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I found this little joy nugget amidst the dross one normally finds online. @ehimeora distills what I have been trying to do with my writing the last year and a half (almost two years if you can believe it) and with my art for over the last decade. I’m giving my pain (and joy) a place to live outside of me. This past January, I did a series of watercolor paintings that felt very much to me like meditations or prayers in a dark chapel. January in Walla Walla seemed like a very cold, dark chapel. This spring and summer, there has been joy and delight but also tumult and pain–a mixed bag is what I typically say to folks. Perpetual mixed bag.

I’ve started a series of five really large paintings (36″x48″), the counterpart or maybe continuation of the January watercolors. Here’s the first of those five. I call it “Like You Mean It,” a phrase that has an abundance of meaning for me and hopefully the layers and intensity of the colors and brushstrokes evoke that for you, too. Or maybe something else entirely. That’s the joy of art. I put my mixed bag of emotions out in the world and maybe it resonates with you, a chord struck, a link in space and time that connects us. And maybe not.

The big waves are too big to contain within. So I strive to not let my body be a coffin for my pain nor a selfish receptacle for my joy.

Last night, I got to go with friends who are family to a Norah Jones concert held here in town. The music was great, the people watching remarkable, the weather cool enough to merit the colorful Mexican blanket I brought once the sun went down. I have a fond place in my heart for Norah Jones’ music. When I was in the history graduate program at the University of Cincinnati, her two albums Come Away with Me and Feels Like Home were on regular rotation in my little apartment.

A couple of songs in particular transport me to the emotions and sensations of that time. Partway into that first year of the history grad program, I took a shine to an Americanist–someone studying American history (unlike me, a Europeanist–super fun to say out loud). He was a captivating story-teller. He looked at the world with a bit of wide-eyed wonder and delight. He exuded playfulness and gratitude and he was so so smart. We ended up spending a lot of time together as we were incredibly companionable. We never dated, although that had been my hope, but I was too afraid of the rejection to ask who I was to him. He enjoyed my company, but didn’t see me in a romantic way. I suspect he was afraid of hurting my feelings in answering that unspoken question. I’m sure having someone looking with the eyes of adoration didn’t make it any easier for him, either.

Last night, when Ms. Jones played “Lonestar” and “What Am I To You?” I remembered so much of that time but in vignettes and flashes like memory does 20 years later. Since that time, I found a person with whom I knew who I was, to him, to me, to us. Then, a paradigm shift was foisted on me. So much of the time since has been this bobbing boat on choppy seas trying to figure out a new way of being. While in my grief and vulnerability, I found myself asking the same question in the song. Last night, though, something crystallized in my mind. With the right people, the answer to the question is obvious–with the friends I went to the concert with it’s easy and safe, warm and sunny. And with confidence, maturity and hard-earned wisdom, the question also becomes “What Am I To Me?”

For your listening pleasure:

Sometimes I want to share and not do a deep dive in writing while doing so. For your listening enjoyment, I’ve done some whimsical, possibly hilarious, self-analysis. Enjoy.

Songs that are not about me, but I wish they were:

1. “Baby Got Back” by Sir Mix-A-Lot

2. “Too Sexy” by Right Said Fred

3. “Fat Bottomed Girls” by Queen

Songs that could be about me, but I wish they weren’t:

1. “All Four Seasons” by Sting

2. “Blue Eyes Crying in the Rain” by Willie Nelson

3. “Just Like a Woman” by Bob Dylan

Songs that might be about me, and I’d be okay if they were:

1. “The Friendship Song” by Carbon Leaf

2. “All She Wants to Do is Dance” by Don Henley

3. “Legs” by ZZ Top

What’s on your list? 🙂

When I was a teenager, I would get really frustrated with around-the-bend thinking that permeated our home. “It’ll be better when…” we move out of this apartment, when the debts are paid, when I lose weight, etc. Milestones met only meant new bends up ahead.

I’d like to make a distinction between having goals for the future and around-the-bend thinking. A goal for the future might be getting specific training to do more specialized work in order to have a higher income and maybe a little less stress around bill-paying. Around-the-bend thinking is believing the new job that pays better due to the acquired skillset suddenly means all problems will disappear and happiness will reign forever and ever amen. I’m an absolute believer in setting goals and tackling them. I have no illusions that they will make me any happier, more peaceful or grateful than I am in this moment. Many of my greatest experiences, relationships built, joy nuggets discovered occurred in the interstitial spaces between goals.

I grew up in a faith with a very strong eschatological tradition. Really bad things will come right before the really good thing, in laymens terms. More specifically the time of trouble is the opening act before judgment and then (hopefully) heaven. The around-the-bend thinking is baked in. But there are a couple of things that I can’t help but consider. We are here now. Here. Now. This is our scope of influence. This time. This place.

Once, when I was much younger, I approached my Dad about this topic with a lot of fear and panic because the fear was baked in too. What did he think about the end days, the time of trouble, the last act of humanity on this planet? In his gentle wisdom he said, “Bec, we don’t know when our end of days is. It could be tomorrow, by a bus.” I’ve reflected on that a lot especially as I watch fires and wars, heck even pestilence occur. I have watched too many people I love have their end of days. I’m not trying to undermine anyone else’s faith. I’m still hammering mine out, that’s for sure. For me, for now, it is navigating this space and time with gratitude and a clear eye of what is. Around this bend, guess what, there’s another bend. But dang, the blue herons here are beautiful. The Queen Anne’s lace reminds me of my mama. And I’m happy to be.here.now.