The Blackbird Song

When Cheyne and I were married, we had our dear friend Jory play the old Beatles tune The Blackbird Song at our wedding, in honor of Cheyne's father, who passed away while he was growing up. We played it at the children's blessingways and naming ceremnies, and now it is in remembrance of many other loved ones who have passed: my Grandmother Aley, my cousin John, my Aunt Mary, and , of course, Cheyne's lovely and one of a kind mother, Sheryl. Songs about ravens and blackbirds and mockingbirds fill my playlist lately. A family Cheyne grew up with lost their twenty four year old son to suicide. They were and are a lovely family, full of life and love. truly devoted and kind people. When we were expecting Sol, Cheryl, the boys mother, pulled Cheyne aside and told him that people would bombard us with advice, but in the end we would need to trust our own instincts, follow our own hearts, find our own way. She told me something similar at my baby shower, that all advice was neither here nor there BUT if she were to give ANY, it would be that stroking a baby's forehead between his eyebrows would lead him to close his eyes.

I feel rocked to my core that the boy she first practiced this on is gone, ripped from her by pain and a horrible rush to action. Cheyne's first response was, " I wish I could tell him it inevitably gets much better than twenty four." We both can remember some pretty wretched feelings in our twenties, and our hearts break for how lost this poor young man must have felt.

I am listening to Coltrane play the Blackbird Song. And I am trying to find my bearings for so much grief. Such loss.

I though I would share this lovely poem by Ronald Stuart Thomas:

A Blackbird Singing

It seems wrong that out of this bird,
Black, bold, a suggestion of dark
Places about it, there yet should come
Such rich music, as though the notes'
Ore were changed to a rare metal
At one touch of that bright bill.

You have heard it often, alone at your desk
In a green April, your mind drawn
Away from its work by sweet disturbance
Of the mild evening outside your room.

A slow singer, but loading each phrase
With history's overtones, love, joy
And grief learned by his dark tribe
In other orchards and passed on
Instinctively as they are now,
But fresh always with new tears

Ronald Stuart Thomas

Margaritas Are Communion

Last night was one of THOSE nights. I have them often now, more frequently than infrequently. They are these relaxed, fun, laughter filled times. I also have deep, long conversations, the kinds where two friends pull all the wrinkled clothes of their selves out and lay them in the sun to be infused with the sweet smell of spring.

This is the story of how I got a family even though mine didn't know what to do with me.

I spent years as a hesitant, skeptical Christian. I didn't want to have to lie, or claim certainty, or to "fake" it. I tried several different paths. I also should say that my religious upbringing had left me scarred on many levels. As a woman, as a gay rights supporter, as a seeker. I felt that Christianity itself was a jerk factory, let alone churches. My husband and I were both spiritual seekers, attending sweat lodges, praying together, talking often about God and love and what kind of people we were going to be. I missed Jesus. I believed in Him, but I felt there was no way to connect to Him. Fast forward almost six years, and I am part of an active, loving, amazing community of people. Most of us identify as Christian, but some just can't go there yet. That is OK. We are still their church. We talk about whether or not you have to be certain. We practice extensive grace with each other, but we have learned about boundaries too. We can talk things through, even over Facebook. We don't give up on each other. We fail. We forgive. We dance at each other's weddings, shower each other's babies, make soup for receiving family after a funeral, help with the electric bill, offer our hearts to each other, swap seeds, grab coffee, have kids for sleep overs, know each other's families, and basically do life together.

It's what I always thought church should be like.

It hasn;t always been easy, but through this "love learning lab" I have learned how to be in committed relationship. How to love people wo are different, really love them, and how to be loved. How to confront someone gently. How to wait on God, accepting that there are seasons of closeness and seasons of solitude.

One of my closest friends from my "family" says that I never judge her. Because she has NEVER judged me. By the example of these folks I see each week, I have learned graciousness, accountability, and TRUST. I am completely transformed by it.

Last night I sat at a table with around fifteen of these women, eating chips and salsa and drinking margaritas. One of us was facing an impending separation and divorce. One passed the word of her step daughters upcoming birthday party. Many laughed hysterically over Kristen Wiig as Bjork on SNL. We communed. We fellowshipped. We did family.

We did church.

Best Wednesday service I have been to in years.

In The Beginning...

I was born in the late 1970's to a pair of folks who had already divorced once. (Each other) I was a twin. My parents named me Candice, and my sister Amanda. They called us Candy and Mandy. And they had a dog named Brandy. I could not make this up. My father was an alcoholic who stole a parcel of guns from a local gun show when we were six months old. My mother stayed home with us and we began attending the Church of Christ. Eventually even my dad was baptized, as a birthday present to my mother. And so it began.

Today is the story of my mother. Born in Madison County, Arkansas, the sixth of eight children, to a woodcutter and his wife, who never did learn to drive, my mother didn't walk until she was six years old. I believe it may have been rickets, and her family just didn't have the money to see the doctor.

As she grew up, her parents became heavy drinkers. My grandfather made moonshine in one of the barns. Since theirs was the last the house on the school route, the bus driver would sometimes drink until he passed out, sleeping it off on their couch.

One of my moms favorite stories (Okay, and mine!) is about the time the tiny school in Saint Paul, Arkansas got a new teacher. This teacher was absolutely disturbed that my mother was barefoot. My mama tried to explain that her family only got new shoes in the winter. The teacher huffed and said that if my mom had no shoes she needed to walk home. She turned to buzz the office, and when she turned back around, every single kid in my mama's class had taken off their shoes and set them on their desks. All for one and one for all. This stayed imprinted on my mama's heart, and I believe it helped her believe in her worth.

As a teenager my mother got Beatle mania. She had her mama put a bowl on her head and cut her hair. She got a guitar for her birthday, she had long been singing, and she spent hours in her bedroom teaching herself to play. She had grown up listening to The Carter family and later the radio. She had also fought her way to Church of Christ services, which for some reason totally freaked my grandmother out,(quite possibly the distillery in the barn had something to do with it) and she enjoyed the accapella singing there. By the time she was sixteen she was singing in Fayetteville . She performed with Ernest Tubbs and Ernie Ford. She was offered a record contract, but my dad gave the ultimatum, and she chose him. And every year her light grew dimmer. She still sang at work and at nursing homes and especially with her family. My mom and sister and I sing hymns at every family funeral.

My mom messed up. A lot. She stayed in a toxic marriage for years, and it made her hard, and angry, and because she wanted to save the marriage, she threw it the lifeboat, instead of her children. She is still not someone I call to talk about my heart. She does not buy me thoughtful gifts. (I made cupcakes for my sister and I at her house this year, and paid for dinner) She does not know what makes my heart soar, or take my side first.

But she adores my children. She thinks my husband hung the moon. And since I have released her from being my mom, she is a fun, if somewhat exasperating friend, and I truly enjoy her.

She did push my boat a little further in the water than hers. She wanted to give me so. Much. More.

And for that I am grateful.