left laying around him.  it's a song and a sound and an ethos i always associate with the way my father explained hard things to me, with the old stories shelby foote tells like they were brand new, with sticky-humid summers full of pine needles, red clay, sweet tea, and the slowly drawled-out terms of endearment my Granny uses instead of all our names.  it's sad and sweet and perfect.  

in flights of fancy, i have imagined what it would have been like to have lived next door to the band, to have baked them a cobbler, or mended a couple of shirts, commiserated with their girlfriends, and listened in on mythical and mystical jam sessions.  i have imagined flirting shamelessly with levon helm, circa 1975.  i've thought about what the walls of big pink or levon's barn would say, if they could talk.  i like to think they'd be so full of experiences, i'd never hear the end of the stories.  the basement tapes, the midnight rambles...the stories, the music, the voices...G-d...how would i even start to say "thank you", without sounding like a 15 year old gushing over the latest pop sensation from either coast?  how would i say "thank you" without dissolving into tears, trying to explain that there were moments when the music was the only thing to remind me that i was not all alone in an impossibly big universe?  

it's hard to know and understand in a real and concrete way that this life is passing away, a day at a time.  when heroes die, we lionize them and romanticize them and preach them right through the pearly gates.  when i hear levon, when i hear the band, the collective sound and fury and celebration and announcement of "THIS IS HAPPENING, NOW", i don't think.  i just know.  

and i know this much is true: 

heroes live forever.  lions are the kings of the jungle.  romance is what happens when no one else is looking.  the kingdom of heaven is now.  

peace on your journey, levon.  thank you for the music.  i love you.  

mil besos,

rmg

this one is about swimming lessons, after a fashion...

"eventually, all things merge into one, and a river runs through it. the river was cut by the world's great flood and runs over rocks from the basement of time. on some of those rocks are timeless raindrops. under the rocks are the words, and some of the words are theirs. i am haunted by waters. --norman maclane


whence come the highest mountains? i once asked. then i learned that they came out of the sea. the evidence is written in their rocks and in the walls of their peaks. tt is out of the deepest depth that the highest must come to its height. --friedrich nietzsche




why did the old persians hold the sea holy? why did the greeks give it a separate deity, and own brother of jove? surely all this is not without meaning. and still deeper the meaning of that story of narcissus, who because he could not grasp the tormenting, mild image he saw in the fountain, plunged into it and was drowned. but that same image, we ourselves see in all rivers and oceans. it is the image of the ungraspable phantom of life; and this is the key to it all.  --herman melville




i was thinking about the last time i taught swimming lessons, the other day.  i used bonnie's parents' pool--one of my favorite pools in the whole world.  i only had one student, and she was five.  and i had nine weeks in the pool, with this little cherub, before i left home for college.  


there were days that summer when the only thing that was constant and made sense was teaching this blonde child how to swim.  there were days when being in the pool with her was the only reason to not sit down in a corner of my room and quit.  the great thing about teaching swim lessons to a five year old is that they are usually too busy to notice or mind if you're having a bad day or cried all morning.  they are usually just so excited to be in the pool, none of the rest of it matters.  and so, for two hours, every day, five days a week, i was in the pool with the happiest kid in the world.  


she was such a fast learner.  we could have been done in two weeks.  but my student's momma insisted that her child needed more time in the pool, insisted that i be the one to do it, kept paying me, kept trusting me in ten feet of blue blue blue water with her most precious gift.  the little swimmer moved quickly from bobbing in the shallow end to learning to kick her feet and move her arms at the same time.  she got really good at blowing bubbles, but when it came time to learn how to alternate breaths on each side, she picked up a funny little head-wobble when she swam.  she looked so emphatic, shaking her little blonde head side-to-side in a "no-no-no-no" fashion for a couple of days, until she figured out it's a slow, non-scary thing to drag your face out of the water when you need a little breath.  i laughed a lot watching her spazz out, wriggling like a little worm on a hook. 


by the end of the summer, the kiddo could do two strokes, float on her back, and regulate her breathing.  she could swim a whole length of the pool, too.  we were both surprised when she did that, because i don't think either of us were entirely sure she could... when we would swim lengths, it was usually left to right across the shallow end, not up and down from shallow to deep. that way, i was in front of her, with my feet on the ground, the whole way.  it was a good system.  


but one day, not long before the end of that summer, she seemed ready to try a long lap.  she could tread water, so she knew what to do if she got scared and needed a breath.  i promised i'd be right in front of her, just like always.  she took a big breath, and we started swimming.  the shallow end petered out pretty fast, and so i was swimming, too, face-up, under water (a trick i mastered in elementary school, known in the above-ground pool world as "mermaid swimming"), with a hand just barely touching her little kid tummy.  her face was in the water, and she was blowing bubbles, and my face was about two feet below hers.  she knew i was right there, and while she didn't grab for my hand or my hair or panic, her big baby blues were locked on mine, even under the water.  we finished our lap, and both sputtered up for air giggling and wiping the hair out of our faces.  


when i think about that summer, i can still taste the tears.  fifteen years on, and there are still moments that bring me to my knees, days when i would give or do or be anything just to go over five or six life questions with my darling dad.  but there are also days when the smells of chlorine and gold fish crackers and coconut sunblock remind me that we take the bitter with the sweet.   


the little girl i taught to tread water in the deep end of bonnie's parents' pool taught me to tread water in the deep end of my life.  that's the unvarnished, honest truth.  it's humbling to admit that a six year old kept me from drowning.  but that's the unvarnished honest truth, too.   i'm hanging out with her and her momma for the first time in many moons, this weekend.  my little swimmer is a grown girl, now, and a freshman at my old university.  i'm inordinately proud of that.  i'm inordinately proud of her.  and grateful.  very grateful.  


mil besos,
rmg

overcast, with an 80% change of rain

I'd rather learn from one bird how to sing
than teach ten thousand stars how not to dance.
--ee cummings


my friend john's funeral is today.  it was such a strange shock when he died.  he was cleaning off his roof, and slipped and fell...and that's what happens when you fall off your roof, sometimes.  


i remember saying goodbye to him, on my last sunday.  he was so excited for my move--his little grand girls and one of his daughters live in happy valley, and attend where i work.  we have breakfast together, on Sundays, before junior choir.  they are, just like their granddad (and father), exceptional people who just love, love, love the people in their lives.  he gave me a big hug, and told me how proud he was of me, and how much he appreciated my hard work.  he told me that i had important and special work to do in the world.  and we both cried a little bit.  but i assumed that i would see him in a few months, when he and linda would come to happy valley for a visit.  


i will see him, again.  i know that much is true.  and i'm grateful every day that john was alive in the world, and am humbled that i got to know him.  


in other news, 
and it may be a little bit exciting.  it may be a real thing, it's too early to say that much...but what i WILL say is that i did go on an excellent first date, on friday.  and farmers' market hang-out on saturday.  nice guy.  seriously NICE GUY.  and he likes good things, and has seriously amazing taste in music.  and BIG BLUE EYES.  and he loves Jesus and his momma.  and i'ma stop, now, and letchu finish...because grown ass women don't gush over dudes on their blogs.  except that sometimes this one does.  and she especially does when she's had three big cups of coffee, because her allergies necessitated a BIG DOSE of benedryl, this morning, and that sometimes results in talking about herself in third person for a whole paragraph.  


also, (and this bears repeating) i love my job.  it's the most fun i've ever had working, including the time i was queen of camp (but not like how john waters is queen of camp...).  i keep saying it was worth everything it took to get me here.  i mean that, all the way down to my toes.  it's more than that i love that kinder had a butterfly release today (with butterflies they raised themselves), or that i have a functional and sky-lit office, or that there's a can full of bacon grease in the refrigerator.  it's all of those things, and none of those things.  it's that on saturday, i peeked out of the kitchen and saw a vision of the kingdom of G-d that almost literally brought me to my knees.  it's that we filled a city park with little kids and grown ups and prayed outside, yesterday.  it's that we come together every week, and retell a story about a Jesus who loves us and lives with us, because we forget that story, and it's one we must not forget.  it's that this place is motivated by love and compassion and kindness and gentleness and hospitality, and JESUS.  i love that.  


dear spring,
you have never looked more lovely than you look at this very moment.  and even if the clouds gather, and the lights go out, and the colors run, and it all blows away, it was still worth the now.  


mil besos,
rmg

Easter Hangover...

...been kind of quiet, last couple of weeks.  holy week was FAST and INTENSE.  i was real glad when Jesus came back on Sunday.  lent seemed a lot longer than it usually does.  i mean, it wasn't...but those forty days sure felt heavy and long.  so i guess lent did it's appropriate job.

i'm still running.  i'm still yoga-ing.  i still need to go buy some new guitar strings, but i keep playing on the old ones.  learned a new song last week.  i was trying to nourish my inner-15 year old boy, and so i learned "you can't always get what you want".  you guys--that was probably the best song to learn during holy week.  every single time i sat down to play it, i feel like i heard something new and learned something a little bit deeper.  i'm constantly amazed and humbled at the way G-d sometimes peeks around the corners of the ordinary things in my life, and tells me how loved we all are.  i'm sure my upstairs neighbors are totally over hearing me play it, along with some of the other songs i always play when ever i pick up my guitar.  but that's ok, because i'm totally over the sound of them constantly...moving furniture...and being kind of uh, noisy about it.  i'm all for them ...moving as much furniture as they want, as often as they want to move it...but...man...i'm wondering if they aren't doing some project for school because DAMN...anyway, i've been playing my guitar REAL loud.

spring is so fast and furious...i feel like i'm on fast-forward, some days.  it's ok to stop and breathe.  it's ok if i miss something.  it's ok if i don't know the answers or if i have to start over, from the beginning.  grace finds a way to come inside, take off it's shoes, sit on our laps, and love on us, whether we think we need it or not.  the real trick is to not pull back or try and reschedule, but to be willing, right then, to cuddle up to it, and hold it like the precious thing it is.

mil besos,
rmg