Tune My Art To Sing Thy Grace

This is a picture of a coffee shop I found in the basement of a watch shop. It’s one of the most beautiful coffee shops in the world, I am sure of it. It’s quiet save for the humming of that melodious noise of perfect coffee drinks being prepared, and the soft sounds of Elliot Smith wondering about all things haunted. I found this place the day before Thanksgiving after walking around downtown Ann Arbor for a half an hour. My assumption is that normally it is filled to the brim with U of M students, and I don’t want to compete with them as they try to figure out what it is they’ll do with their one wild and precious life.

But I came here and I brought my writing. I’m following stories, you see, and what I’m currently interested in is the story of the mother, actually, all the mothers, in Walk Two Moons, and Cheryl Strayed’s adventure in Wild.  I’m curious why I think Sharon Creech’s story is epic and heroic and graciously intertwined with every character’s lives including the reader’s, and why Ms Strayed’s story feels individual and maybe not self-centered, but perhaps consolidated in a way that it speaks of one’s truth. “Stepping into my truth,” “owning my truth” – phrases like these make me nervous and they make me lonely, and I don’t know why. I’d like to figure that out. (This is not to say Ms Strayed’s book isn’t great. I love the title because this is exactly the story of a being in the wild and being wild, and Strayed doesn’t hold back. I learned a lot from the book.)

So I brought both those books and this year’s writing notebook (last year at this time, I’d already filled up two notebooks, but I’m trying not to consider that; I’ll make like Scarlet and think about that tomorrow), and I wrote about these two stories and found a story of my own that I hadn’t considered for a while or perhaps at all, and I wrote and wrote and wrote. None of it makes sense, but there’s a thread of something there, and I’ll return to those fragments and straighten that thread out and I have faith that I can do it again because I did it before. I am trying to remember how I did it. I am trying to remember the patience I had with myself and the messes I made.

Today, I am on the Chasing Creative podcast and I’m talking about what has changed and how it’s changed since I was last on it. The questions I had to answer were tough and they made me very sad, but I am thankful I answered them because talking with Abbie and Ashley gave me a chance to begin naming what’s difficult and what’s sad, and I think you have to do that if you are going to chase creative. If you listen to it, I think you will hear a gal who is confused and unsure and scattered. You will hear me say again and again, “I’m going through a hard time.”

And the truth is, I was going through a hard time. I was not OK. I was sad. I’m still going through a hard time, and I’m still sad, but I’m also feeling joy. I’m OK, or, I’ll be OK.

The day I found the coffee shop, I also resigned from my teaching job. I didn’t set out to find the coffee shop in order to celebrate; I do not feel like I have reason to celebrate for quitting something I was good at. I could spend a lot of time explaining why I decided to leave, but I’m still confused and upset and ashamed and I can’t quite get the story out so that it’s not consolidated. I don’t want what I have to say to only be “my truth.” I do want to say this: there are a lot of good people at the school I am leaving. I made my first two friends since we moved at this school; women who are hilarious and compassionate and so, so smart. The principal reminds me of Celena: she is witty, she is passionate, she is courageous. One of the reasons I took the job was because I wanted to work with her. Finally, the students have my heart. I feel the worst leaving them.

So here’s a snapshot of where I’m at the day before my 41rst birthday. I know what I write here has been darker than it usually is, but I am thankful I get to come here to release some of what I’ve created despite it being sorrowful. This is what I went to graduate school for: to learn how to grapple with and grasp the life I’ve been given, and then give it back after having made something with it. Here is what I made with what is broken, Lord. Here is what I made with what You gave me. Perhaps, it is like communion.

{Find the podcast here.}