That Perfect Strength

Sometimes Life tests us.  Hardcore.  To the bone.  Maybe further than that.  Whatever "that" is and however deep "that" goes.  I thought after all my surgeries I'd learned how to just take it some more when I couldn't take things anymore.  Not so.  Life's challenges are all different.  They take different courage and different strength to face.  But strength nonetheless.  And I suppose I'm always learning how to face new challenges and the chaos that comes along with that. 

If there's one thing I've learned in my forty-one years and counting, even if we're ridiculously type-A personalities, even if we're fiercely independent, even if we actually believed once upon a time we could do literally anything (and probably pretty perfectly), it's this:  we sometimes need others who can see with vivid clarity the strength inside us that we ourselves have forgotten that we possess.  Because they can see us from the outside.  They have always seen us.  With true eyes.  And they remember all our triumphs along the way.  They intimately know the stuff we're made of.  They know we may be utterly tender-hearted, and broken in ways we desperately wish we weren't, but we're also made of steel where it matters.

I am so lucky in this life to have an incredibly dear family and chosen sister-friends who constantly remind me what grace is and who remind me that strength sits quietly beneath the surface, in a reserve we may think is empty, but it is certainly not.  I could spend hour upon hour writing about my family tonight, but I think I'll save that for another time.  Tonight, I want to focus on a specific night.  In my hometown in Louisiana.  One week ago, tomorrow.  In a beautiful home.  With some very special women.

I found myself the Wednesday night before Thanksgiving sitting in Alexandria with three of my dearest girlfriends at one of their houses.  They even yielded to me the ottoman so I could rest my bunk hip after my long journey in from Dallas after pouring me a glass of red wine as soon as I walked in, after big hugs with each of them, of course.  It's been weeks or maybe months since I'd had a drink, so it didn't take much to make me start to feel warm.  The relief at just being in the same room with them, and the laughter with which we all were frequently overcome, also helped. 

I've known these women the better part of my life.  One since near birth and the other two since junior high.  And we've seen and done and lived and loved through SO MUCH together.  Such beautiful heights, and such heartbreaking lows.  One is an artist.  One is a teacher.  One is a lawyer.  (And I'm realizing as I write this that I, myself, am an artist, former teacher, and current lawyer... all three... fascinating.)  All of us are moms with two kids each.  And all are so very beautiful, inside and out.  And it just so happens all three of these dear women friends of mine are widows.  In their early 40s.  It's not what anyone would have ever expected... or planned... or wanted.  But it is.  Life does not follow a playbook, as I was recently reminded by someone else dear to me.  It's also quite the beautiful mess, as I was also reminded recently by someone else I admire. 

And I know there are no accidents.  I need strength in this chapter of my life, and it is here I found myself.  Listening to and talking with these amazingly strong souls sitting before me.  The universe gives us exactly what we need in order to do what we need to do and be who we need to be.  I sat there in sheer wonder at the strength of these women I adore sitting around a table with me.  I would have never guessed in a million years back in our youth that we would be having these moments, these conversations at this stage of life, when back then we were dying our hair with Koolaid, running around at Mardi Gras in Lafayette, sunbathing, jumping on trampolines, or sitting on top of the world, or in Lodi, with Icees (that may or may not have been spiked).  We ultimately moved to the dining table where we shared tears and stories, songs and dreams, laughs and what-the-hells.  We held hands when we needed, lifted each other up, and we ate pecan pie.  With whipped cream.  We all understand deep love and deep pain in different ways and take nothing for granted.  It's as deep as it gets.  It almost felt like we were characters in some movie or something (though there's already a Ya Ya book-turned-movie about other amazing women from Alexandria).  But this is no movie.  This is the real shit.  The deeper pains and most treasured gifts only mid-life can bring.  I felt like such a lucky girl in that moment, despite the harsh realities we all discussed and cried our way through together.

I am still so in awe of those women and their stories, and mine interwoven with theirs.  And their all accepting love for me.  And mine for them.  It was no accident I was fully present in their presence that night, and I felt more at peace than I have in months.  The gnawing pit in my stomach subsided for a glorious while as I just existed in a deeply personal way with those girls.  We all Need More (#fileitunderNeedMore) in different ways.  And maybe, just maybe, we're here together on our journeys to help make sure those needs get met.  Actually, there's no maybe about it.  No irony is lost on me.  No serendipitous moment escapes my notice.  I hear it all.  Absorb it all.  And I am feeling my way in the dark... looking for stars all the while.  Hugging and holding hands of women I love through it all, deep in a special November night back home.

 

That Perfect Weather

Gray day.  Everything is gray.  I watch, but nothing moves today.  I feel like I should be wearing a gray dress to match. 

I drove in the rain with the windows down just to let the morning's 42 degrees blow around in my car cabin with me.  It almost feels like it goes right through me.  That exhilarating cold is like nothing else, especially with seat heaters to balance it out.  I could do this for days.  Welcome winter.

That Perfect Imperfect Show

November 1, 2017.  Iron &Wine at the Kessler Theater in Dallas. 

Upstairs in the balcony, I sat nestled into the seat closest to and overlooking the stage, a mere tiny stone's throw from Sam Beam down below (though I'd never dare throw a stone at him).

I was transfixed.  Enamored.  Stunned to my core in the most beautiful way.  And when the lights dimmed, I felt all the space around me tunnel down toward the stage so that I noticed nothing else.  My body pains melted away.  The warm air felt temperature-less.  My tickly throat quieted itself.  I won't lie, some warm tears fell from time to time, and I noticed those as I let them run down where they may or occasionally wiped them away.  But my focus was intense, drawn, pulled, targeted.  It's amazing how physical sensations drop away when the spiritual is tapped into.  Occasionally, my gaze would drift elsewhere--to other band members or to the crowd--but then my mind would jump in and abruptly fix my eyes back on Sam because I wanted to be sure to soak up every single visual moment I could and didn't want to waste my eyes' unique ability to absorb on anything else.

Strings on various instruments popped with a twang during the performance.  And Sam's guitars weren't tuning properly, and I think I heard him say his capo was broken.  And he said fuck a lot when things wouldn't go right, but always in the most charming way.  And certain guitars didn't want to play the set list they had planned, so Sam said.  So he improvised and played whatever he felt like playing, which I'm thankful for after seeing the set list online and comparing it to my memory.  That's how Jezebel ended up being played.  And a cool song about Texas (which he said was NOT entitled "Texas Is Awesome" because that would be a stupid song).  So there was more heart all the way around because he got to play what the moment told him to play.  (There's a larger lesson there, I'm pretty sure.)

This video shows Sam talking about the mishaps.  But they made the performance more intimately perfect for the imperfections.

And here's one more mishap clip just for fun:

 The most straight up perfect moment of the show was the opening song.  THIS:

*DISCLAIMER... So I THINK I was able to sufficiently trim this video to fit in the Blogger parameters.  So, enjoy (hopefully) most of the song.   But because I had to trim it to get it to fit here, if you want to see the *almost* entire performance of The Trapeze Swinger (and the attendant chills and goosebumps that go with that; you should probably sit down), you'll have to just go visit my Facebook page instead where I posted it on November 2.*

And yet another imperfection: Sam refused to play Such Great Heights, despite the vast multitude excitedly chanting and calling from the darkened crowd for him to play it as an encore.  Instead of playing that song, here's what he gave us instead before playing a different final song:

So Sam left us all with a pretty grand humdinger of an intentional imperfection, so we'd have something to look forward to for next time (except for the girl who said she'd just listen to it in the car on the way home... certainly not the same as Sam playing it live... but I listened to it later, too, of course, to get my fix... it really does feel like an intense addiction that just isn't ever sated).  Next time, Sam.  Next time.  I mean it.  But, in truth, the imperfections are where so much of the beauty waits, hiding, smiling its secret smile.  To be mulled over and appreciated again and again as the music, his voice, those words all still stream in my mind, now days later, on repeat... on repeat... on repeat.  And still leaves me so thirsty for more.