Anyway.

Today was an interesting, sunny day.

Lots of people out and about.

I mean, it is New York City. The place is jam-packed with people. That’s partly why I love it. Humans are fascinating, I think. Never boring. Especially not today.

First, there is the guy outside Penn Station. He comes out of nowhere and envelopes me in a huge hug. My sense of boundaries are pushed and prodded with that one, I have to admit. But he is nice enough. Says something about my smile and the angels. But then he mentions football, so I am confused. Maybe he is still high on the super bowl win or something, I don’t know.

Then, there is the guy in midtown, on seventh avenue. Looks to be somewhere in his fifties. A business man, dressed up and stuff.

He slowly walks up to me. “You are so exotic,” he tells me, making this Pennsylvania born and bred girl laugh a little. “I just love your sense of style, too,” he mentions, and I thank him. “You’re from here?” he asks, and I nod my head, not wanting to delve into where I’m from with him, so here suits me just fine. Sure, I’m from seventh avenue today. 

“Well,” he continues, “You probably want some young guy–with muscles and all that–but that’s overrated.”

I just listen.

“Would you do me a favor?” he asks, before saying, “If I give you my number and promise you that I will be the best white b*tch you’ve ever had, will you call me?”

Is this happening? I wonder and then realize he’s actually waiting for an answer.

Waiting for me to either accept or refute his offer to be the BEST WHITE B*TCH I’VE EVER HAD. I am not sure there’s any competition; I am not sure, in fact, that I’ve ever even had one, to be honest.

I quickly mumble something about how my *boyfriend* would not like that.

The guy leans in and lowers his voice, “But he wouldn’t have to know,” he tells me, like we two could share the best secret known to man.

Oh, what fun.

“That wouldn’t work for me,” I tell him. “I’m honest.”

He looks disappointed and starts to walk away, but before he does, he asks, “Your boyfriend–how old is he?

“Twenty-seven,” I say, pulling a number out of the air.

He shakes his head. “You shoulda been with a twenty-seven year old when you were in high school,” he mutters as he makes his exit.

I don’t think my parents would agree with that sentiment.

And that might have been the weirdest exchange I’ve had with a stranger to date. Or at least, it’s in the top three, I’d say.

Gosh, best white b*tch I’ve ever had. 

And I walked away, folks; just walked away.

THANK GOD.

Yesterday I had to print some music and the printer was jammed. It was annoying. But then I fixed it. And I am now five sheets of music richer for it.

Today I did a handstand. I was spotted, but still. I DID IT. And you know why it happened? Because the yoga teacher asked if anyone in the room had any handstand experience. And not a soul raised their hand. Then she went right over to me and said I was going to demonstrate. News to me. She spotted me and then was all, “See class, as she goes up to her handstand…” And proceeded to wait for me to do just that. So I was like, OH SHOOT. And then I did it. And acted like it weren’t no thing at all. But secretly, it was a thing. Like, a brand new thing.

My point is that it’s amazing what we can do when we have to.

Like when I fixed my glove compartment because I wanted to be able to close the darn thing.

Like when I fixed the printer because I needed to print some music.

Like when I did a handstand because my teacher used me to demonstrate and the whole class was watching.

Like when I kept living when all I wanted to do was fall asleep forever.

I think that annoying or painful or even crushing situations can result in amazing discoveries within ourselves. I think that the human spirit has a resilience that is a miracle akin to the lame walking and the blind seeing. I think life is very messy but we clean up good and then we go on to do handstands and run many more miles than we ever thought we could and if we had gone to sleep forever we would have missed all that and that’s no good at all and even the mess is worth being alive for, if you think about it.

I think we grow and grow and grow.

And then we grow some more.

And growing pains are no joke, but man, it’s worth it (her brain tells her heart over and over again).

I went on a walk and watched the moon. For the first time maybe ever, the moon did not look sad. I felt like this was significant. Maybe because tonight the moon was the one thinking that I looked sad. Although, I don’t glow like the moon does; perhaps he couldn’t see me so well. I like to think that he can, though; I like to think we’re friends.

I played music at a women’s meeting at my church tonight. I am not exactly sure why, but ever since my life started acting a little funny, I have been scared of groups of women. I love them individually. En masse, though, I tend to stay away. And then there was the fact that I was sad today. I didn’t feel like going to church so much, and I sure didn’t feel like going to a church full of women. Which means that being there was probably the very best place for me. And it’s true. Singing was good; it made me cry, but that’s okay. Afterward, I was very emotional. Embarrassingly so. Someone would talk to me, and I would start to cry. Finally, I just explained that I will cry no matter what right now–so please, just go ahead and talk.

A friend told me that she has felt guilty. She went through a hard time in her marriage around the same time that mine was ending (SPOILER ALERT! my marriage ended. sorry, I am laughing about writing that. I just have always wanted to write spoiler alert! and I thought wow, I finally can. hahahaha…ha? yes, ha). She said that it doesn’t seem fair that she has a husband who was willing to make changes and say he’s so sorry and cared enough about her to, well, love her, when I did not. I told her to please not feel guilty. That it makes me happy that they are well and together. And that, to be honest, it is better that I am not with someone who did not (could not?) love me.

And this is true.

And then somebody hugged me for a while. She asked if she could. I cried, of course. I realized that, as she was hugging me, this kind of thing does not happen very much for me. I remember hearing about how some babies who do not get any kind of affection will simply die from lack of contact with another person. I don’t want to be the adult equivalent of a baby who dies from lack of affection. So I hugged her. And it was good. She grabbed my hands, touched my head, looked in my eyes. I was alive and connected. I was not a baby who was going to die from lack of affection. I was connected.

I was the supermoon and she was the earth and I was close to her.

I remember laying in bed and crying last (last) fall. I had been dropped off in a brand new world and it was a very lonely place. I didn’t know if I could do it; I didn’t even want to do it, really.

My friend Christian talked to me. He told me lots of things, but something he kept saying was, “You don’t need a man,” over and over again. It was not a magical sentence and it didn’t make me stop crying. I didn’t know if I believed him; at the time I hardly could believe much more than something or other about God and something or other about the fact that I knew I couldn’t die. Like, I wasn’t allowed to.

Today I was sitting at my piano and suddenly remembered about the Lady of Shalott. I actually own a print of the famous painting that depicts her still, white body floating down a river. I decided to do some reading about her. I threw in Elaine of Astelot as well. Some people think they are the same story, just told slightly differently and with different names. Tennyson wrote of the Lady of Shalott and Elaine of Astelot is a figure found in Arthurian Legend (the king, not the aardvaark). But here is a little breakdown:

The Lady of Shalott had some kind of job to do. She was an artist; a weaver, to be specific. I imagine she wove something beautiful. She wasn’t allowed to stop. Like, ever. And she lived in this ivory tower, you know–think Rapunzel’s digs from Tangled. She couldn’t see the real world, but she could look into this mirror that showed her shadowy reflections of a world she knew nothing of.

One day she was doing her weaving and she heard a man. It was Lancelot, though she didn’t know him. But the sound of this man compelled her to stop weaving. She ran to the window and looked at him and then BAM! the curse started its fatal work. She left her ivory tower in pursuit of Lancelot, got into a boat in the river that would eventually lead to Camelot, and died in that boat on the way. Once her body got to Camelot, Lancelot was the only one brave enough to look upon the face of this dead maiden. And what did he say? That she had a lovely face. First of all, she gave up her artistic career (magical weaving, you know), then died to see him, and all he could say was that she had a lovely face. To be fair, Lancelot didn’t ask her to do any of that–it was her choice–but still. He could have upped the compliment, I think.

Elaine of Astelot was another maiden who fell for Lancelot. What was it about Lancelot that the ladies couldn’t resist, I wonder? He was probably really funny. And had particularly nice calves. But, in a nutshell, Lancelot visited the home of Elaine (in Astelot. Just a wild guess). She fell in love with him and begged him to wear her token in the upcoming joust. He said sure, but it’d have to be in disguise (since Guinevere would be there. BIG RED FLAG, Elaine! But she probably couldn’t see past those shapely calves of his, poor girl). He did that, won the joust, and got injured. Elaine nursed him back to health and let him know that she liked him. Like, she like liked him.

Lancelot left anyway and Elaine died ten days later of a broken heart. Though she had arranged to be placed in a boat, en route to Camelot, where Lancelot lives. Her body arrived there with a lily in one hand and a love letter in the other. Lancelot read it and paid for her funeral, nice guy.

Anyway, I was just struck by these tragic stories.

By the way some girls don’t consider themselves something unless a man considers them something.

And then they end up dead in a boat, clutching a lily, and they wonder why.

Or they are in love with a man who has to be disguised in order to show any sort of attachment to them at all.

And it’s confusing, because I believe in love. I believe in two people making something better together than either of those two people could do on their own. I believe that, generally, happiness is shared. But I also believe in living your life now. Not waiting to be rescued from the ivory tower of singleness or settling for a man who won’t tell the world that he’s wearing your token and EVERYONE. SHOULD. BE. JEALOUS. or something like that.

So, yeah. I read all that and then I wrote this song/rap.

the lady of shalott

My dear friend Lindsay is my boss this week. Best boss ever. She works for the American philosophical association and, for this week at least, so do I.
Shane and I are busy placing job candidates with their interviews at a huge conference. I’ve really become quite good at spelling universities now. I mean, ‘kalamazoo’ doesn’t even give me pause anymore. And the thing is, I love helping people. They come to me with questions, and how nice that for one tiny moment the universe feels just right because look! here is the answer! It might be table 6 or suite 1345, but hey–an answer is an answer.

And getting here. Whoa. I forgot to mention there was a blizzard. And we were trying to go north. So our flight was cancelled and the APA put us on a train. Then our train situation was dodgy until we finally landed on the last train to Boston. I left my house at 2 pm. I got to Boston at around 3am. At one point, we were stranded on a bridge, the train’s engine having died. We were far from PA and far from Boston and so we laughed. What else are you going to do? My friends collin and Lindsay have a little six month old baby, senya; believe it or not, she was laughing a lot too. We finally got to Boston–and the inside route that led us through a mall to our hotel was closed. So we walked through the blizzard to the hotel. It was an adventure.

And it’s funny because candidates come up to me, hoping for more help than I can give. Someone actually asked my advice on the best way he could go about landing an interview with the UofVermont. He lowered his voice and spoke conspiratorially with me. He honestly thought I could put in a good word for him or something. Sadly, I had to break the news that he needed to do whatever it is academics normally do to get interviews at universities; that I have no horses head I can put in the dean’s bed on his behalf.

Not that I would ever do that anyway, but you get the point.

I’d like to pray that kind of prayer right now, if you don’t mind. And no, I’ve drunk nothing but water over the past forever, I think, but I am feeling a bit intoxicated, anyway. I am feeling sad and I am trying to think higher than this.

But right now it feels like thinking high thoughts must entail thinking about somebody else entirely. Because when my mind comes back to me, I drop in. I settle. I am here; I don’t know where else to be, really, and here is a place where happiness sounds a lot like how a friend would describe to me a foreign country. Oh my! the colors and the food and the winding streets and the people whose every sound is accented–that all seems like a lovely notion and I wonder if I will ever get to be there. I wonder if I will ever see it for myself. At this point, I do not know. I know about peace and contentment and purpose and love–but happiness? No, I don’t know about this.

And the overwhelming lack of a guarantee is more vivid now than when I was that girl who used to sing songs about Jesus to her animals. She had blonde hair and haphazard haircuts, bare feet and an inner world that hadn’t yet learned to be afraid. I wonder how she’s doing; I’m glad she doesn’t know as much as I do. I hope she never has to learn.

There is a brown wooden sign that says JESUS LOVES JESSICA that used to hang in my bedroom. When I moved out of my parents’ house, they moved it to the Wall Of Pictures, for some reason that none of us could ever figure out.  It made a few of my brothers upset, even. “Doesn’t Jesus love any of the rest of us?” they wondered aloud, more than once. And today, one brother mentioned the sign again. Only he said it backwards, by mistake. He meant to say that “Jessica is the only one who Jesus loves,” but it came out like this: “You guys still have that sign up to remind us all that Jesus is the only one who loves Jessica!”

We laughed.

I said don’t remind me.

Our laughter became poignant.

Because sometimes it feels that way. Though I know that isn’t true. But God, sometimes it feels that way, anyway.

So yes, I think I need to pray some drunkard’s prayers and keep trying to think higher.

I am sorry for the sad thoughts tonight; there is always tomorrow. There is always that girl who I once was. She’s still here with an inner world that is resilient as all get-out. She’s just stronger and tougher; her jokes are funnier and she cares about people despite it all. And no, she hasn’t stopped singing songs about Jesus–she just includes the word bastard every once in a while.

But don’t worry, she doesn’t include that particular word when she’s singing specifically about Jesus.

That is not my name for her; that is what she calls herself.

It was back when things were so very dark. It is like the opposite of when you see a light so bright, that it has a way of showing up even when you close your eyes. Because for me, the darkness was so much that it showed up even when I opened my eyes and proceeded to turn on every light I could find.

I didn’t feel like I belonged anywhere, especially not here where there were so many people who knew me and so many people who were asking me where he was and they hadn’t seen him for a while now, which was mighty curious indeed.

So I looked on craigslist and I found The Mature Mother. The rent was rather cheap for a place in New York City and she guaranteed me a couch all my own. At least when it came to bedtime, anyway; during the day, it would be used for sitting by anyone who happened to be in the living room. Naturally.

So I wrote her, asking her how soon I could move in.

She said soon, my dear. Well, she didn’t actually call me that, but seeing as she is The Mature Mother, it sounds like something she’d say. If I ever met her, I mean.

But I didn’t. Because I called Jase when I was really really down. He asked me what–other than the obvious–was making me so sad today. And I poured out my problems while the skies poured out the rain all around me. I was driving in the dark until I decided to park in the dark and that’s when I told Jase that I was corresponding with The Mature Mother.

“How mature is she?” he asked me.

“I don’t know–I think she just means she has a grown son or something.” I said.

“But what kind of person has a grown kid and defines themselves still by being that kid’s mother? I mean, kudos for having a kid and then even having that kid grow up–but isn’t there anything else about her?”

“Well, she has a couch. I know that cause, if I move there, I’ll sleep on it during the night and sit on it during the day. Probably with a few others. Sitting, I mean–not sleeping,” I clarify.

And then Jase told me that yes, things are really really hard, but please don’t go and start sleeping on the couch of someone who calls herself The Mature Mother. He thought there might be something better in store for me, after all. “At least give it some time, Jessica,” he ended by telling me. “If you still feel this way after a while, I am sure that The Mature Mother and her couch will still be there.”

And looking back, I am pretty sure he was right.

Both about something better being in store for me as well as how The Mature Mother and her couch are probably still there. I hope, anyway.

And that is my account of how I almost went to live with The Mature Mother.

And it was startling, actually, where we ended up. Because we were in Wilmington, driving by strip malls and underneath electric lights, when suddenly we turned off a highway and found ourselves right by a river that was doing something right because the land all around it was verdant and seemed to be saying an awful lot about springtime and life and the color green in general.

We parked the car and started walking and I felt like I could look at my surroundings forever. And if not forever, than at least for an hour or two before I wondered if anyone had texted me and shoot! I left my phone back at my friend’s house, anyway.

Don’t worry, I did that on purpose.

Part of the whole proving a certain friend of mine that I am not obsessed with my iphone, after all.

But the grass, it wasn’t just your every day green. It was like when you take a photograph and put it into iphoto and, when editing it, click on enhance and suddenly you blink because everything just got so much brighter. And then this grass was dotted with little yellow flowers and my goodness, but you know me: they had me at yellow.

But that would have been enough, you know? All that vibrant color carpeting the ground, acting all modest, like it was just its job anyway. Except then my friend took me to a very special place. A place, that for her, is a sanctuary. A place where it’s possible to hear the whispers of hope and grace that seemed to have been drowned out by the world clamoring for our attention for a long time now–probably even before you started noticing how cute boys are, but man, that sure didn’t help with trying to hear that whisper, did it?

Because there, on top of this hill and hidden by trees that, as it turns out, are some of the oldest and best secret keepers around, stands this small and rustic chapel. It’s rugged and it’s lovely and nobody has ever thought about installing anything so offensive as florescent lights in it. There’s a large wooden door and the floor is made of red bricks and wide grey stones. Oh! And I love this part, because there are tall archways on either side of the chapel, but they are devoid of any glass at all. Rather, they let the air come in and out as it pleases, and today the most perfectly warm breeze kept moving around inside the chapel. It was moving my hair too, which I figured was its right since it has been coming in and out of the place for a long time, while I had only just arrived.

And at the back of the chapel was a little unassuming plaque, one that tells a nice little story every minute of every day. Something about how the chapel was built in gratitude to God for a beautiful life–one filled with family, unique friends, joy, and laughter.

And tonight when I was telling a friend about this magical place, I told him that I’d like to be that, too: A temple of gratitude. One who’s hair might change an awful lot, who gets lost if she’s going anywhere that doesn’t happen to be home or the gas station down the street from home, and who falls for a fishy phone call enough to get her heart beating harder than normal when a silly friend disguises his voice at 2 am in the morning, telling her to come down to the police station or be arrested, but it’s your choice, ma’am…

But I agree with that little plaque. The one about this life being beautiful and, for this, being grateful.

And I hope to be able to find that perfect chapel again. Maybe with my guitar in tow next time.

But not before I say this.

Shane and I played in Brooklyn tonight, at a nice  little place called The Cove. The stage was small and cute, made even better by the unicorn wearing a pink veil with whom we shared it.

At first we couldn’t find the place. We finally just parked next to something called The Sea. We figured that coves are generally located near seas, so we had to be close. Turns out we were right: they were right next door to each other.

Our songs are so fun to sing; I love doing it.

And I love when there are people in the crowd who good and listen, which seemed to happen tonight.

Two highlights, though:

We wrote our set list on the back of a receipt while driving to Brooklyn. I decided to stick my gum in the corner of that receipt-turned-set-list right before we started playing. Towards the end of the set, it mysteriously disappeared. Good thing we remembered the songs that we sing, I guess. When we were done singing, I stood up to leave the stage and my friend called out, “The set list–Jess, it’s…ON YOUR BUTT!!! And sure enough, it was. Stuck there like I was in fifth grade and the receipt had KICK ME written on it, instead of the titles of our songs. Stuck there in a way that reminded me I should never ever use our set list as a place to put my gum. And yes, everyone laughed. Rightfully so, I may add.

Oh, and Fudd, the sound guy. He went up to Shane after our gig, told him he liked our music and said that he would certainly look for the lady papers on myspace.

And with a name like that, I’m pretty sure it can’t be long before Kotex or Tampax are our sponsors.

I have to say she was worth everything it took to go see her. Not that it was a lot on my part, per se. Especially when compared to the times you hear about people doing some street side vigils to get tickets. Or staying on the phone for hours. Or paying a lot more than $27.

But still, it was worth getting bumped into over and over again by the guy to my right who might have been five feet on a good day. Not that I hold anyone’s height (or lack thereof) against them. I mean, my own dear momma is not that tall, let’s face it. But she doesn’t spend all night long making loud announcements and then laughing hysterically at herself before she’s even finished the sentence. And this, in addition to all the hapless bumping into me.

And oh, here’s a tip: if you are the only one laughing at what you just said then there is a very strong possibility that you are just. not. funny.

Or that you are high.

Which was why I was not so sad when me and this continual jokester-complete-with-his-own-laugh-track ended up not standing next to each other by the time Ingrid Michaelson came out on stage. I can only say that I hope whoever eventually did stand next to him appreciated his jokes as much as I had.

But back to Ingrid, because she was great.

And really funny.

And didn’t bump into me once.

Proving that those two things can be done, small man who was maybe definitely high, I hope you’re listening.

And it’s a rare treat when you get to hear an artist who sounds better live than she does on her recordings. And it’s not like she sounds shabby on the recordings, either.

But she has a special place in my heart. I started listening to her while I was in Japan. A dear friend, Mindy, introduced me to her one day while we were both laying on the dressing room floor, wishing that we didn’t have another show to do in just an hour. She asked me if I wanted to hear the beautiful song she was listening to and I’m pretty sure I’m never gonna say no to a question like that.

So she gave me one half of her headphones and we lay there together, listening to Ingrid sing The Chain, which became one of my favorite songs ever.

And I’ve about worn that song out since. I will say that Japan was when I started noticing that my life as I knew it was unraveling. And by noticing, I mean desperately trying to get the attention of someone you love and feeling like you suddenly just have a crush on the man who married you and he doesn’t even remember your name. And as somebody on the other side of the world kept pulling and pulling at the thread, ripping it out until there was barely any fabric to cover us at all anymore, I would write pitiful love songs on my guitar or listen to Ingrid Michaelson sing about how everybody, everybody wants to love, everybody everybody wants to be loved and I would silently agree cause yeah, that’s all I wanted. Is that such a terrible thing, anyway?

And then I came home and that thread was even shorter. Shorter than I ever knew it could be. And there we were, our relationship exposed and uglier than I ever knew it could be, either; cause that poor thread had been pulled and pulled until the fabric was gone entirely, having been used to make a different blanket for a different person. And there I was, feeling naked and ashamed and less than while not knowing what to do about it except write and listen to music. Oh, and pretend to the world that everything was good enough.

Which is when I wrote this.

It was a time when he was upset with me and had left abruptly. Again. And I didn’t know the half of it. And I couldn’t compete with a person I didn’t even know had taken my place. All I knew to be was myself and suddenly that wasn’t good enough.

But I’d once again find some small comfort in listening to the song, The Chain. And it’s one of those songs that makes me really happy and really sad at once; really happy that it was written at all and really sad that it wasn’t me who had written it in the first place.

And even though Ingrid didn’t sing The Chain tonight, I still absolutely loved getting to hear her live. She was inspiring. Plus, she plays a very small guitar. Something that I do too, so it gave me a little more courage in that direction. A little less reason to feel very defensive when people ask me about it. Over and over again.

But yes, listening to her was pretty darn great. Like I said, worth every bit of the $27 and all that jazz.