Meeting Grace: The Blog

I used to be much more of a night owl.  I still go out and have plenty of nights that don’t end until the wee hours of the morning but those are usually gig nights and that’s how they go. I wouldn’t change it at all. But on the nights when we’re just at home, I find it hard to go to my laptop and do stuff I probably should do: answer emails, update websites, write blog posts. I’d much rather sleep. So I tell myself I’ll do it in the morning. I go to bed with the best intentions of rising early and getting shit done.  I tried this concept for working out. I wanted to walk/jog in the mornings before I left for work. I think I stuck to it only two or three days.

This morning, I woke up early and did the dishes.  This has become pretty routine. And I enjoy it. Our kitchen sink has a window right above it and I can look outside and ponder the day while I have NPR or the local sports talk station on. I actually like this part of my morning. But the rest of it, I’m never able to manage well.  I sit at my computer and it always takes longer than I think it will.  Or I’ll get sucked in to some movie on cable (yesterday it was “King Kong”), or push myself to finish just one more chapter in the book I’m reading (currently “Snow Flower and the Secret Fan”).  And through all this, I’ll still need to shower, get dressed, put my lunch together if I’m taking it that day, water the plants outside, etc.

The truth is I’m really good at doing nothing.  And I’m pretty good at getting stuff done. I live by lists. I have a to-do list every day, a monthly list of goals and goals for the year. If I don’t write something down, it’s likely that I will forget to do it.  I imagine myself to be very efficient and overall am happy with the results I get when I do the work I need to do and check off all those things on my list.  So I feel guilty when I watch that movie, or read that book, or write this post, or stare out that window.  I didn’t used to feel this way.  So why do I now?  It used to be so easy to be balanced.

I do have to acknowledge that my life is good. I make things happen and I do a good job.  I forget stuff sometimes but I make up for it or I ask for help.  I need to allow myself the joyful abandon of doing nothing sometimes. To go off the list. And maybe sleep in now and again.

Han gets back today. He’s been gone since Thursday afternoon, in the midwest, playing shows that I booked for his band.

I’ve always been a pretty solitary person. I could be totally content just reading a book by myself, going to a movie, out to a club or coffeehouse on my own. I reveled in my independence. It was always something my mom had stressed to me, to enjoy being alone, to not have to rely on anyone for happiness or security. Over the years, I sometimes forgot that and got close to some people who would later leave or move on and I’d be devastated.

Now that I share my life with Han, there have been adjustments, of course, but we do pretty well together. When he does have to go on the road, and I can’t join him, I find myself hearkening back to those days when it was just me. And these last few days have been good. I holed up and was pretty hermit-like. I cleaned, I gardened, I did laundry, I read, I wrote, I watched a ton of movies, I did website updates and answered emails. But I’d look forward to Han’s calls. And am looking forward to seeing him this afternoon. I wrote in a poem that I’ll post here when I can retrieve it, about how there’s a quality of life that’s missing when he’s not home. So although I like being alone and have had years of practice, I like it even more when he’s around.

Trouble with Numbers

I can’t quantify elements of tenderness
cannot accurately measure depth of your gaze
pressure of your body against mine
or capture the sensation of your breath on my back
in a mathematical formula

but like silver, coal & other elements of the earth
we manipulate tenderness
delight in the knowledge that
we can return to it
add, subtract, mulitply it to our own satisfaction
until we feel we have momentarily
reached a common solution

The voice was unmistakable when I tuned in to NPR’s “Fresh Air” on Friday. Sekou Sundiata. I immediately remembered the loss of him on Wednesday that I hadn’t yet digested.  Fresh Air was doing a remembrance of the poet.  He was incredible.  And his voice is impossible to forget.

I saw him perform in La Jolla as part of Quincy Troupe’s Artists on the Cutting Edge series in the late 90’s.  I met him afterward and he signed my CD and was so kind.  He’s always been someone I’ve thought of with fondness, though I may not have followed his work beyond those days when I was consumed with poetry.  Hearing his voice took me back to those days, when every moment was an inspiration and every experience a chance for discovery.

Talking with Han last night, he said, “It sounds like you’re falling in love with poetry again.”  

My friend, Heather, married Sean. I was a bridesmaid. It was a beautiful wedding in the San Diego mission. The reception was on the Bahia Belle which cruised back and forth along Mission Bay. My friend, Emmet, was my “date” for the wedding, but I only saw him outside in the parking lot before the ceremony. He left at some point and I was on my own but that was fine. Heather has three sisters, who were also bridesmaids, along with another friend, Molly. Heather & her sisters have been like family to me. I’ve known Heather (and Sean for that matter) since we were freshman at UCSD. I’m so glad we’ve managed to remain close over these years. She’s always been a steadfast friend to me and I hope she feels the same of me. It always worked out so well, because we are enough in each other’s lives to know the cast of players, but not embedded enough to know the real inner workings. She’s like my Switzerland. I can approach her with situations and get some validation or insight from her as an “outsider” to the situation. She is remarkable and I’ve always thought so. She’s raising two adorable boys and is teaching the high school kids of Vista the beauty of literature, the passion of writing and the respect for language.

Happy anniversary, Heather & Sean. Here’s to another ten, twenty, thirty, forty years and more.

Excess

a poem that can’t possibly contain
all the things I have to say

a day where I consider abundance

a morning where I’ve just pored through
six months’ worth of blog posts
written by a friend from college and his wife
about her lymphoma
she had it in excess, but
she doesn’t have it anymore

I am featured in this week’s North Park News for the house concerts. There’s a picture of me reading a poem during one of the Steve Poltz shows in June. Unfortunately, the story can’t be accessed online, but if I get a real burst of energy, I’ll try to type it out.
Below is the poem I read, one of my “signature” pieces, but before you get to that, it’s a perfect opportunity to let you know I’ll be doing a featured reading at the E St Café in Encinitas on Monday, August 6^th at 8 pm. Do come out!

The Kind of Smoker I Would Be

Sometimes I wish that I smoked
because it would give me something to do
during those times when I find myself waiting
or those times when I want to run away from people
their conversations or their arguments
I would at least have something to occupy my mouth during its silences
when it only wants to feel some pressure against it
without effort, without asking

Because that’s the kind of smoker I would be
silent, alone, taking it in and letting it go for myself
the way I would kneel and clutch my rosary
with sunlight shaken down from heaven
but I am not religious

I believe in something that I don’t know if it could be called
God or Self or Sun and Moon
only that there it all is and here I am in it
and I am satisfied with that knowledge
don’t want to investigate mysteries
like what lies beyond darkness of an April sky
or if something will be affected
if my body is returned to the earth with its skin and some clothes
or if it is scattered as ashes
my bones baptized by fire in death
far from the holy waters of birth

Ashes of the cigarette I would smoke
would be mingled in a bowl or a pot with the others
that I would then mix with water and
try to throw on the potter’s wheel
but I am not a sculptor either

I fall in love nightly
with the bare forearms of musicians
and secretly thrill myself
with the wonders of their mouths
that might press against mine
without effort, without asking

Like the way my cigarettes would
burn and live and die
by my mouth
these kisses exist quick and sweet between us
without regret
with love and not sorrow
because it has been so nice
to not be sad about love
for so long

I would snub out the cigarette with ritual
to end its burning and satisfaction

Celebrate it with hymns for its graces
and for all those that will come after
to also
burn and live and die
and to know my mouth
in its silences

©2000 Lizzie Wann. All rights reserved

Here I am
On my way
Down another road I have paved
With every good intention I’ve saved
And hearts that I broke

As for me I got scars
For every mile I’ve traveled so far
And some blood on my hands
Here I am

With a song in my heart
And an attitude from the start
I took everybody apart
To see how they work

I got friends that I owe
I ain’t namin’ names
Cuz they know where they stand
Here I am

If I went back where I’ve been
And I knew what I know now then
Well I’d probably do it again
Cuz I’m just a (wo)man
At the end of the day
I ain’t got nothing to say

Here I am
-Steve Earle

I had planned to start this blog on 7/7/07 as a way to symbolize something: luck, good fortune…but typical with me, I got side-tracked, distracted or otherwise detained and put it off.

But now I’m here and unlike the lyrics above, at the end of the day, and at times between, I do have things to say. Whether anyone else is listening (or reading), I’m not sure, but I just knew that I had to create a space for myself here.

I hope you enjoy what follows as I make my way. I’ve been inspired by many other bloggers out there (see the Blogroll) and if I can give just one bit back to them that they’ve given to me to help feel connected, inspired and simply aware of the possibility that there is a place like this, I’ll be happy.

This is just the beginning.