Old habits die hard when you've got a sentimental heart

Listening: She & Him, "Sentimental Heart"

After a few failed tries at syncing our busy schedules, I finally got to meet Mister Abe. I met Lori and the Boy at the Tin Shed for brunch this past Sunday. While we had to wait for about an hour in a chilly morning to be seated, we finally got a table and settled into scrambles, grits and biscuits. I got to see a lot of his personality while we waited in the form of some of those delightful faces only babies can make (and this baby takes the whole cake) and his changing moods. A sleepy face gave way to half smiles and determination to squirm out of arms.

This was exactly what I needed, a smiling and hilarious baby. This amazing creature (Lori and Ted know they've hit the jackpot with this kiddo) reminded me of the goodness in this world, the happiness and glowing warmth that exists. What Lori didn't know going into this breakfast date (or even leaving it) was that my family suffered a tragic death this past week. The death alone is enough to cast a wide gray cloud over anyone, but the nature of it suppressed any smiles and joy we had left. I've been conflicted and confused in my grief, but I will say that seeing that slight dimple in the Boy's left cheek brightened me for days and days.

Lori and I talked a lot through our two hours together (a boy needs his sleep in his mama's lap, after all) about community and how that community can become your family. This past week for me has been frustrating in addition to being grievous. I immediately looked for plane tickets to go to Mississippi and was constantly on the phone with K$, trying to figure out a million different travel plans. Time and cost ended up hindering my attempts to get to Jackson, to embrace my parents and help where I can. It has been so infuriating to be so far away and feel helpless about the entire situation. I don't know how to handle this grief really. What I needed was my family, to see their faces. My friends here have asked what I need, offering to take me out for drinks (and my housemates cried with me over a 6-pack of Mothership Wit), hug me, love me.

When I've needed to be with my family most, I realize that some of that family is here. They are here and I need them. They are willing and able to hold me up and for that, I am truthfully and wholly thankful. This brings me back to sitting with Lori and Abe. The image is burned in my mind of a slack-mouthed baby boy sleeping soundly against his mother's form. It was enough to remind me how family grows just as theirs did, a mother and a father gaining a son, a son gaining parents. It reminded me of how family evolves, how the meaning of "family" changes over time. My heart, in its shroud of grief and conflict right now, is glad to remember that.

and I wanted in your storm so bad/I could taste the lightning on your breath

Listening: songs:ohia, "Coxcomb Red"

Once upon a time I found a lot of joy in writing about music. I feel like my approach to reviewing or talking about music should be about the experience one feels in listening. I think that I have, in the past, done a pretty great job of relaying what I personally experience in listening, e.g. reactions to lyrics, emotional surges from strums or feeling the toms on my eardrums via headphones. While I appreciate music writers who feel it more necessary to express their thoughts on the mechanics of music and comment on production value, it's not my scene.

That being said, I have committed ten minutes of each weekday to writing specifically about an album, a song, an artist. I've asked a great friend, an accomplished music writer whom I greatly admire, to accompany me in this experiment. The idea is ten minutes a day for five days will get the beginning of something, even a profile. The weekend is for editing and emailing to each other, as we're on opposite coasts right now, and then critiquing, making suggestions and then onward for more. I am putting all of this here because I'll need a reminder of the solid commitment I need to make to improve. Also, the fruits of that labor will then have a home here.

My first attempts will be with:
Essie Jain: We Made This Ourselves
She & Him: Volume One
The Mountain Goats: Heretic Pride (way overdue, of course)
Yeasayer: All Hour Cymbals
Grand Archives: Grand Archives

I rest my head on a pillowy star and a cracked-door moon that says I haven't gone too far

Listening: Wilco, "Via Chicago" (Thanks, Jeff Tweedy, for the subject title)


I'm still stuck on the ideas of "home" and returning South after being way up here in the Pacific Northwest and what all of this means, etc. So, bear with me, it's what I'll be writing about quite a bit with breaks in between to review things like The Mountains Goats' Heretic Pride (waaaaaaaay overdue), The Master Butchers Singing Club, talk about new projects like the review writing exchange. There won't always be such heavy talk here.

When I left Mississippi I knew in my heart of hearts (what does that expression mean anyway?) that I was doing exactly the right thing at the exact right moment in my life to pick up and move so far away. I needed space and time to sort my thoughts, to start my life again after surviving a broken heart, to challenge myself. I've always been at ease in social situations, but the thought of starting all over again, building community in a place I'd never been (truth be told now: I'd never set a foot in Portland, Oregon, before I arrived here last January) truly frightened me and in the outcome, made me more self-aware and confident.

Fast forwarding through the last year+, I've managed to gather some kind of surrogate and wonder family. After a hiccup of a try at living with my landlord, I moved into a yellow house with two soon-to-be great friends. I found a home with them: community dinners, dancing in the kitchen, having kitty friends and learning to chase chickens. I've spent time with this amazing lady (and her equally amazing and hilarious husband) and will be fortunate to meet their son, for whom they've fought so hard these past few months. I found something of a soulmate (as much as I don't know what I think about such things, I do think that souls recognize each other, a la Plato, but that's another entry altogether) in a lady who moved here when I did, independently of me. She has become a favorite fixture in my life and it will surely shatter my heart the day I leave her here. I found a job I really love and has helped me learn more about what my life's work will be. I made great friends at that job, exploring the city's many happy hours through laughter and sharing of lives with them.

And now I am choosing to leave this all behind.

I knew when I moved to Portland that it would be a tenuous existence and that something else would propel me forward again. For all the reasons I could move back to Mississippi (admirers, Eudora Welty, my family, the way the Delta feels to my skin, 930), there are a million reasons why I cannot and should not right now. I have more to find out about this great big world and as a child I'd dream of seeing what else is out there. I know that I need to be back in the South, if for nothing else than to get a refill on the hopes and dreams that only Southern air can inspire. I hope that a stay in Austin will soothe my need to know about living in Texas, the romanticized version inspired in my childhood by reading and watching Lonesome Dove. My next stop will be North Carolina to see if I can wrangle a teaching job in Charlotte, where two of my other life's loves live currently. Maybe one day Mississippi will be in the cards for me. I will spend time with M&P, pay visits to gravesites, bask in sunshine and then say goodbye. I think right now it would take something catastrophic to get me to plant my feet back there. I have a lot of love and fierce adoration in my heart for the Ssip, but there's more out there. There will be a lot of travel and moving and shifting in the next six or so months, but it comes down to this:

Some people find stability in staying in one place for decades, content with stasis. Today, my stability comes in the form of momentum, changing my orbit, always moving forward even with a few steps back.

Muppet Love

When I left my house today it was just a sprinkle and quite colder than it has been the last two days. By the time I got off my bus to walk nine blocks to my office, I was drenched, punched in the face by a sudden downpour. Anyway, I feel like the Muppets always help a down day. Perhaps you think so, too?