Silence Echos

The "T" Word

2008-11-14T10:18:32-08:00

Another little fact that most people don't know about me is I make my bed everyday. And every morning when I am doing it I have the same conversation in my head about the process. "Why in the world are you making the bed? It's not like anybody ever sees it one way or another. This really is an exercise in futility." That is the internal dialogue every morning. I always grapple with the question "why make it if you are just going to get back into it in about 15 hours?" So why do I continue to make my bed? For a long time I think I did it because I am a neurotic neat nick: Everything must be in its place. I also like the way it looks when I come home at the end of the day; it is a bit of reassurance that there is a small corner of the universe that I have control of and it is in order. Those are some of the reasons I compulsively make my bed each morning, but just recently I began to make it for a totally different reason.

There is someone else I know that is also a compulsive bedmaker- my dad. Everyday, even if he is on vacation my dad makes his bed. I think I must have got it from him. My dad and I are alike in quite a few compulsive idiosyncratic ways. Neither of us likes tomato sauce on anything, but we both love Bloody Mary's. And we absolutely must have a watch. If we forget to put on our watch(which rarely ever happens) then we are upside down for the rest of the day. We both love almonds and read while we watch TV and neither one of us suffers fools gladly. It is so strange the things that are passed along in our genetic coding.

Just recently my family found out that my dad has prostrate cancer. The "C" word has suddenly become very real. I have had so many different responses when I have shared with people what is going on. For the record let me say that I think that the first response one should give when told that someone has cancer is- "How terrible for your Dad. I am sorry." What I have heard that doesn't really work for me is "Oh prostrate cancer that is the best kind of cancer to have- if you have to have cancer." This is usually followed by some story about a random uncle or cousin that sailed through the surgery and is just fine.

I am a smart person I know all the statistics and the prognosis with early detection. But there is more than just the "C" word at play here- there is the "T" word - TIME. With this diagnosis comes the realization that I don't have all the time in the world to spend with my dad. And growing up in a divorced family and my dad living 800 miles away I haven't had enough time. I am just beginning to realize how alike he and I really are. This has been a comfort to me in the last couple of years, and makes me feel less alone in the world. I finally begin to understand where I came from so to speak. So to think that my time with him is limited scares me in a way I have never been scared before.

When I got the news about my dad, I didn't know how to feel, all the above emotions hadn't sorted themselves yet. I was at loose ends. I was in desperate need for someone I love and trust to hug me and tell me things would be ok, no one was around; I had to default to other means of comfort. I don't do drugs anymore, and I have given up carbs, so I bought myself a cashmere sweater, actually two sweaters. Which hasn't really worded out to well because every time I put on either one I think to myself "I bought this sweater because my dad has cancer." But at the time a good cashmere sweater for forty bucks gave me the release of serotonin that I needed. Anyway ... as I wandered in the mall carrying my sweater, an old Bonnie Rait song, "Nick of Time", was playing.

Verse II
--------
I see my folks, they're getting old, I watch their bodies change...
I know they see the same in me, And it makes us both feel strange...
No matter how you tell yourself, It's what we all go through...
Those eyes are pretty hard to take when they're staring' back at you.
Scared you'll run out of time.

Chorus
------
When did the choices get so hard?
With so much more at stake.
Life gets mighty precious when there's less of it to waste.
Hummmm...Scared she'll run out of time.

I realized that's exactly me: I'm scared I will run out of time.

A couple of weeks ago when I was making my bed, I had the realization that my dad was probably making his too. Suddenly the bed making was no longer an exercise in futility, rather it became a shared experience, and it has become my daily devotional. As I pull and straighten and tuck and fluff I pray. I pray for health and wholeness for my dad, and I pray that I won't run out of time.

Hiding behind my Sunnies

2008-09-16T11:04:05-07:00

All I really want to do today is hide behind my sunnies, which, for those of you who don't know, are my sunglasses. Sunnies is a term I wish I had coined because I do love my sunglasses, but alas I got it from a Bravo reality show. My sunglasses are my grown up security blanket; they are my shelter as well as my shade. And they help me look fabulous even when I don't feel fabulous. I 've been told that my sunglasses are somewhat bold and aggressive. Someone told me that this summer, and I was secretly pleased that my sunglasses work, in some manner, as a "Do Not Disturb" sign! When it comes to my sunnies, I say the bigger the better- all the better to hide, my dear. And this week I feel like hiding, so I have on my really bold and aggressive large Versace sunnies.

I guess the good news is I actually know why I want to hide rather than it being the usual vague sort of existential dread I suffer from time to time. On Monday my friend Jonathan took a brave step to create a new life in New York City. I am incredibly proud of him for taking the leap, but I will miss him.

The funny thing about Jonathan is in the beginning I never thought I would feel this way about him. We knew each other peripherally when we were 15. He was all izods with turned up collars and pegged pants, and I was black trench coat and black eyeliner. We didn't care for the look of the other and stayed away. But I am grateful that we met each other again on the" long journey back to middle. " To borrow one of my favorite lines from the movie Almost Famous.

And the second time was the charm.

Jonathan came into my life when I very much needed to be reminded that there is grace for the mistakes we make and that our past poor choices do not have to define us. He helped build hope and faith in my life. We found out after all these years that we are more alike than not. Surprise, surprise.

There are many things I love and appreciate about Jonathan. The number one might be that I have never, ever intimidated or overwhelmed Jonathan. He has always appreciated my intelligence and celebrated it, and he gives me a run for my money, which I love. (So part of the reason I want to hid behind my sunnies today is because I have been left alone here in the intellectual wasteland of South Florida. ) He appreciates the simple pleasure of reading aloud and has read one of our favorite authors aloud to me- what a treasure. He has also been know to call me just to talk about Flannery O'Connor, another of our favorite authors, which no one but him ever does. He doesn't suffer fools gladly, which is a trait that I share, but he is a soldier in the good fight and longs to see justice and righteousness come to this world. He is passionate and vocal about the change he wants to see, and he puts hands and feet to his prayers. This provokes me not to live in a place of cynicism because then I don't fully engage with the world around me. If I have wrapped myself in a shroud of cynicism how can I throw my arms around the world? He also gets in my face and lets me know when I am selling myself short or not trying hard enough. There are times that I don't take it very well, and get a little sullen but we always manage to find the middle ground.

There is another amazing line in Almost Famous that Philip Seymour Hoffman delivers : "The only true currency in this bankrupt world... is what you share with someone else when you're uncool." This is what I love the most about my relationship with Jonathan - we trade in true currency. He knows all there is to know about me and and he loves me anyway.

When it came time to say goodbye to him on Sunday night, I couldn't believe how hard it was. I know, I know, its just New York, but I won't get to meet him for a quick lunch in the middle of the week or see him every Sunday. I realized on Sunday night how much I had taken for granted.

I sent him a text with a Goethe quote the morning he was leaving town, "go forth boldly and mighty forces will come to your aid."(Oddly enough that quote is in Almost Famous as well.) That is my prayer for him. I support and applaud the new chapter in his life, but I will miss him terribly as I did today when I went to lunch by myself. So for now I'm hiding behind my sunnies.

The Sound of Closure

2008-09-09T07:15:54-07:00

Here is another thing that I am terrible at: I never quite know when to quit on somethings. I was recently reminded of this when I was watching The Hustler with Paul Newman. There is an intense scene where Fast Eddie, a young pool shark, who has taken on the best in the business, Minnesota Fats, is up $11,000 dollars, but he doesn't know when to quit. His manager begs him to leave and get some sleep, but rather than walking away he keeps on playing and loses the money after 25 hours of play and a bottle of Bourbon. Minus the pool playing and the bottle of Bourbon, I am just like this guy: sometimes I just don't know when to quit when I am ahead.

I am sure this circles back somehow to my fear of change and the unknown. And to be sure it has to do with my desire to hold on to people and things in this life of mine. I am much more sentimental than people give me credit for, and to a fault sometimes. Too many times I am like Fast Eddie, I don't know when to quit when I am ahead. And when it comes to some people you need to get out while the getting is good. Too often I miss my cue. My friend Jonathan often calls me on this when I make excuses for people that I shouldn't- he lets me know when I'm blinded by sentimentality. He is a lot like Fast Eddie's manager in that he lets me know when the getting is good. Mores the pity that I don't always listen.

Yeah the closure thing is a tough one. I once read an article in some beauty magazine, about the psychological need for the sound of closure. The article explained that many of the beauty items that women use such as lipstick, or compacts don't really have to make that clicking sound to be securely closed. The article explained that many of the items have been engineered to make the sound of closure because it is psychologically reassuring for the user that the makeup won't end up all over the inside of her purse. The clicking noise isn't essential to the mechanism actually closing securely, often it is purely for psychological purposes. Hmmm .... After I read that article I got out my mac compact and and opened it and closed it a few times to listen to the click- to listen to the sound of closure. My thought was: I need that clicking noise in other areas of my life.

Wouldn't it be amazing that when it was time for a certain chapter of your life to close or time for a relationship to end there would be some sort of clicking noise so that you knew it was closed and it was time to move on? I certainly could use that psychologically satisfying click. That click would keep me from being like Fast Eddie.

It is a strange time of closings in my life, and I know that in some cases I definitely played the game too long and ended up losing all but my stake money. As I said, sometimes I could really use that clicking noise- I am not kidding. In a strange turn of events - one area of my life I thought was closing is not- I was ready to vacate Palm Beach County forever, but then I got a job I have wanted for a long time. So here I am again. I was so ready to get out of here for many different reasons, but there were other plans. This situation I put squarely in what I like to call the "Rolling Stone category" as it is an example of the philosophy espoused in one of their songs "You can't always get what you want, but if try sometimes you just might find, you get what you need."

Indeed. So my life goes at the moment.

Lessons learned at a wedding-Misi's Post

2008-07-21T10:08:30-07:00

I have mentioned in blogs past how hard headed I am. I can be quite resistant to change, and if they would make Dread a Olympic event, I would have tons of gold medals. I am a champ at dreading things. What can I say? It is who I am. But I am working on it. I told my friend Jonathan just the other day that I am working on cultivating a quiet spirit. He laughed. Well, he knows me pretty well and knows that this is quite an undertaking. But I have had some gentle prods from the universe that it is time to tackle this mindset. Given my hard-headedness these proddings usually have to come completely out of context in order to

#1 get me to pay attention and

#2 really take the truth to heart so it can affect change.

So of course what better place than Meridith's wedding? I never would of guessed that being a bridesmaid was actually just a cover for Misi's mini-life lessons seminar.

There were actually three major Aha moments, to borrow that over used phrase from Oprah. I am only going to cover the first here as it has played out in my life so greatly in the last few days. But stay tuned as I will the cover the others in the blogs to come, as I am feeling very honest this summer.

My first truth came to me at the reception when the wedding party joined the bride and groom for their first dance. My feet really hurt, and I was incredibly self-conscious, which most people never take me for. But it happens. So there I was on the dance floor with my amazing escort, James Baker. Let me just stop for a moment and say, I had secretly been hoping since I signed on to be a bridesmaid that James would be my escort down the aisle. Jame is an amazingly handsome man, with an amazing voice. He makes me laugh, but I can talk about spiritual things with him, even in the back of a cab. And he can dance. I mean, like, he gets paid to sing and dance. It really is too bad I am not his type. Anyway...

James and I were out on the dance floor, and he was twirling me around, and I was not having a good time. James looked at me and said, "You know you are a really good dancer, you just need to relax." Wow. There was my bit of truth. Aha, and no kidding. I always recognize the truth because for me when I hear it, the truth always seems somehow more dense than just regular words. They pack more of a punch, if you know what I mean. I knew immediately that that statement applied to so much more than dancing. I laughed at James and said, "Oh darlin' that applies on so many levels."

I love it when my prophets are the people I would never imagine. There is such a great misconception about prophets. The prophets of ancient times weren't necessarily always foretelling future events; more often than not prophets, particularly in the Scriptures, showed up when people got off track. Really what a prophet is is someone who speaks the truth about a situation; they are a sign post that a change of thinking is needed. Their words carry weight and hopefully bring about change. They deliver truth, but it is always up to the hearer what he or she does with that truth. So, by my criteria, James Baker was one of my prophets at Meridith's wedding.

This message came into play for me last Thursday as I had a major job interview in which I had to teach for a group of educators that I very much respect. DREAD - I was doing it in a big way. I was dreading it so much, my head was completely wrecked, and I couldn't get my lesson plan to come together. And the truth of the matter is I never really teach like that anyway. My teaching style is much more organic and only usually falls together a half and hour before I walk into the classroom. But as I said, I was thinking like I was trying to medal in dread. But sometime late Wednesday afternoon I began to hear James Baker, the prophet, in my head saying, "You are a good dancer; you just need to relax." I amended it a bit for the situation - "You are a good teacher; you just need to relax."

It is crazy to me that the truth that I needed for last week was given to me on a dance floor a month ago at Meridith's wedding. It was a timely word, to say the least ,as there are other situations in my life that I need to relax into this summer, and some days I am better at it than others. But baby steps, it is tough to go from being a champ at dread to cultivating a quiet relaxed spirit. But I know that this "Relax" message also circles back to surrendering to the strawberry ice cream, as I mentioned in the previous post. And that is my really mantra for the summer- "Baby I am surrendering to the strawberry ice cream." You have to relax somewhat to surrender, and in the relaxing and surrendering the dread has to go.

More to come on my lessons learned at the wedding....

I Surrender to the Strawberry Ice Cream Misi's post

2008-07-14T10:21:01-07:00

Yesterday morning I just happened to catch the Counting Crows on A&E's Private Sessions. It was a great treat as Adam Duritz is a long standing crush of mine. It was agood mix of performance and him talking about the whole musical process. He is a weird tension of happy and melancholy- which is probably why I dig him because that sounds a lot like me. He, of course, was talking about the newest album, but in the midst of talking about the new songs he interjects and mentions the song "Accidentally in Love."

This song was on the soundtrack for one of the Shrek movies, and I was prepared to hate it. In fact when I first heard that the band was doing the song for the movie, I almost had to break up with Adam. But then I heard it, and it broke me down. It really is a great song just about falling in love. Certainly a theme that has been well explored but Duritz brings his seldom heard joy to it. He brought up the song in the interview on A&E because he wanted people to know that he really was proud of that song. He said it is unabashedly about falling in love, and he said I think I did it well - then he goes and recites one my favorite Duritz lyrics (and I have quite a few)-

"Well baby I surrender

To the strawberry ice cream

Never ever end of all this love"

Love, love, love this line. As an English professor I love lines that I can unpack and that use concrete images to express an abstract idea. And to quote Duritz from yesterday's program "How better to describe falling in love than strawberry ice cream?" Amen to that.

I take this line a bit further, for me it isn't just about falling in love: it is about all the sweet, amazing things that take us by surprise in life. But surrendering is the key to really experincing all the sweetness. In varying degress we have to let our guard down, drift a bit from our master schedule or not think so much about our 5 year plan. This does take some practice and knowing when you have happened upon such a moment. For me this really is an updated version of the old sentiment about stopping to smell the roses or even Carpe Diem.

I had a few Strawberry Ice Cream moments in the Bahamas a couple of weeks ago. One of them actually involved my homemade birthday cake and the traditional birthday song. Truth be told I hate it when people sing Happy Birthday to me, largely because it is a tradition I think it pointless and only perpetuated because people don't know how else to honor someone on their birthday. (I especially hate it when wait staff of eating establishments are involved) But on my birthday this year someone changed my mind, a man by the name of Perry Neilly, who is the father of a friend of mine. He was also the baker of my cake and the maker of the homemade coconut ice cream. After I had blown my candle out, he launched into song. Everyone else was a bit hesitant about joining in as most knew about my anti- birthday singing stance, but he didn't and he just started to sing. Let me tell you it was a moment for me. He sang because he really wanted to; it was pure heart that came through that used up song. If you look at my face in the picture you can see the affect it had on me. I was really touched. I surrendered to the sweetness of that moment. I savored it and when I look at the picture I feel it all again.

I am so glad I happened on Adam Duritz on A&E yesterday morning; he reminded me again of what I am after in this life: Baby, I surrender to the strawberry ice cream, in all its many forms.

Tales from the bridal party Misi's Post

2008-07-10T13:50:04-07:00

If anyone is reading this blog you will notice that it has been almost a year since our last post. I really don't have a very good reason for going silent other than I let life get in the way of my writing, and I was busy licking my wounds. Meridith, on the other hand, was planning the event of her life. Meridith got married on June 13, and let me tell you it was an event. And I had a ringside seat. . . as a bridesmaid.

Which is a miracle in and of itself because I don't do the bridesmaid thing. I don't really do the wedding thing. So many weddings just seemed so forced and contrived, and then you have to eat bad food and talk to the bride/ groom's distant relations from some state that you never ever want to visit. Let me say Meridith and Jim's wedding was nothing of the sort.

The way that Meridith announced her engagement to me was with a picture text of her ring and these words- "I promise your dress won't be ugly." She totally kept her promise on that one. But as the day approached I was still nervous about the whole thing, I mean there were six bridesmaids. I kept having visions of the wedding from Steel Magnolias. I am mean, sure, I knew her colors weren't pink and pink, but I was still nervous. There was a moment on the day of the wedding when all the bridesmaids, and the mother of the bride, and a cousin, and a long time family friend, and the videographers where all crowded in Meridith's apartment. All the bridesmaids were in pink robes, including myself. I looked like a pink nightmare, and I had already offered the vidoegrapher, James, fifty bucks to keep the camera away from me, but I digress. We were helping each other with makeup and doing each other's hair. Looking around the room, I had the passing thought - "I know now why I was never a sorority girl." At one point I was in my pink robe taking mini quiches out of the oven, and I thought to myself "I must really love that girl" as I looked over at Meridith getting her hair done. Don't it ever let it be said that I can't or won't function out of my comfort zone for those I love. The pink robe and the quiche and my job involving a glue gun are proof of that.

And I do love her. I said a prayer that morning in the midst of the craziness while dressed in my pink robe that I would have a moment with Meridith that day. A moment that would say all that needed to be said, and she would know how much I loved her and how happy I was for her. This was a tall order as neither one of us is given to weepy sentimentality.

But that moment did come on the West Side Highway of all places. We were headed downtown to meet the groom and groomsman for pictures , and poor Meridith had to recline back in the front seat of the SUV in order to be able to breathe in her amazing dress. I was chatting up the driver when Meridith said to him "Would you turn this up:" It was the opening melody to "Where the Streets Have no Name." The tears immediately came to my eyes. I slide my arms around Meridith and just held her as Bono sang, and we sang with him "....I want to tear down the walls that hold you inside/ I want to reach out and touch the flame/ where the streets have no name. " I knew that this was our moment. I silently blessed her and Jim and just loved her.

All I wanted to say was wrapped up in that moment. And I think it communicated. I hope so because I didn't do so well when the vidoegraphers asked me for words of wisdom for the couple. I give myself a solid C on that interview. I don't really know anybody who can dispense wisdom at the drop of the hat when they are hungry and their feet hurt, well maybe Gandhi and Mother Teresa, but I am certainly not in that company. But I definitely should have mentioned on film how much I appreciate Jim. I choked when they asked me what I like about Jim, and I will tell you why. To answer that question actually says something very personal about me. What I like about Jim is that he loves Meridith in all her grandness and her big personality and is not intimidated in the least. Jim gives me hope that there are more men like that out there, and I should not give up. I am also pretty convinced that Jim is actually a superhero of some sort. You know, lawyer by day, Gotham super hero by night. He just has this quiet confidence to him that makes me wonder. And Jim is the kind of man that when sitting in a bar late on Saturday night and I expressed a desire to go to the Whitney Museum, he quietly got on his Blackberry and looked up the information for me. That is the kind of guy he is.

All in all the wedding was amazingly rich and grand. I am self-professed nit -pick, really I am, but I would not have changed a thing. Not even holding Meridith's dress when she had to pee. This wedding changed my mind about weddings. It was an amazing celebration, and I am honored that I got to be a part of it.

Is anybody out there? Misi's very delayed post

2008-07-03T14:21:15-07:00

I am thinking about writing again. I recently was in a friend's house and discovered by accident that he is a painter. I was delightfully surprised because I am by art the way I am by books and music - all are life lines that feed my spirit. When I questioned him about painting he replied that he just didn't really have time to paint anymore, to which I replied "It is a tragedy to have such a gift and not use it." Immediately, I thought of this blog and how it has been silent for over a year. Well my friend Deb was there, and she immediately said it out loud. "Well how long has it been since you wrote?" Busted twice. I do try to pay attention to messages from the universe. So this the second beginning of this blog - No big promises just baby steps to try and use the gift I have been given.

Bouncing into Graceland Misi's Post

2007-08-09T14:51:37-07:00

Since my last post there has been a swirl of change in my life both personally and professionally. Not just with me, but for a fair amount of my friends as well. The air around us seems charged- there is a tension. Perhaps this because change, no matter if it is good or bad can be threatening. Interestingly enough just before all of this stuff started to shake down I kept having this persistent thought: I need to get a copy of Paul Simon's album Graceland. When I was 18 or 19 the album was a favorite of mine. Maybe because that was about the time I fell in love with Africa and much of the album was recorded in South Africa and featured many African musicians and groups. It is an amazing album, but I had not listened to it in ten years or more. I initially dismissed it as just an errant thought.

But it just kept coming up. I would walk into a store, and hear the ending strains of one of the songs from the album. In hindsight, it was rather like someone telling me I needed to buy a crutch before I had even broken a leg. I couldn't figure the urgency, but the nagging thought finally wore me down. I found a copy at the used CD place for $3.00. Actually the place was going out of business so it was 25% off of that. It really is amazing how small a price we sometimes pay for some clarity and comfort.

For two months I haven't really listened to anything else. In fact I haven't really gotten past the second song. I liked this song when I was younger, but I certainly didn't grasp its full scope. It is only now, twenty years later that I have finally understood the title song, and it has proved a panacea for me.

Beware I am getting ready to deconstruct this song much like I would a poem for one of my literature classes.

The Mississippi Delta was shining
Like a National guitar
I am following the river
Down the highway
Through the cradle of the Civil War

I'm going to Graceland
Graceland
In Memphis Tennessee
I'm going to Graceland

The song is about a pilgrimage really, and opens with that amazing simile. Of course he is talking about Elvis's Graceland. In the next bit he says , "My traveling companion is 9 years old. He is the child of my first marriage". With just a very few words he has told us much about this guy. He has some baggage. He has had some things fall apart.

But then the song seems to make an abrupt shift. If the melody wasn't so good it might sound disjointed:

She comes back to tell me she's gone
As if I didn't know that
As if I didn't know my own bed
As if I'd never noticed
The way she brushed her hair from her forehead

Ah, there it is: the reason he has taken to the road. Of course, he has lost someone. I love how he is so subtle about it; he just sort of slips it in there. No big production of explanation; in very few words he names his tragedy. He communicates the loss by mentioning one of her absent minded gestures that he probably watched a thousand times, but no longer gets to see. There is such tenderness and heartache in that line.

The next refrain is heart wrenchingly profound:

And she said losing love
Is like a window in your heart
Everybody sees you're blown apart
Everybody sees the wind blow. . .

I have to admit that lately, I have felt like there has been a hurricane ablowin'.

Now when I was younger I could always appreciate the first verse. I too have made my pilgrimage to Graceland dragging my family with me. If you even mention Graceland to my brothers, they still roll their eyes and make strange noises in the backs of their throats. They wanted to kill me that summer. I was the only one who really wanted to go. First rule of pilgrimage should probably be- "Choose your traveling companions wisely." Just read the Canterbury Tales for confirmation on that one. Anyway, one summer we loaded up the family and made our way through the cradle of the Civil War.

Here is the kicker: I didn't want to go because I loved Elvis, I wanted to go because of U2. The year previous U2's documentary, Rattle and Hum had been in theaters. I saw it five times, yes five and paid full price each time. One of my favorite parts of the film is the footage of the band's visit to Graceland- wonderful black and white images of those famousus gates swinging open and pulling up the sweeping drive. It was the Irish discovering the Heartland of America, visiting one of America's few shrines. Don't ever doubt the power of good cinematography and an amazing soundtrack. This is how my family ended up standing in the Jungle Room.

As convoluted as my reason for pilgrimage, I still understood the notion. It was meaning of the next verse that evaded me. But it should have been so obvious.

There is a girl in New York City
Who calls herself the human trampoline
And sometimes when I'm falling, flying
Or tumbling in turmoil I say
Oh, so this is what she means
She means we're bouncing into Graceland.

Suddenly he is no longer talking Memphis, Tennessee. How did I miss it? I was a English Major after all. What Paul Simon has done in the first part of the song is given us a concrete image to express an emotion or an abstract idea. This whole Graceland thing is symbolic. He even makes the point in the first chorus to sing "I'm going to Graceland - Memphis Tennessee- I'm going to Graceland." In the second verse the Memphis, Tennessee line is omitted. He no longer makes that distinction. The language is not as specific, just "I'm going to Graceland."

Now the song is about a universal journey that we all make a some point. He has gone and gotten esoteric on us. Then he repeats the refrain - "Losing love is like a window in your heart/ everybody sees you're blown apart / everybody feels the wind blow. Heartache sends him to Graceland and to Graceland, if you know what I mean.

And so it goes. For every person there is something different that sends them on a pilgrimage to Graceland. So often is loss that sends us on such a journey. Why does it have to take all the tumbling to lead me, or any of us, to such a place of grace? I don't think there has ever been a time in my life, certainly not in the last 60 days, that I have walked gracefully into grace. For me it is so often about "tumbling in turmoil" until I come to rest disheveled and tear stained in Graceland.

And here is the last of the song-

I'm going to Graceland
For reasons I cannot explain
There's some part of me wants to see
Graceland
And I may be obliged to defend
Every love, every ending
Or maybe there's no obligations now
Maybe I've a reason to believe
We all will be received
In Graceland

Oh I Love what Paul Simon is saying here about grace- that in Graceland there is no call for explanation for all the things we have ruined or just not gotten wrong. Graceland is a "come as you are" sort of place with no need to explain your pathetic state.

It has been a long time since my last post. I have really been too tired to write. Not a- I've worked really hard, or I didn't get much sleep last night- sort of tired, but more of a fatigue that makes your very bones feel heavy. This fatigue is often a sign of a depression, something I have battled long and hard in the past. These last two months the fatigue has begun to worry me, and I had a birthday at the end of June which was more difficult than I thought it would be. There was and is a lot going on in this head of mine. For as forthright as people think that I am there are some things I only talk to God about. And I have been doing a lot of talking in the past two months. I guess you could say I am feeling an awful lot like a human trampoline. As I said, it is not just me, but many of those I love are tumbling in turmoil as well.

One day I hope I find myself in an elevator with Paul Simon, and I get to shake his hand and thank him for his song. During this time, as me and mine go bouncing into Graceland, it has become my lullaby. It soothes my ragged nerves and helps to calm my fears. I am assured that despite the baggage that I carry there is indeed grace for me. Always going back to that last line- "there is reason to believe that we all will be received in Graceland"- even if we come bouncing in.

Stupid, Skinny and Talented -Meridith's Dilemma

2007-07-10T09:17:56-07:00

There is an equally loaded reason that there are no photos of me on this thing-despite many people's urging. It’s the same main reason as to why I haven’t posted in over two months –which I just realized when I saw the date on Misi last brilliant post. My life has been about photographs or more specifically my looks because I don’t have a mind like Misi that can carry me. When we started, I refused photos for the opposite reason as Misi but somewhat the same, I didn’t want to be qualified by my looks. My current position is actually the only job I've had in New York that I didn't get from submitting a headshot with my resume. I have this completely hidden secret that I built a life around overcompensating for by being tall, busty, striking and talented: I really can’t read. There I said it.

You don’t believe me which is fine. I’m completely use to it. No one ever believes me –only my mother in fact actually believes me. There are a few who say they believe but I know deep down they think I’m whining or am lazy. So let me qualify the statement to make you better understand- I’m not illiterate but I simply can’t read a book or anything longer than a short magazine article. I struggle even to re-read my own posts. Most of the post I've written have taken several days to write because I have to take breaks often and come back with a fresh eye to fix. Simply put, I can take letters and make words, words and make sentences and sentences into paragraphs but about at this point there’s a breakdown. I just fade away and stop listening to the words no matter how hard I try to pay attention. If you don’t count some American Girl Books in Elementary school, I have, in fact, in my 27 years read only three works of fiction cover to cover

-A Prayer for Owen Meany

-Their Eyes were Watching God

-Of Mice and Men

The last one I actually read one and a half times because I was half way through when someone in my 9^th grade class remarked on Lenny’s mental retardation and I was like “he’s retarded?” So, I started over from the beginning in attempt to understand what I had missed. I didn’t but, thank God for Gary Sinse and John Malcovich making the film around that same time.

The amazing thing is I always did well in school yet I never read my assignments. Every year the teacher would tell me that I wasn’t going to be able to get way with it in their class, and every year I did. My freshman year of High School I was in honors classes and got almost all As. I even tested out of classes in college because of scoring well enough in AP English! I actually did better if I didn’t try to read the books completely. I have this frightening ability to read just the jacket cover, and a few pages here and there to understand the characters and then I just knew what happened without reading it. If I know who the characters are I can predict the out come -and I was normally right. I wrote a brilliant paper on the complexity of Asian assimilation between generations in Amy Tan’s “The Kitchen’s God’s Wife” having only read a chapter in the beginning and a chapter in the end. In 6^th grade we had to read a biography of a female poet and write a report on her that included analysis of three of her poems and how we felt their lives influenced each piece. I made up a fake female poet, created her biography and even wrote three original poems that I then analyzed and got an A. The girl who did Maya Angelou got a B+.

I guess the problem started as far back as 1^st grade but I barely noticed then. I recall being moved reading groups and my mother saying “It’s not because you’re not smart.” I had no idea what she was talking about, I didn’t even realize that it wasn’t normal to switch groups. I guess they were by level but what 6 year old notices that? I just noticed that I was totally bored and when they asked me to continue reading out loud I was always in the wrong place. Shortly after, the tests started. I could see fine but they gave me glasses anyway because they thought that was it. They tested my hearing, they tested me for lyme disease, they were constantly pulling me out of class to meet some women in the library with Rorschachs and common knowledge questions. Nobody ever told me what the test were for or how I did, and I wasn’t all that concerned. My grades were fine and school was just how I killed time until ballet. No one ever even told me I had a problem with reading or comprehension.

In 4^th grade, about the same time I started playing the flute, the test stopped. I had increased the frequency of my ballet classes and was even performing in the Nutcracker with a professional company. My life was dancing and my flute. After about two weeks of owning my flute, despite having only had a few group lessons in school, I had finished all the lessons in my music book for the entire semester. They actually quickly moved me ahead to the fifth grade orchestra class. A year later I was teaching the flute to students. I don’t think it was ever spoken out loud but they must have just decided that I was musically gifted and I’d be ok - so everybody gave up.

I proved this theory right when I moved to Massachusetts and auditioned for the new Elementary school’s musical and got the lead having never sung alone in public or ever even seen a live musical onstage. People were really impressed with my performance from my town and there was instantly a buzz that I had to be an actress. See in 5^th grade, I was 5’6” with a C cup. By 6^th I was 5’9” a size 4 with a D cup, tiny waste and pretty great butt, massive main of curly dark hair. People constantly thought I was 18 or 21. I was gawked at wherever I went especially by older men. Musical Theater seemed to be the pefect place for this abnormally mature looking 6th grader and I was really good at it so nobody bother me about school. I actually got out of a lot of things because my school was so supportive of my performing.

I quickly began to obsessively build my life around my looks, practicing singing, and getting my body in shape. Around 7th and 8th grade I became flat out anorexic. I was so weak that I only went to school four hours out of the day. I had hidden it so well that somehow my mom was convinced I had Cronic Fatigue Syndrome even though the test for it came back negative. I was sooo warped I began to believe it. Even when I passed out during curtain call in a dress rehearsal and the junior high buzz was that I had I problem -I didn't believe them. I believed that people were just misinformed about CFS. I always remained curvy despite being thin so doctors never noticed. I just looked like the models of that era Cindy Crawford, Tyra Banks etc. At one point I was actually 72 lbs thinner than my current weight and exactly the same height as now. I also became a complete workaholic. Every moment of my day was scheduled and built around training to get into the best musical theater high school, then college then get to New York and work professionally. All of which I accomplished.

In 10th grade I had a complete mental breakdown. I had transferred to a different school and I remember sitting in my room reading the same paragraph in a chemistry book over and over and over again and I can only explain what happened as I flat lined. I went to a this other realm and just wept. I wept for days. I went to my advisor and gushed about everything the problems at home, my eating. my reading, the secret divorce filing my mother was doing with money I had lent her because my father had taken her name off all accounts and she had no access to funds. Because it was a private school, they could get a lot more involved and they got me a lot of help.

By then end of the year I was almost a different person. I had a healthy relationship with food - the body dysmorphia was gone and I was back on the path to success. My friend Emma pushed me to get help on the reading thing. She couldn't imagine someone not being able to enjoy the classics -especially someone like me who loved dramatic literature soo much. They put me on a variety of different anti-depressants and two different types of Dexedrine. My mental focus improved dramatically in certain areas. I could instantly pick up difficult tap combinations and my sight reading and rhythms got better in music rehearsals - but no change on the reading comprehension. At that point I basically gave up because it was clear I didn't really need to read Crime and Punishment to perform.

Then two years ago, I decided I wanted more out of life than performing. I didn't want to look back at my life and say I worked for applause. I also didn't want to use my wit, looks or talent to hide my inability to grow intellectually. There are whole aspects of basic learning I just skipped out on because I was like this little child protoge- without the b-movies and coke habit to show for it. Just in doing this blog I realized I actually did not progress beyond basic 9th grade creative writing skills. My fiance is a constant reminder that I basically skipped school. I am always having to ask him not only what words mean that he uses but how to do things or what's going on in the world. Every election I get really upset because there's basically no hope for me really making an educated decision. The topics discussed in my old theater company where so far above my head it was absurd. Luckily, I studied improvisational comedy for so long I can fake my way through pretty much anything but I'm still left to feel stupid. I struggle every single day and the most frustrating part is that some days my brain is fine. I could sit and read the New York Times other days I phase out on the captions of PerezHilton.com.

I've challenged myself by removing myself from not only preforming but the arts period and it's really hard. I've spent my life building a sense of self worth on my looks, my ability to make people laugh and my voice. Now not only am I not in the theater but I got severely injured a few months back and put on a lot of weight so I don't even have a nice body anymore. One of the downsides that I will lecture any teenage girl on at the drop of a hat is that once you spend a long period of time not eating your body really never fully repairs itself. If I don't eat consistent meals and exercise I pack on 20lbs no problem-a horrible reminder of how I permanently damaged myself trying to cover problems no one knew how to help me with.

So I go to cocktail parties now and feel totally lost. My fiance's best friends are -no joke- a rocket scientists, an Investment Banker, a budding brain surgeon, and a Harvard law grad working for one of the toughest firms in Manhattan. I'm the girl who use to be attractive, use to have a fascinating job in the theater(which in reality was really awful) and is, thank God, marrying someone successful who can take care of her. Then I go out with my friends who are all performers and only talk about who's doing what where and they are like "Your getting married and you work in fundraising!?!" It sucks. Cocktail parties are my thing. If you could make a career out of being great at a cocktail party I'd be a millionaire. Especially now with Jim -who is equally skilled in this area. But for me the confidence has always come from being tall, sexy, funny and whatever interesting thing I was working on. But I made a point to not take jobs that sound good at a cocktail party and that are challenging and interesting to only me. And with the extra weight I've gained it makes these situations even worse because unlike Misi- I have no backup. I can't talk about Darfur or the upcoming election, Kierkegaard or have anything to offer on the state of things in Iraq. I can still be funny but I hate to say it but I've gotten more out of life as a shot girl than anything else. More money, more perks, the amount of valid job offers well beyond my credentials I've been offered while bartending proves this theory alone.

After reading Misi post, I wondered "would I change places?" Because the extra pounds are coming off for me and I'll be in shape again now that my injuries are pretty much healed and I'll be able to wear my fabulous clothes and buy new great outfits for cocktail parties but I'm not sure I can fix this problem. Misi will always be brilliant and continue to be more intelligent regardless of size. I cannot say that about myself. I should want to change places and some days I do, but unfortunately I really think it's easier for me and that's really sad. Because if I didn't write this - no one would even know I had a problem. My life is an unfortunately testimony that your appearance can edge out your intelligence. I've created sufficient coping mechanisms to get by and everything I can't do - I've been blessed with a guy who can do them and doesn't mind that I can't. But internally I am really sad that my grand aims at writing a book, or being one of those top business women in New York magazine will probably never materialize. Its so odd to say that my original goal of being on Broadway was much more realistic than my dreams to be Mohammad Yunus or Warren Buffet. I know without a shadow of a doubt that there is a reason for my strengths and weaknesses and I will eventually get paid for being great at cocktail parties as our plans to open our own place seemed to be more attainable in the near future than I thought. But it is sad to face that no matter how good I look there are things in the life that I can't do if I wanted to. That's when I want to trade. I could never get through law school. I think I would love to be a lawyer but it's not an option for me. I could never teach literature like Misi. I grew up believing I could do anything I wanted and in the last few years I've begun to notice in a lot of areas that is just simply not true. I know that it's all in then end gonna be okay but I guess in the back of my mind will always be the dilemma of are we created to accomplish only certain things unique to us or can I do all things through Christ who strengthens me?

Skinny and Stupid - Misi's dilemma

2007-06-13T07:48:20-07:00

There is a good reason why there are no pictures of me on this blog. Largely because I am not usually thrilled with how I look in photographs. There for awhile I wouldn't even let anyone at for any reason take my picture. This is because I am fat. There I said it.

Now this has not always been the case. I can remember being a size six - unfortunatley. but after years of serious medical problems which required a steady dose of prednisone, my body has never been quite the same.

And not from lack of trying. I have tried everything short of surgery to try and get back the old bod. I have given up sugar, bread, soda. I have been in the Zone, on South Beach and Atkins. I have restricted caloric intake and tried eating every two hours to boost the metabolism. I used to go to the gymn 6 days a week and not put anything in my mouth that was not allowed. I only drank water.

I should have lost three of me by now, but my body just doesn't seem to want to cooperate. Recently I have managed to lose thirty pounds, and I am very grateful for that but it took me well over a year. I can't even watch those Jenny Craig commercials on TV. First there was Kirstie Alley: she managed to lose 70 pounds to my thirty in the same time frame and now that Valerie Bertinelli has lost like 15 pounds in 6 weeks. The whole thing is rather disheartning I must tell you.

I have a wonderful doctor who has been helping me with this process. Actually she was the first doctor who actually believed me when I said I could not lose weight. All the others had accused me of lying about my food intake. She ran tests and prescribed medicine to help even out insulin levels and hormone levels. Only then did I see some results. But my God it is still slow going. Even my doctor agrees that the amount of weight loss is disporportional to my effort . So she put me on a new pill.

First let me say the pill worked; I was losing weight more rapidly.

But, the pill was making me stupid. At first I wasn't quite sure what was going on. I thought maybe I was really tired from working two jobs, but then I started having a hard time with word retrieval. Not good when you are an English Professor standing in front of your class, and you cannot come up with the word you want. My comprehension was definately impaired. I was having to read things 2 to 3 times to comprehend them.

I went on the internet and googled the drug -Topomax. Up popped an article from the New York Times which contends that yes the pill does work, but draw back is that "It makes you skinny and stupid." All of the side effects that I had been experiencing were pretty standard. They are so common doctors often refer to the drug as "dopomax" because of its reputation for making people dopey.

I sat in front of the computer and read the article again to make sure I had understood the implications: I could be skinny, but I would also be stupid.

This is the part that pisses me off. I actually thought about it. I enertained the idea that this might be an acceptable trade off. How could I think such a thing? I really began to question how I had come to put such a premium on being thin. I realized that I had indeed internalized alot of crap over the years.

I have been told, no matter what my weight, that I am a pretty girl. But it is interesting how this compliment is qualified. Women generaly will just say, "You are so pretty," or "I think you are a beautiful girl." Men on the other hand almost without exception will say "You have such a beautiful face." Said in such a way so that I am made to feel that I am not wholly attractive. The face is great but your ass keeps you from being a real looker.

So it comes down to I am a funny, smart, compassionate person but someone may miss my worth just because of the way I look in a pair of jeans. I do hope that there are men that are not that shallow, but I have too much empirical evidence to the contrary.

I was once at a cocktail party - and this was many years and pounds ago. I was young and thin. I was having an amazing conversation with a guy at the party. He was there with his girlfriend who was a young blonde thing. She was the shot girl at the local bar, so that should give you some idea of what she looked like. Great body, but the face I give a good solid four. She was sweet and I liked her. But she wasn't very bright. At the party her boyfriend and I got into quite the debate on the first Bush president. It was a very lively intense discussion. When it had wound down he looked at me with genuine appreciation and said. "I don't suppose you would consider a brain transplant, would you?" His point being of course that my brain should go in the blonde's body.

And so it goes. I wish I could say that he was the exception, alas no. He was just the most forthcoming. Many think such things, he just had enough liquid courage in him to say it.

It has been years of such messages face to face, and from the media that caused me to sit there in that chair and actually consider sacrificing one of the things that I treasure the most about myself in order to achieve some level perfection that society demands of woman.

I flushed the pills down the toilet, and followed with a prayer that my worth will not always be determined by the circumference of my thighs.

Jesus hear my prayer.

Justice served -Misi's Post

2007-06-02T09:11:44-07:00

On Memorial Day and I found myself engaged in some pretty heavy conversation post sun and hamburgers. My friends and I were discussing the concept of justice and whether people are "punished" for the things that they do. My friend Jonathan said that there is something in us all that wants to see bad people pay for the things they do, but perhaps that doesn't happen. This idea certainly does rankle.

I do believe there is something in each one of us that wants the wrongs made right, and for bad "men" to be brought to justice. When I am overwhelmed with the injustices of this world- children starving to death in the Sudan; the lack of care for the planet; the mistreatment of animals, even people who water their lawns in the middle of Florida's worst drought on record- I get in my car and listen to "The Saints are Coming" by U2 and Green Day.

It is a cover of an old punk song by The Skids, recorded in part to raise money for the Katrina victims. The two bands performed it live during the Monday Night Football Pregame show when the New Orleans Saints played the Atlanta Falcons in the first game in the Superdome since Hurricane Katrina. I could not care less about football, but this was my favorite bit of television last year. Bono walked that stage with his arms outstretched and spoke life over the city.

"I cried to my daddy on the telephone
how long now
Until the clouds unroll and you come home
the line went
But the shadows still remain since your descent
your descent

The saints are coming, the saints are coming
No matter how I try, I realize there’s no reply
The saints are coming, the saints are coming"

Why this song? Maybe because it has all the anguish and questioning of a good punk song. But for me this song also encapsulates the very discussion that my friends and I were having Memorial Day. What is to be done about the injustice in this world? Where are you God to right the many wrongs on this broken planet? And this is how it sometimes goes for me. In my deep distress I call out to God for him to intervene in the matters of men- "I cried to my daddy on the telephone how long now until the clouds unroll and you come home?"

Isn't this what all of us do? People who never give God a second thought when things are good - when tragedy strikes the first thing they ask is "How could God let this happen?' For those I say you can't have it both ways. You cannot only acknowledge him when you are pissed and need someone to blame. But the attitude highlights that need we have to think that all the scores should be settled and that life is somehow like one those old westerns where in the show down at high noon the good guy is always the faster draw. But all too well we know that that is not the case. So then comes the anger and frustration because if God is who people say he is, he could fix this whole sorry mess. But ...

How often I want God to come in and start kicking some ass quite frankly. But this thought is often soon followed by another. If he actually got started, really started taking names and cleaning up in the wholesale way that we sometimes call for who would make the cut? Who is to say who or what is righteous? As much as I would like to think that I I would be on his good side, who knows? I also like to think I am the kind of girl that doesn't need to wear eyeliner, but that never works for me either. So I am then forced to think that if God started leveling people, I might just reap a whirlwind, if you take my meaning.

Believe me this is harsh thought, but one I am thinking more often. So what to do then?

Just this past week sitting in church one of my friends turned to me and said - "We have got to pray that the president will have a change of heart. " I was sitting in church so you wouldn't think that this would be such a revolutionary thought, but for me it was. I had pretty much written the guy off, and was just holding my breath for this administration to make its final exit. But I don't think I get off the hook that easily. What if justice coming into this world is more about me actually taking the time to pray for someone I think is a colossal idiot? Bono, back in the late eighties, in an interview with Rolling Stone, was asked how he could reconcile his faith with this world we live in. They were baiting him to make a defensive of God allowing the tragedies of this world. Bono's reply was that this is not the world that God created - it is the world that man has created for himself. I was seventeen when I read that article, and it at once set me free and made me accountable.

I was immediately less offended with God; in fact I remember feeling distinctly sorry for him. (That in and of itself was a very strange experience) If you subscribe to the belief that this beautiful planet was a gift to man - a beautiful perfect gift - and then see what we have done with it- how could I not feel sorry? But then it also begged the question: what do I do in my own big and small way to contribute to the tragedies of this world?

When Bono sings that line, "I cry to my daddy on the telephone how long now until the clouds unroll and you come home," it really is a plaintive prayer. Much like the one you hear in "40"- "How long to sing this song?" It is a call for things to be made right. Sometimes I am so overwhelmed by the state of the world that I drive and sing and sing with Bono because quite frankly sometimes I just don't have the words and the song becomes my prayer.

But I have begun to have a very radical thought - Maybe all the justice that we need is actually all ready here. It doesn't need to be applied heavy handedly by a judge in the sky. Rather it is hidden in the choices that we as individuals make. When we choose to love our neighbor a bit of justice is served. It goes back to widening our circle of responsibility. So.. that would mean I have to choose to pray for George W. even though his foreign policy makes me want to vaporize him? Instead of writing him off I need to pray for a change of heart.

Wow. Tough One. But I am realizing that for justice to be served, I have to widen my circle to include even people I don't really like. Love versus Judgment... Interesting concept.

Patti LaBelle and a Skinny Welshman by Misi

2007-05-08T14:32:32-07:00

I am a music girl. If you have been reading this blog you probably have picked up on that by now. Music keeps me accountable in ways that flesh and blood sometimes fails to do. It is in my car and in my ipod hammering in my ears,- the mainlines to my core where soul meets body. There is a an amazing quote by the Irish writer Sean O'Faolain which says, "In the presence of great music we have no alternative but to live nobly." This is exactly what I am mean. There is something about certain music that gets inside all the hollow places in me and reverberates and demands action.

One of the artists that provokes me in such a way is Patti LaBelle, an amazing R&B singer from Philadelphia. Let me clarify. It is not even what Patti sings as much as how she sings it. She has one of the most amazing ranges, like record book ranges if I am not mistaken. But it is not about technique. It is more about the heart and soul and passion that come out of her mouth. When I listen to Patti LaBelle I feel like I am getting all of that with both barrels. Even if I didn't speak English I would still get Patti. She reverberates.

I first discovered Patti LaBelle when I was in my early twenties. I actually saw her on Oprah and was completely taken with her passion and zest for life. Even when she is not singing she is a soul song. She told the story of how her sister, who was in the hospital dying of cancer called her and asked her to bring her a fried egg sandwich. Patti said "I have a million things to do today let me call - some other family member - and get them to bring it to you?" Her sister Jackie said,"But nobody makes them like you do.I want one of your egg sandwiches." Patti didn't get there that day, and she didn't get to make her sister the sandwich because Jackie died not too long after that.

I have never forgotten the story of the fried egg sandwich.

After seeing her on Oprah I couldn't get enough of her. I went and checked out her autobiography from the library and devoured it. In the book she talks about the struggles to make it at the very beginning when she was first starting out, when she was part of a group called the Bluebells. When the group first began to tour they would ride to the gigs with all the windows rolled up (with no air conditioning)despite the fact it was in a hundred degrees or more outside, in order not to mess up their hair before the show. I can remember shaking my head and thinking I am not that committed to anything.

Ever since the early nineties Patti just keeps showing up in my life, keeping me accountable. The sound of her voice provokes me - asks the questions: Girl what are you passionate about? And what are you doing about it? What are you making time for? For some reason, Patti LaBelle leaves me no alternative but to live nobly.

Even a several years ago when I lived in Key West, not living nobly, one night a dear friend of mine looked at me and said out of the blue "I have a song to play for you." I had no idea what was coming. I was a little afraid it might be something by the Grateful Dead, which despite my great love for music that group is beyond me. But I leaned back and he played one of his all time favorite songs. A song by Patti LaBelle. That I had never heard before. The chorus goes something like this:

"And I"ll never be afraid of who am and who I'm not/ come what may..."

Patti had found me again, and at a time of very rocky transition when I was second guessing almost everything I did. That precious gift of a song came to me in the middle of the night. My friend looked at me as the tears rolled down my face and said - "You get it.I knew you would."

He had no idea how much I got it, or rather that it had me.

And just this last February I got the opportunity to see Patti LaBelle live for the first time. The first thing that struck me was the diversity of people that were there. Black, white, rich, poor, blue collar, professional, gay , straight, you name it. My first thought was this is what church should look like. Then when I was sitting in the audience listening to her sing, I thought when you are doing the thing you love it draws people to you. Wow. That thought has been rolling around in my head ever since then.

But sometimes, more often than not I need the one, two punch. Enter my friend Carl from Wales, who was in town to talk about his recent life audit and basically tell us we all needed to do one as well. You know, going over your life with a fine tooth comb - making sure that you are ultimately feeding the right bottom line. So now it was Carl asking hard questions. And I already knew the answers. I have not made enough enough fried egg sandwiches, or spent enough time with my family. I have not been living nobly in as many ways as I could.

And it is time. I am scared of what the transition may look like, but I am more scared of what I will look like if I don't. In some ways it is about living up to a song that found me in the middle of the night almost 8 years ago and reverberated in me and called me to action then and again now- "and I will never be afraid of who I am and who I'm not come what may...."

A Day to Remember - Misi's Post

2007-04-20T14:11:16-07:00

Monday was Holocaust Remembrance Day, or Yom Hashoah. (It is actually April 15, but this year it was observed on Monday because the 15th fell on a Sunday) But on Monday there was tragedy at Virgina Tech. As I as watching the news, I was struck by the irony that Liviu Librescu, an Israeli professor, survived the Holocaust only to be gunned down in his classroom. But he died a hero. He blocked the door giving his students time to go out a window and escape. I make a point every year of observing the day in some small way. I usually discuss it in my classes and talk about the impact of the Holocaust and World War II and how it marks the move from the modern age to a postmodern one. This year when I was talking to my classes about the Holocaust, I had one of my students raise his hand and say, "Yeah, I don't really think to much about the Holocaust because I'm not Jewish."

I thought my head was going to explode. That is the very thinking that allows for tragedy. The reason people die is because people do not believe they are responsible. We must widen our circle of responsibility. Looking at that student I was thinking of the words of Pastor Martin Niemoller, who was incarcerated in Dachau and Sachsenhausen for seven years:

“First they came for the Jews. I was silent. I was not a Jew. Then they came for the Communists. I was silent. I was not a Communist. Then they came for the trade unionists. I was silent. I was not a trade unionist. Then they came for me. There was no one left to speak for me.”

But I didn't hit him with that, instead I very calmly begin to ask him questions about the Holocaust. For starters: Were the Jews the only ones that were targeted? Surprisingly most did not know the answer to this. I explained to them that in 1933 when the whole thing started there were a series of groups that were targeted, the Jews being the primary group, but not the only one. Those who were committed to democracy and refused to be a part of what Hitler was doing of course were targeted as well as the homosexuals and the mentally ill. And also the Jehovah Witnesses because they refused to swear allegiance to the government , and the gypsies because they were considered anti-social.

That young man is only one of many that do not understand the responsibility we all have to remember, whether we are Jewish or not. As a teacher I making sure that happens. I sent my students to hear Michael Berenbaum, the foremost scholar on the Holocaust and I went to hear him myself.

And let me tell you it is always hard for me to sit and listen to these talks. I mean The Sound of Music used to give me nightmares when I was a kid. I would have horrible dreams about the Nazi's coming for me. But I go and I listen.

Listening to Michael Berenbaum that day I of course wept. I wept for the All the lives lost in the Holocaust. But I also wept for another reason. At one point Berenbaum began to talk about why he travels and lectures on the Holocaust. He said I want people to know, so perhaps some day things can change. What many people thought right after the liberation was that the only reason such a thing could happen is because people did not know. If people knew they would do better. But have we done any better? Think Rwanda. Think Darfur.

But then he said, "Sometimes you scream at the world to change the world. Sometimes you scream at the world so it will not change you. We speak, we scream because we believe a scream has the capacity to change. " Listening to him this thought went racing through my brain "I am a screamer." That was when I began to cry for a different reason. For me revelation often is accompanied by tears.

After the lecture I had him sign my book We Must Remember. The man has such a weighty presence; and I can not begin to comprehend what it must be like to carry the knowledge of such atrocities. I told him how much I loved what he said about the screamers changing the world. I said I always remind my classes of the quote by Sartre that every silence has an echo. He knew exactly the one I was talking about and nodded his head as he signed my book. I shook his hand and wanted to say more, something so he would know that I was like him in some way. That I too wanted to scream and make sure the world knew. I wanted to tell him that he had helped me realize something about myself that I hadn't quite put my finger on until then. But there were other people waiting and how to do you tell a complete stranger that?

I walked away and opened my book. I had to blink away the tears when I saw what he had written.

"From one teacher to another.

From one screamer to another."

From here on out I will mark Yom Hashoah a bit differently. I will have something else to remember and live up to: I am a screamer. And I will pray that my circle of responsibility widens even further so that I may I be like Liviu Librescu in the moments when it truly matters and think of others before myself.

Todd Oldham and Vicodin Misi's Post

2007-04-14T14:23:55-07:00

It has been a crazy couple of weeks for me health wise. Lots of pain and lots of vicodin and a trip to the ER, but no definative answer as to what underlying health issue is. Being laid up I have watched alot of TV, the more mindless the better. Mostly I have been watching Bravo. You know, the cable channel that has made a name for itself by generating such shows as Project Runway, Top Chef, and Top Design. These are all reality TV shows structured around a contest to see who will be the top clothing designer, top chef or top interior decorator. It sounds dreadful I know, but they are mind numbingly fetching at times, especially when you are stoned on pain killers.

Since I have no real couch I spent most of the week twisted like a pretzel on my Eames chair and ottoman clutching a bright pink bunny rabbit which my mother bought to comfort me. (I was actually in so much pain I wasn't the least bit cynical about it) I thought it fitting since I was mostly watching Top Design which is of course all about home design. After a few days I really began to wish that Todd Oldham, host of the show, was my guardian angel.

Bear with me. This not just because of the pain meds. Todd Oldham is an amazing decorator, who in recent years took on the daunting task of giving La-Z- Boy company, a new image. And the man did. La-Z- Boy ain't just your dad's favorite football watching chair anymore.

Todd Oldham is a quirky looking guy that has the amazing ability to mix all sorts of high end clothing items and low and never look like a statement. He reminds me of the quiet kid that used to sit in the back of my art class in college who mixed surf duds with sweater vests but always looked put together. And Todd always exudes this... this ... "niceness."

In each episode Todd always shows up to give the challenges to the designers and then he comes back to check on them when they are staring down the deadline for their project completion. He stops and talks to each designer and compliments them, reassures them, hugs them if necessary in an effort to try and calm them down. He gives great advice. Never is he critical; his approach is one of pointing out strengths. And not a bit of it smacks of insincerity or patronization.

And Todd is always the one waiting in the design room for whoever has been voted off that week. He always manages to say something that does not sound trite or overplayed to the poor loser and gives them a wonderful looking hug. He is one of those people who is just good at the hugging thing. It is not one of those hugs just done as gesture, and there is no rush for it to be over. It is like Todd Oldham is actually comforting these losers. I am not big on the hugging thing, but I want a hug from Todd Oldham.

Yes I know it is television, and I know that people are paid much money to cut and snip so that certain people and situations appear a certain way. But as I said I have been watching alot of Bravo "Reality-contest-" TV lately and nobody else on these other shows comes across like he does.

Curled up in my chair in my narcotic haze I wanted Todd Oldham to show up in my moment of crisis and in his sweet endearing way tell about my strengths, despite me being at that moment rather pathetic. I wanted him to show up in one of his $500 cashmere sweaters and his Vans tennis shoes and give me one of those hugs. He didn't, but my mom did. The hug was good, but she wasn't wearing Vans.

All in all I am glad that episode is over. I am grateful for my friends that called everyday, and grateful that I have such a great support system, even if Todd Oldham isn't my guardian angel.

Meridith with no Make-UP

2007-04-13T13:22:59-07:00

So I made a huge declaration a few weeks ago to start naming things just as they are even if it's not as pretty as I'd like, and then I didn't really post for I don't know how long. So here I am no make-up no editing nothing all that profound to say except what's been going on in the last few weeks cuz it was all a bit crazy.

1.)Assessed some of things drowning me(mainly working two jobs one of which has me up til 4am only to start the next job 6 hrs later). Sent out 15 resumes, got 7 interviews and 3 job offers! In the end all three uped their initial offers to have me on board. Starting April 23rd at a job that pays more, has better benefits, more vacation time, and way less hours. They also increased the salary enough so I won't be bartending til 4 and 5 in the morning and then coming into work. I am however going to keep my Sunday shift at the good old Dead Poet as I've grown a dedicated congregation of regulars that depend on me and well, let's face it I still have a wedding to pay for. Even with still working one shift at the bar I have cut my workload by 20 hrs a week! I'm looking forward to spin classes, yoga, and finally learning to play the guitar i got for Christmas.

2.) We officially have a new apartment! After over two months of looking, finding and then loosing apartments we bid for - we have finally signed a leases on a brand new place in Harlem and will be moving in May 1st. There's even a bus that leaves on my block that goes right to my new job. Although i think I'll be the only person getting on in Harlem and getting off on Park Ave!

3.) Jim passed the Multi-State Professional Responsibility Exam with flying colors after several thwarted attempts at taking it earlier in the year(it's really early in the morning on a saturday). He also found out he will be receiving a special award at graduation for public service because he complete more pro-bono work than anyone else in his class. I'm glad he got the pro-bono out of his system now - I've got shoes to buy! He also wrote, directed and produce the best Fordham Follies in the history of law students venting their frustration about professors through song and dance. Well I'm a little biased but it was leaps and bounds better than last years. And his rendition of "Boring Me Slowly" to the Fugess "Killing me Softly" was priceless.

4.) I bought an amazing couch. I had looked around a little and then woke up and said i have to buy one today because they need to deliver the same time we move. This is a huge accomplishment for me for two reason a.) I have never bought a piece of furniture that cost more than a months rent and b.) when I got my last apartment it took be 6 months of shopping to decided on a trash can I liked. Commitment issues? NAH! It's a very comfy ivory suede sectional with a queen sleeper because lets face it no one wants to come to Harlem and then leave late at night!

4.) And finally, I got over my irrational fear of wedding gowns(I find them hideous) and picked one out I found online. Here's is the response from the online inquiry I made

Dear Meredith,

Thank you for your inquiry into the Oscar de la Renta gown you are
interested. The gown is available in white only and is $17,635. We do
have this sample available for try on.

Thank you,
Mindy Woon

Darn I really wanted it in Ivory! I think I may need to look a little more.

So that's me with no make-up, a month late, but I figure it's my birthday and life is fabulous so I better post.

Dress I will never have

Balcony I will have May 1st

Wearing my heart on my sleeve, so to speak Misi's Post

2007-03-24T09:20:46-07:00

I have another confession to make: I hate those rubber colored bracelets that people wear. It all began with Armstrong beating cancer and the very clever idea that would allow people to identify with those who had the disease or mark themselves as a survivor. By purchasing the bracelet they could also be part of to finding the cure. Great idea. A real movement started, but then of course everyone wanted a piece of the action. Soon there were rubber bracelets for everything, thus in my opinion rendering them ineffective. When you wear one, no one even bothers to ask anymore what is is that you are trying to say to the world. And let's be honest, minus a message they just look like crap; these are not great accessories. All that said I now have another confession to make: Just last Sunday I put on one of those tacky, overdone bracelets.

I bought it at a Save Darfur rally which my friend Jonathan helped organize. I was standing at the table and I had picked out my t-shirt and then I saw the bracelets. I hate those bracelets, so initially I dismissed them completely. But I kept coming back to them. That voice that coaches and persuades me was saying, "Put it on, so you won't forget. "

I had to borrow the money to buy the bracelet, but I bought it and put it on. And I have realized this week it is not about others knowing what my bracelet stands for, it is rather all about me remembering what is happening in Darfur. But it also reminds me to spread the word.

In my contemporary literature class this week I did an informal survey of how many people had heard of Darfur and knew what was going on in that region of the world. Of the twelve people in the class only two raised their hands. Only two.

I told them they needed to go home and read about he genocide that is taking place in the Sudan. I told them they needed to know about the hundreds of thousands of people who have died and the millions more that have been displaced. I also told them how rape is being used as weapon of war. The janjaweed, who are the government -backed rebels, use rape as a means of torture, but also as a means to make certain that this race of African Tribesmen will be wiped out. May of these men are infected with the aids virus. They are told to rape as many woman and girls as they can in order to make certain this group dies out.

I told them many things. I made sure that no one was leaving that class without the knowledge that I have. I also challenged them to make contributions to Solar Cookers International at solarcookers.org. This wonderful organization provides solar cookers for the people who are forced to live in the displacement camps in Chad. And because they are solar powered women and girls are not forced to leave the camp to find wood for the their cooking fires ,which greatly reduces their chances of being raped by the janjaweed. Who ever thought that a solar powered stove could save a life? Such a small thing, but immensely powerful.

In face of all that misery, wearing a stupid green rubber bracelet seems to be so inconsequential, almost to the point of insult, but it reminds me.

When I brush my teeth or pet my dog or when I look at my watch, I am reminded that I am a citizen of the world and a soldier of the good fight and that there are those who are in desperate need of my help. Your help. Help from the powers that be. So I give my money, and I pray. I pray and cry for the men and women and children in the camps.

Just this morning I visited the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum's website. They have an action list of six things that anyone can do to help prevent genocide. At the very bottom of the page it says:

"Your voice can make a difference. Do not be silent."

It all comes back to that: our silence echos. My rubber bracelet reminds me of that as well.

www.savedarfur.com

Celebrating Patrick Misi's Post

2007-03-16T14:34:31-07:00

St. Patrick's Day is always a mixed bag for me; to tell the truth it makes me more sad than anything. You see, I think Patrick is one of the greatest individuals to every walk the planet and to have him remembered for things that are largely myth drives me crazy. I don't just think about Patrick on March 17. I think about him 2 or 3 times a week, sometimes daily. I borrow from the Catholic tradition and say very often under my breath, "Patrick pray for me". And I mean it. I want so very much to be like Patrick.

If that bit about asking Patrick to pray for me offends you, sorry. But really I do believe he is closer to God at this point and could put in the good word for me - or raise the alarm which ever the situation calls for. But it is not the Patrick of green beer that inspires me - is the Patrick who changed Ireland in the fifth century.

Most people do not realize that Patrick was actually British. (That bit of trivia could get your ass kicked, so be careful about sharing it, but back to the true story of Patrick.) Patrick was actually stolen from his home in Britain when he was sixteen years old. He was kidnapped by Irish warriors and then forced into slavery. He was a shepherd, living alone out on the hills hungry and probably naked. He spent six years like alone, yet in these years he learned to pray. He also learned to hear the voice of God very clearly.

Then through the course of fantastic events Patrick gains his freedom. I am not going to give you the whole history lesson; care enough to read it for yourself. He his able to return home to Britain, back to his parents. But Patrick had a vision in which he heard the voice of the Irish calling to him, calling him to "come and walk among us once more." Patrick went on to become a priest and then a bishop, and he did indeed return to Ireland. He returned to the land of his captivity.

He went and lived among the fierce warriors who had kidnapped him and forced him into slavery and loved them. And there was such a profound peace about him that the Irish had to take notice. They knew that he did not fear them and they admired his courage. To quote Thomas Cahill from his book "How the Irish Saved Civilization" "With the Irish - even with the kings - he succeeded beyond measure. Within his lifetime or soon after his death, the Irish slave trade came to a halt, and other forms of violence, such as murder and inter-tribal warfare, decreased."'

Every time I read this I am greatly humbled. This is what comes of loving your enemies. Great reformation. I pray that I may have the heart of Patrick. I pray that I find such peace and that people are drawn to me in such a way that it produces reformation.

Patrick totally takes away all of my excuses. When I feel justified in not liking someone because of something they have done to me, or judging people groups, I think of Patrick the former slave who returned to love and minister to the wild warriors who had held him captive.

Oh that I would have the heart of Patrick and be gracious and kind to even those who have hurt me.

There is at least one way I am like him: I have always believed, like he, that the world around me is holy. Patrick believed that the universe itself is the Great Sacrament, magically designed by its loving Creator to bless and succor human beings." (Quoting Cahill again here). In essence all of nature is a signpost to God. This was a radical departure from the Christian beliefs of the times. Such thought was that of the Druids and pagans. It was certainly not a belief St. Augustine would have shared. To reveal in the the splendors of the created world would have been looked down upon. To treasure this earth was a radical concept for established Christianity then, and believe me that concept is just as radical now for many Evangelicals. Just ask James Dobson. But that is a whole other post.

"Patrick was a hard-bitten man who did not find his life's purpose till his life was half over" I have this line underlined in my copy of How the Irish Saved Civilization, I should blow it up and stick it all over my house, at least that second part of the line "... Who did not find his life's purpose till his life was half over." He may have gotten a late start but what a reformation he brought to Ireland during his thirty year mission. This gives me great hope. If you have been reading my posts you will know why - it all circles back to "I Still Haven't Found What I am Looking for." Again that simple desperate prayer that I find "my thing".

Not just on St. Patrick's Day, but everyday Patrick inspires me. His life challenges me to believe that loving my enemies just might bring about reformation. But it is begins with the heart. And my heart needs to be reformed first. Patrick pray for me.

I'm Ready to Make Nice

2007-03-15T08:41:49-07:00

I remember sitting in my quiet house tucked in the woods of a small New England town, watching awards shows and feeling connected to something much larger. At the time, I thought award shows were the most riveting things on television. Loving the fashion goes without saying, but it was the acceptance speeches that I just had to see. As a young girl I thought accepting an award on national television was it - that was really truly living and making something of yourself. Not because it made everyone in America know your name, but because you could take that attention off yourself, off the Hollywood glamor and thank the people who stood by you when nobody knew your name. Maybe I watched Beaches too many times as a kid, knowing I totally was Better Midler but really longed to be Barbara Hershey.

I always watched these shows while secretly writing my Tony speech in my head. In college we even had Anti-Tony Speeches reserved for those Simon Cowellish professors who treated us like dirt and would never be thank in the real speech. As I've grown older and life continued to get more complicated and I don't live in that tiny town, my thoughts on this have shifted on this considerably. However this year, I have really truly felt inspired by award shows again. There's a real sense of rejuvenation and hope in the air despite the circumstances around the world that could easily cancel out all hope.

Things that were wrong are being made right.

In 2003, a friend of mine flew me to visit her in Dublin. For reasons that I can only explain as, that's my life, I landed in Dublin only to find myself on a plane to London and at a sold out Dixie Chicks concert. I remember thinking it was weird that they had fans in London -I didn't even know why I was there. The lead singer told a hilarious story about the first time they played London and were so excited to have British fans only to find out the whole audience was from Texas, then remarked something like "Not that we don't like people from Texas," and then some side comment about not being proud Bush was from Texas. Everybody laughed and laughed as people always do at Texas or President jokes. The concert went on as normal and much to my surprise I didn't totally hate them like I thought I would.

I returned to the States not really thinking much on the concert other than how ridiculous it was that I was there and suddenly weeks later I started to hear reports about stations banning the Dixie Chicks, people writing them hate mail and all sorts of things because they were protesting the President in London. Their record sales drop, the Red Cross wouldn't even except a million dollar donation because it came from them, in essence the industry and American shunned them. I was there. It was a joke and a good one at that. So when the Grammys rolled around this year and award after award went to the Dixie Chicks, I was really proud. Even though it was a joke, they stood up for their right to disagree with the current administration and even though it took the rest of the country longer to get here, they finally have and this was their way of making it right. Natalie Maines said "I'm ready to make nice! I think people are using their freedom of speech with all these awards. We get the message."

Then I watched Oscars. It was an evening of retribution from beginning to end. Watching Ellen - who years ago was dropped by her network after becoming the first lesbian character in a sitcom- not to mention the first ever person to out themselves during an episode of nightly television. The once shunned comedian took the most coveted gig in the comedy world - hosting the Academy Awards. She summed up the evening perfectly in her opening monologue when she pointed out that the nominees included American Idol contestant Jennifer Hudson who American didn't voted, and Al Gore who America did vote for and well we all knew what happen there. Then Al Gore got up and was able to laugh at himself on National television before he even received his Oscar. Not to mention the fabulous Jennifer Hudson getting an Oscar while the second rate singer she lost American Idol to has been demoted to begging her way into The Color Purple on Broadway.

I have had a lot of unfair things happen to me. A lot of things that should have been mine were taken away and at the same time I accepted life when it wasn't going my way instead of fighting to make it right. But things are being made right all over the world, and in the most unexpected way I've been re-inspired to know that my retribution is just around the corner.

I'm ready to make nice.

Ditto, but then some - Misi's Post

2007-03-10T15:08:54-08:00

I am resisting the urge to just say Ditto to everything Meridith wrote in her most recent post. I too feel as if I am struggling to get a breath in this life of mine. Rather than explaining all the reasons that I haven't written in a month, just read Meridith's blog. She pretty much covers it. I am immensely grateful for her naming all of it, now I can just get to all that has gone on in the month since I have posted. Oh,there has been plenty to write about. I had a couple of "Firsts" last month. I listened to my Dad give his first homiley as an ordained deacon in the Catholic Church; I performed my first funeral, and I got to see Patti LaBelle live. And I am going to cover them all , but I think I better start with my Dad.

There is an amazing quote by T. S. Eliot that I used to keep taped to my wall.

We shall not cease from exploration, and the end of all our exploring will be to arrive where we started and know the place for the first time. ...

I must admit that I didn't understand it completely when I first taped it to my wall, but I was totally buying into the sentiment. It has only been in the last three or four years that I have begun to really get it. During my trip to Atlanta to see visit with my family and to take part in my Dad's ordination into the Catholic church, it has taken on an even deeper meaning.

My Dad and step mom Beckey live outside of Atlanta. I spent my summers there, and the journey to Atlanta has always been a strange one for me. There is all sorts of emotion tied up in it- the emotion that arises from only seeing my Dad a few weeks out of the year and wanting it all to be perfect, but also wanting him to know the real me, not just Misi on her best behavior.

I am not sure that this time was much different. And this time everyone was gathering to celebrate a milestone in my Dad's life. My brother and his wife flew in from the California, and it was the first time my brother and I had been together at my Dad's house since the early 1990's. As I said, we were all gathered together to celebrate my Dad's peculiar journey.

My Dad was baptized a Catholic. My Grandmother was a non-practicing Catholic and my Granddad was a Baptist ,so he was raised in the Baptist church. My Dad actually became a Baptist minister for 13 years. Some of my most favorite memories are of sitting next to him during choir practice listening to him sing the Baptist hymns.

But then, "he became disillusioned with the church and with himself". He spent 10 years away from church in general, but eventually found himself back at the Catholic Church.

Sitting in the cathedral in Atlanta and watching my Dad commit to the new phase of his spiritual journey, I was struck by the similarities between my Dad and I's individual spiritual exploration. I too took ten years off from church and religion and the packaged God that people were trying to push on me. I spent ten long years very disallusioned with myself, and drank way too much and did a lot of drugs. But my ceaseless exploring has also lead me back to my faith. Though I have to say mine has been a peculiar journey as well. Whenever I hear "Me and Jesus Got Our Own Thing Going" by Tom T. Hall, I think of my Dad. Not only because he taught me to love Tom T. Hall, but because this song is about the way our journey's have run. It should be our theme song.

Watching my Dad kneel on the cold marble floor, I took stock of how hard won my father and I's faith has been. I was overcome with gratitude that we had found our way back to where we started. Although our journey's have lead us to different expressions of our faith; nonetheless I know that my need to figure things out for myself did not come from any stranger.

This comforts me.

That day I was so incredibly proud of my Dad, proud of passion and commitment, but also very challenged. What in my life am I very passionate about and actively pursuing? My father went to classes for 5 years and served in his church several times a week in order to become a deacon. In one of the many times we were called to kneel, I prayed the most simple prayer: "Please God, let me find my thing." I couldn't make it more eloquent than that.

I guess it all goes back to "I Still Haven't Found What I am Looking For." I am still trying to figuring my postion in the good fight, but in Atlanta I did recognize a few other things for the first time.

1. I come from a family of storytellers. Gathered together in one place, the stories flow out of us so easily although it has been said we are exaggerators.

2. We are also very funny people; we laugh long and hard and mostly at ourselves.

3. I have a spiritual rich heritage, though not in a traditional sense. As I said it is more of those who have had to lose their way to find it. Flannery O'Connor once wrote "There are some of us who have to pay for our faith every step of the way and who have to work out dramatically what it would be like without it and if being without it would be ultimately possible or not."

I would say that is me and my Dad.

I am truly my father's daughter. Something happened as I listened to my Dad give his first homiley. (Amazingly enough, he still sounds just like a Southern Baptist preacher) Sitting there on the front row I was a very little girl again and nothing truly bad had happened yet. I remembered what it was like to be enthralled with my Dad and love him with a heart that has not been wounded. It was an amazing feeling. As his voice washed over me, I felt like the reset button had been hit somewhere inside of me.

Both of us are back where we started, after some fashion. Both of us ceaseless explorers, but we have come back to where we started and know it for the first time. Many thanks to my Dad for leading the way. I believe it is a new season...

Honest Moment - Meridith

2007-03-02T16:46:14-08:00

So I have another chronic TV addiction - Grey's Anatomy. I actually rid myself of this addiction for a good half season - but it came back. It's a little similar to my Idol addiction in that I start out smiling and happy that it's on again and inevitably end up in complete hysterical tears much like my favorite drunk party-goer in Breakfast at Tiffany's. It's actually the first doctor show with the exception of Scrubs that I let myself watch - in fact the only TV drama I've watched in six years. I turned to comedy in my entertainment and my coping mechanisms. But for some reason, despite my boyfriend's insistence that I stop putting myself through this misery, I watch Grey's Anatomy.

One could read into the lead character having the same name as me has something to do with it, but until this week I never saw any relation to Meridith Grey and myself at all. I'm much more of an Izzy (if you don't know why then you haven't been keeping up on this blog or Grey's). A friend logged concern about me recently and it caught me off guard. Why is anyone worrying about me- I'm fine. But as the week dragged on, I started to actually think about where I'm at and I started to realize I wasn't really all that okay. But I was so busy, I never even stopped to take it in. As the week went on it started to float to the surface more and more. I watched the opening of a recent episode where Meredith is actually drowning and as she fights to bring herself to the surfaces you hear:

There's more I have to say. Much more. I've disappeared.

I think I have disappeared - perhaps for not fighting to let things come to the surface. I think I may watch Grey's Anatomy so I can at least let the tears come to the surface even if believe they are about the TV. I started to realize that it's the sheer magnitude of work on my plate right now that has prevented me from come to the surface. Drowning on Dry Land. I sat wishing there was a way I could set aside some method of sorting things out or meditation. Then I realized one of the many tasks overwhelming me every week is this blog. Hence the lag in posting lately.

Naming things.

I have more to say but I'm drowning and my own self awareness is disappearing. I follow as Misi, week after week, bares her soul in effort to come to the surface and there I am stressing over being funny, or avoiding dealing with painful memories, or writing something I feel may be profound, or interesting when really what is probably most interesting is me just honestly dictating my fight rise to the surface of the mass of work that's drowning me. I'm in love. I'm engaged. I'm moving to a beautiful apartment -so nice I'm not going to know how to relax in it, I have some of the best friends anyone could wish for and I'm absolutely miserable through most of every single day. I'm exhausted and I ache, and this week I even caught a horrible flu complete with strep throat - no doubt a result of a lot of the afore mentioned issues.

So now I'm finally starting to admit it. There's a lot of things I need to start admitting, I have the platform to do it and I'm going to try. So bare with me over the next few weeks as I try to reappear. I don't want to drown, I know what I have and I'm gonna fight for it- the fight just may not as pretty as I'd like to perceive myself.

gen·tri·fi·ca·tion [jen-truh-fi-key-shuh n]

2007-02-10T14:52:34-08:00

1. buying and renovation of houses and stores in deteriorated urban neighborhoods by upper- or middle-income families or individuals, thus improving property values but often displacing low-income families and small businesses.

I’m potentially moving to Harlem next month. There is currently a gravitational force pulling young white couples to a section that spans forty blocks in Harlem. There are lots of issues people have with this century’s Harlem Renaissance. Simply google the names of these new luxury complexes and you’ll find every argument possible against the gentrification of Harlem yet it’s happening at rapid speed. The actual websites for these buildings are themselves a hilarious visual representation of this process. The swanky pages show young white couples smiling and very fair skinned black couples eating a healthy breakfast, book ended on either side of a motivated single woman jogging. My favorite photo is of the smiley black doorman just happy to still be allowed on Lenox Avenue (aka Malcolm X Blvd but we’ll keep that on the d.l.) opening the door for his new upper and middle class residents.

I guess my struggle is that I’m entangled in this issue to begin with. For only $154 more than I’m paying now, I get an apartment that could hold my current place in the living room alone, a balcony, dining room and get to I trade my daily four flight hike in for an elevator. But I still struggle to pay all my bills. I still needed to have somebody’s rich dad sign application – this time it just happens to be my future father in law as opposed to my crazy trust fund baby friends from college so I don’t know how I’m the bad guy. I haven’t even figured out what I wanna be when I grow up so I’m pretty sure I didn’t decided to displace the poor. I just know I don’t want to live in a tiny studio in a forth floor walk up in the East Village. At least, I think I don’t want to live here anymore.

One of the reasons I love New York so much is because New York hasn’t figure out what it wants to be when it grows up. Everyday, I walk through the Bowery a place most known and defined by its impoverished and counter culture residents. When I reach the corner of East 2nd street & bowery, to my left is the now vacant CBGB’s and to my right is The Bowery Hotel – a luxury hotel opened for glitterati from all over the world to experience the beauty of the anti-glitterati or glam rock or country or bluegrass or blues flair that the bowery supposedly represents. The Bowery Residence Committee got rid of CBGB’s, one would guess, to spruce up the neighborhood but they’ve still not decided what they want there instead. Yet just yards from the former site of infamous rock club is the answer to sprucing up the block – a luxury hotel & residence complete with stylish open air bar and lounge developed by the same guys who added flare to the now hip meatpacking district. But the hotel, set to begin a soft open on Tuesday, was still fighting the community board this week and could face a fate much like the Whole foods that has sat empty for over two years waiting for the proper permits. So for now, CBGB’s has been made into a gift shop on St. Mark’s place complete with a plastic light up replica of it’s famous white and red awning and The Bowery Hotel is featured as the future “it” place to stay in next month’s Vanity Fair. The Bowery sits in this state of limbo having displaced what it doesn’t want yet not quite sure what it wants to fill the void.

I’m a lot like the Bowery these days. I’m all for improving myself and increasing my value but not really sure I’m ready for the inevitable displacement that comes with this natural gentrification.

If you are looking for an uplifiting read...By Misi

2007-02-04T14:38:27-08:00

If you are looking for an uplifting read - keep looking. I have spent alot of time in the last weeks thinking about why I often have trouble saying what I really feel, need or want. I am trying to get to the root of what causes me to keep silent. So I have been excavating the past in the last couple of weeks, and there is one summer of my life that I keep going back to. The more I think about that summer, the more I realize its lasting impact on me. Do you remember the first time you ever wished for someone to die, the first time you actually had murderous thoughts? For alot of you the answer is probably never, but for me I remember clearly. It was the summer I turned 10.

The situation at that time in my life is not one I have ever spoken about to anyone, not even my closest friends. It is with some hesitation I bring it up now. But this blog is about naming things. Maybe by saying some of these things I will set myself free.

The summer I turned 10, my mother and my brother and I were for all intents and purposes homeless. We would find ourselves in this predicament again the next summer also, and come to think of it we did not have a real home of our own until well into my twelth year, and that one had no heat and the refrigerator was out on the back porch, but I digress. And let me add at the outset this is not about assigning blame, or feeling sorry for myself. This telling is about me trying to figure out where some of my behaviors began.

My mother was desparately tyring to find a place for us to live. We ended up at the home of a woman who my mother met at church. The moment I walked into her house I knew that something was not right. I sometimes get very strong feelings about people or places. Depending on what circles you run in some call it a sixth sense; some call it discernment; some call it a premonition. This sensing is not always well defined, and it wasn't then. I only knew something was wrong with this woman and her house. I immediately voiced my conern. My mother told me I had nothing to worry about. That I should be grateful that the woman would take us in.

This woman charged my mother $200 dollars a week for my mother, my brother and I to sleep on the pull out couch in her living room. We had to keep our clothes in suitcases in the utility room. I often just slept on the floor and let my brother have the bed. I wasn't being magnanimous, rather it was largely because I liked being able to scooch under the bed and hide.

We were only there a couple of weeks when we were all startled awake by this woman screaming and yelling at her children who were 16 and 18. She pulled them from their beds and beat them in the hall. I was lying very still, but I somehow managed to catch my mother's eye. We did not know what to do. My mother very tenatively called out to ask if there was something she could do. The woman screamed back at her to mind her own damn business. My mother whispered to my brother and I just to keep quiet . The next morning she acted like nothing had happened as she did her usual breakfast devotions, which everyone in the house was required to attend. I remember distinctly that we had cantalope that morning; I could not choke it down. Her sitting there praying to Jesus acting as if nothing had happened made me physically ill. Everyone acted as if nothing had happened; it was never mentioned. The thing that really gnawed at me was that I had known there was something wrong with her, but it had done me no good to know that something was amiss. If you have no place else to go sometimes you have to bed down with the devil himself despite strong misgivings.

Besides beating her own children and randomly throwing their belongings out in the yard, throughout that summer she tormented my brother and I in many different ways. My brother and I were forced to weed her huge garden, and to take care of her chickens. My brother to this day does not eat okra because of her. We only ate meat once a week because she said it was too expensive, and were under strict orders to never drink the milk. The one night I got up and tried to have a glass she discovered this and forced me to apologize to everyone in the house.

And she constantly told me that I was fat. She told me how pretty I would be if I would just lose weight. I was not fat: I was in that awkward stage that alot of kids go through, and I was only ten. She commented on everything that went into my mouth. When my mother bought me one those big chocalate chip cookies for my birthday, for which she had to save her tips from waitressing at the Days Inn, all this woman could say to my mother was "well you are ruining her diet."

I hated her. And it all came to a head one night when she went after my mother, not a physically but verbally. She was screaming at my mother becasue she had not taken the clothes out of the dryer and because she had accepted a collect call from her children's father who was in prison having been convicted as a hit man for the mob. I am not making this up. As she screamed at my mother, I just couldn't take it anymore. I was sitting there brushing my hair. I looked at my brush and I looked at her. I threw it at her and yelled something which I do not remember. One of true regrets of my life is that I missed. But that little outburst almost cost us a place to live. My mother spent the next half and hour apologizing for my behavior and convincing the woman not to make us leave right there and then. My mother, though proud of me for defending her, told me later that I would just have to keep it to myself she was doing everything she could to get us out of there. I learned very quickly to smile and nod and go about my business just to keep the peace. I built my brother and I fort on the far side of the garden where we would go and hide from her despite the hot Georgia summer. In that space my brother and I could say anything we wanted. Her dropping dead or the garden going up in flames were favorite topics. I personally hoped she would choke on her communion wine - that seemed fitting to me. Even as I write this I realize how unremarkable this tale really is. There are so many others that have experienced far worse. I have read The Glass Castle and Liar's Club, and know things could have been so much worse. But in thinking and writing about it I have been living it all again, and it does not feel good. But I am beginning to understand where and when the mandate of silence came into my life. But as it has been said, silence echos, and I am beginning to understand this in a whole new way. I am not sure where I am going with this- maybe there is the book I always wanted to write buried in the summers of my life. It is a strange sensation - speaking outside of the fort, and I have debated about posting this. But I know it is time.

To Be Simon... Misi's Post

2007-01-25T11:12:59-08:00

I too have a confession to make about American Idol. I don't like it. I have tried, but I just can't seem to embrace this cultural phenomenon. My friends are all fans of the show, and when we go out to dinner there is often talk of the contestants, the musical selections, who should have been voted off and who should have been kept on. I must admit my eyes start to glaze over during these conversations, and I start to balance my checkbook in my head. I am, however, a bit envious of Simon Cowell.

The man gets to say exactly what he thinks. That kind of freedom I can appreciate. He is decisive; he knows what he likes and what he abhors. He speaks his mind.

For someone who grew up choking back her words because the family drama was already too dramatic, Simon's straight shooting, although at times too caustic, is to be envied. Having the liberty to have your own feelings and opinions and be able to vocalize them is a a great blessing. One I am still growing into.

The irony of this is that many people would say I am like Simon, that I do say what I think. But I will let you in on a secret, I keep most of what I think to myself. There is a great line by Anne Lamott, a line I wish I had written myself:

"I thought such awful thoughts that I couldn't even say them out loud because they would make Jesus want to drink gin straight out of the cat dish. "

Exactly.

But I am very careful with my words for the most part. Rarely do I mouth off in a fit of anger or just utter contempt and take some one out at the knees. When someone asks my opinion, if it is about a sensitive subject , I will ask them if they are very sure they want my input. I only proceed if they are very sure. And I never use "Simon speak."

But I fear I have been typecast. Just this week two different people have come to me bringing reports that certain others find me "scary." This is not the first time this adjective has been used to describe me. Oddly enough both of the people who said this about me were men and both had, at most, a two minute conversation with me in which we just exchanged pleasantries. I have no idea what in that bit of interaction would provoke such a response. I can be gracious.

But it seems that despite my best efforts to be witty, charming and engaging people still find me scary. And quite frankly, I am tired of it.

My inclination is just to become what I am largely reported to be. Play it to the cheap seats. Change the rules of engagement and let fly with what I really think. No more graciousness, no more sugar coating, no more keeping it to myself. Can you imagine how terrified everyone would be if fear was the response I was actually after? The benign conversation that I had with one of the afore mentioned men might have gone something like this: "My god you are short! Did you look in a mirror before you left the house? What were you thinking? As I looked him up and down I would zero in on his face and add: "Two words: personal stylist. Two more: nose hair. One you have. One you need. Then I would look him up and down again, scrunch up my nose as if I smelled something bad, shake my head in bewilderment over my friend's taste in men and walk off.

There was my bit of Simon. But I never have those conversations with people. I really do go out of my way not to ruffle feathers . Maybe I do this to my own detriment, and apparently in vain, because people still see me as some kind of battle ax.

It really is about balance and what I choose to say and what I choose to bite back. But I am grateful that I have that freedom now. Now all my thoughts and feelings do not have to be choked back. Let me tell you, you can only censor yourself for so long before you begin to lose touch with who you really are. I was in a abusive relationship for long time, and this did indeed happen to me. I not only quit voicing my opinion; I quit having one. Patti LaBelle once said "Don't dim your lights for anybody." I try very hard to live up to that.

I guess that is what it comes down to. I have indeed worked very hard to know who I am and own that, and if my very presence is scary to some people I guess I will just have to take that in stride. I will trust it is filtering out the people I wouldn't be able to abide anyway. I cannot default to silence or amp up to Simon because I am misunderstood.

But the Simon bit is tempting.

Confession

2007-01-18T10:28:39-08:00

Last week, I wrote about very difficult portion of my life. It was one of many, and unfortunately I have been told that a lot of these events can lead me to dangerous behaviors and additions. I have often heard that admitting the problem is the first step. Misi and I have been holding each other accountable to write on the highest level by placing that accountability in front of the entire world. So I am going to hold myself accountable in front of all of you that are reading to help me relieve an addiction that has plagued me for 6 years.

I, Meridith, am addicted to American Idol.

I’m obsessed and I have been every season. Actually, I only saw one episode the first season on a visit to Paul & Mal’s in New Hampshire, but the first season actually ended up feeding my Season 4 addiction. Idol premiered just after I graduated from the Boston Conservatory – which for those who don’t know is really just 4 years of American Idol, plus dance and enough liberal arts courses to constitute a degree. The assistant to the dean of my department was a bit of drinking buddy of mine, and I vividly remember a week after the show premiered she turned to me and said “Can’t you totally see X on that show!!” She had somewhat of a love hate relationships with Mr. X from my graduating class so this was not a compliment. Well who turns up on Season 4 as one of the fore running contestant -none other than my eccentric classmate. I justified my addiction in Season 4 to knowing a contestant- but the addiction has lived on two seasons later.

It’s not a pretty addiction. You know the apartment party scene in Breakfast at Tiffany's when the classy model/NY social type is laughing and drinking up a storm and then seconds later she’s sooo intoxicated she’s bawling her eyes out in the mirror -that’s me watching Idol. It’s so exciting to be primed to make fun of a crack baby as she tells her sad story and then be totally floored when she can belt like Jennifer Holiday, but those people who can’t sing but really believe they can or the ones who are so desperate for self worth they built their entire identity on this audition – IT’S JUST UNBEARABLE!!! It’s like watching Charlie Brown try to kick the football over and over again. I just can’t bear to watch the judges tear them apart til they burst into tears and run to the arms of their overweight, sweat pant wearing mothers who reassure them that they will be famous someday. Every time I see this, I vow I’ll never watch again. It’s just wrong to show these moments when people’s whole understanding of themselves come crashing down. I make a pack to turn it off. Then a second later, I am fast-forwarding to the next hopeless dreamer in search of fame, fortune, and the saddest goal of all when it’s taken from them, to inspire people.

I think the part of this show that makes me come back week after week is to try and understand these people who believe beyond a shadow of a doubt that they could be the next American Idol. In a world where we can’t even predict the weather anymore, these people believe so much in themselves that they will wait in line for days, knowing full well that most likely they will ended up embarrassing themselves in front of most of America and beyond. I can’t figure out if this unshaken belief is admirable or devastating. I often wonder if these people have friends, and if they do, why didn’t their friends tell them they really cannot sing? And are the friends then to blame for enabling this unreachable goal?

I guess the thing that frightens me the most about American Idol, is that I do not know how to believe in things the way these poor loosing contestants do. I believe that I could get through to Hollywood in the contest- but that is really based on hard facts with just the normal auditioning variable. I have a degree in performing, I been paid professionally as a singer, and have several classmates and alumni who have made it through. It’s not out of the realm of possibility that me or any of my friends from school could get through if our human interest stories stack up to our vocal ability. But in situations when the facts are stack up on the other side, life’s bigger situations, where you know that many before you with the same lofty idea that “for me it will be different” have failed, requires one to truly believe in the improbable like the poor Idol cast offs.

At what point do we asses the facts and move on to avoid the pain of the inevitable outcome or is all of life just a contest whose odds are stacked against us and the real winners are those who fought for their goal no matter the pain of the outcome? And if in the end these poor people that want to inspire America but can’t carry a tune are in fact the way people are supposed to really be, that means I have been inspired by them more than I ever have listening to “Jesus Take the Wheel” or “A Moment Like this.” And if that is true, why are we all still only glorify the winners when we should really be championing these courageous losers? And if we always focus on the winners when watching American Idol, why is it in life, where we’re faced with the facts like 50% of marriages fail, and 50% of all start up businesses close, why is it that we only glorify the losers and never focus on the 50% who won?

Cleaning Windows - by Misi

2007-01-16T10:32:54-08:00

I have been visiting some strange places on my Ipod lately. In recent days, I have grown a bit tired of listening to my old standards. It is really a shame when you have over thousand songs on the Ipod and you cannot find anything you want to listen to. So, I have been forsaking my play lists and exploring the musical archives. My taste in music is a bit eclectic. This is largely a result of the different people who have drifted in and out of my life. People are often surprised by the songs I know and love.

One of my strong musical influences was my stepmother Beckey. She had the most amazing record collection which I would root through every time I was in Atlanta for a visit. She introduced me to Carol King and Simon & Garfunkel and Kris Kristofferson. She also introduced me to Van Morrison.

As a general introduction she gave me the Best of Van Morrison. At the time I was partial to Brown Eyed Girl, of course, and Moondance. So I spent a lot of time listening to the ones I already liked, but then I started listening to all the songs on the album. It was then that I discovered “Cleaning Windows”.

This is became one of my favorite Van Morrison songs. If you give it a listen it is really just a guy singing about his life as a window washer. It has a great groovy, 70’s melody, but literally it is just about a guy singing about his very average day, what he did for lunch, what he ate at tea. I know. I know; it sounds like a dud of a song, but I really dig it. There is such a joy that comes across when he is singing about this very simple existence.

“What’s my line? I am happy cleaning windows….”

Last week I was listening to Van Morrison as I took my dog on her morning walk. I had so much on my mind with the start of the new semester and my work for the local historical society that I really wasn’t enjoying the morning which was crisp and cool. I looked over toward the water and caught sight of a convention of pelicans hanging out on the river. I stood there and thought about it for a minute, debating whether I had time to go and take a look at the pelicans before I had to head home and get ready for work.

We don’t get many mornings like that in South Florida , so I figured I should try and enjoy at least a couple of minutes of it. I headed down toward the dock where the pelicans were perched. The dock had been ruined in the hurricanes a couple of years ago, so it is just a long line of posts protruding out of the water at intervals and the pelicans were perched out toward the end The sun was high enough in the east that it shone just up the river lighting the water but not the sky really. The wind was blowing and tide was coming in so that the water was moving in so many different directions. And the pelicans would take off on random flights, just barely skimming the water, and return to perch on the pilings. It was beautiful.

Standing there I said out loud rather suddenly, “Dear God please don’t let me miss my life.” It was out of my mouth before I was even aware I was saying it; a sure sign of a desperate plea from some where deep inside. I once saw an art piece which read, “There are angels whose only job is to make sure you don’t fall asleep and miss your life.” I have never forgotten that because the possibility of it is so scary: that I might indeed be lulled asleep by working too much, or waiting for my life to look the way I want it to and miss what I already have been blessed with.

I am running in the red at the moment, I know when I do this I often miss the things that make life worth living. This is why my blog is late, and I haven’t been reading enough. Listening to Van Morrison sing with such joy about cleaning windows as I stood there taking in the beauty of the morning, I was even more convinced that I have been missing my own life lately. I had to ask myself, “Could I sit down and write a song of my life, of my average day and do it in such a way that it would be infectious and make people want to sing along? Not likely.

And later that day I read Meridith’s post

“May you allow us all

To break out of everyone elses’s

Ideas of what life is

And start truly living.

Give us that chance.

To live.

And I prayed again “Don’t let me miss my life. And don’t let me be so busy that I do not leave some legacy behind. “

This morning I walked down to the river again. I took with me a copy of Adam’s Kaddish for the Living. I stood there and read it aloud to myself, and the dog, who was quite patient, sat very still and looked out at the water while I read.

So as strange as it may sound Van Morrison and Adam are keeping me accountable these days. “Cleaning Windows” is what is waking me up, and the poem is just inside my medicine cabinet, so that I am reminded first thing to celebrate my life even when I think it is small and mundane.

Kaddish

2007-01-09T11:45:17-08:00

Today, six years ago, my life came together by falling apart.

I remember the ride from my home to my parent’s home, parent’s home to his parent’s home. The world looked different. Everything was in sharp focus. When I think back on that day all I can see is a camera zooming in slowly, snapping out, and capturing the shot. I remember the trees on route 2. I could see the exact line of where the branch ended and the air began. Before that day, I never noticed those trees or the thick layer of crystal on top the snow or that there is a definite beginning and end to everything.

It had snowed heavily but ironically snow had nothing to do with it. It happened exactly the way it should have and I found out exactly how I had envisioned it a few days earlier - never dreaming the vision was in fact that - a vision.

Paul -he's now Paul until that day he was Mr. Howley - Paul called me on the phone. I can still replay it exactly in my head. "Hi Meridith. It's Paul Howley. Adam died today. There was an accident” I, for once in my life, was at a loss for words. In my head I was screaming "he's my Best Friend” but the screams we're stuck inside my head and chest where they would remain for years.

There was a moment in those first few days between the initial shock and absolute physical and emotional purging where the weakness and overwhelming grief turned into responsibility. There was an instant where I knew I had the responsibility to speak for him. I, more than anyone else, knew what he wanted everyone to hear. Maybe I was totally wrong but I felt we all had the responsibility to say everything he was cut short from saying. I went from thinking there is no way I could ever sing to I have to sing at this funeral - or memorial service which is the name we uselessly give these things to feel better about them.

On Valentine's Day in High School, Adam had bought me tickets to Stars on Ice. I hate to admit this, but growing up in Massachusetts in the late nineties a lot of people including myself became big figure skating fans thanks to hometown hero Nancy Kerrigan and her tumultuous trip to the Olympics. There was a Russian Pair that I thought were exquisite -that is until the man in the couple died suddenly of heart failure. Ekarerina had met Serge when she was very young and loved him for years until they finally married. He was her whole life - husband, father, and partner on the ice. I remember Adam and I holding each other bawling as she bravely took the ice alone and skated to Bernadette Peters singing "No One Is Alone." It is a song from Stephen Sondheim's Into the Woods: a modern day fairy tale musical in which all of the stock fairy tale characters must journey into the woods in quest of something and the end result is a tale much closer to reality than the happy endings we read as children. Along the way, the Baker discovers his wife has been killed by a giant and he is comforted by friends by this song. That was the song I had to sing. Everyone had to hear that we were all going to be ok.

No One hear to guide you. Now your on your own.
Only me beside you. Still Your not alone
No one is alone. Truly. . .

Hard to see the light now. Just don't let it go.
Things will come out right now
We can make it so.
Someone is on your side
No one is alone

And if there weren't convinced by Sondheim, then they would have to be convinced by Adam's own words. Also while in high school, Adam and I became obsessed with the Jewish rituals surrounding death. I was performing in a show that included a song that was the Hebrew text of the Kaddish for the dead, or Mourner's Kaddish. What we were obsessed with was that this ritual prayer said nothing about grief, loss, despair or mourning - it talked only of life. While in college, about two years prior to his own death, Adam adapted the Hebrew translation into what he titled "A Kaddish for the Living" Adam was not without mistakes, but he did live every single moment as if it was his last and wanted everyone else be engulf in the flame of life and never be afraid.

It has not been an easy six years and while it may be hard for some people, even myself at times, to hear - I would not trade them. I am who I am because of this loss.

Every year at this time, I come back to this poem of Adam's that I stood trembling in front of the 400 + attendants at his funeral and read. I may not always live out this prayer but each day I try to understand it more and more and hope when it's my time to go, people way say that I capture the essence of this call it action.

A KADDISH FOR THE LIVING:
Magnified and sanctified be God's great name in the world
Which He has created according to His will.
May He establish His kingdom
soon, in our lifetime.
Let us say:
Amen.

May His great name
Be praised to all eternity.
Hallowed and honored,
Extolled and exalted,
Adored and acclaimed
be the name of the Holy One,
though He is above all the
praises,
hymns,
and songs of adoration which men can utter.
Let us say:
Amen.

May God grant abundant peace
and life to us.
May the living be swallowed up
And burned in the flames
Of life.
May our minds and hearts be torn open
And may we be shown the way
To a life free
Of fear.

Free from the fear of LIFE.
Free from the fear of pain.
Let us say:
Amen.

God, allow us to cry.
To hunger.
For more. May we not be content to grow old
And dream of wonders we will never see.
Give us the Strength
And the Power to create.
To give life to our dreams,
And, in order to overcome our fears,
Our nightmares.
May we be granted the ability
To feel.
And to hurt.
Let us say:
Amen.

May you allow us all
To break out of everyone else's
Ideas of what life is,
And start truly living.
Give us that chance.
To live.
Let us say:
Amen.

~Adam Dean Howley
October 10th 1979- January 9, 2001

These Are Days-Misi's Post

2007-01-06T14:31:25-08:00

These are Days – 10,000 Maniacs

These are days you will remember

Never before and never since I promise

Will the whole world be warm as this

And as you feel it

You’ll know it’s true

That you are blessed and lucky

It’s true

That you are touched by something

That will grow and bloom

You…

I have a private New Year’s tradition: I sit and listen to These are Days by the 10,000 Maniacs and think about the year that has gone by.

This tradition actually began with my friend Gary, who died earlier this year.

He was tending bar, and I was keeping him company at the bar wearing a red rubber wig (there is a picture at the end of the Traveling Mercies blog)– there to see the old year out and see the new year in. It was 1999 and my mother had begged me to come home because she, as well as a large portion of the evangelical world, thought that something incredibly dire was going to happen. My theory on that was if something was coming I was going to have plenty to drink before I was forced to eat spam and grind my own grain and live in a bunker.

I remember sitting at the bar and right past midnight the whole bar went black, someone’s poor attempt to convince us that the power grid had gone down because of Y2K. When the lights came back up These are Days began to play. I yelled to Gary –“This is the perfect song,” because he chose all the music as well as pouring drinks. He yelled back across the bar, “This is song for you, Bull.” He always called me Bull; I have no idea why.

He then walked over and stood just across the bar from me, and he pointed right at me as he sang along with Natalie Merchant:

That you are blessed and lucky/ It’s true/That you are touched by something /That will grow and bloom/You…

I took his meaning and how right he was. I was blessed and lucky to even be sitting there. It was a miracle that I had not overdosed or drank my life away that year. I had been told earlier in the evening by the biggest drug dealer in town that I had done Prince proud- that I had indeed partied like it was 1999. Listening to that song, listening to Gary I realized how grateful I was to see the new millennium in.

That was the last New Year I spent with Gary. In less than six months I gave up my seat at the bar and left town to get sober. But I took the song and the sentiment with me. So every year on New Year’s Eve I get alone and listen to the song, and I think of all the ways that I am indeed blessed and lucky. This year here are few of the things that came to mind:

I live in a great apartment surrounded by great art and all the reminders of my many journeys. I actually get paid to talk about Flannery O’Connor and other great writers. I have had two of my students come back to me this year to let me know how I inspired them to be teachers themselves. At my other job I am a part of protecting a very beautiful piece of land on an inlet in South Florida from developers, which thrills me to no end. There were no real hurricanes in Flordia this year, which was an immense relief ; we all needed a break. I got to take a wonderful trip to Key West with two of my best friends and both celebrate and bury the past. I also had the one of the best birthdays of my life – I got to introduce one of my friends to the Museum of Modern of Art in New York, one of my most favorite places, And to finish the night there was a show and dinner and the Algonquin Room, much thanks to Meridith. This year I also smoked an amazing Cuban cigar and danced in public for the first time in long time.
I am sober. I have a dog that makes me smile and keeps me from being too self centered. I get too see the water everyday and smell the salt in the air. I get to eat fresh pineapple from my landlady’s garden,and after many years I have finally found someone who will talk Kierkegaard with me.

And I am writing again…

As I said I am indeed blessed and lucky in big and small ways. I am not much into really partying on New Year’s Eve, but I do like to be able to look around and see the faces of the people I care about. This was especially true this New Year's Eve, maybe because I lost one friend this year. Sitting around wearing funny hats – blowing horns looking at all my friend's faces- I was surprised by how much I need and love these people. And even more surprising was that I was filled with hope for us all for the new year .

It feels like a new chapter is starting. I am not sure why, but do you know how the tempo changes in a book or even in a tv show when a chapter or a episode is coming to a close? That is how my life feels lately. But I am not afraid of what is coming; I think this next bit is when things start to get really good.

For as much I have – there is more that I want. As this new year begins I am very aware of the vacancy in my life. There is someone I am still waiting on. For as blessed as I am to have the friends I do – I want someone to hold my hand. For the days when I am afraid about the polar ice caps melting and that the people in Darfur will never get the help they desparately need- I want someone who I love and respect to be there to put their arms around me and tell me that everything is going to be alright, or to make me take a nap when I don’t have the good grace to lie down. Someone who loves literature and art and dogs as much as I do, but most importantly, someone who will not be intimidated by me and my rather large personality and have a passion for the good fight. And it would be great if he was smart and funny and into music.

This is what I am hoping is waiting in the next chapter… These Are Days

Another Top Emailed Article

2007-01-04T11:15:30-08:00

As I ponder all the things one is supposed to ponder in the new year, I keep coming back to this recent event that could have just as easily happened right in front of my own eyes. I keep pondering in amazement of the actual event but more importantly, knowing that I definitely would not have acted the same way as this man did.

Man Is Rescued by Stranger on Subway Tracks

Published: January 3, 2007 The New York Times

It was every subway rider’s nightmare, times two.

Wesley Autrey.

Who has ridden along New York’s 656 miles of subway lines and not wondered: “What if I fell to the tracks as a train came in? What would I do?”

And who has not thought: “What if someone else fell? Would I jump to the rescue?”

Wesley Autrey, a 50-year-old construction worker and Navy veteran, faced both those questions in a flashing instant yesterday, and got his answers almost as quickly.

Mr. Autrey was waiting for the downtown local at 137th Street and Broadway in Manhattan around 12:45 p.m. He was taking his two daughters, Syshe, 4, and Shuqui, 6, home before work.

Nearby, a man collapsed, his body convulsing. Mr. Autrey and two women rushed to help, he said. The man, Cameron Hollopeter, 20, managed to get up, but then stumbled to the platform edge and fell to the tracks, between the two rails.

The headlights of the No. 1 train appeared. “I had to make a split decision,” Mr. Autrey said.

So he made one, and leapt.

Mr. Autrey lay on Mr. Hollopeter, his heart pounding, pressing him down in a space roughly a foot deep. The train’s brakes screeched, but it could not stop in time.

Five cars rolled overhead before the train stopped, the cars passing inches from his head, smudging his blue knit cap with grease. Mr. Autrey heard onlookers’ screams. “We’re O.K. down here,” he yelled, “but I’ve got two daughters up there. Let them know their father’s O.K.” He heard cries of wonder, and applause.

Power was cut, and workers got them out. Mr. Hollopeter, a student at the New York Film Academy, was taken to St. Luke’s-Roosevelt Hospital Center. He had only bumps and bruises, said his grandfather, Jeff Friedman. The police said it appeared that Mr. Hollopeter had suffered a seizure.

Mr. Autrey refused medical help, because, he said, nothing was wrong. He did visit Mr. Hollopeter in the hospital before heading to his night shift. “I don’t feel like I did something spectacular; I just saw someone who needed help,” Mr. Autrey said. “I did what I felt was right.”

Leaving Wilson - Misi's Post

2006-12-21T14:59:13-08:00

There is a television show that is in syndication that I watch whenever I get the chance. I will not tell you what it is because as soul baring as some may think I am, I am not ready to come clean on that one just yet. Most people would be shocked that I even watch the show, and even more shocked that every time I watch it I walk away with a bit of truth that hangs around me for the day.

Just this week, I tuned into watch my show. And this bit of dialog has kept me ruminating since then. One of the characters looks at her closest friend and says:

"You are a writer. Do you know how lucky you are? You get to live life twice."

The whole idea of a writer's getting to live life twice really got me. In writing it down we do live it all over again. What a blessing and a curse.

But in writing this blog I think I am finally beginning to feel more blessed than cursed when it comes to the writing business. And as a friend of mine said to me earlier this week "There is beauty in dark places." Indeed, but sometimes I have to write about them, live them again, to find that beauty. Maybe this is why this blog is so personal, I am revisiting dark places.

But I am happy to say that as this year comes to the end, and as I am living some of my life twice, I can see real progress. And for a girl who once woke up without toenails after a two day binge that is saying something.

It is in the naming, the reliving, that I can chart my progress, but it does come at a price. As Meridith said to me just a few weeks ago, "The thing that sucks about this blog is that you can't really live in denial anymore about things."

Which leads me to my brother. Brother's are also good for not letting you live in denial. They have seen you at your best and your worst and are often not afraid to remind you of both. My brother has a unique perspective on things. He actually has a lot of wisdom for someone who used to wear a superman costume to school when he was in first grade. He and I don't get to talk as much as I would like now that he lives on the other coast, but I when I do speak to him he usually leaves me with something that keeps rolling around in the back of my head.

He once told me that I needed to watch the Tom Hanks movie Castaway and to pay attention to the part when Hanks is on the raft finally leaving the island. I didn't do it because I thought, "what in the world could a movie where Tom Hanks doesn't speak for 20 minutes have to say to me?" But just recently it was on cable (three nights in a row) so I got the opportunity to watch.

To set up the scene: Tom Hanks, who has been stranded on a deserted island, has constructed a raft, and he is trying to get home. He has been alone on the island for 4 years or so except for his companion Wilson which he actually created out of a Wilson volleyball. Wilson has been his lifeline, so to speak, his entire time on the island. Wilson helps him keep his sanity.

The bit my brother wanted me to watch is the part when Hanks survives this fierce storm on the little raft. He awakes to a clear day and says "We made it Wilson" only to discover Wilson is not on the raft. He begins to shout for him and scan the water. He sees Wilson bobbing in the water out of reach of the raft. Hanks jumps in after his "friend". But he soon realizes that he can not retrieve Wilson and hold on to his raft.

This scene is gut wrenching, not since the Velveteen Rabbit has is been so difficult to watch someone let go of an inanimate object.

My brother's point was "What is your Wilson, Mis?" What has comforted you and kept you sane, but now has to be let go? So that is the bit that has been rolling around in my head the last couple of weeks or so.

What is my Wilson? Drugs and booze have been certainly, but my Wilson's now are harder to define. I think one of them has been until recently my cynicism. It was a cloak that I wrapped around me to protect my heart. But how can you be a soldier in the good fight outfitted like that?

Writing allows me to live my life twice and in so doing I can examine it from so many different angles, but it makes it incredibly hard to be in denial about the parts of me that need to change or need an overhaul. I do feel a bit like Hanks as has he stretched for Wilson, but it is time.

So as we head into the holidays, I truly am thinking less about what I want to get and more about what I want to leave behind. I am listening to "Walk On" by U2 at very loud volumes and praying for courage to leave Wilson behind.

I guess I found the River I could skate away on - Meridith

2006-12-14T12:11:55-08:00

You know that point in your life when you realize that the house that you grew up in isn't really your home anymore? All of the sudden even though you have some place where you can put your stuff that idea of home is gone…when you move out it just sort of happens one day and it's just gone. And you can never get it back. It's like you get homesick for a place that doesn't exist. I mean it's like this rite of passage, you know. You won't have this feeling again until you create a new idea of home for yourself, you know, for you kids, for the family you start, it's like a cycle or something. I miss the idea of it. Maybe that's all family really is. A group of people who miss the same imaginary place.
~Garden State

I’m not very good at family. It’s Christmas and I’m planning a wedding. The expectation is that family will be a central part in the celebrations of both those things yet involving family does not really come naturally to me. I have relatives and I consider both my brothers to be close friends of mine but as I plan the holidays and the wedding with my family now officially split into my mother’s side and my father’s side as well as my soon to be husband’s respective families (thank God all located in the New York Metro area) I contemplate this Zach Braftism.

My family moved from our home when I was ten. It was a big deal. Especially because we could have moved to Switzerland and we chose Boston instead – much to my dismay. I don’t remember being mad when the actual move finally came around but I contracted the chicken pox for the second time the day we moved to our new home so I’m pretty sure subconsciously I was protesting at least having to help with the boxes. We built a huge house, all my neighbors had pools, some even had playgrounds in their backyards as big as a school’s, and I even got my own full bathroom. All in all the whole situation was better than what we had in Philadelphia but we refused the Red Sox and the Patriots, kept our beach house on the Jersey shore – would never go to the Cape on vacation, and talked incessantly about cheese steaks and Tasty Kakes. I can’t remember a time in the 15 years in that house that my mother didn’t talk about how she wished we never left Pennsylvania. Ironically, my mother has moved back to Pennsylvania and now all she can think of is how much she misses Massachusetts.

My whole house looked like the pages in Victoria Magazine or the house in America Beauty but instead of fresh cut blood red roses, my mother had made silk flower arrangements that featured burgundy red roses. They were everywhere –especially at Christmas time. My mother organized the whole neighborhood to have matching fresh wreathes on the outside street facing windows of every house in our development. Inside, we had specialty designed trees in every room with appropriate themes for each room. My room was all ballet slippers, pearls, and feathers, my older brother was the musician so he had little drummer boys and gold music notes, the kitchen had cinnamon sticks and cranberry garlands and so on and so forth. All the wooded banisters were draped in greens with pearl garland, velvet ribbon and flowers, candles were in each widow – even our car had hand made decorations for the roof rack and rear window.

My maternal grandmother passed away shortly after we moved to Massachusetts and her inheritance money bought us this lavish dining room set. Which was good because it gave us somewhere to display the nine different china patterns my mother owned. After she passed away, we seemed to travel back home to Pennsylvania less frequently. We were use to large family gatherings in Pennsylvania with both set of grandparents, cousins and aunts. Sitting around that lavish dining room set courtesy of my grandmother was lonely. The five of us didn’t really see the point of all this hoopla for just each other. We did really have anything to say and often ate and went back to our respective rooms with our new presents.

Things were never really okay in my family but it was very apparent when we moved. After a few rough years in Massachusetts, I finally found the kind of best friends I had left behind. My one friend in particular, shared everything with me. I adopted his family at the beginning of what would be ten long years of horrible battles at home. His family really was lovely in sooo many ways; I guess so was mine but I bonded with his family because they in my mind were close to what I imagined the perfect family to be.

We went to the same college together and gained new friends; I felt that they were more his friends but I’ll chock that up to my own issues. But then we all lost him. Suddenly it was clear that these were my friends and my family. We bonded together to get through the pain, the anger, the bitterness and then we remained bonded because we miss him. When I look back on the childhood, the people I feel closest too are those people that walked through the loss with me. Some of those people never even met him but they miss what they imagine he was like.

My parents are now divorced. I never felt at home in that house but when it was gone I missed it terribly Suddenly, I have things to say at the lavish dinner table when it is finally taken out of storage by whichever one got possession of it. I think we all became closer by missing the idea of what we had – not because any of us miss the way things were; we desperately miss they way we imagine things should have and could have been.

But I have a new family now, in addition to the family I was born into and the one I adopted and I have to admit it is strange to become a part of a family that is not bonded together over missing something. It’s strange to be approaching the holidays and say I want for nothing. I have everything I ever imagined I would have. If I imagined the perfect person for me to marry, I would come up with the guy I’ve got. Sure I still have goals and dreams but if the last few years are any indication, I’m sure I will achieve them. It took a long time getting here and I cannot attribute it all to myself but now that I’m here it is very strange. Why is it we don’t know how to be happy when we finally are? It’s like I’m not use to things being normal. Normal to me is wanting for an imaginary version of happiness. Now that I’ve got the real thing – it is taking some getting use to.

The Good Fight- Misi's very truthful post

2006-12-09T14:19:47-08:00

There is something that a lot of people do not know about me. When I was 20 years old I tried to join the Peace Corp. Most of the people who know me now would never believe that Misi who is all eyeliner and lipgloss, purses and shoes wanted to join the Peace Corp. But I wanted it more than anything.

To borrow a line from Bono, I was “trying to throw my arms around the world.” At that time in my life I was quite the activist. I didn’t buy gas from Exxon because of the Valdez. I volunteered once a week to feed the homeless in downtown West Palm Beach. I quit using disposable razors to help reduce the waste going into landfills, and I planted trees. I made my family make donations to Amnesty International and Greenpeace. I opposed the first Bush and his war by writing scathing articles about his foreign policy in my college paper. When my friends who so passionately demonstrated in front of abortion clinics could not see my point when I asked them what they were prepared to do for these children once they were born, I would take long rides in my car and wonder what kind of change I was actually making.

When I was a senior in college I also used to volunteer at nursery for children born with aids. This was 1990 and so much was still not known about the disease. Many people thought I was crazy, and I was told more than once that I would probably contract the disease myself.

I didn’t care. For the first time in my life I felt that I was actually putting my arms around the world in some small way. Showing up there three times a week let me believe that I could really make a difference. Even when we lost Terrance. He was a four year old little boy who loved to dance. His mother was drug addict who abandoned him at the hospital when she found out he had aids. He loved McDonald’s french-fries which we weren’t supposed to feed him. But when it became very apparent that he wasn’t going to be with us much longer we feed them to him everyday.

Palm Beach was just across the inlet from the nursery, so these children never lacked for anything. The socialites of Palm Beach made sure of that. As I would bathe the babies I would think of the other children in the world that so desperately needed help. I began to think about the other children in the world that did not have Palm Beach socialites watching out for them. I wanted to go and rock those children and sing them to sleep.

But the Peace Corp would not take me. From the time I was 15 up until a couple of years ago I was very sick. I will omit the details other than to say that it clouded my existence for 18 years. I was too much of a liability for the Peace Corp.

Part of my heart shut down.

I had an immense amount of compassion for the world and no idea what to do with it.

So what did I do? I am embarrassed to say that I gave up. I quit watching the news; I quit tuning in. I began to drink in earnest about this time. But as Adam Durtz of the Counting Crows said in a song once “You can never escape, you can only move south down the coast.”

How I know that is true. I have spent the last seven years getting my act together after my great escape, and in the last year or two I have begun to feel again the passionate heart of that 20 year old.

But it hurts all over again too. And I feel just as powerless now. Just the other day I was reading a magazine as I was having my hair done. I happened on an article about a woman who is rescuing children out of the sex slave trade in Cambodia. She herself had been a victim and now she is reaching out to mother those who have suffered as she has. There was an amazing photo of her covered with children and all of them are laughing. It was one of the most beautiful things I have seen in a long time. I sat looking at that picture for a quite a while thinking to myself, " What are you doing to fight the good fight?"

I must admit that my life seems very small this week. What if I come to the end of my life only to realize I didn't do all I could to wrap my arms around the world? This thought has been keeping me up at nights. Believe me it was easier being a cynical drunk.

I have no way to bring this blog around to a satisfying end. I am sad about the 10 years that I drank and did drugs and tuned out. But I am back now - and it is unsettling to feel the compassion again. But the good fight is never easy, so I pray for courage... the courage to keep showing up and not to tune out and to throw my arms around the world anyway I can.

The Fruit We Bear - Meridith

2006-12-05T12:27:46-08:00

So we are pretty well into this blogging experiment and it would be silly to not draw a comparison of what we are doing to Rainer Maria Rilke’s "Letters to a young Poet." This piece has been with me for a long time. For awhile, I focused much of my life on this one passage:

"You are looking outside, and that is what you should most avoid right now. No one can advise or help you - no one. There is only one thing you should do. Go into yourself. Find out the reason that commands you to write; see whether it has spread its roots into the very depths of your heart; confess to yourself whether you would have to die if you were forbidden to write. This most of all: ask yourself in the most silent hour of your night: must I write? Dig into yourself for a deep answer. And if this answer rings out in assent, if you meet this solemn question with a strong, simple "I must," then build your life in accordance with this necessity; your whole life, even into its humblest and most indifferent hour, must become a sign and witness to this impulse."

This was one of three quotes I had over my bed through high school and conservatory. I look at it now, and though moving and inspirational – it can be extremely unhealthy. I often think of this in conjunction to Plato’s discussion on the "divine madness" of poets. This kind of absolute necessity to do anything is frankly scary to me. There are a million people out there that have answered "I must." A million writers, actors, dancers, singers, painters, even politicians and human rights advocates who have tried to build their lives in accordance to their desire. I know a lot of them. In fact, the last few days I have spent time with several people on their paths to greatness and it has reinforced this belief that the above passage is often interpreted in way that will ultimately leave people unfulfilled.

Anyone who has ever been remotely connected to the entertainment business has been given a translation of the above speech that goes something like this "If there is nothing else in the entire world you could do, then you know you should be a performer." Part of that is absolutely true. The only ones that have a chance at making a living out of this necessity are the ones who have defined their very existence by this mad desire. I feel the same adage is true in non profit professions, politics and advocacy related work. While Rilke states to not look outward but into the very depths of your soul, the only people that can and will make a profession out of their insatiable passions are the ones who’s sense of self worth are entangled in it; those that are constantly looking to be recognized for their work. I know because I use to be this way.

Over the last four days I have meet with people in various walks of life in various stages of their pursuit. All of them seem to fit Rilke’s definition of why to write(or whatever their chosen profession is). But all of them have sacrificed some of themselves in trying to build their life in accordance to that passion. Exhaustion is present on all their faces. The need to be acknowledged by people of notoriety or to at least to justify their own existence or success by being connected to someone else’s is a constant topic of conversation. Stimulant consumption is a relationship building act – some groups its coffee, the other’s cocaine. Alcohol is prominent as well - to let go of the exhaustion and stimulants. Most talk of how they should get together with each other more and how they miss some area of the world they use to spend time in. My one friend looked at me and said "I’m scared and I’m exhausted. I keep saying that we should just jet off and take a vacation but I feel guilty because I’m not where I want to be yet. It’s been non stop for four years and I’m not their yet." My heart breaks for this particular friend because I’m not sure he is ever going to be where he wants because when he gets there – he will be lonelier than the initial loneliness that drove him to seek out success.

Now I must say that I do not mean to discredit the desire to create or affect change that is present in all of the people I know. They are all unbelievably talented and I am positive that just as I started out wanting to use performing to touch and heal people, they to had noble reasons to take up their professions. But what good is trying to heal the world if you neglect healing the people closest to you?

I think two of the noblest walks of life are those of artists and advocates and I feel lucky to know some who are both. But at some point the noble aspect evaporates. This high speed energy to achieve, be recognized, and affect change in their chosen profession becomes so accelerated that the very desire itself dissipates and becomes something other than its original state. A once noble dream can so quickly turn into four years of relentless networking, auditioning, reinventing, and chronic entrepreneurship. They are ghosts of their former selves. Being an artist is replaced by being known as an artists and unfortunately that boils down to being paid as an artist.

When I was in the throws of this behavior, I often had Ben Folds Five’s "Evaporated" running through my mind:

Don't you know I'm numb, man?
I can't feel a thing at all
Now it's all smiles and business these days
I'm indifferent to the loss
I have faith that there's a soul somewhere
That's leading me around
I wonder if she knows
Which way is up and which is down

I poured my heart out
I poured my heart out
It evaporated ... see

I do feel that Rilke is still correct in this very first letter to the young poet. The next sentence in the quote I meditated on for so long is often left out though essential to understanding Rilke’s instructions,

"Then come close to Nature. Then, as if no one had ever tried before, try to say what you see and feel and love and lose."

So often we forget to express what we love and loose and especially forget to evaluate what if we lost what we love. Would our choices be different if we built or lives in accordance to what we love? Semantics – I know, but the slight variation on Rilke’s advice is crucial.

My friend Dave is an artists and I think he embodies to the fullest what Rilke was saying. Dave is a musician of the absolute highest quality. Put under evaluation in any realm of the music business and he will be assessed at the highest level of ability. But Dave is first and foremost husband, a brother, a son, and a friend. I know that Dave may not have ever read Rilke, but he has pondered how to build his life in accordance to this desire to create music. However, Dave in his desire to create not only a piece of music – but a life that is lived as a piece a music - chose to say with every moment of his day what he feels and loves.

Dave recently became a teacher. His decision to become a teacher was an expression of love to his wife, his family, and his friends. He looked inside himself to see what it was that bid him to create music and built his life according to it – even if no one else recognized it. Artists who become teachers are inappropriately chastised with the awful phrase "if you can’t do, teach." Dave has the ability to do whatever he wants but he knows what he loves and he has build a life in which he can create music with those he loves while inspiring other to do the same. He knows that without those around who he loves, living his life in accordance to his love of music will be meaningless.

I’m lucky to have Dave as a friend. And now that I understand the song, I guess I should probably return the Ben Folds Five CD I borrowed from him 6 years ago.

Red Velvet Cake and Kierkegaard by Misi

2006-11-30T15:16:47-08:00

This time of year is usually hard for me. I do not do holidays well, and I have a tendency to get rather sullen and nasty. Just call me Ebenezer. Why is that? Probably because I bring to the holidays the baggage of a kid from a divorced family and less than perfect childhood. All the disappointments of every other year seem to return full force a few days before Thanksgiving and the discontent follows me until after New Years. But this Thanksgiving I had an experience with a Red Velvet Cake.

The Red Velvet Cake actually started as a mission of mercy I think. My friend Jonathan knows that the holidays unsettle me, so he suggested baking as a diversion. So the plan was laid that we get together later in the day on Thanksgiving after our respective family gatherings and have good Florida lobster and bake a Red Velvet Cake. Although I don't bake much anymore, I was actually looking forward to the little project. Red Velvet Cake has been a favorite of mine for a very long time. It has a peculiar taste; in fact the cake itself is not very sweet at all. It is the cream cheese icing with tons of powdered sugar that makes it sweet. If done right if is perfectly balanced.

We followed the recipe exactly and put the cakes in the oven and began the lobster part of the meal. We took the cakes out about 45 minutes later, and my first thought was that the cakes did not look right. Jonathan, bless his heart, kept telling me that everything was going to fine - we would make the cake work. Even when one of the cake layers slid off in the refrigerator, he maintained that it was all going to work out. I think he was trying to reassure me because it had become quite apparent I was taking the whole thing just a little too seriously. For me the whole thing had stopped being fun. Then we cut into that cake and served it to our friends, at which point even Jonathan had to admit there was not much we could do to salvage the cake. It was awful. And my attitude was worse.

We had followed all the directions. How had the cake come out so badly? I worried the thing to death. I worried in my head, and I worried out loud. Finally Jonathan looked at me and said, "It is not really about the cake. It was about the process and spending time together." I had missed the point. Completely.

Even after I left that night I could not let the matter rest, but now it was more about me then the cake. Sometimes no matter how well you follow the directions and even if you do everything you are supposed to, things may not turn out the way you wanted them to. Obviously. But what do I do with that? Why bother to keep at it?

Enter Kierkegaard.

I discovered Kierkegaard almost ten years ago. Fear and Trembling is one of those books that fell into my hands at the right time, and it blew my mind. I have been rediscovering his wisdom recently listening to a podcast on Existentialism out of Berkley. To the whole question of why should I bother, Kierkegaard would say that it is about the choice we make when we see the vulnerability, the fragility in the people and world around us. Yes, people may leave and the whole thing may fall apart, but we choose to be involved anyway. This choice requires us to drop our defenses and live in the conflict between our heart and our head- our head telling us that that we could end up hurt, but the heart saying you’ve got to do it anyway. There is no bliss without the risk, so to speak.

After being broken down by that cake I realized something about myself. I am not much of a risk taker. For as easy going as I think I am, I am in some ways still locked up tight, most assuredly because I have been hurt, disappointed and had my heartbroken like the rest of the human race. But. .. it is the choice I make post all that which defines me.

Unfortunately that cake and my attitude about the holidays highlighted all too clearly what my choice had been. I was resigned that the whole thing would come crashing down again and my defenses were up. In large part my choices were motivated by fear: bigger things in life just might turn out like the Red Velvet Cake. Despite my best efforts things might just suck anyway. But instead of looking at relationships, or the holidays and thinking of all the things that have happened in the past, I can look at them and think of all the things that can happen in the future. It is about choosing to believe again, each time, every time that love, hope and peace might just win this round.

Meridith's very tardy tale

2006-11-29T16:16:37-08:00

I guess I’ll start there – very late. I tend to exist in this bizarre state of completely embracing all of the choices I’ve made as integral parts of my journey and at the same time constantly dissecting the mistakes made in effort to find some profound life lesson to justify the pain. This internal conflict could be one of the reasons that have been very late returning to the city of Boston after I left over 4 years ago, and that delayed trip took place last week which amoung other things contributed to the tardiness in posting.

When you say four years it seems like a really short amount of time but walking around the empty streets of Boston with just an umbrella and a latté- four years seemed like an eternity. It felt very similar to the Thanksgiving I spent in Paris - walking down the Champs-Elysées, desperately wanting someone to notice it was Thanksgiving and say something yet loving the fact that no one had any idea that I was an American, or for that matter a 20 something girl trying to make sense of herself.

Nobody knew me anymore in Boston either. It was as if I could see the ghosts of my former friends on every corner but I had to desperately try to recall ever walking down those streets myself. That all changed when I was instantly spotted by the staff of my former restaurant – not because they knew me but they recognized me from my photo. This is the kind of family style Italian restaurant with photographs of famous Italian landmarks, actors and films stills on the wall. The night before I moved to New York City, I removed a photograph of Audrey Hepburn & Gregory Peck in Roman Holiday and replaced it with my professional headshot. It is still in the same spot on the wall and apparently the new staff all knows it’s not supposed to be there but have let it remain. In the restaurant business you dream of the day you can take off your apron and say "I quit" because it means you have finally made it in whatever it was that you were pursuing outside of slaving over plates of chicken parmesan. That photo is a reminder to me of that glorious moment when I thew down my apron, and I hope a reminder to the current staff that their day to will come.

When I bolted out of Boston it was as if the moment I crossed into Connecticut the entire city was wrapped up and placed in a time capsule waiting for me to open when I was ready. A lot happened to me in Boston. I think somehow I always knew I would not stay there so I lived accordingly. I was not all together a "bad" girl – but I did treat the city as a playland. I’m sure at some point I will recount the wild stories of mischief in that city – bear suits with Young Presidents, seats at Fenway with team owners, salsa dancing, drag shows, and breaking bottles over the heads of famous accordion playing punk bands, but there are other parts of my Boston years I struggle to tell. Even now I struggle to write about the struggle to tell these stories.

I think I am now ready to start opening that time capsule, I don’t want to but I think it’s time. For years I’ve joined my many friends who traded Boston for New York City in bashing the tiny puritan town. This trip I realized how much I loved that city. I love the depth and spectrum of emotion I experienced there. I am not at all who I thought I would be when I lived there, but then again my only intention when I left was to just get out of there. I’m not running anymore. I’m not living in reaction to the past. I’m also not ignoring the moment by focusing on the future I created in my head as acceptable. I just am. And now that I am firmly planted in a whole new life, it is safe to look back on the past – just to remember. I’m looking forward to more trips to Boston and even though I am struggling with it - i look forward to finally being able to tell my tale with some safety some distance and hopefully some perspective.

Traveling Mercies - Misi's very late Thursday Post

2006-11-20T14:28:10-08:00

I was in Key West last weekend to celebrate the birthday of a friend, and say my final goodbyes to another friend who had recently died. It was a strange journey. Key West was the first place that ever really sang to me, and even now there are not many days that I am not homesick for that island. But the days lived there... I guess I would have to borrow a line from Dickens "It was the best of times. It was the worst of times.”

I am sure as this blogging business continues more tales will be told of my days in Key West. They were defining in many ways that I think I have only begun to recognize. Any journey back there is incredibly bittersweet, largely because I am reminded of the myriad of ways that I brutalized myself, but I am also reminded of all the ways I have been saved. Truly I was my own worst enemy, but in the midst of all that, laughter and light did find me.

When I was in Key West last weekend I knew that I needed to find a friend of mine. I hadn’t spoken to her in a long time, and even when I knew her she was wreck, but she loved me. She and Gary, my friend that just recently died, both kept me alive for over a year and a half. How did two bartenders in Key West do that? When I walked into the Whistle Bar every night, and I mean every night, their arms were always open – and not in a "let me sell you another drink sort of way." They were always happy to see me, and we often spent our days off together. They made me laugh. We were so incredibly silly. It doesn’t sound like much does it? But you have no idea how little I had to hold on to then. I remember one year they bought me the most beautiful bracelet for Christmas. That Christmas that gift meant more to me than anything in the world.

I knew that I had to find my friend Val and let her know all that she had meant to me, especially because I hadn’t gotten to tell Gary. I did find Val, and when she looked across the bar it was as if she had seen a ghost. She ran around the end of the bar and threw her arms around me and said “I am so glad you are here.” For the next two hours she and I talked about our friend Gary and talked about the crazy days. It was good, our own personal memorial service. And I got to say to her the things I never got to say to him

Just last evening Val called me from Key West . She and I talked about Gary some more, than she said, “Thank you for coming to see me. It was so good to see you; you don't know what that means that you came and found me.”

I am way over do on my blog this week- but as I finally write I realize all over again why we have to find our voice, why we must name things. For one we need to tell the people who have saved us in a thousand little ways.

When I was young and my dad was still a preacher I can remember he would pray for people who were going on a trip that they would be granted traveling mercies. I never really understood that phrase then, but I loved the sound of it.

I understand it now, and I know that my journey in Key West was marked by so many traveling mercies. Gary and Val were two of those traveling mercies- and I am so glad I got to tell at least one of them.

Take me out of context -Meridith

2006-11-16T20:55:13-08:00

Today the number two most emailed article on the New York Times’ website is entitled "For Evangelicals, Supporting Israel Is ‘God’s Foreign Policy." This was a nice way to start my day of preparing for opening night of DAI(enough), a new, startling, provocative, and –miraculously- entertaining solo show about the splintered Israeli psyche. This is a topic which apparently sits on the minds of more people than just me, or the above article would not rank so high. What I love about this article is how the author seemingly intended it to be a ‘talked about piece’, as shown in this quote:

"Despite all the spiritual shortcomings of the Jewish people," Dr. Dobson said, "according to scripture — and those criticisms come not from Christians but from the Old Testament. Just look in Deuteronomy, where Jews are referred to as a stiff-necked and stubborn people — despite all of that, God has chosen to bless them as his people."

Now, I will ignore the fact that this argument is about as valid as using the descriptions in an 1840’s minstrel show to justify why black people dance well—not to mention that it’s about as careless as John Kerry’s recent "do your homework or go straight (pause, pause… and, ruin the joke) to Iraq without any supper" comment—and focus on the quotation’s structure. It is brilliant because it is utilized in a way that could cause a lot of people to adopt the familiar "that was taken out of context" argument. Well, any ‘quote’ ever used is necessarily taken out of its context and placed into a new setting to further the point of whoever extracted the quote in the first place. Just as Dr. Dobson himself is doing with Deuteronomy, attempting to justify his statement that the Jews have spiritual shortcomings. So: no one can claim that this reporter is taking Dobson’s quote out of context, and thus misrepresenting him, when the very quote itself is of Dobson misrepresenting the translated words of people who have been dead for thousands of years to justify his own generalizations. So where does this leave us?

Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip has spent the last two weeks exploring this "out of context" concept. If you haven’t tuned into this television show, do – or buy a TiVo or sign up for DVR and make sure you catch it. It is, hands down, one of the smartest shows in TV history. They are daring to explore topics that, in years past, wouldn’t have made it into a second draft – let alone brought into our living rooms. Studio 60 will probably get cancelled for doing it – but at least people are starting to write freely in the mainstream arena about topics that are challenging this country.

For those who haven’t watched, it is set behind the scenes of a fictional Saturday Night Live-type show. One of the main story lines follows the relationship of the show’s head writer, Matt, and his ex-girlfriend Harriet. Harriet is a small town Christian who made it big in Hollywood to become the star of this sketch show, which often pokes fun at Christian beliefs (such as creationism). She and Matt broke up because Harriet chose to promote her album on "The 700 Club." If you think this is more farfetched than a Puerto Rican girl actually going out in public dressed that Ugly, you’d be wrong. These characters are based on the show’s real creator, Aaron Sorkin, and his ex, actress Kristin Chenoweth – a Christian from Broken Arrow, Okalahoma who was openly rejected by her gay fans for promoting an album on "The 700 Club."

In last week’s episode a quote of Harriet’s is taken out of context when she uses the Bible to try to skirt around making an actual statement on where she stands on homosexuality. The quote is taken out of context and used to show that Harriet believes homosexuals are sinners. She is asked by her producer to cancel her appearances with a Christian Women’s organization for two months to not further the belief that she is intolerant of homosexuals. Ironically, the Christian Women’s Organization asks that she cancel her appearance for not being intolerant enough towards homosexuals (which also happened to Chenoweth www.womenoffaith.com/msg/topic.asp?TOPIC_ID=62348). Harriet and Dobson’s broad statements do nothing but bring us right back to square one in the Culture Wars, which Studio 60’s Matt boils down for Harriet and everyone watching as "your side hates my side because you think we think you're stupid. And my side hates your side because we think you're stupid."

So where does this leave us? Should both sides stay hating each other because they will always misrepresent their opponents? Should people like Dobson not speak? Should people like Harriet (or Kristin Chenoweth) claim to not be Christians because they do not have all the answers yet or conversely should they not be in Hollywood til they do? Should we no longer read newspapers or watch TV for fear of the words of our leaders being twisted? Does this stand for public figures only – or in day to day conversation? And to bring it home, how do I live my life in New York City – embracing and working towards tolerance for all people and yet still love and stand by my Christian family –some of who live in the same scrutinized small town that Kristin Chenoweth was brought up in—if I don’t yet have all these answers?

I’ve been thinking a lot about this lately and I think its okay that I don’t have the answers. I think about Misi’s writing from last week. I think we all need to say "it is ok not to have found all that I am looking for." We do need so desperately to speak but in a different way. We need to speak so that people do take us out of context and examine the power of our words outside our comfortable sphere of existence because it is the only way we will ever move towards better answers. But I also think there are times when people can and should just say "I don’t know." It is not only okay, but necessary to "learn to inhabit the questions." I guess the real trick, however, is deciding when to speak and when to still question– something I wish I had learned a lot sooner in life.

"I Still Haven't Found What I am Looking for" Misi's Post

2006-11-09T09:39:14-08:00

I believe that the most defining moments of our lives often go unrecognized until much later. When I was 16, I borrowed my mother’s two-tone Ford Granada to drive 20 minutes to buy the new album from U2 - The Joshua Tree. I can still vividly remember the towers of cassettes and records- the predominant colors black and white and gray- the now famous photo of the band with the Joshua tree in the background.

I was hooked from the opening cords. But it was the second song on that album that set me free. “I have climbed highest mountain - I have run through the fields only to be with you - only to be with you - but I still haven’t found what I am looking for.” I remember feeling the need to pull over and absorb what I was hearing. Then I was shouting , “I didn’t know anyone else felt this way.”

Although I had begun my life as a preacher's kid, I had never really felt comfortable in church because the modern church had set itself up as having the answers - the absolute answers - from God. There was no truth that needed to be discovered. All that certainty bred a fundamentalism, and it never set well with me. There were things of the spirit world I did embrace, but despite those experiences I knew there was more - I knew I needed more. That night driving home, listening to that song, I knew that it was alright not to know it all - to not be so sure- to begin my search for truth. It was as if the universe has suddenly become so much larger, certainly less constricted. I remember taking a very deep breath.

This morning as I was walking my dog along the river here in South Florida, and the sun was coming up, I was listening to that song once again. (There is nothing like the sound of Bono ringing in my ears to start the day.) I thought to myself, this way of questions is not and has not been easy. In fact it is often a hard place to live. There are many nights that I try to sleep and my mind simply cannot stop trying to run down the answers. I struggle. At times I wish I had been born less intelligent- and less truth hungry. In a conversation not too long ago one of my friends apologized to me for having not replied to one of my emails. It contained a heavy question that he could not answer. I replied, “It’s ok. At this point in my life I am used to people not having answers to my questions."

But there are times, when answers finally come. I once read a quote by Zora Neale Hurston- “Some years ask the questions. Some years answer.” (That is not exact, but it is close) Oddly enough, I was struck by those words at a time when I was I was living the line from the song where it talks of holding the hand of the devil. How I longed for the answers. I read that line from Zora and wrote it in my journal. It was a prayer really. A prayer to a God I so wanted to believe heard a mess of girl; it was a cry that that place in my life was not all there was. Those were dark years that asked dark questions. Questions about the reason for my existence here on the planet, whether there would ever be people who would understand me even in some small measure, and whether there even was a God and if he knew my name.

At the beginning of this year I found that journal in which I had written those lines. I am grateful to say that some of the questions have been answered. There are people in my life that do get me and still love me. Just the other night one of my friends called after ten on a Sunday night because he had been reading Flannery O’Connor and just wanted to share some of the amazing lines. He read me portions of her stories, and we both laughed out loud and marveled at her amazing wit. I thought to myself this is what it is like when you find a member of your tribe. And God and I are on much better terms, although I still wish he would wear a watch because I think his timing is way off a lot of the time.

But sometimes his timing is just perfect. Just a few weeks ago I was given the most amazing gift. My friend Deb, presented me with a lapel pin of the Joshua Tree. This pin had been sold at the U2 concerts during the Joshua Tree Tour. I had bought one the night I first heard “I Still Haven’t Found What I am Looking For” live. But, in a misguided romantic gesture I had given it away. Of all the foolish things I have done in this life that one truly bothered me. Stupid, Stupid, Stupid. And let me tell you, for years I had tried to replace that pin, but there are some things, despite what the commercials tell you, that you can’t even find on Ebay. Debbie had been at that same concert, almost 20 years ago and had also bought that pin. And she had given it to me.

When I saw the pin in the velvet box, I realized that I was holding one of my answers. That pin speaks of lost things being found, of mistakes made right, of friendship that exceeds expectations. I look at that pin and think of all the answers that have come to me in this year of answers. Some answers still elude. But I am finding the grace for this to be alright.

The version of this song on U2’s Rattle and Hum album is my favorite. It is all faith and not knowing tied up in Bono’s tenor and a choir from Harlem. As I was listening to that song again this morning, I realize I hear it with a different ear. I do not hear with frustration born of trying to run it all down to the ground. I have finally learned that my strong identification with that song doesn’t mark me as a malcontent, always looking for something better. Rather I hear that song, and it sings to me to embrace all that is unresolved in me and this world I live in, to learn to inhabit the questions. It keeps me less constricted, the world is a bigger place when I think this way.

I am taking another deep breath today. And I am wearing my pin, to remind me that answers do come, but until they do it is ok not to have found all that I am looking for.

Download u2.m4p (31.5K)

Time for the Race to End - By Meridith

2006-11-07T11:46:06-08:00

There are a few times a year when New Yorkers are outnumbered in their own town. During these times if New Yorkers remain in their designated areas and "non New Yorkers" remain in theirs – the side effects of these two groups commingling is kept to a minimum.

The New York Marathon disrupts this whole system. For those of you who don’t know the New York Marathon spans all five boroughs of the City of New York, beginning in Staten Island crossing into Brooklyn and Queens, then groovin on by the 59th Street bridge into Manhattan and up to the Bronx and back down ending on 72 St – thus making it impossible to keep people in their designated areas.

72 street is slightly a "non New Yorkers" spot. They are allowed to place flowers and take pictures at Strawberry Fields or visit Tacky House on the Green. The more astute "non New Yorker" will navigate his way to the Dakota to see where Lennon was shot then quickly notice the subway that will take them back to the more familiar territory of Times Square. But on Marathon Day everyone ventures beyond 72 and Central Park West to the un-chartered waters of Columbus Avenue, Amsterdam Avenue and even as far up as the nineties. They are met by pre-fix brunch complete with free Mimosas, specialty shops like Zabars, and neighborhood pubs filled with colorful locals.

This is when they enter my world.

I have a congregation of followers at my little chapel on the Upper West Side. They look forward to their Sundays together. The liturgy is similar each week, hymn 2904 in the juke box "I wanna be sedated" normally starts us off, everyone has their unofficial stools at the altar, they profess the same sins to me each week, and discuss the challenges they are having in the week to come - but on Marathon Day this is all disrupted. I usually look to these days with a bit of excitement. There’s a fresh audience that I don’t really have to worry about ever seeing again. I don’t have to really take care of these people and they only need to like me for a few hours because they will eventually find there way back to Times Square without the slightest clue of how they got to my tiny pub in the first place. All I need to do is get them their drink as fast as possible. I have several fond memories of when international tourists visit my bar in the four years I've been around this pub. When people from across the pond find it – they are sweet, shy, and feel rather blessed to be allowed into a place normally designated for New Yorkers.

This year began no different than the rest. Everything seemed to be going the same but I could not put my finger on why all day things didn’t feel right. They were all looking at me strange. Normally, "non New Yorkers" look up to their bartenders and waitresses. They assume we must have moved from a small town with only our tap shoes and a sandwich and are slaving to live our dream. (I haven’t worn a pair of tap shoes in almost 5 years – but I play along anyway). This was not the look I got this year. I was on my A game for speed, the food looked great, my jokes were funny- I just couldn’t figure out what was wrong. People were just acting like animals – with complete disrespect to me and the establishment and not the kind that comes with a whiskey too many – this was something different.

I began getting really annoyed that these foreigners had infiltrated my city. I looked back at one point and this man had some kind of black rope and was whipping the pool table, juke box, and books shelves. After I barked "knock it off" in the best growl I could muster, they calmed down and went back to playing pool. I went outside to start bringing in some tables and a large Scandinavian man stood in the doorway, blocking my entrance to the bar. I thought perhaps there was a language barrier that prevented him from realizing it was his presence in the doorway that kept me from helping him. Glaring at me like a tiger ready to pounce, he demanded I come inside but would not move out of my way. After a few moments of trying to explain he was blocking me, I realize he was with the same group that were tearing up the back of the bar. This was some sort of sick game – barking orders at me then preventing me from accomplishing them. On this particular shift, I was completely by myself, so to gain control of this situation I had to combat my very tall and muscular opponent by assuming a higher status and trying to scare him,

"Where the hell are you from that you think it’s okay to act like this. You bust up my bar then you try and bully me? Where the hell are you from?"

He leaned into my face, towering over me, and with a terrifying yet oddly sick and seductive tone, looked me right in the eye and said,

"I’m from Iraq. What do you want to do to me."

Images of naked bodies, smiling soldiers, and men with white bags over their heads flashed in my mind – this couldn’t be what he meant? He tried to fix my eyes in a stare but in defiance I gazed past him towards the televisions in the bar displaying a CNN montage of Ted Haggard, Diebold Election Systems, President Bush, marching soldiers, John Kerry and Saddam Hussein.

For the first time, I was scared. Not by my opponent, but by the television, by my shallow agitation at the 38,000 people in my city for a race, and most importantly I was scared at my inability to formulate a response to the situations that have caused this question to be asked by someone from another country, let alone articulate an answer to the question. I calmly moved to the side and let my opponent exit my bar. I had nothing to say.

The Marathon is over. Most people have traveled home. This city is back to its normal state. Other cities, however, are far from returning to normal. And for the time being, that is I all I can say.

How To Read Our Blog

2006-11-06T12:13:00-08:00

Consider this your guide to our blog.

Tune in Tuesday for Meredith's post

Tune in Thursdays for Misi's post

Tune in Sunday for our responses to each other's writing.

The "About" section - make sure you keep checking in there. It is not like other blogs where it is completed at the advent of the site and never bothered with again. We think it should be changing - we are not going to let you behind the curtain all at once. What fun would that be? You will find out about who we are from people who know us. Twice a month, we will invite someone to talk about who they think Meredith and Misi are. It should be fun and frightening.

To answer the question, "Where are your pictures?" We are choosing at this time not to post pictures of ourselves on the site. We want to be indentified by what we write. There will be photos that represent what we are writing about, how we are feeling, and images that our guest writers feel represents us. So there are no headshots for now.

If you have a question that you would like us to answer about something we have written , why we are reading the books we are, how we justify our music selections, ask away- in the comment section.

Reader Discretion: Beware- we are about naming things. There will be some who read our blog who are not so ready for the things we are naming. It is our hope that if we do offend, you will come back and read again.

Also special thanks to our sponsor, who we will remain anonymous, just in case.... you never know what Meredith and Misi might say.

Begin the Begin... Misi's Thursday Post

2006-11-02T10:33:00-08:00

I can be incredibly stubborn. I often have to be dragged kicking and screaming into many things only to find they are actually pretty OK. I have no idea why this is.

My mother would tell you this behavior began very early. When I was about 3 and half I was to attend a large holiday party with parents. My mother bought me a a full length quilted skirt with some crazy design on it to be paired with a red turtleneck. I cried and screamed and threw quite a fit because I absolutely did not want any part of wearing that skirt. A true contest of wills ensued, but I was eventually out the door in the skirt pouting and sniffling all the way. This is the part of the story that my mother loves: I dragged myself in that party like a martyr,and then everyone in the place started making over me, telling me how beautiful I was in that outfit. Not five minutes in the door, and I was working that room and that outfit like the whole thing had been my idea.

This blogging business is a lot like that quilted skirt...

I wanted no part of it. But one night as I was reading and preparing to teach the Existentialist to my Contemporary Lit class I stumbled across this line from Jean Paul Sartre:

“The writer has a place in his age. Each word has an echo. So does each silence.”

I must have read that line a dozen times. Sartre wrote those words as a call to action for writers of his day, think France 1945, to speak out against injustice. He was calling on people to name things. The bit that stayed in my head - that haunted me really- was “so does each silence.” This was a challenging thought. I had always believed in the power of words, the glory of words, the sustenance of words. What I had not let myself think about was the echo of silence.

I couldn't get away from that line. It was beginning to feel like another contest of wills: mine and someone much bigger than I. Then within just a few days I received an email from Meredith with the words of another playwright proclaiming the power of naming things. I had to ask myself the hard question “What had I named lately?” Again I was met with the silence. At that moment I was immensely grateful for Meredith because she had forced me to ask myself that question, but more importantly she said we are going to name things together.

So I agreed to the blog idea. But, I must confess that part of me secretly hoped it might not get off the ground because what if I had to sit and write every week? Be accountable to use my gifts? It was an overwhelming thought. But the struggle of wills continued. And now I had this crazy version of a Greek Chorus in my head made up of a short,loud Frenchman(Sartre), a woman who is famous for saying the word vagina about a million times, and Meredith. And they kept repeating, "Silence Echos."

But as I said, I am incredibly stubborn. Then just a few weeks ago sitting down with some friends in New York City, my lovely friend from Ireland, who I had not seen in six months, crossed his arms and peered at me through his glasses fixing me with his gaze and asked "Where's your blog?" He had no idea of our plan; he just knew I needed to blog.

Now my Greek chorus had been joined by a loud Irishman.

But I think even at that point I was still willing to bet I could live without speaking, writing, naming things. Even up to just this week, just two days before our first post. On Monday, I received news that an amazingly funny friend of mine from another life and time had died in a tragic accident. I was shocked and couldn't begin to process. I hadn’t talked to him in three years, but he had been a comfort to me during days when there wasn’t a lot of comfort to be found. Sitting in my car I began to sob. I sobbed and beat the steering wheel and surprised myself by suddenly blurting out “But I still had things to say." And then the realization washed over me: this is the feeling that comes, when things are left unsaid. When our silence echos.

So here I am at the party, eyes still red from crying, but I am going on the record.

2006-10-31T13:47:42-08:00

How Eve Ensler taught me to get over myself - By Meridith

The Power and Mystery of Naming Things – By Eve Ensler
I believe in the power and mystery of naming things. Language has the capacity to transform our cells, rearrange our learned patterns of behavior and redirect our thinking. I believe in naming what's right in front of us because that is often what is most invisible.

Think about the word vagina. I believe that by saying it 128 times each show, night after night, naming my shame, exorcising my secrets, revealing my longing, was how I came back into my self, into my body. By saying it often enough and loud enough in places where it was not supposed to be said, the saying of it became both political and mystical and gave birth to a worldwide movement to end violence against women. The public utterance of a banished word, which represented a buried, neglected, dishonored part of the body, was a door opening, an energy exploding, a story unraveling.

When I was finally able as an adult to sit with my mother and name the specific sexual and physical violence my father had perpetrated on me as a child, it was an impossible moment. It was the naming, the saying of what had actually happened in her presence that lifted my 20-year depression. By remaining silent, I had muted my experience, denied it, pushed it down. This had flattened my entire life. I believe it was this moment of naming that allowed both my mother and I to eventually face our deepest demons and deceptions and become free.
I think of women naming the atrocities committed against them by the Taliban in Afghanistan, or women telling of the systematic rapes during the Bosnian war, or just recently in Sri Lanka after the tsunami, women lining up in refugee camps to name their nightmares and losses and needs. I have traveled through this world and listened as woman after woman tells of being date raped or acid burned, genitally mutilated, beaten by her boyfriend or molested by her stepfather.

Of course the stories are incredibly painful. But I believe as each woman tells her story for the first time, she breaks the silence, and by doing so breaks her isolation, begins to melt her shame and guilt, making her experience real, lifting her pain.

I believe one person's declaration sparks another and then another. Helen Caldicott naming the consequences of an escalating nuclear arms race, gave rise to an anti-nuclear movement. The brave soldier who came forward and named the abuses at Abu Ghraib prison was responsible for a sweeping investigation.

Naming things, breaking through taboos and denial is the most dangerous, terrifying and crucial work. This has to happen in spite of political climates or coercions, in spite of careers being won or lost, in spite of the fear of being criticized, outcast or disliked. I believe freedom begins with naming things. Humanity is preserved by it.

- Eve Ensler www.vday.org

I vividly remember finding The Vagina Monologues in a Barnes & Noble in Nashua, NH with my then boyfriend, Adam. We stood in awe and wonderment. It was as if when we pulled that book away from the others on the shelf we had opened a porthole to an alternate universe. This was not The King & I or Neil Simon performed for friends, family, and the local senior center – this play came out of a place I had not yet traveled to. This woman was writing from a depth of experience I had only touched upon at the ripe old age of seventeen.

I have since lived, breathed, been beaten down and revived by that alternate universe. It is 2006 – I think we all have (those that haven’t need to change the channel from Dancing with the Stars to present day 2006 – but that’s a whole other blog post). I’ve even had the honor of sitting in rehearsals next to Eve Enlser during her latest mission to use language to name the atrocities done in the name of our country's definition of freedom.

But what have I named?

I have traveled a long way from that bookstore in Nashua, NH – so has Adam. Somehow, through orchestration I can only attribute to a higher power, I met Misi - in a therapists waiting room.

I came from where she had been and she lived where I was going and despite initially dismissing each other, we kept each other around. I read the above passage and thought of Misi. I guess the therapist would call that true codependency, pointing out a passage that would help someone else when really it truly spoke to me. But what if I could turn that around? What if like AA, we committed to holding each other accountable to “name things”? We both have been given a wealth of experience, sorrow, joy and the ability to write and we are not doing it. We’ve both dreamed of writing something as moving as The Vagina Monologue or The Joshua Tree and in small ways we’ve done it in the past but it is 2006-what are we naming now?

We’ll start a blog – be accountable to not only ourselves but the world.

I hate blogs. I hate teenagers who write poetry about their pain, people who think the world wide web is interested in their new puppy and vacation photos, comedians who aren’t funny, people who write about things that have been written before, and I hate even more the fact that I only hate those things because I’m afraid of the world judging me in the way I have judged those people.

But “Naming things, breaking through taboos and denial is the most dangerous, terrifying and crucial work” and “one person's declaration sparks another and then another.” I know I have something to say and someone needs to hear it even if it’s just me and Misi. A friend said recently to me that if we don’t follow our dreams, the recipients of our dreams perish.

So I’m writing for those recipients. For Misi. For myself.

Oh and if you have read this far, I’m also writing for you. :)