How’s your creative energy these days? Mine is in the tank. I hear that’s going around. The guitar I bought last summer has not been touched in months. I have little bandwidth for reading. I cook the same rotation of things for dinner pretty much every couple of weeks. Playing with my kids? Forget about it. (An as-yet unnamed grief for me in pandemic times is that I started it with two kids, but will emerge on the far side of it with two tweens/almost teenagers. Like all of us, they have grown up fast this year.) I spend time with them, yes. But anything that could be construed as creative ‘play’ has mostly left the building. Not only are they on the verge of being too big for such things-- I just don’t have it in me to pretend things these days. That part of my brain is off the clock. As for writing-- I’ve tried explaining to friends and fam why I have chronic writers block when, in theory, I should have all the time in the world to write. I have no travel, no daily commute, no social engagements, no evenings and weekends spent running kids to endless activities, and few of the errands that can consume us in normal times. I’ve been stumped. It makes easy sense, at some levels. I read somewhere that the part of our brains usually devoted to creativity is now devoted to processing endless changes to our ‘normal,’ facing a relentless string of daily decisions in this new reality, and, you know, staying alive during a global pandemic. Not to mention that the 4 people in this house are almost always in this house. One of them frequently banging on drums. So there’s that. Still. I look around my house and think to myself: I’m always HERE, why can I not spend a few hours a day doing this thing I love? And then it occurred to me-- I’m always HERE. But what I write about is OUT THERE. Just as I dearly love to read a book that has a strong sense of place, I also write with a sense of place. Both content and form are shaped by my physical location, in more ways than one. It is, in part, about geography: I am a different writer in one landscape than I am in another. When I lived in Arizona, the desert itself found its way into my voice, in some ways that stayed with me and some ways that I lost when I left. Living in Kansas, I never really connected with the Midwest scenery in the same way; but what I wrote was still profoundly shaped by the people around me and the community where I lived. Beyond that, I had physical spaces in which to write. A favorite coffee shop, a favorite bar, a favorite corner of the library.... I had quiet places, and places with a low hum of activity. Even when I was not writing, I was places- church, the gym, my kids’ school, people’s homes, hospitals, bars and restaurants, my daughter’s dance studio, my son’s baseball practice… Our days were an endless cascade of nouns! People and places everywhere. I may not have been writing about the places, but I was writing from them. When we moved back to Kentucky, I was back to the climate, geography and culture that I knew in my bones. But working from home, I had to try a little harder to be out among the folks. I found a favorite coffee shop, a favorite corner of the library. A place to sit at church while I was waiting for the kids to be done with an activity. A two hour window of time to myself every Saturday while my daughter did her theater thing. And, of course, there was travel. Lots of it. Over the course of a decade, from this litany of locations, I wrote two books, hundreds of sermons, and nearly a thousand blog posts. Who knew there were so many words in the world? And now I am always… well, HERE. I know what a privilege it is to be able to work from home, to be fairly sequestered in this place to stay healthy and keep others safe as well. I also know that this is all temporary. In the meantime, it helps my spirit tremendously to be able to name why we struggle to find creative space --when much of our lives are situated in a single place. Despite my recent lack of focus, I did recently finish reading News of the World, by Paulette Giles. I saw the movie trailer, and well, you had me at Tom Hanks. Being a strong believer in finishing the book before starting the movie, I powered through the whole thing. I’m a sucker for a good Western anyway, but this one just resonated deeply. The story itself is a great one, but more than that, I loved the landscape and the premise. In the post Civil War frontier of northern Texas, Captain Jefferson Kyle Kid travels from one small town to another, and he reads people the news. He curates selections from multiple publications, and people pay to come hear him read these stories. It’s a great reminder that, well before the days of the 24-hour news cycle, the globalization of everything, and tiny devices that put the whole world at our fingertips, people-- many of whom could not read, and would never travel beyond their own county line-- craved a glimpse of the outside world. To hear those stories was an escape, yes, but it was something else. A connection to something much bigger, in a world that must have felt very small. These days, our worlds have gotten very small again. And in many ways, that’s not entirely a bad thing. But something primal remains in our being that wants to be part of a bigger story. So just know, when you have trouble creating in your own space--which is likely the single space in which much of your life takes place these days-- that the longing for the story is, itself, the spark or creation. It is often drawn out by the people and places you orbit. But the essence remains, even when your orbit gets much smaller. I have no magic formula for drawing out that creativity when time and space is acting against it. But remember that whether you are struggling to play your music, or paint your picture, or bake your masterpiece, or play cowboys with the kids and their stuffed animals... that story is still there, and will be called out in its time. The same creative energy that formed the world--that separated light from darkness and called up life from the depths of the earth-- it still moves, and moves in you. However quietly it might be stirring at the moment. I will keep trying to write small things from the small world I inhabit these days. I will write about bread, and winter, and things that give us life while so much of it is standing still. I will write from memories of the desert, and long roads that used to call to me regularly, and are still out there somewhere. I will write about the people in my small orbit, and the news from this small corner of the world. How about you? What are you creating these days? Or what is creating space in you?
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Whether we are team Marvel or DC; Jedi or Enterprise; Potter or Percy Jackson, we all have our favorite hero stories. And don't get me wrong, I love them too. These stories, and the worlds in which they take place, are filled with joy, hope, and glimpses of the extraordinary. But for us everyday mortals, the love of the extraordinary can be a problem. You’ve probably seen the story going around about the high school principal in South Carolina who works the night shift at Wal-Mart, donating his paycheck to students and families in need. This story has gone viral, and is billed as a ‘feel good’ feature in the newsfeeds. But I find way too much about the backdrop of this story troubling to feel good about it. That is not to diminish in any way the incredible kindness and sacrifice of this dedicated educator. I’m just concerned about how readily we laud such individual acts of mercy, without questioning the corporate realities that make such acts necessary. We celebrate a man who will jump into a chasm of need-- but we don’t jump to close the chasm. Furthermore, we celebrate the employer for donating $50,000 to the local high school; without acknowledging that employer’s role in creating the chasm in the first place. The reality is that a company with the reach and resources of Wal-Mart could help create meaningful solutions to complex social issues if they wanted to… but they don’t. For starters, as a baseline minimum, they could pay their employees a living wage and interrupt the cycles of poverty. But they don’t. Another layer of reality here is that educators like Principal Darby are, themselves, underpaid. Because we (the collective “we,” and the representatives we elect) have systematically defunded public education for decades. This means not only that our educators are not valued as they should be; it means, also, that generations of adults are not equipped with the tools they need to be successful in this economy so fraught with chasms. In such an economy, we are eager to celebrate a wealthy philanthropist for donating a million dollars. Which is the equivalent of you or me throwing some change in the [insert local cause] jar at the Circle K. Is our heart in the right place when we drop those dimes? Sure. Did it truly cost us anything to make that donation? Not really. We marvel at the benevolence of billionaires. But we don’t ask that billionaire to look into the chasm--that growing divide where a few at the top of the food chain have more and more power, while untold millions go hungry. We scarcely want to look into that chasm ourselves. It feels better, of course it does, to read the feel good stories. Seeking emotional satisfaction over economic reformation, we put band-aids on amputation sites. We are led to build more temporary shelters and emergency relief programs instead of seeking lasting solutions to poverty. We value individual acts of mercy over communal acts of justice. I have a theory that this dynamic is related to the American bootstraps narrative, that toxic fairy tale that everyone has the same chances, and begins at the same starting line… and if we just work hard enough, we, too, will find our fortune. Those who live in need must be somehow lacking in their effort or worthiness, right? Meanwhile, the (diminishing number of) middle class folks emerge as the heroes of our own stories. In the spinning of this particular tale, we don’t just seek a savior; we also want to be one. At the personal/individual level, of course. Where this gets messy is… well, if the bootstraps narrative were real, we wouldn’t need heroes at all. Everyone would have enough, and we could go about practicing individual kindnesses without the need for radical social transformation. It’s complicated. What I know is that people like Mr. Darby, and anyone else who works and lives and gives to make their communities a better place, should be celebrated. That isn’t the problem. The problem is, we cannot “feel good” about these individual acts of mercy without also questioning the world in which such needs arise. In so many ways, it is a world of our own making. The more we idolize wealth and individualism, the more we elevate the wealthy; and in turn, subjugate the poor. It is no surprised that our dubious values system has elevated leaders who are, themselves, corrupted by wealth, and govern only in the interest of the wealthy. This unbalanced world we have built, by extension, is a world that only we can change. In that regard, then yes, I guess we do need heroes. And what do all of our favorite hero stories have in common? Our heroes learn that they are nothing alone. Their "bootstraps," or any other special powers that they have, are almost always an illusion of sorts. They need a tribe, a team, a league, an order, to do any sort of meaningful good. Sure, one alone can save a kid from a burning building, neat trick. But to keep the whole city from burning--to save the ship, to stop the bomb, to push back the forces of darkness-- they need each other. As we continue to recognize and celebrate individual acts of kindness, we should also be watching and supporting those who work for meaningful justice. Organizers working to raise the minimum wage; community leaders working to address systemic racial injustice, particularly in our education and criminal justice systems; educators fighting for the very concept of true ‘public’ education; scientists working against the clock to protect the environment; and many of you who are marching, writing, calling, gathering, and doing whatever it takes to bring about change at your local level. Wherever you are, find the folks close to home who are digging deeper, and then go put yourself in that story. Heroes don’t ignore the chasm. They face it-- and then they jump in. Historically speaking, January and I have not been friends. Blame it on the cold, the post-holiday letdown, or the fact that January is about as far as a month can be from October (except for November & December, but they get a pass on account of holidays). For the seven years I lived in Arizona, January and I had a respite from our adversarial relationship. In the southwest, that window of time is a sparkling paradise -- perfect for drinking spicy Mexican lattes and hiking desert mountains under crayon-blue skies dotted with hot air balloons. And also, you know, a nice break from the other months that will melt your face right off and not even feel sorry about it. It's possible that, since leaving that winter utopia, I've felt even more frigid towards the first month of the year. And January in a pandemic? I've been dreading it, hard. The cold and the gray, plus the isolation and anxiety, and the lack of things to look forward to... It felt like a lot this year. The attempted overthrow of the government didn't help, but at least I saw that one coming. I looked at my calendar this week and noted that January is ALMOST OVER! And yet... winter is not done, by a long shot. Neither is the pandemic. Or the escalating political discord that really piles on to the usual heaviness of the season. We've got miles to go yet, on all counts, and we all need some coping devices to get us through. I'm not telling anybody how to live their lives, but here are a few of the daily verbs that have been holding me up through this season:
Speaking of reading--my daughter has been reading The Long Winter, a book in the Little House/Laura Ingalls Wilder series. I never really got into those as a kid, other than little snippets here and there. But I'm familiar with the gist of this one: it's winter, it's cold, they have no food, everything is terrible, they almost die. The end. And get this-- my kid has read this before and is reading it again on purpose. For fun. I said "why in the world would you want to read that right now?? Isn't it so depressing?!" And do y'all know what this tiny thing said to me? She said, "Well, parts of it are sad. But it makes me feel happy because in the end... it's spring." Well. Let the child preach. Here in my end of Kentucky we got a beautiful big snow this week-- the kind that looks nice and is fun to play in but melts off the road quickly. I walked over to creek (crick) in my neighborhood just to stand there on the path in a quiet, wooded place for minute. The canopy of icy branches, almost cartoonishly magical, reminded me that winter does have its own kind of beauty some days, its own spiritual gifts, if we can be wise enough to witness. Meanwhile, the water running over the rocks of the creek bed sang its own song -- spring is coming. Seems like my kid and my creek have the same good news to share this week. Finish the book. Stay in this story, however sad and heavy it feels. In the end, it will be spring. There are staples I buy every time I go to the store. They don't even have to go on the list, they're just part of life. Milk. Fruit. Cheese. Cereal. And bread. I always buy bread. But lately, I've noticed that when I put the groceries away, I go to put the bread in the pantry... and there is already a loaf of bread there. Sometimes half a loaf, sometimes a whole one. Interesting. As I tossed the new bread into the freezer (again) I took a minute to wonder what might be causing our carbs to pile up like this. Nobody is on a keto kick. And it occurred to me that during pandemic times, a few things have shifted. For one thing, there is no school. Which means there are no lunch boxes. Our mornings are not spent making sandwiches and cleaning up our lunch mess while we also put away the breakfast dishes. The other thing that has changed is The Children themselves. I do not know how this happened, but I have two tweens up in here all of a sudden. One is as tall as me, and the other is gaining fast. Since they were toddlers, they've been able to eat their collective weight in peanut butter sandwiches every week. And while their appetites grow along with them, it seems their tastes have changed. Given the fact that I have a full-time job and am not a damn maid, these grown ass children fix their own lunches now. Having no school and full access to the kitchen means that lunch is now mac cheese, frozen pizzas, quesadillas, or leftovers from dinner last night. In fact, my son commented the other day, "when we go back to school, I don't know what I'm going to take for lunch. I never really want sandwiches anymore." Aha. Bread mystery solved. And yet, I keep buying bread. I recognize the privilege inherent here- in buying something out of sheer habit whether we need it or not. Having more food in the house than we can eat in a week, having more than we need in general. So many are struggling right now. Diminished food security has been, by far, the biggest fall-out of the pandemic, with hunger affecting millions more people than the virus itself. I reckon with this imbalance by giving to causes and organizations that are working to feed people. Contributing to local needs as well as global development programs focused on food security and sustainability. At a more micro level, this disparity makes me want to examine my habits. What else do I do on autopilot without mindfulness? What other habits have I picked up, or let go, during this weird time of lockdown? What do I have more (or too much) of? What could I make more room for if I stopped taking up unnecessary space with things I don't need? And I don't just mean in the pantry... It makes me think about how I spend not just my money-- but my time, and myself. I buy more sweatpants and pajamas now; but spend a lot less on gas. I spend more time scrolling; but a lot less running around town for pointless errands. I see fewer people; but am so much more grateful for even the smallest of social interactions. I cook more and eat out less. I exercise more, but I also drink more. I miss the library and coffee shops, but I strangely don't miss so many other places where I used to spend my time. Interesting. Some of these evolutions are good and healthy. Some are not great. All of them are what they are. And all of them make me want to be more intentional about life in general when we go back to life as normal... whatever that means. This week, I won't buy bread. Maybe next week, I'll want toast for breakfast. Or I'll just forget and toss it in the cart again. Either way, my daily bread is now a daily call to mindfulness. And that, I will keep - with butter and jam. How about y'all? What habits have you picked up or laid down during all this craziness? How will it change your "normal" when this whole thing is over? What do you "throw in the cart" without even thinking about it? And what would you have more room for if you stopped? I almost titled this post The Year Without A Bra. But a line like that is basically hanging a "no boys allowed" sign on the clubhouse door. Which is to say, I'm fixing to talk about bras for a minute, but it's not really ABOUT bras, so all y'all guys should hang in for a minute. I'll get to a point. My New Year's Eve plan was to put on a little black dress and what Reese Witherspoon would call "a full face of makeup" for our New Year's Eve in. Just to be festive for our our family game night and living room dance party (which, let's be real, we all knew was going to end up with us just watching a movie on the couch.) But then I worked out and by the time I finished with that and took a shower, my heart really wasn't in it to get fancy. Then I got to thinking that putting on a cute dress would involve putting on an ACTUAL BRA, and having not engaged in such nonsense for going on a year now, let's just say that by 5:50pm I was back in my Christmas pajamas and waiting on Chinese food delivery. Glass of wine in hand. No underwire. That's not a bad night right there. I spent last New Year's Eve at the Ryman in Nashville. They ran out of champagne at like 10:30pm., and I thought, bush league! Very poor planning on someone's part! But now all I can think is-- can you even get your head around spending New Year's in a crowded auditorium? At a concert where people are singing on you?? It seems like a whole other world. I'm sure things like that will all feel normal again someday, but it's hard to wrap our minds around at the moment. It's extraordinary how quickly our brains adapt to new information and circumstances. And when I think about my aversion now to putting on a bra--or really, anything mildly restricting--I wonder if maybe our bodies have adapted to this new reality too. I know that not everyone has had the privilege of working remotely in the safety of our homes. But whether you've been home all the time or just cutting way back on social engagements and unnecessary outings, I think our expectations about comfort have changed, for men and women alike. We've gotten more attached to our sweatpants. But it's more than that. I think we've gotten more used to being in our space, with our people. And whether we live with family, roommates, or alone, I think most of us have grown accustomed to spending more of our time in a place where we can be ourselves, and just be. Maybe without the daily demands of seeing and being seen, except by those who love us and know us best-- we are more comfortable in our skin. I'm not going to try to say that my family never drives me crazy. That the kids never bicker or melt down, or that being married to a drummer without a sound-proof basement is not without its challenges. I will not pretend this year has been all cozy and great, because there are days I've felt like I was losing my mind from being cooped up, trying to work a full time job and navigate the trials of online school with tweens. It's been an anxious and often sad time for all of us-- and a devastating time for many. But for all that -- I wonder if maybe we've better learned about what it means for our home to be a sanctuary. And if we might carry some of that forward in how we dress and present ourselves to the world. The lingerie industry may never recover. Women will only ever buy bras for comfort now (and, okay maybe for "recreational" purposes). And lingerie won't be the only casualty. The retail world will have to totally reinvent itself. Shoes, clothing, accessories, cosmetics--all will have to adapt for a consumer who is comfortable in their skin and space, and shops accordingly. Hell, this might be the year the diet industry finally tanks too. Would any of that really be the worst thing? Here's to a year of reinventing, reimagining, and throwing out everything that doesn't serve us. I'm starting with underwire. What about you? The family of four walked down the street, not in a hurry. Like so many families these days, maybe they were making a daily habit of getting out, getting in some steps and getting some fresh air together. "DEER!!" my son whisper-shouted from the front window. "TWO OF THEM! No, FOUR OF THEM!!" I joined him (moving much more quickly than one should have to on a Saturday morning) and my jaw dropped. We may not live downtown, but we are not exactly in the country here. Not even the suburbs. Seeing any brand of wildlife larger than a squirrel, up this close and personal, was kind of astounding. And something about them being pedestrians on a residential street-- out among the weekend yard workers and holiday errand-runners-- seemed especially magical. "Go get your sister, quick," I said, "And see if Dad's up." He ran back, his sister at his heels--both of them already talking excitedly about getting a picture. "Go get your phone!" "No, it's not charged, go get yours!" "Where's mom's phone, is it closer?" And back and forth like this for a bit. All while the little family outside spied a morning runner at the end of the street. And paused. And started to slowly back away. "No," I told the kids. "Don't run for the camera, you'll miss it. They'll be gone by the time you get back." I was incredibly proud of my wisdom in that moment because, these days, it is not something that comes to me naturally. Like most folks, I feel like I'm a hot mess and in survival mode most of the time. We are surviving a pandemic, functioning in quarantine, and living through "unprecedented times," as every institution and vendor you know is so fond of saying. With anxiety all around us, and uncertainty up ahead, it is not often these days I have such a profound parenting moment- but at that window, when nature came calling for a brief moment, everything in me said "Stay. Be still." And I listened. We miss a lot of life running for the camera, or looking at the phone. Or thinking about the next thing (whether worried about it or looking forward to it). Or chasing things that somebody else tells us we should have. We miss so much. I may be a lousy NTI teacher (what, I give them computers and internet--what more do they need from me??) but I was not going to miss this particular teaching moment. Stay. Be still. Breathe it in. In these stay-at-home days, for all the stress and heaviness, there is still often joy. Of course there is. But it's not every day that wonder happens along. In these days that feel like the same day, spinning itself out over and over again, we've maybe even forgotten what extraordinary feels like. We scarcely remember that something startlingly beautiful, maybe even miraculous, can pass by our door without warning. Be ready when it does. Because it is most certainly just passing by for a moment. Be still. Stay. I never knew the apocalypse would be so... well-decorated. If you're like me, you've spent many of this quarantine days oscillating between, "oh, this lovely dinner on the patio with friends feels almost like normal!" and "democracy is dead/civilization is crumbling around us/everything is on fire/we're all gonna die." I'm here in my work-from-home situation, which is not entirely different from what it was before, other than the no-travel thing, and The Children being generally around--everywhere, every minute, all the time-- having school on computers in their rooms instead of at actual school. Some days, it's nice out and they play with friends. We have people over to sit on the deck. We go for hikes. We make dinner. Things feel like... well, if not normal, then at least 'usual.' Then there are the days when we reckon with how very unsustainable this all is, not just for us but for the larger, corporate "Us:" the uncertainty; the political boiling points; the precarious economy; and the endless global realities that continue to deteriorate, even in the midst of a pandemic that feels like it should be enough chaos, all on its own, without climate change, natural disasters, and countless escalating conflicts around the world. So which is it- is life normal, fine, and totally okay? Or is everything burning? I think, for most of us, the answer is: yes. On both counts. Two things can be true at once- in fact, an infinite number of things can be true at once. We can be functioning, even borderline thriving; while also feeling profoundly fragile and knowing things could collapse at any moment. People can be utterly selfish, callous and cruel; and people can also be selfless, kind, and utterly extraordinary. We can know pain so deep we can scarcely come up for air; and we can know such transcendent healing and hope that we can scarcely keep from lifting off the ground with the joy of it all. Whichever of these truths is true for today--or if you are doing that impossible dance between the two-- know that just naming the paradox of it all is, itself, an act of hope. This much is also true: whatever comes after this, however we might want to call it 'normal,' will never be. We might get to a place of relative safety and comfort- but it will not be the life that has been, life as we know it. We're living through a reckoning. With ourselves, our family connections, our institutions; we have sifted through, claimed what is good and true and life-giving. We have also born witness to the cracks in the foundation. We have seen where things fall apart. We have seen the absolute best and worst of our friends and neighbors. We have made note of the fights we need to pick later. We have let go of things that used to seem like fights, but in the midst of this great falling away, seem less like conflict and more like clarity. This reckoning that we're living through is an apocalypse, in the truest sense of the word. Our cinematic fixations might leave us feeling like zombies must, by necessity, be involved in anything deemed apocalyptic. Or we are waiting for the complete decimation of the landscape. Or, at the very least, a Stephen-King scale pandemic that wipes out wide swaths of the population... well. Maybe on that count, we got a little closer to the movie version. But in any case. We are living through the end of what we've known - and that is apocalyptic in the truest sense of the world. You'll hear a lot of religious extremists these days talking about the end times- God coasting down with an entourage of horsemen and a lot of fire and fury (sometimes the biblical is cinematic in its own way); but that's not what this particular ending is about. We are just witnessing a falling away. And that, really, is what the season of Advent has always been about. It's just that most years, we bury it in presents, activities, and happy jingle-jangle that we start singing right around Halloween. This year- maybe it's down to just the falling away. Or at least-- the falling away, and the lights. I went for a walk tonight as it was getting dark, and took in the sights of my neighborhood Christmas decor - strings of tiny bulbs hung as small signs of joy, small testaments of hope, small acts of resistance against the encroaching darkness of winter and... whatever the hell else it is that hangs over our heads these days. And I thought... I never knew the apocalypse would be so well-decorated. That these small acts of tradition could bear witness to a lingering, resilient joy that abides in all things. On the one hand, is it utterly ridiculous that we're all out here, decorating for the apocalypse? Or are these small acts of joy a glimpse of a coming new day, in a very biblical sense, when all will be made new? Yes. I am the laziest holiday decorator in the world. Christmas is the only season for which I even make a humble attempt, and my decor collection is a hodgepodge of stuff I've gathered over the years: things I've found at thrift stores; a few things I've paid actual money for; things my kids made; and mostly, gifts from folks I've loved across many geographies and life phases. Somehow it all comes together and is exactly right, exactly us-- but I promise you'll never see it on a magazine cover or Pinterest board. |
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