Tyler Childers - White House Road | OurVinyl Sessions

Whitehouse Road

Early in the morning when the sun does rise
Layin' in the bed with bloodshot eyes
Late in the evenin' when the sun sinks low
Well that's about time my rooster crows
I got women up and down this creek
And they keep me going and my engine clean
Run me ragged but I don't fret
Cause there ain't been one slow me down none yet

Get me drinking' that moonshine
Get me higher than the grocery bill
Take my troubles to the highwall
Throw 'em in the river and get your fill
We been sniffing that cocaine
Ain't nothin' better when the wind cuts cold
Lord it's a mighty hard livin'
But a damn good feelin' to run these roads

I got people try to tell me, Red
Keep this livin' and you'll wind up dead
Cast your troubles on the Lord of Lord's
Or wind up laying on a coolin' board
But I got buddies up White House Road
And they keep me strutting when my feet hang low
Rotgut whiskey gonna ease my pain
'N all this runnin's gonna keep me sane

Get me drinking' that moonshine
Get me higher than the grocery bill
Take my troubles to the highwall
Throw 'em in the river and get your fill
We been sniffing that cocaine
Ain't nothin' better when the wind cuts cold
Lord it's a mighty hard livin'
But a damn good feelin' to run these roads
It's a damn good feelin' to run these roads

When they lay me in the cold hard clay
Won't ya sing them hymns while the banjo plays
You can tell them ladies that they ought not frown
Cause there ain't been nothing ever held me down
Lawmen, women or a shallow grave
Same ol' blues just a different day

Get me drinking' that moonshine
Get me higher than the grocery bill
Take my troubles to the highwall
Throw 'em in the river and get your fill
We been sniffing that cocaine
Ain't nothin' better when the wind cuts cold
Lord it's a mighty hard livin'
But a damn good feelin' to run these roads
It's a damn good feelin' to run these roads
It's a damn good feelin' to run these roads

Max McNown - A Lot More Free (Official Music Video)

Leaves start falling my cold wind blows
And soon get covered by the winter snow
Birds start singin' when the spring rolls 'round
Flowers blooming through the thawing ground

When you love somebody and the love grows cold
The sun starts shining when you let it all go
There's a certain kinda hurting only time can heal
That's a pretty good picture of the way I feel

I'm a little bit hurt but a lot more free
I ain't saying that you never took a toll on me
For what it's worth, I can finally see
That I'm a little bit hurt but a lot more free
Yeah, I'm a little bit hurt but a lot more free

From this mountain I can see so far
Rivers running like deep deep scars
Carrying the lifeblood through my veins
Is it crazy that I'm grateful for all the pain?

'Cause I'm a little bit hurt but a lot more free
I ain't saying that you never took a toll on me
For what it's worth, I can finally see
That I'm a little bit hurt but a lot more free
Yeah, I'm a little bit hurt but a lot more free

Surreal

Surreal 

At the turn of the century
it is a long way down
to the mind's I. A treehouse
chronicles my journey to this
lost continent, which requires
the amber spyglass to navigate.
When I arrive I am barely a
shadow of a man. There is
snow falling on cedars; through
the woods I hear the single hound
wailing for her hometown. After
twenty years at Hull House, she
mourns for that bastard out of
Carolina who left her tender
at the bone. I wander through
trees toward her cries and find
her. My journey ends across the
river, past the canal town. Before
crossing over, I ask her for
directions. "I don't know," she
replies. "I'm a stranger here myself."

-Kathryn Harper

Another Cento poem. The titles:

• Turn of the Century (Kurt Andersen)
• A Long Way Down
• The Mind's I: Fantasies and Reflections on Self and Soul
• Treehouse Chronicles: One Man's Dream of a Life Aloft (S. Peter Lewis)
• The Lost Continent: Travels in Small Town America
• The Amber Spyglass
• Shadow of a Man
• Snow Falling on Cedars
• Through the Woods (H.E. Bates)
• The Single Hound (May Sarton)
• Bastard Out of Carolina
• Tender at the Bone: Growing Up at the Table
• Canal Town
• Crossing Over (Ruben Martinez)
• I'm a Stranger Here Myself: Notes on Returning to America After 20 Years Away

No Place Too Small

No Place Too Small

It is easy to know how to meld with so much grief.
With joy there is blindness, rose-colored ignorance,
No body to tend, to anchor one to the earth.
When the world remains intact, you move nimbly,
Caressing the surface of things, noticing little.

But grief burrows in.
It needs only the exposed, wounded soul
To dig in as a tick under skin.
Grief bangs around the cellar, shrieking,
behaves unpredictably, hijacking your eyes
When the store clerk asks how you are. Clutching your
throat when you call the dentist’s office for a cleaning.

You walk now among oblivious humans,
an emotional leper
With lesions rotting your heart.
All of existence has its own death,
It too could slip into a tumor-ridden coma
Adorned with catheter tubes,
And gasp last breaths to the sterile beat
Of a monitor, attended by loved ones.

Since there is no place too small
For grief to infiltrate,
You lie down, surrender, pull it
to every cell of your being.
You take orders, as a dog obeys commands
From an owner; you honor and bear it,
And in this way, endure.

–Kathryn Harper

This poem was another exercise in scaffolding. I worked with Naomi Shihab Ney's Kindness.

“Grief” by jan buchholtz, CC BY-NC-ND 2.0

A Bridge Too Far ... On Alex Pretti

Self-Care in Political Chaos

Someone shared this clip from PBS with me: The surprising way to fight political exhaustion, in which sociologist Tressie McMillan Cottom talks about "agency" as a key to countering exhaustion from relentless horrible world news and politics. 

She's on point. It makes me think... if I'm standing still awhile, it starts to hurt and get heavy, my feet and hips ache, etc. But if I walk or move in some way, pain recedes. (I had a lot of retail jobs long ago.) Passive consumption of news forces us to stand and hold heaviness, which feels even MORE heavy because that's all we're attending to. I liked her term: agentic. 

This is why I've joined to volunteer with Action for Happiness, and why I've started making "little art" earnestly, on the regular, and why I'm returning to frequent entries here, and might even write poetry again. Since this post is public, I can't pretend I'll be a secret agent -- but I can be an agent for kindness. 

On The Resolve of Minnesota

Reality

I am not okay. I saw the video of Renee Good being murdered. I am an empath and a therapist. I had to find the energy and attention to be present with my clients today, while also carrying the physical, mental, and emotional load of horror and despair. It's the misogyny. The fact that a government entity is lying about what happened. The speed with which a man just decided to snuff out a woman's life by obliterating her face with bullets and then calling her a "fucking bitch" after. I appreciate these events are documented on video, but it's also traumatic to witness.

Jackie Summers on The Physics of Wishing

I've followed Jackie Summers on Facebook and on his Substack for several years. Based on what I know of his life story, he is a human phoenix. Much respect to him. He's an eloquent thinker and writer, as well as the first Black person in America with a license to make liquor. He created a drink based on the generational recipe from the African-Indiginous heritage of Barbados: Sorel Liqueur.

His recent post was about The Physics of Wishing, and I wanted to bookmark it for future reference. The entire post is worth reading. 

But the core of what I want to post are his instructions as follows:

How to Actually Send a Wish

(No physics degree required)

If any of those landed in your chest and you thought, “I hope that’s true for somebody I love”— here’s how you turn that into a real wish.

You don’t have to believe in magic. You just have to be willing to try an experiment.

1. Breathe once, on purpose.
Inhale a little slower than usual.
That’s your rhythm.

2. Let one person come to mind.
Just one. A friend, a lover, an ex, a parent, a stranger on the edge.

3. Find your stillness, set your intention.
Say it quietly in your head. Let your body feel what you mean.

4. Exhale slowly.
On that breath out, imagine the wish leaving your field and brushing theirs.

That’s it. That’s the whole spell.

No glitter. No angels getting their wings. Just a small increase in local coherence, from your nervous system to someone else’s.

Doing God's Work

Matthew 25:35-40 - New Living Translation

35 For I was hungry, and you fed me. I was thirsty, and you gave me a drink. I was a stranger, and you invited me into your home. 

36 I was naked, and you gave me clothing. I was sick, and you cared for me. I was in prison, and you visited me.’

37 “Then these righteous ones will reply, ‘Lord, when did we ever see you hungry and feed you? Or thirsty and give you something to drink? 

38 Or a stranger and show you hospitality? Or naked and give you clothing? 

39 When did we ever see you sick or in prison and visit you?’

40 “And the King will say, ‘I tell you the truth, when you did it to one of the least of these my brothers and sisters,[a] you were doing it to me!’

Lay Down Your Suffering

 Little Altars Everywhere

There are little altars everywhere
in the world, places where you can
lay down your suffering for a while.
Hollowed-out oak trunk by the forest trail
where you leave acorns and pine cones
and worries you’ve gathered on a cushion
of moss, whose patience softens everything.
Or the bench at the busy intersection
where streams of people crossing the street
parted around you, and you fell in love
with each of them—the men in suits, babies
strapped in strollers—and left your fear
crumpled there like a useless receipt.
Or the shelf where you keep the box
of your mother’s ashes next to an electric
candle that flickers day and night, how you
give your grief to the yellow glow of that
false flame over and over, knowing
that even the plainest of light can be
enough sometimes to hold your pain.

--James Crews

To All Those Seniors Soon to Graduate

 

Perilous Dark Path

"We seldom go freely into the belly of the beast. Unless we face a major disaster like the death of a friend or spouse or loss of a marriage or job, we usually will not go there. As a culture, we have to be taught the language of descent. That is the great language of religion. It teaches us to enter willingly, trustingly into the dark periods of life. These dark periods are good teachers. Religious energy is in the dark questions, seldom in the answers. Answers are the way out, but that is not what we are here for. But when we look at the questions, we look for the opening to transformation. Fixing something doesn't usually transform us. We try to change events in order to avoid changing ourselves. We must learn to stay with the pain of life, without answers, without conclusions, and some days without meaning. That is the path, the perilous dark path of true prayer."

---Richard Rohr, Everything Belongs: The Gift of Contemplative Prayer

Practice, Practice, Practice

"The arts are not a way to make a living. They are a very human way of making life more bearable. Practicing an art, no matter how well or badly, is a way to make your soul grow, for heaven's sake. Sing in the shower. Dance to the radio. Tell stories. Write a poem to a friend, even a lousy poem. Do it as well as you possibly can. You will get an enormous reward. You will have created something." 

- Kurt Vonnegut

The Right Reasons

"The pursuit of happiness is a toxic value that has long defined our culture. It is self-defeating and misleading. Living well does not mean avoiding suffering; it means suffering for the right reasons. Because if we’re going to be forced to suffer by simply existing, we might as well learn how to suffer well."

― Mark Manson, Everything Is F*cked: A Book About Hope