safe

This one (lyrics below the rambling) is a work in progress.


In the middle of November, a few things happened in quick succession that sent me reeling. I've been experiencing grief this month, but it's not because of anyone dying. Part of it was a reaction to the election and the waves of understanding that kept rippling through my whole body about what it would mean for so many people I love who live in this country with enough fear already, and then eventually, it got to what it would mean, even for little 'ole me. But part of it was from something else.

The Thursday prior to election night, I had a very difficult day teaching. I don't talk about it much, but one of my teaching gigs with the Armstrong Community Music School sends me weekly to the SafePlace Shelter for Women and Children here in Austin. I teach music classes for the younger kids in the Child Development Center every Wednesday, and once a month I co-teach for the "big kids" on the other end of the hallway. It's my favorite part of the week, and I've come to cherish the time I get with these kids and their amazing teachers. It can be very sad though, so I internalize a lot of what I see and hear. The Charter school is for kindergarten through eighth grade, and we teach 'em all. These children come from various life and family situations, and as a visiting teacher, I don't often get to hear their stories. It's taken a little while for the teaching faculty to get to know us outsider music teachers, and they only start to share information once they know us. That week in early November was one where I got to co-teach the big kids, and sitting in the lounge afterward with a few of the teachers, we got to talking about all of our students.

Earlier in October, I had covered the Thursday classes while my co-teacher took a vacation, and I had a formed a strong connection to a student who opened up about her life circumstances during our music time. She asked me about bringing a violin for her to play because in a different life she had played in her school orchestra, and I was making plans to do this for her. A few weeks had gone by and I hadn't seen her around, so I finally asked the teachers what happened. The story of her absence was shocking and heartbreaking to me, and frankly, sent me to a place of hopelessness that I have felt most deeply in the aftermath of losing friends to tragic accidents and suicide. I hadn't visited that darkness in years, and hearing about what had happened to this sweet student ripped open old wounds. Her situation is so challenging, and I can actually imagine what hopeless and lonely thoughts are swirling around in her mind and heart, from the conversations we had. And there was pretty much nothing I could do anymore to help her, or be a force for good in her life.

I did what I had to do to take care of myself at the time, but I've been thinking for weeks now about this word: safe. What does it feel like to live never feeling safe? What does it take to feel safe with yourself? With your family members? With a romantic partner? With a friend? In your home or somewhere else? How can we actively pay attention to creating environments of safety for not only people we know and love, but people who are strangers in need? What changes in our brain chemistry and mental health when we feel safe over and over and over again, to the point where it becomes the new normal, replacing fear and terror and fight or flight reactions? How long does that take?

I had two music classes with my student before she was gone, and in that short period of time I hope she felt a glimmering of what it feels like to be safe, but I'll never really know. The uncertainty is something I don't like living with, but have to. So, I've been working on song lyrics; it's the only way I can maybe give this some closure. Verses have been spinning around somewhere back by my ears, and maybe it will turn into an anthem, or a lullaby. Can't tell yet, but I think it needs to be completed.

"safe"

we were little
it was early sunday morning
riding with our feet on the rearview mirror
blowing bubbles with grape bubblegum
driving with mom and dad
singing along

i don't remember the fighting
i don't remember the tears
i don't remember the yelling
or having any fears
at all
you see
all i ever wanted was to be safe
all i ever wanted was to be warm
and all i needed was to be loved
and i was

they asked me at school
this i remember
they pulled me out of reading
and sat me in a circle of weeping little girls
and they wanted me to be sad
but i wasn't
no, not with a happier mom
and weekends with dad playing the piano again
two christmases and too young to know any better

you see
all i ever wanted was to be safe
all i ever wanted was to be warm
all i ever wanted was to be loved
and i was

darling, i just wanna see you feel safe
see you happy and whole
see you embrace the world
be not afraid, but walk tall
you don't have to feel alone anymore

all we ever wanted was to be safe
all we ever wanted was to be warm
all we ever wanted was to be loved
and we are

more on haikus

We've been discussing poetry this month at my group dinner & discussion at Saint James Episcopal Church here in Austin. Everyone brought their favorite haiku, or wrote one to share at the beginning of group a few weeks back.

After a hectic couple of months of moving around, traveling, staying with friends, quitting jobs, starting new gigs, and somehow laughing through it all, I had found myself transported to a beautiful little converted workshop studio in Zilker Park. For six glorious weeks, Honey and I would wake up early each morning with the sun, birds and the squirrels chirruping away, and we sneak off to wander the pathways leading to the river and to barton springs. Some mornings Honey slept in so I could sneak over to the kitchen and make pot of coffee to bring along for the walk. 

Meditating on the newfound peace, calm, and focus that immediately came upon me those last days of October and first days in the workshop studio, I wrote this haiku to share with my church buds:


This morning we saw
seven turtles, three loons, and
we exhaled, at last.



What a gift! This poem showed me how calm and happy and restful time in the workshop studio proved, after a season of tumultuous movement. 

-lab

peaches - song lyrics

a song for ukulele, voice, and fruit


will you show me?
will you teach me all you know?
will you lie here, beside me, and
never let me go?

i'm not looking for a brief romance or
another tragic love affair
i've searched the whole world through and
finally, finally, i found you

there are peaches in your cheeks
huckleberries in your eyes
honeysuckle upon your brow and
ginger between your lips

will you show me?
will you teach me all you know?
will you lie here, beside me, and
never, never oh never, let me go?

election day

i haven't posted in a good long while, so to start off a revitalization of this, my little creative thoughts, poetry, and lyrics blog corner of the internet, here are three spontaneous haikus for today. Written from my perch at a computer, with voters lining up within my view, and an old texan grand-daddy guiding them through their civic duty in his beautifully patriotic-themed collared shirt and hat.


election day, november 8, 2016. for hrc.

perhaps it will be
someone smarter and kinder
to lead our country

    ***

she may wear pantsuits
each color of the rainbow
but she knows her shit

   ***

tonight drink with me
i'll bring the whiskey and fudge
we'll wait for the news


-lab