Random, Mundane Experience #2: Safeway Bagger

I've never been one for casual conversation, especially with those I don't know, the people I would never meet if it were not for my groceries, the restaurant, the bus ride. Most of my life I have moved through the check out line of the grocery store treating the bag lady or man like the credit card reader; a simple means to an end, the necessary automated requirement for my being able to bring my groceries home.

There has been a change in me as of late, however slight it may be, to really enjoy these exchanges. Not every one, as most of them are still quite lame, more than uneventful, and that's fine. But I have grown increasingly grateful for the moments when these simple exchanges and these random people have had the capacity to make my day.

Checking out of my usual safeway line at the usual safeway by my house, a dark-skinned male, probably in his late 30s, most likely of an African decent, was bagging my groceries. I didn't really notice him at first, thinking about other things, my usual mindless stance.

However, I am happy to say I was able to see and receive a subtle invitation, however small, mundane, foolish one may assume such an exchange to be. Once finished with my two plastic bags, he brought the two holes in each bag together to form a single hole for me to grab, lifted the bags up, and offered a smile of delight towards me. I remember his face. Lit up. This was not a small offer.

I can think of a past response of mine; maybe a feigned smile, a look that says, “ok ok just give me the bags before you make us both look stupid.” A perfectly effective way to shut down any mutual exchange of joy. And, of course, staying away from any possibility to be shamed for delighting in plastic bags.

However, I'd like to say this exchange had a very different ring, as I was aware enough to notice, aware enough to receive his blessing. And I know this is true because he made my day. I remember driving away in my car, a gratitude that lasted, a gratitude that grew, lingering around, gathering strength and mass instead of a quick vanishing into thin air. It was ok to allow this exchange to make my day. Even more than that; it was great. I felt great.

My spirit was lifted, a spirit that was in a sense redefining, however small, in that very moment what I thought of people. A man I had never met, from a culture deeply foreign to me, in a grocery store, making my day. I didn't have to be in church with a mass of white people and a moving sermon. I could be blessed by this random, mundane experience at Safeway on a weekday afternoon.

My gratitude lingers even now. A man who can joy in the simplest of things is a strong man. That is not a small deal. Joy is never a small deal. Especially with plastic bags.

Graduation

My favorite picture from the graduation weekend, taken by my parents who happened to pick seats almost directly across the aisle from where I ended up sitting. It was a special surprise, and was the signifier that they were now in my space. Once 2,000 miles away when everything was going on out here in the northwest, now right across from me and my entire class at our graduation, witnessing a piece, the end, the culmination of my time at Mars Hill.

Surprise would describe that end pretty well. I wasn't expecting anything terribly moving from the ceremony. But it was good. Culminated by Dan's words, speaking of the program, the cost of moving through. It felt like finally those who heard about it got to see first hand, witnessing what Dan had to say. A crowd of witnesses. Validating to say the least. Something so powerful about public witness. I guess that's the opposite of things lurking in the dark, the truth being kept hidden in silence. How good it is, whatever it is, to move into the light, into the presence of another person, another body of people.

And for one of the first times, I felt a unity with my class I hadn't before. And I wonder even now, why didn't I feel this through the program? Why didn't I let myself feel this? (And if I've learned anything it is how I have played my own part in this...) Maybe the cost of the program, the cost of not having things tied up nicely, the cost of difference, the cost of not everyone getting along because that is reality? I don't know, but it felt pretty damn good to end with some sense of communal holding of what was, what is, who we are, what we went through.

And to end, a video from the last scene of the episode of Scrubs that signified this longing to be connected, to really be a part of a group that allows for great play, for great foolishness and acceptance and of course, love. I was in and out of watching the show, but came back in the room at this last part, and it was one of those moments where I instantly know there is something here for me.



It may be outside of reality, it may be nicely tied up, but hope has to take me beyond reality. I can be irrational with hope. No, I must be irrational with hope. I must hope like a fool. That kind of hope keeps me from stale reality, and moves me into a reality that is enchanted with whatever the hell my imagination that needs to dream wishes to dream. My heart needs much more than reality. I am much more than that. I give myself permission more than ever to have the imagination of a child.

"Who can say this isn't what happens? Who can tell me my fantasies won't come true, just this once?" - JD

Another look at prayer

The best teaching on meditation I've listened to by far.

One of my favorite lines was him describing how going throughout our day without really checking into ourselves is like the Philadelphia Harmonic Orchestra playing Mozart without tuning first.



Another thought that stood out: Awareness is like the still depths of the ocean floor. No matter what storm is raging at sea level, awareness is the stillness underneath it all.

A look at prayer

It is not a surprise to me that the dynamics of my everyday life come into play in my attempts at prayer and meditation. When I begin to enter this space of prayer, there is an anticipation in me, a desire that is also very closely linked to a demand to have intimacy. Desire can easily be confused with control.

I sit, I wait, I want something to happen. I want to feel the presence of God. I want to feel freed up. I want. I want.....I demand. Wait. Now I'm demanding. God. Where are you? Why aren't you meeting me in this time? Meet me here. I'm annoyed that you're not here. Why don't I have peace. Give me some f-ing peace, damn it...Okkkkaaayyy. Let's try that again...

And there you go, the anticipation of a space of prayer, peace, and relaxation morphed into a time of contemptuous annoyance at life. Control disguised as desire.

And yet desire cannot be feigned. Control trying to be desire will always end up short, demanding what cannot be, what can only be given by being. And true desire can only be.

Which is where in my time of prayer there is a turn. When I know I cannot make something happen, I can only wait and allow for whatever will happen to happen. When I stop demanding, and just sit, still enough to be able to hear a whisper. The Spirit speaks in a whisper.

A mindfulness podcast spoke of scientists who oddly model the spirit of meditation, because they are continually studying and researching to uncover that which they do not know. They are always on the cusp, waiting for what has not yet become but soon may be.

So similar to prayer; the space where we learn to be ok with not knowing. And this is different than simply forgetting the whole thing. That is just avoidance, resignation. Prayer is the space where one waits, where one wants, and allows this want to take them to the eager expectation of what soon may be. Waiting for the next scene to unfold. It's easy to be on the edge of your seat in a good movie, caught up in those defining moments, those points everything so far leads up to and everything past will be affected by. Much harder to be caught up in the small, in your breath, in the sensation the moment offers. And yet it is in those moments, those supposedly dull, mundane moments, where the Spirit speaks, "There is more for you right here, right now, than you can dream of, if you would only let me bless you with it."

Prayer then is receiving, the receiving of blessing, and any blessing can never be given in coercion and control. It feels like a paradox, as I create space, taking an active part in allowing. Actively receiving.

Desire and control, they come off so similar. But get closer, and it becomes obvious that true desire cannot be feigned. A poor attempt at faking desire will end up looking like a frustrated, whiny, irritated, adolescent temper tantrum when things don't go the way control wants. Prayer is the practice ground, working out this old whiny self. Instead of screaming with my hands covering my ears, I breathe my way through what is being offered this very moment, and the next, and the next. I believe laced within these breaths is the whisper of the Spirit that waits, without coercion, to see if I am willing to listen.

Sun (Room)

The last two days have been 70 and sunny. Hallefreakinluia. Three days ago my sinuses were throbbing from my fourth cold of the winter season. After two days of sun, my symptoms are minimal. No, not a coincidence, it is one more piece of data that I am allergic to cold and an addiction to airborne isn't cutting it. I need sun. Thank you Jesus it is on the rebound with summer approaching.
The biggest sign of this in my house is my recent activity in the sun room. My favorite place of the house really. As you can see in the picture, seveal big windows that look over the neighborhood, and in the distance even the Olympic Mountains. This room lay dormant in the winter, an icebox not worth the effort of warming up to a respectable room temperature. Soon the sun will provide more than enough warmth, as it did today, allowing the perfect space for good reading, conversation, contemplation, and writing blogs such as this one.

There is one other upcoming event; graduation. It feels much easier and safer to write about summer, which provokes much fewer emotions, especially those that are conflicting...

MSU vs. UNC

I've waited to post in fear of a skeptic's jinx that any rabid sports fan would fear ensuing after one talks about their favorite teams before they play...but at this point, what is there to lose??? What has just transpired in the past couple weeks is what any sports fan dreams of all their life; both of my favorite college basketball teams have made their way through the tournament and will now meet in the championship game Monday night.

The championship game. And I can sit back, relax, and soak in the experience. No need to scream at the refs, get infuriated with the little things that just don't go my team's way, and raise my cortisol to near toxic levels. Ladies and gentlemen, this time I'm going to enjoy the ride. I will now wait for one of the strangest moments of my sports life as I watch one of my teams lose the title, and one of my teams win. And don't worry, I'm definitely going to focus on the latter.

I have to say that I will definitely be biased towards Michigan State, my alma mater, maybe unconsciously because of the fact that any of my fellow Spartans whom I spent my time with in East Lansing would have my head if they knew I was cheering for North Carolina. Bros, be assured that I'm going for MSU.

I mean, what a story, the Spartans beating an incredibly good 10 seeded USC team (who won the Pac-10 tournament), the Big 12 winner and defending national champ Kansas, followed by Louisville, the then deemed best team in the country who was beating teams by 40 points. Next was UConn, another one of the Big East's best teams (the Big East was called one of the best conferences ever this year...to beat the two best teams is incredible). Imagine now, if they could pull off the championship by beating UNC, the pre-season #1, predicted to win it all before anything began. In and for a city and state that sums up the economic down turn. Doesn't get any better than this.

And they can do it. If they play like they have, they will win. Simple as that. And if they lose, well...shoot, my other favorite team wins it all...life is rough :)

But GO STATE!!!

Note to self: Play lots, like all the time

http://www.ted.com/index.php/talks/stuart_brown_says_play_is_more_than_fun_it_s_vital.html

A great explanation of the benefits of play (from a really cool website for intriguing talks like this one - TED.com).

I should listen to this every morning before I start my day. Play makes us smarter, creates the context for more trust, and even greatly improves the workplace. Oh yea it's also fun!

Safe

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B7aMrkGBDBQ

(unable to put actual clip on here, just have to click on the link)

This clip reveals something deeply significant about what is real safety, and what we really need as human beings.

The little girl in this scene is scared. Rightly so. Her dad has been out working late, leaving his 5 year old daughter alone in a scary neighborhood. He finds her under the bed and wants to assure her that she will be ok.

Every parent has found themselves in this situation. And it is what he does that is so brilliant.

He could just tell her that she needs to get some sleep, forcing her to get out from under the bed, very easily shaming her for being scared in the first place. This shaming would lead to a feeling of being missed in her fear, leading her to accuse herself for having any kind of feeling in the first place. She is left feeling alone. She is scared and alone. Now that is scary.

But what he does is not only validate her fear, he engages her world. He leaves the rational world of adulthood and moves into the heart of a 5 year old girl. How does he do this? He uses her language. He uses her imagination.

And this is what the girl needs. To simply be told that her dad would protect her is one thing. Her 5 year old brain would maybe hold some of those words, for maybe one second.

What he gives her is relationship. She is known by his ability to dream with her. Her protects her by inviting her to imagine.

That is safety. Not the circumstances. Not the facts. But whether you are with someone who can enter your world and know you through that. Safety in being known.

Safety is a space where words can be put to our experience. We need words. We need symbols, symbols that hold the medium of imagination and creativity, making meaning of what is going on instead of an unnamed dread. When we cannot make meaning of experience, it festers inside our bodies as a blob of confusion, like a parasite we cannot see but know is there because of its continual growth and disruption.

Leads me to think about artists. Often the most talented are the most neurotic. They're trying to work something out, something that is unnamed, something that needs to be expressed. And what better way than painting or making music. Unnamed meaning moves their bodies to create, funneling their confusion and desire onto a painting or into the keys of a piano or strings of a guitar. Thank God. Their work touches so deeply our own stories of confusion, allowing us to meet over something that names so well what we feel.

That is what makes the scene so touching. A man who enters the imaginative world of a child. And because of this she is not alone. She is safe in being known.

Slicer

Random, mundane experience #1: Cheese slicer

Happened to be in Fred Meyer with Eden looking for a spaceheater for her when I ran across the aisle of kitchen appliances. Cheese slicer quickly came to mind. My trip back home in Michigan reminded me of how much I loved these things. And now was the time to capitalize.

We got back to my place where I proclaimed my victory to the roommates, upon which one of them quickly opened the kitchen drawer and pulled out her own cheese slicer. I was unaware we already had a cheese slicer.

Sooo I kept the cheese slicer because it was from Good Grips which is always a good choice. And I must say, this little piece of metal and rubber has doubled my lunch satisfaction. Amazing how cheese sliced a little thinner makes all the difference.

Usually I would say this is stupid, why am I getting so excited about thinner cheese? Stupid to get excited about little things. Stupid to get excited. Better to get excited about the big stuff. The big trips. The weekends. The holidays.

Thing is the big stuff comes and goes and almost never is quite what we wanted it to be. Either too short or thinking about how great it is so much and how much it will suck when it's over that it gets over way too quickly.

Thus my proposal. Get lost in the sweet glory of a cheese slicer. Allow for celebration. Stupid, glorious celebration. Celebration that doesn't need to wait for the grand vacation getaway. So great getting excited about the small things. It's like singing in the shower, like dancing in the kitchen, like letting out a little shout that you made the street light just in time when you thought there's no chance.

And what's even better? Someone to enjoy you in the midst of your glorious over-excitement. Who loves it and joins you well in the midst. The adverse is obvious: someone telling you to stay in line, ship up, stop acting like a fool, why the hell are you getting so excited about a cheese slicer. And I would like to tell those voices that it is sad that your envy carries itself so far as to want to ruin someone else's day because yours is so boring.

Knowing very well how boring I can make the day to day, I call myself to repent to the sweet glory of slicing cheese. I invite you to join.

Wolves

"They tumble and fight, and they're beautiful
On the hilltops at night, they are beautiful
Blazing with light, is the whitest and the tallest and the biggest one
She's muscled and fine
When she runs"

Wolves are in his house, in his mind. Haunting. Hovering. Invading. Disrupting.

And then the most haunting statement yet. He describes them. Beautiful. These creatures, these creatures that haunt, they are so beautiful.

Maddening. And thus is beauty. Beauty is maddening. Scandalous. Seductive. As if it gets away with too much. That too much haunts us. Beauty haunts.

Even the way you say the word, the letters that comprise it, the first three from the beginning of the alphabet, the last three from the end. As if the letters are describing the range of life beauty is able to hold. Beauty is good and it is bad. It does not allow for a split, instead holding a complexity and spectrum of experience that will never be defined in simple terms.

We want to split, casting beauty in an over-sexed, denigrating, violent objectification of women, or over-spiritualizing beauty that is naive and out of touch with the real world, a world without real desire, pain, heartache.

Beauty is not perfection. Perfection is fragmented. Beauty is wholeness. Beauty is the mysterious winding of flaw. And one who can bear their own flaw is a beautiful person. These beautiful people are so wonderful to be around.

Beauty is dark and light. One needs the other to create, and beauty the medium in which they dance, the canvas in which one dares allow their mixing. No wonder any real creation involves risk.

These wolves. They are terrible. And they are amazing. He fears them and cannot keep his eyes off them. Thus is beauty. Thus is life.

Come with me

...get closer to that story - the story that is the story of all stories - it is the best story - it is the worst story - it is THE story - it is the story that is uniquely yours, that only you can tell - that in your telling you share in the story that encompasses all stories - the story of God - it is not whether or not it is a good story - it is whether or not you dare to tell it - evil hates the real story - evil fabricates - evil distorts - evil hides - evil lies - evil trembles when you begin to tell the truth, because you are at the center of the truth, because Christ is at the center of the truth

come - let us tell the stories that haunt us with their darkness - come - let us tell them in the light, that we may not bear the burden, that we may not bear the weight on our own - one should never have to tell their story alone

come with me into the light, i have a story i've been wanting to tell...

Years Best

A few of my favorites, highlighting the artists that I turned to the most. The first is Ben Sollee and his album Learning to Bend. His voice and brilliance on the cello are the perfect match. Every song is good.




Secondly is the Walkmen. Their music brings lots of sound, lots of different, unique sound.



Thirdly, M. Ward. His lyrics have an unfinished quality that makes you believe he threw down on paper exactly what he was feeling in the moment.

Finally, what I predict will continue to be one of the most listened in the new year: Rural Alberta Advantage. A very healthy dose of angst. Never had the angst-ish personality before to get into this as much as I have, but I think I'm long overdue to pick up an edge, and this album definitely helps with that. (No YouTube for them, have to check them on MySpace if you want a listen.)

Sense (Part 3)

"...I have a tape of a Tibetan nun singing a mantra of compassion over and over for an hour, eight words over and over, and every line feels different, feels cared about, and experienced as she is singing. You never once have the sense that she is glancing down at her watch thinking, "Jesus Christ, it's only been fifteen minutes." Forty-five minutes later she is still singing each line distinctly, word by word, until the last word is sung.

Mostly things are not that way, that simple and pure, with so much focus given to each syllable of life as life sings itself. But that kind of attention is the prize. To be engrossed by something outside ourselves is a powerful antitode for the rational mind, the mind that so frequently has its head up its own ass - seeing things in such a narrow and darkly narcissistic way that it presents a colo-rectal theology, offering hope to no one..."

- Anne Lamont, Bird by Bird

I would say one of the most common responses I have to my clients (particularly the adults) is a feeling that we need to slow down. As if counseling is a race to get as many words out as possible by the end of the session, that as long as the week is purged into the room something may miraculously change. A sprint to the finish. Thing is that instead of a nice energizing run, this kind of sprinting feels more like running with our heads cut off, leaving us both exhausted. And not a good exhausted. An overkill, burnt out exhausted. Instead of a connected session, I end feeling as though I just came out of a manic episode.

How often my work so far has been to kindly interject, and ask for us to slowly step into just one piece of what was just ejected my way.

How can I move us into our senses? What if we said the same eight words over and over? The awkwardness alone with leave us ending up with more connection, more levels of being, of seeing, of hearing, of experiencing each other than the manic states could ever create.

The same eight words, refocusing the attention from content to process. From mindless chatter to actually experiencing and noticing what it means when two people exist simultaneously in the same room. To give space, to give care to each moment, to each expression, each nuanced, delicate expression that speaks of the heart more loudly than any words ever could.

That is not easy work. But it is here I feel that I am actually doing work. Only then do I feel as though I just went on a good run, blood flowing, breathing heavy, endorphins kicking in, connected to my body. It is not easy work, but it is good work. And again, it is kind work. I don't feel as though I just had to run 20 miles in the freezing rain with a t-shirt on. I went on my time, paying attention to my body, what I needed, what I wanted. A good run. Good runs are so good.

So is a good session. It is so good. Existing in such a deep simplicity of the moment with another human being. That is why I am in this work. For those spaces. To have the privilege to be in those spaces. That is a gift. And as Lamont says, I pray I can remove my narcissistic head out of my own ass so I can look up and have the privilege of truly seeing, and truly experiencing that gift.

Sense (continued)

"On a dark afternoon - I was ten or eleven - I was walking on a country road. On my left a patch of curly kale, on my right some yellow Brussel sprouts. I felt a snowflake on my cheek, and from far away in the charcoal-gray sky, I saw the slow approach of a snow storm. I stood still.


Some flakes were now falling around my feet. A few melted as they hit the ground. Others stayed intact. Then I heard the falling of the snow, with the softest hissing sound.

I stood transfixed, listening...and knew what can never be expressed: that the natural is supernatural, and that I am the eye that hears and the ear that sees..."

- Frederick Franck

Sense

I bought a Dialectical Behavior Therapy book online to prepare for upcoming clients at my internship. My school doesn't teach this orientation but the psych hospital does and most of my patients at the agency are not exactly ready for psychoanalysis, nor does the medicaid system allow for the long term psychodynamic psychotherapy I have been learning the past 3 years.

It's mostly exercises, many involving some kind of meditation. I've been trying them out, especially the ones I may be using and teaching the clients. Several come off to be painfully trivial. My mind and body resist such simple tasks, thoughts whining "this is stupid, this is boring, this is so painfully mundane."

I'm supposed to breathe deeply, then touch and describe an object in the room, what it feels like, color, shape, smell. Or simply breathe and listen, picking up every noise in the room. Or simply breathe, just breathe, counting each breath.

It is boring. It is mundane. It is incredibly simple. But why then is it so hard to do? It's so hard. Even counting my breaths. It's painful. I can't do it. I lose focus, mind wandering to anything but the moment.

It is painful. And it is so good. In the midst of the exercise I feel something soften in me. I feel something loosen up, calm, ease. I feel kindness. So much kindness. Kindness that allows for the moment, the moment that allows me to once again be a child. To live again as a child, existing in my senses, in the moment. The child that only knows its body. The child that only knows touch, taste, see, hear, and smell. Its like going back to the fundamentals. Going back. The humble, kind task of going back before going forward.

It's crazy but it's like I can hear this voice speak to me. This voice that slowly, softly speaks, "it's ok... it's ok...it's ok..." It is so soft. It is so strong. It is so kind.

The exercises feel like confession. They feel like repentance. I feel a soft grievance of the years and years spent in a mind/body split, the years spent moving so fast I can't even think. To be talking to someone and be ten steps ahead, to feel like I'm looking from a bird's eye view instead of right across from you. I'm gone. I'm not there.

That is not cool. And that is why doing the mundane, painful exercises that call me to the moment, to the details, to the rhythm of my breath, to the still sounds and calmed eyes that take a moment to stop and look; that is why these exercises feel like repentance. I am confessing my absence from the moment. My years of absence from the moment. My years of absence from myself. My years of absence from you.

These exercises coax me into the mundane. I confess and repent how I have called the mundane unholy. It has always been the fantastic, the perfect worship song at the right time with the amazing insight and revelation where holiness was found. Why can't the holy be in the mundane, in the practical, in the moment? Why can't it be in the simple? Why can't the holy be in the touch, in the smell, in the ability to hear the stillness, to hear the sounds that can only be heard when you really listen?

It feels so kind. So kind. To be in the moment. It is repentance. It is holy.

"Will you stay with me in the moment? In the simple. In the touch. In the look. I miss you there."

Hello Mac, My Name is Michael

So last week I went on a date. With my roommates Mac. It was all part of the process of seeing whether I should make the switch. You know. PC to Mac. As you can see from the pictures, it wasn't even a contest. Look how engaged we were! Laughing, getting serious, and my own personal favorite moment of the night, when I gave her the eye. I didn't even try, it just happened. Caught up in the moment and there we were.

Two days later, my own is on its way in the mail. Haven't been this excited in a looooong time.

Festival

(not the real video, just using it for the song)

I know little about speaking in tongues, but it came up after church the other day. Whether or not I agreed with it, the conversation moved towards what it possibly could be. That is, the times when you feel so deeply moved that waiting for the full articulation of words seems like an inconsequential need to the weight of the moment. Instead what flows is the candid, unfiltered, spontaneously passionate language of the heart. As if the use of words breaks down at this level of being, this depth of existence. They melt away and all we have left is this spirit, pulsing with the purest form of life, of being, of what is true. It is here that spirits communicate. In spirit language.

I was listening to the new Sigur Ros album and came across the song Festival. Then it hit me: this is what speaking in tongues should be. The song was doing exactly what I was talking about a week ago. It got in me. It made me weak. Cutting through the familiar surface of words. I had no defenses for this level of engagement. My lack of understanding of what was being said compelled me to an understanding no words could convey. They would simply stifle, box in, limit this level of beauty. Ineffable beauty.

Lifting, moving, heightening, softening, inflecting sound the only medium that can express what is and what always will be, forever unchanged but always changing so that it may never be chained, love so deep and wide and full that it can only be known in knowing its being. This song captures that being, that Spirit. I should say, it captures it in letting it be what it is and always will be; free.

Gimpy

So, little did I know how much a beating up on the 2nd years in flag football would take its toll on my now 28 year old aging body...

Quarter way through the game, I got my flag pulled/tackled to the ground by two 2nd years, tearing my shorts, a knee slamming into my thigh. Leg throbbing, I slowly got to my feet, hobbled away, tried to shake it off and returned a few possessions later. We went on to slaughter the youngins by 19 points :P

More than a week later I'm still gloating over the win while simultaneously disturbingly humbled by my throbbing, still swollen thigh. I wake up middle of the night with a monumental ache and think, "seriously? no really, seriously? a charley horse hurts this bad?"

I looked online and felt a sense of community and place to grieve the charley horse pain, to post the absurdity of the pain and needed time of recovery. I seriously felt a sense of relief that I was not alone in this experience...this site brought the most satisfaction. I am not alone...

In It

A soldier fighting on the battlefield tells a much better story than one who hears about the details on the news.

Work was hellish last week. It felt like the battlefield. It felt like blood and sweat, muscles aching, raising my loaded gun at the apparent enemy, wielding my weapons that can do serious damage. My desire scaring me. I wanted to jack some patients right in the face. Engaging at a psych hospital is dangerous. I am dangerous. Yet even more dangerous is the belief that I am not.

That to say, it is good to fight. Goodness. Goodness is bloody, angry, grieving, joyful. Goodness is instead of looking on from miles away, getting close enough to bleed. And no one can tell better stories than one who has the wounds to prove it.

I want to tell better stories. I want them to be less anesthetized. I want them to be more personal and more dangerous. Only then will they be stories of real life. Only then will they play a part in the grandest story of all.

"When you tell the story, the way you were in it, when I can smell your breath in the details, you tell a damn good story."

Music Week

It was Joe Purdy on Monday night at Nectar's. He didn't have his band with him, so it was an acoustic, melancholy performance, similar to the video below. Such transparency in his music, this song probably at the top of that list. He's a great story teller. This is his story of loneliness, which in his telling seems to bring intimacy. Funny how that works...




...followed by a list of performers on Saturday at Bumbershoot. The main performers I caught were Thao, The Walkmen, The Round (with Damien Jurado and others), Band of Horses, and then Beck. I highlight Thao below. Amazing performer, she gets lost in her music on stage. And her new CD is fantastic.