Writing

Succumbing to the Beat

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So. It has finally happened. I have succumbed to the beat. I have been enthralled by the story lived out in music. I have been captured by history dusted off, shined up, and with new life breathed into it.

Yes, I am talking about Hamilton. After seeing the company’s performance at this year’s Tony Awards, I am officially a Hamilton fan. Lin-Manuel Miranda’s music is amazing and has swayed even my heart, which has never really been drawn to hip-hop as a first choice. I have listened to the soundtrack in bits and pieces, thanks to Pandora, and I have just finished on my first full run-through of the cast recording as I post this.

I must admit that I am drawn hard to the story/triangle of Alexander Hamilton, his wife Eliza Schuyler, and her

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Left to right – Renee Elise Goldsberry: Angelica Schuyler, Lin-Manuel Miranda: Alexander Hamilton, Christopher Jackson: George Washington, and Philippa Soo: Elizabeth Schuyler Hamilton. Photo credit: Tyranny of Style

elder sister Angelica. The ladies’ main songs: “The Schuyler Sisters”, “Helpless”, “Satisfied”, “Take a Break”, and “Burn” tell a story of hardships and the pulls between head and heart, the decisions that are so difficult to make but that we make because we think them the best ones for our families, and even the selfishness of human emotion and ambition and its effects on those we love. Angelica’s introduction of Hamilton to Eliza–who is previously established as struck “helpless” by the familyless, penniless revolutionary–not only kept Angelica free, as the eldest, to seek her fortune through marriage but, as she points out, “At least I keep his eyes in my life.” But the drama doesn’t end there, believe me. Human lives are never devoid of such, after all. Act II will break your heart, by the by. I’m talking tears and tissues, people. As a friend recommended, don’t be driving (or really doing anything else) while you’re listening to Act II. Act I will make you dance. Act II will bring all the feels, break your heart, melt it back together, and shatter it all over again.

Lin-Manuel Miranda’s excellent song sets, lyrics, and composition beautifully tell this story of a “young, scrappy, and hungry” revolutionary and his contemporaries but also paint him as an ambitious and very flawed man. Eager to rise up from his obscure, tragic beginnings and make a mark upon the world, Hamilton takes his shot, often making his said shot, but also makes mistakes–grievous, damaging mistakes–as well as powerful moves in the development of this newborn country and has to live with the consequences of those mistakes, moves, and decisions, both in his professional life as well as his private one. Miranda has a way of writing conversational lyrics that flow almost like honey. Not thick or cumbersome but well-formed, belonging together, and intentional. They also beat and burst through your chest with anger, fire, frustration, passion, determination, courage, fear, and defeat. Every emotion on the spectrum is touched on and poured out in the cast’s voices and performance as they wend their way through Hamilton’s story and those of the lives of those he touched. As he lives and dies and they tell his story.

I am thoroughly enthralled, happily seduced by a new (old) story soaring in a tornado of music. I am so excited that people, especially young adults and children, are becoming so passionate about this show and the history that it represents and presents, as well as the

 

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Lin-Manuel Miranda, creator, portraying the titular character in Hamilton.

ceilings and barriers that it shatters in encouraging young actors and actresses to pursue whatever parts their hearts lead them to. I can only hope that I will have the privilege of seeing this fantastic show in person on its tour some day soon.

 

Now, if you’ll excuse me. *puts my earbuds in and presses PLAY*

Spreading My Wings

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Hello, Friends! I have excellent news and I’ve apparently been lax in disseminating it. I have been invited (and have accepted said invitation) to become a contributing writer to a new website out of New York called My Trending Stories. As my husband loves to point out to me and others: they sought me out. They have read my blog and think that my writing aligns with their vision of giving freedom of voice back to writers and promote a community of inclusion and support. I have to admit to being a little flabbergasted by this; that a team of individuals were actively seeking out me and my writing to include in their community. It’s a rather…immense feeling.

I have to admit that I am extremely nervous about this but excited at the same time. I would appreciate your prayers and good thoughts as I try to write with my head and my heart, what is important as well as what I feel I need to write. And, in case you haven’t noticed, I want to make you all, my little community, proud, too.

Here’s to new steps and spreading my wings a little more.

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Moments of Glory

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I felt the glorious tonight, and I realized something. There are few times that I feel more sensual, more alluring, more glorious than when I am being slow and slinky in belly dance. When I am being deliberate and controlled, powerful and serpentine, particularly with snake arms. There’s a power in the movement, as well as a power in the one performing it. There is a strength, endurance, and control that the movement requires to be flowing and mesmerizing. There is also a feeling that goes with it, a confidence, a fierceness. I saw it in the raising of my chin, the tilt of my head, the deep, warm light in my eyes (I even had a thought that they could rival Anne Boleyn’s famed “dark hooks for the soul”), and the curve of my lips. It started without, curled and coiled within, and then flowed outward again, suffusing my body, mind, and soul.

It’s been a long while since I danced. Almost a year. Being back in boot camp class–conditioning, drilling, practicing, perfecting–reminds me of the beauty, strength, and the power that I found in the dance. And in myself as I did it. As my calves are so poignantly reminding me after Egyptian “choo-choo” shimmy drills, this dance, like any other, takes power. It takes strong muscles for control and precision in the movements, as well as developed endurance and stamina to make it through open dances and choreography without dropping to the floor. And even though performing really isn’t my thing anymore, I still love the dance. I love the drills, I love the conditioning, I love learning to move my body in new, prepossessing ways. In ways that make me feel beautiful, charming, captivating, mesmerizing (our goal-word when I first started dancing).

I felt the glorious tonight, and I’m holding on to that sublimity.

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Muncie Gras 2010. Photography by Rachel Penticuff.

 

All Shall Love Me and Rejoice

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Joely-Richardson-stars-as-Young-Queen-Elizabeth-I-in-AnonymousI am a lion.

You cannot deny my ferocity.

I am a scholar.

You will not deny my mind and my prowess.

I am a general

You cannot but praise my warrior heart and admit my kingly courage.

I am a prince.

You cannot deny my father’s blood, sound, and fury.

I am a woman.

My guile and cunning will circumvent yours every time.

I am a serpent.

I know the poison that sits in and pervades the hearts of those in my court and will prove mine more deadly.

I am a savior.

I bring light and freedom to the lives of my people. I leave men’s hearts and souls to them and to God.

But those hearts shall love me, shall revere me, shall fight for me.

I have fought for my place, I have outlived those who would deny me, I have rid the world of those who would supplant me.

I know Who I am.

I am a Queen.

I am The Queen.

 

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Author’s Note: This is the fourth piece in a series inspired by the ladies of the Tudor dynasty. The first, “A Smile for a Kiss”, was inspired by Mary Tudor, eldest daughter of Henry VIII, who would become Queen Mary. The second, “Actions for a Lifetime (Love Me as a Verb)”, was inspired by the genteel Anne of Cleves, short time wife of King Harry (and many say the luckiest one). The third, “Will You Hear Me?”, was inspired by that lion of a woman, Catherine of Aragon, daughter of Isabella and Ferdinand of Spain, who refused to be put away quietly, to recant her position as Henry VII’s “true wife”, or to give away her title as Queen and disinherit their daughter. 

This, the final piece in my Tudor Ladies Series, is written from the viewpoint of Elizabeth I, the final member of the Tudor Dynasty. Once declared a bastard, she outlived all of those who would deny, disinherit, and decry her, eventually ascending the throne. Titled the Virgin Queen for her refusal to marry, she ushered in an era of learning, art, and ceiling shattering in what is now known as the Golden Age of England.

 

A Greatness I Never Expected

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Now that I have had a few minutes to sit and breathe, I think I am ready to talk about this. This past Friday, I did something completely new. This past Friday, I did something terrifying. This past Friday, I did something I felt wholly unqualified to do. But I did it anyway.

This past Friday, I stood up in the church and community that I grew up in and spoke to the 2016 graduating class of my old private school. I stood up almost on the same spot where, sixteen years ago, I had given the valedictorian address for the graduating class of 2000. At thirty-three years old, I stood up to give these graduates whatever guidance, admonishment, and encouragement I could.

Yep. I felt totally unqualified to perform this task, but I did it anyway. Let me start at the beginning.

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What I Put On is Not Me

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Today, I was asked, “as a favor”, to change out of the cute little capri pants I had on and into my jean skirt. To clarify, nothing was showing. I had a Peter Pan collar top that left covered my bust, decolletage, and shoulders and came down over the waistband of my pants. The capris were dark denim and came down past my knees. The reason I was asked to change? So I could meet the current principal of my old school–where I will be giving the commencement address on Friday evening–and “avoid any conflict” that might come from me being seen in pants. I did it; I changed. I did it because I don’t live here anymore. I don’t have to live with these people and their talk and their (more-than-sometimes vicious) gossip. She (the person who asked me) does and I want her life to be as easy as I can help to make it. But, honestly, I’m angry. I am angry and disappointed.  Not at the person who asked me but at the fact that she felt like I had to be asked to do this. I am insulted by the very idea that my worth or the validity of my faith or my respectability could be compromised by an article of clothing. Could be questionable in the eyes of someone who has never even met me, simply because I showed up in their presence wearing pants instead of a skirt. The idea that anyone’s clothes determine their worth or respectability, especially when you don’t know them. This, frankly, angers me to a degree that I cannot quantify.

What I put on, what I wear, is not me. Now, I know all about first impressions so don’t feed me that line. This isn’t about first impressions. This is about me not being Christian enough when I wear pants for people who have known me all my life but obviously know nothing about me or who I am at all. It makes me angry and makes me sad that this has Not changed in thirty-plus years, and I refuse to be that kind of Christian! I refuse to deny someone’s worth or faith or right to be respected because she wears pants or he wears a skirt or they wear whatever they choose to wear. What I put on is not me. What I do, how I speak, how I act, how I live out what I believe. That is me.  A woman came to Jesus with her head uncovered and used her hair to dry his feet after she anointed them with the dearest and most expensive thing she owned. Did he scold her for coming to him dressed immodestly? No! In fact, he told the others with him, who started berating her for “wasting” the perfume, to leave her alone because her sacrifice was heartfelt and true and made out of love for him. Somewhere, somehow, I think that woman knew in her soul that Jesus was going to go through something terrible, and she refused to let him experience pain without knowing that he was loved. Her lack of hair covering didn’t matter; her actions did and still do.

You cannot judge someone heart and soul by their clothing. You cannot judge their intelligence, their gentleness, their faith, their belief, their convictions, their journey, or their capacity for kindness and love based on what they wear next to their skin. What clothes our outside does not matter. In fact, in the New Testament, Colossian 3:12-15 says:

“Therefore, as God’s chosen people, holy and dearly loved, clothe yourselves with compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness and patience. Bear with each other and forgive one another if any of you has a grievance against someone. Forgive as the Lord forgave you. And over all these virtues put on love, which binds them all together in perfect unity. Let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts, since as members of one body you were called to peace.”

I believe that we are all holy and dearly loved. We are all beloved of God. What makes a person important, what makes them indispensable, what makes who they are valuable and valid is how they have clothed their spirit, not how they have clothed their body. How that person over there dresses doesn’t make them any less of a person, any less capable of kindness and compassion and love and care, of courage  and determination and strength. You haven’t seen how they live their life. Don’t judge them in this one snapshot moment because of what you haven’t seen. Please! The fact that I wear pants on a regular basis as well as skirts and dresses doesn’t make what I will have to say to these graduating students any less true. It doesn’t make my testimony any less powerful. And it doesn’t make me any less respectable, any less worthy, of a person. And it definitely does not make me any less of a Christian.

If you judge me unworthy or less than just by looking at me, then I would dare say that it’s possible that you might have a much bigger and more serious issue than a 33-year-old woman in pedal-pushers. 

The Blue Bench

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There is a bench somewhere, probably nearby. You might have totally missed it before, but it’s there. More of a swing, really, though it’s mostly fallen into disuse as such over the years. Its color, however, has remained bright and vivid, as if it desires to teach the sky how to be just so. It’s a rather impossibly bright shade, making the bench simultaneously something old and something new.

This is an uncommon bench. This bench invites company. As you sit on the bench, you will find that its openness and space are not diminished. Rather, the bench seems bigger, longer, wider, brighter. So you add a friend. That bright blue bench seems bigger still. The more people who join you on the bench, the bigger it seems. The bench sees everyone as important and makes room for them.

The bench holds a lot of things, things spoken, sung, shared, and written. Joyous dreams. Mind-blowing adventures. Broken hearts. Torn souls. Stronger scars. Triumphant stories. Tearful whispers. But one of the most important things that this brilliant blue bench holds is a hand to always take yours, someone who has got your back and will always be there. Because the bench never met someone who wasn’t important. And everyone needs someone.

The Blue Bench

Watching Beauty

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One of the things I do not understand is the fact that not everyone can see the beauty in others, or, if they do, they don’t celebrate it but negativize it. Over the past week, I have been just struck by how immensely beautiful people are. Now, these are people whom I have just seen in passing so their physical traits are all that I was observing, but I gave myself permission to observe them. To look at them, to watch them, to meet their gaze and offer a smile.

At the mall, there was a woman who passed me. She was shorter, though still a touch taller than me. She had dusky skin and dark hair that flowed like water down to her waist. Her hips were full, generous, and curvy, accented by the dark leggings that she wore. The name Hebe came to mind. She was stunning and I was just floored by her! I couldn’t understand why everyone wasn’t just staring at her like I was. She just felt like beauty unbound to me.

Then there was the young man at the gas station. He had russet-gold hair and contemplative eyes. I let myself look at him and smile and I saw the ghost of a smile back. He might have thought that I was flirting with him and that’s okay. His smile seemed tired so I hope that mine gave him a bit of a pick-me-up.

Sometimes I cannot help but wonder how people cannot see the beauty in each other, in others. But then I realize that it has become quite easy. We have been taught to be jealous, suspicious, and hateful of the beauty of others. To regard them as enemies or ourselves as less than. We have been taught to believe that we must compete with each other rather than appreciate each one’s uniqueness for what it is. I don’t want to do that. I don’t want to deny someone else’s beauty just because it might make me feel better or more powerful. No, I’d much rather allow myself to see beauty in each person and marvel at it, whatever it might be.

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Spoken and Broken Together

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Maybe you and I were never meant to be complete.
Could we just be broken together?
If you can bring your shattered dreams and I‘ll bring mine,
Could healing still be spoken and save us?
The only way we’ll last forever is broken together. – “Broken Together”, Casting Crowns

My Wednesday morning started with the discovery of something being created that, honestly, excites me on a level that I cannot quite explain. Round Table Companies has started up a Kickstarter campaign for the development of a card game called “Vulnerability is Sexy”. The founder of Round Table Companies explains the game like this: “We believe everyone has a story to share, and our stories—the proud ones and the not-so-proud ones—are what make us beautiful. That’s why we created Vulnerability is Sexy, a card game that helps players reveal their true selves and give each other some of life’s most beautiful gifts: time, truth, and connection.” Yes, this excites me. It is hard to explain exactly why but it does. Over the past several years, I have learned the benefits and blessings of vulnerability, as well as come face to face, again and again, with the fears associated with it. I love that the point of this game is to create safety and hold space (two phrases/ideas that are well-known now in the vulnerability movement) for people to be their most authentic selves. I don’t see it as being a party game so much as a good endeavor for a night with good friends, a chance to hear as well as be heard.

As the years have gone by, I have met so many people who have suffered in the same silence and fear of vulnerability and mask-removal that I have–it was even one of the first deep conversations my husband and I had–and It breaks my heart. It has become more and more important to me to create and hold those sort of safe spaces for people as best I can. I have faced my fears of being vulnerable coming true, and I don’t doubt that I have likely been that fear come true for others. For the latter, I am most profoundly sorry, more so than I can adequately say. Now, I find my heart deeply drawn to creating and being a safe space. Moreover, I am learning just what it means to be  a safe space, whatever that might be for the other person(s). That might mean telling/reassuring them that, yes, it will, in fact, be okay; they will be okay. Or perhaps it’s offering an outside perspective. Perhaps it is not offering anything but your presence, to be a breathing, present life on the other end of the phone line while they cry. Not offering advice or a fix or a silver lining, but just showing up and staying there through their hard moments. Maybe being that safe space means reaching out to someone when they are sure that they have screwed up so badly that they are sure no one wants them around.

Later that morning, as I drove home from the gym, a song played on the radio that I had not heard before. It is called “Broken Together” by Casting Crowns (I have quoted part of it at the top of this post). I know that the song is written around the story of a marriage but vulnerability applies to any close relationship. I was struck by that idea of being broken together and the image it developed in my mind. The image is that of bringing the shards and pieces of the strong yet delicate clay pots that hold our selves and souls and pouring IMAG0151them out at each other’s feet. As those pieces fall and gently clatter upon the floor, they tumble and mix. They don’t voice any expectations, any rejections; they just are together in that brokenness. You know what else is beautiful about bringing those broken pieces together? There is no telling those shattered pieces apart. In our brokenness, we are the same, we are together. And when those pieces are put back together, it will be something new and beautiful, mortared together with love, empathy, camaraderie, and acceptance. We will have spoken healing to each other, even if that speaking is only the words, “Me, too. You’re not alone.”

We can be spoken and broken together. Shattered and crushed together. Sorted and pieced back together. Molded and melded back together. That is what vulnerability allows. That is what it accomplishes.

Will it always work out that way? You want the truth? Of course, you do; you’ve already experienced it. No, it won’t. As a dearly-loved friend of mine wrote:

“Caring isn’t all shiny belly badges getting glowy in Care-a-lot. There’s blood no one ever sees spilled. Tears no one sees shed. There’s a soft violence to caring. Not always, never always, but the potential’s always there. When we care, we make ourselves available, vulnerable.” (Daniel Youngren)

If there is a soft violence to caring, that possibility of deep pain, then vulnerability takes courage. Deep courage. Brené Brown calls vulnerability “our most accurate measurement of courage”. How willing are you to be courageous? To step out in that vulnerability, to be broken together, even with the chance (and, yes, likelihood) of at least some pain? When you know that the good that can come from it will produce something deep and wide and high and beautiful in your relationships? Can we be safe spaces for each other? Spaces where we can come, pour out our pieces and broken together, and have our healing spoken to each other’s hearts, souls, and minds? I would like that. Wouldn’t you?

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Photo credits:
*Ceramic pot pieces – http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-zYHdwVRZSA8/T1HM7afRoDI/AAAAAAAABc4/ZMyn5sHvyUE/s1600/IMAG0151.jpg
*Broken Clay Heart – https://claypotbroken.files.wordpress.com/2013/06/broken-clay-heart.jpg

The Power of a Simple Flame

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Author’s Note: I wrote this story for a darling friend, inspired by a simply ethereal picture taken of her. Elen verch Phellip is one of my dearest friends and a consummate inspiration to me. This piece was intended to do her as much honor as may be, for all the love, kindness, and heart-good she has given me.

It was a beautiful night. The Caernarfon half-moon was bright, clouds nowhere to be seen, and the spring stars were scattered out and bright, like silvered chalk against a black cat’s coat. In the light from the house doorway, one could see her, outlined in nighttime shadow as she stacked pieces of wood in her bucket. Her long hair, left loose to be lifted in cafuné by the wind, caught the light and one could almost believe it to be living fire breathed from the throat of the red dragon of Wales itself. When seen by daylight, her fiery red hair set off her woodbine skin and bright eyes, an ethereal combination that caused many of the children in the village to whisper that she was fey-touched and hang about her apron asking for wishes.

She would merely smile, sometimes benevolently and sometimes wryly, and remind the children that the Tylwyth Teg were often far more interested in taking little ones for changelings than granting wishes. So they had best mind their manners to all, for you never know who is simply mortal and who might be fey in disguise, the cunning in her smile sometimes sending them scattering with a chorus of giggling squeals and screams.

She was a woman most capable. She took no rubbish from anyone, gaffer or matron, master or maid, and those who would dare try would often find themselves in a battle of wit and fierceness and woefully unarmed. Sometimes mothers sent their girls to her to learn particular skills which had perhaps gone to grass in their line, bringing a new layer of life to busy hands and quick minds.

The men called her a mage. The women, more correctly, called her a Firebringer. Not just physical fire but the metaphysical. The fire that burned within, lit in your soul upon the day of your birth. She was the one you called to rekindle your spirit. No one rightly knew just how it was accomplished or even recalled specifics when all was said and done. Women would remember that she came and sat with them and had a cup of tea or brought some of her dandelion jam of an afternoon. Men would recollect her skilled hand threshing and sifting the chaff from the wheat alongside them for a day. More than that, though, one never seemed able to educe. All they knew was that she was able to spark that light of life within again, even if that spark were just enough to get them through the next struggle. And, sometimes, that was all that was needed.

Tanwen, they called her. Fire. A given name, a gifted name for the woman who shared her gifts.