#dailytulips and socially distanced walks.

One of the things I hate the most about this pandemic: it’s playing on and heightening all our usual fears.

As a recent divorcée who lives alone, one of my deep fears is disappearing: being forgotten, ignored or simply overlooked. I’ve worked hard to build and maintain my relationships over the last year, and I’m deeply grateful for my community, both local and far-flung – though the loneliness still hits hard sometimes.

Several weeks into quarantine, it became clear I was going to need more than FaceTime dates and Zoom calls to stay connected. Fortunately, several of my girlfriends feel the same, so we’ve been going on walks, either here in Eastie or along the Charles River.

I won’t lie: it’s weird not to be able to hug them, or invite them upstairs for a cup of tea. But these socially-distanced, masked walks are still feeding my soul. We get to soak up the fresh air and (often) the sunshine, trade small anecdotes about our days and/or talk about the big life stuff. Sometimes it’s work and relationships; sometimes general pandemic craziness; sometimes we dive into books or fashion. Being together in person, even from six feet apart, is seriously the best. (The longer evenings also help.)

How are you staying connected in these strange days?

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#dailytulips and church online.

Good morning, friends. Here we are in week 9 (I think). The weekends do still feel a little different, mostly because I’m not trying to work from my kitchen table.

The past few Sunday mornings, I’ve been tuning into a livestreamed church service from Highland, my church in Abilene. This is a little fraught, I admit: Highland is where I spent countless hours singing on the praise team with my ex-husband, who was the worship leader there. We had our rehearsal dinner in the Highland atrium, and we lived across the alley from the church when we were first married. It was our place, and it is still full of people who love both of us.

Many of you know that we lost our church community here in Boston in September 2018, a loss which has echoed through the following year and a half, especially when my marriage subsequently fell apart. I did make a few attempts to find a new church, or just a place to sit and cry, after we stopped going to Brookline, but it was always hard. (The exceptions were special occasions, like the glorious carol service at Memorial Church in early December, and the lovely, twinkly Christmas Eve service at my childhood church in West Texas.)

In this time of quarantine, I couldn’t walk into a church if I wanted to, and while that is tough, I’ve also felt a sneaking sense of relief. I’ve been turning back to the things that comfort me (haven’t we all?), and the familiar sight of the Highland auditorium, and a few faces and voices I know, is a deep comfort to me. They start with singing – my favorite part of any church service – and then a child recites the Lord’s Prayer via video. I’ve enjoyed seeing a few of the elders, whom I know, get up and lead prayers, too. Sometimes I skip the sermon, but when I’ve listened, I have found wisdom and grace there.

I’ve also been enjoying some of the “Daily Thought” videos from St Aldates, the big, vibrant, loving church in Oxford where I went as a student. And the best “sermon” I’ve heard in this strange time came from my friend Richard Beck, who spoke at the last virtual chapel of the semester for ACU, my alma mater, last week. He reminded the graduating seniors, and all of us, that status and productivity and wealth don’t really matter: what matters is that we are deeply, inherently loved. (His talk starts about 30 minutes into the video.)

Where are you finding encouragement – spiritual or otherwise – in these times? I’d love to hear.

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#dailytulips and thoughts: a May blog series.

Hello, friends. Happy Monday, and happy May.

I’m writing to you from my kitchen floor, where I sometimes sit for a bit these days to give myself a break from the kitchen table. (A couple of weeks ago, I started having serious soreness and muscle tightness – at least partly caused by weeks of sitting on a hard chair.)

I was a bit burned out after 30 straight days of posting stories from quarantine, but I’d like to keep creating and sharing with you during May. To that end: daily tulips, and a daily thought, at least on the weekdays.

It is tulip season in Boston (hallelujah), and I’ve been snapping and sending daily blooms to a friend in California (hi Allison!) who loves them as much as I do. Both the parks around town and my neighborhood are full of glorious, nodding beauties, and I want to share them with you. (I may switch to #dailylilacs or something if we run out of tulips.)

Today’s thought, like so many of mine right now, is related to connection. In this extended time of social distancing, I have been missing time with my people, though I still get to hug my guy, thank goodness. Several friends of mine are feeling the same way: those with kids/partners at home need some additional adult interaction, and those of us who live alone are dying for face-to-face connection, period.

As we head into the next phase of whatever-this-new-normal-is, I’ve got to make some shifts: I can’t count on one person for everything, nor can I spend all day, every day, alone with my own thoughts. We are all taking calculated risks, even if they’re small, and I need some of mine to include community.

So last week I took a (distanced) walk with a girlfriend, and made plans to check in regularly with another on the phone. I FaceTimed a friend from high school, and took a long, glorious Sunday afternoon ramble with a local friend. We stopped by Downeast to buy some cider, and we waved at a few folks I know. It might not be magic, but it’s helping.

My therapist expressed it well: how can I sprinkle in moments of being seen throughout the week? As we head into May, I’m keeping that in mind: how to seek out that space for connection, and create it for others.

Where are you this week, friends? I’d love to know. I’ll be back tomorrow, with more tulips.

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Stories from quarantine: You and Me and Everyone We Know.

One of the strange gifts of this time in quarantine is the chance to reconnect with friends I haven’t talked to in a while. I’ve had several phone chats, FaceTime dates and Instagram exchanges with girlfriends from college, and am texting with my best friend from high school more regularly. And last month, I spoke to my friend Brent for his coronavirus podcast, You and Me and Everyone We Know.

Brent and I were part of the same friend group in college, and we followed each other’s blogs as I went back to Oxford and he went to the Peace Corps, and then I moved to Boston (after another stint in Abilene) and he found his way to Minneapolis, where he lives now with his husband and their kids. We keep up on Instagram, but hadn’t actually spoken in years. It was such a treat to catch up a bit and hear his warm, kind voice.

The episode I’m on includes two other conversations: one with Brent’s younger sister, Macey, and one with his friend Kedrin. Brent and I talked running, isolation in a one-bedroom apartment, social distancing with friends at the park, the approach of spring, and more. You can listen on his website, on Spotify or on Apple Podcasts. Enjoy!

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Poetry Friday: Gwendolyn Brooks

Paul Robeson

That time
we all heard it,
cool and clear,
cutting across the hot grit of the day.
The major Voice.
The adult Voice
forgoing Rolling River,
forgoing tearful tale of bale and barge
and other symptoms of an old despond.
Warning, in music-words
devout and large,
that we are each other’s
harvest:
we are each other’s
business:
we are each other’s
magnitude and bond.

I’ve been seeing this poem everywhere recently, particularly the last lines: the current crisis has reminded us all how interconnected we are.

April is National Poetry Month, and I am sharing poetry here on Fridays this month, as I do every year. 

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Stories from quarantine: the singing.

In the dark times
Will there also be singing?
Yes, there will also be singing
About the dark times.

—Bertolt Brecht

The thing I miss most about church is the singing.

I enjoy other parts of church: the community, the prayers, communion, a thoughtful sermon. But the thing that often gets me in the door is the chance to lift my voice and sing. And while most of us are quarantined, I’ve been missing the faith communities I love, whose music moves me.

But the singing, like so many aspects of “normal” life, hasn’t disappeared altogether. One of my neighbors is a musician, and I can often hear her singing as she comes in and out the front door, or when I go down to the basement to do laundry. When my guy comes over, he sings as he moves around the kitchen: Motown or gospel or classic R&B. We know some of the same hymns, too, and once in a while we sing one together.

I’ve been streaming the occasional church service during this time, and tuning into the weekly chapel service from ACU, my alma mater. It’s not the same as being present with others to sing, but I like at least hearing other voices. I’ve sat at my kitchen table singing “Great is Thy Faithfulness,” or hummed “In Christ Alone” while I’m heating up lunch. On Good Friday, I streamed the afternoon service from St Aldates, and sang along with “When I Survey the Wondrous Cross.”

A couple of weeks ago, ACU put out a call for video submissions of a song all of us know and love: “The Lord Bless You and Keep You.” It’s our unofficial school song: we sing it at graduation, at the end of Sing Song, at the beginning and end of every school year. Our college choir used to sing it at the end of every week, and it was the final piece in every concert we performed. (My ex and I even had the congregation sing it at our wedding.) And now, you can hear more than 500 of us singing it on YouTube.

Whether you are religious or not, I wish this for you, and for all of us during this time: mercy and peace, hope and love. With an a cappella sevenfold Amen.

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saving my life: coronavirus edition.

Hello, friends. Here we are, staring down week 5 (say it ain’t so) of what my former colleague Juliette Kayyem calls “the now normal.” It is also Easter Sunday, and the middle of Passover – and if you are celebrating, I hope you’re finding ways to do that.

These days are edged with worry and fear and loneliness, but also deep gratitude, and I still believe the small good things are always worth sharing and celebrating. In my quarantine stories I am trying to be honest about all of it, but today I really want to focus on the good.

So, even while this is hard (and it is, y’all), here is what’s saving my life now.

• Watching the birds in the apple tree out back – there’s a pair of cardinals, several blue jays, some tiny house wrens, what I think are yellow finches.
• That same tree, leafing out and getting greener every day (with a few blossoms showing up, too).
• Online yoga – with Adriene, the crew at Savin Hill Fitness, or Renee at the Point. My old green yoga mat is getting a lot of use these days.
• Daffodils, crocuses, early tulips and cherry trees, which are blooming away, oblivious to anything but the light and the warmer weather.
• The saucer magnolias in the neighborhood, which are pure pink-and-white glory.
• Tea in my favorite mugs – I stocked up on my favorites from MEM Tea just as all this hit.
• Texts from friends near and far, FaceTime with my sister, phone calls with friends and my parents, and the occasional video message on Marco Polo.
• Running – my usual route along the harborwalk and greenway here in Eastie is keeping me sane.
• Walks, when I’ve been inside all day or even just for a couple of hours.
• Juliette’s smart, pragmatic commentary in the Atlantic and on Twitter.
• Occasional trips to the bodega for necessities and human contact.
• Fresh flowers – my beloved florist has closed for now, so I’m getting both my flowers and groceries at Trader Joe’s.
• The #LivefromHome music performances online, spearheaded by Chris Thile and multiplying beautifully.
• This video, made by students from Berklee, where I work – it has gone viral in the best way, and it’s sweet and wonderful.
• Good books: the last few (for now) physical review copies, the last of my library stack, a reread of Rilla of Ingleside.
• Seeing my colleagues’ faces during our weekly Zoom meetings.
• Long walks and bear hugs with my guy.
• Sidewalk chats with my friends in the neighborhood – we are all staying home/staying six feet apart, but it’s good to be together in person.

What is saving your life in these strange days? Please share, if you like.

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Poetry Friday: Naomi Shihab Nye

Two Countries

Skin remembers how long the years grow
when skin is not touched, a gray tunnel
of singleness, feather lost from the tail
of a bird, swirling onto a step,
swept away by someone who never saw
it was a feather. Skin ate, walked,
slept by itself, knew how to raise a
see-you-later hand. But skin felt
it was never seen, never known as
a land on the map, nose like a city,
hip like a city, gleaming dome of the mosque
and the hundred corridors of cinnamon and rope.

Skin had hope, that’s what skin does.
Heals over the scarred place, makes a road.
Love means you breathe in two countries.
And skin remembers–silk, spiny grass,
deep in the pocket that is skin’s secret own.
Even now, when skin is not alone,
it remembers being alone and thanks something larger
that there are travelers, that people go places
larger than themselves.

I went looking for a poem to share with you today and found this one via Shihab Nye’s episode of On Being. I love her work, and in this time when connection looks different, this poem seemed particularly apt.

Many of us will remember being alone, and also connected, in these days. I am grateful for the technology that’s letting us talk and text and wave via Zoom and FaceTime, but you can bet I look forward to hugging my people when this is all over.

April is National Poetry Month, and I am sharing poetry here on Fridays this month, as I do every year. 

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Stories from quarantine: the bodega.

One of the things that surprised me when this pandemic hit was the grocery store panic.

I understand a bit of stocking up, especially if you’re not going to go out as much for a while. (I come from Texan and Midwestern farming families, and one of my grandmothers had a basement stocked with enough canned goods to weather the apocalypse. After my Papaw’s funeral, when Aunt Carmen and I cleaned out the fridge, we had to sneak a jar of long-expired mayonnaise and another of salad dressing out the side door so Mimi wouldn’t see us.)

Anyway, in the face of looming quarantine, it only made sense for people to buy a bit more than usual, if they could. But I was shocked by the stories of empty shelves and long grocery lines, and especially flummoxed by the toilet paper hoarding. It dismayed me, too: I felt like we were giving into our worst impulses before things had even gotten really bad.

When the big stores have been short on some supplies – even Trader Joe’s was low on pasta sauce and toilet paper, for a while – the little bodegas in my neighborhood have still had the essentials. I’ve been dropping in once or twice a week, for eggs or peanut butter or a red bell pepper, and a little chitchat with the guy behind the counter. The TV is usually playing something in Spanish, and I’ll see a kid coming in to buy a candy bar, or a Latina grandmother shopping for dinner.

I don’t speak (much) Spanish, but I grew up hearing it on the street: Spanish is the first language of so many folks who live in Texas. Because Eastie is home to lots of immigrants from the Caribbean and other parts of Latin America, I hear a lot of Spanish spoken here, and it feels like home.

I’m grateful for the convenience of the bodega, the chance to support a small business, and the good chance that they’ll have what I need (including toilet paper). It makes me feel a bit more a part of the neighborhood, and it reminds me that so often, what we need is right here.

(Photo is of Molly Wizenberg’s roasted eggplant ratatouille, which I have made twice recently and am totally making again this weekend.)

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y’all come sing

Several times recently, I’ve found myself in a friend’s living room, paging through a hymnal or flipping through a binder of Christmas-themed sheet music. I’ve joined a holiday choir in my neighborhood, and we’re rehearsing a mixture of classic, well-known carols (O Come O Come Emmanuel, The First Noel, Silent Night) and choral arrangements that are new to me.

I used to do this all the time when I lived in Texas, whether it was a praise team rehearsal early on a Sunday morning (standing in a rough circle in the passageway leading to the baptistry) or gathering in Gail and Calvin’s living room on a Sunday night. More recently, there were many Sunday nights at Ryan and Amy’s, west of Boston, where we’d pull out the hymnals after dinner and sing a few favorite songs.

As a college student, I sang in ACU’s choir, where we performed mostly classical music – some of it complex and demanding. Our kind-eyed director, Dr. Mike, would occasionally grow frustrated when we got sloppy during an opera chorus or failed to hit the harmonies precisely. This was not, he would sometimes remind us, a “y’all come sing.” We were aiming for technique and skill beyond that.

Every Thursday, though, we would end rehearsals for the week with The Lord Bless You and Keep You, sitting on carpeted risers in the rehearsal room that felt like home. Letting the harmonies and the sevenfold Amen wind over and around each other, we let our voices be a benediction to one another before we parted for the weekend. In those moments, we simply had to show up and sing.

I understood Dr. Mike’s point, then and now: we were practicing a craft, learning new techniques and often performing really difficult music. Those pieces took focus and discipline; we couldn’t just open our mouths and sing any old way. But he knew – and so do I – that there is a place for “y’all come sing.”

There’s a place for letting the music be the reason we gather, rather than a polished end in itself. There’s a place for y’all – because where I come from, y’all means everyone. There’s a place for the beauty that comes in missed notes and unfamiliar lyrics and those moments where it all comes together in a way that feels, just a little bit, like grace.

(Photo from the end of this year’s Newport Folk Festival, which was a different kind of “y’all come sing.”)

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