Author: heartlandsoul

by

Unshaped Musics Hovering at the Edges of Songs

I.

A concert. This singer whose thing is profound prayerful words and ethereal melodies layered over subtle and complex looped harmonies laid down by herself – why are these people not shutting up and listening? I feel annoyed. The talking is preventing me from hearing the vocal nuances that my ears are straining towards. I project: is she frustrated with this unlistening crowd, is she efforting to get their attention? Does the container feel strong to her, does she feel embraced and safe to express her living soul? I try to pull my hearing back to the wide range. I’m looking out over a field of bobbing heads, a sea of human sounds, swelling, cresting, receding, growing again. Never still, but not, taken as a whole, jarring. I imagine the singer at the end of a long dock, casting her voice onto the waves, throwing it into the wind, so that it comes to the listener translated, transmuted, laden with other sounds from the seen and unseen realms. Maybe that is how she prefers it. I relax into the ocean and begin to float. 

II. 

A jazz trio – where the drummer is the leader. His coolness fills the room, then his controlled strokes to the shimmering cymbals cause the sun to rise. The concert is about the rhythm he hears, he feels, his heartbeat and the pulse of the cosmos. Between official notes, a competing beat emerges. I’m sitting in the back near the kitchen door and I can hear pots being dropped into a metal sink, rinsed plates slapped into steaming stacks and rattling as the dishwasher slides them down the line. I wonder if dishwashers in jazz clubs are so tuned to the sounds out in the room that their work becomes a form of groove and their motions consciously or unconsciously modulate to fit in with what’s being played onstage. It doesn’t bother me; I kind of like it. For backing vocals, a drunk woman at the next table unable to keep up with the Polite Hush dance that the rest of us are trying to do. I’m unaware until afterwards that dirty looks had been thrown. I’m absorbed in the polyrhythm of real world blues played against jazz, life and art at odds yet inseparable, as always. 

III. 

Modern dance with classical accompaniment, a highbrow performance in a fancy downtown theater. This time the disturbance is inside me. I’m late to the venue and have to wait outside for the first ten minutes. I react crabbily and promptly fill with shame. When the usher lets me in I skulk to my seat, imagining everyone’s judging eyes on me. Taking off my coat I think a skinny person, a more graceful person, would make this gesture less disruptively. My breath is shallow and my pulse is not regular and I’m sure everyone in the vicinity wishes I hadn’t come. As I shift in my seat, the squeaks it makes sound like yells. I notice my knee is pressing the back of the chair in front of me and I hope I haven’t irritated that person, too. I feel like I’m clashing with everything. But I am here, and there’s no leaving now. I try to breathe in the notes coming from the grand piano – far away down there, but the most powerful energetic presence in the place. I force my attention out of my self-critical mind and into my ears. Gradually, I begin to calm down. The music itself twists the tuning pegs inside me until the waves I’m making fall into quiet harmony with my environment. 

… i keep trying to hear how it all goes together … sometimes it’s clear and sometimes it’s not … but i remain convinced that all of these sounds are here for a reason …

by

This Precious Present Moment

Yes, I too cast my vote for four more years of stability, of moving certain good policies forward step by incremental step while tabling other concerns as too complicated, too intractable, too much a part of the fabric of who we are to really engage with right now. I voted for the status quo. I voted for Clinton. But that’s not who we got (or so, at least, it seems, though I know some out there are working to overturn this outcome at the electoral college and other levels).

We got Trump. I didn’t want Trump – I REALLY didn’t want Trump – but we got ‘im.

And it feels to me like we’re now in a new era. The Trump era. The era in which Trump has been elected president. Maybe it will be over before the inauguration in 2017. Maybe it will go for eight years. We don’t know. All we know is that we are in it now.

In this now, in this present moment, which is the only moment there ever is, a large enough number of Americans have come together to successfully elect Trump as president to be. 

And I’m like,

Ok. 

This is where we are. 

What now?

And I’m drawing on my faith, and my education (I have a PhD in American Studies, though I’ve chosen to live outside of academia), and the power of creative vision to try and discern – 

What to do NOW? 

Now that here is where we are?

And my answer is the same as James Baldwin’s answer was in The Fire Next Time: Practice radical, transformative, revolutionary love. 

And I’m going to be offering, here in this space, and in every other platform that’s mine, and in every instance in which my opinion is asked for (or even just allowed), my ideas about what that radical, transformative, revolutionary love might or could look like in action.  

And I think that what I will have to offer may be challenging for some. It probably won’t be conventional. It may or may not be what you want to hear or what you’re ready for. And that is totally ok. I know we are all in different places on this. You be where you are. Be there fully, authentically, so you can speak the words you need to speak and ask for the care and support you need. I ask you to honor your rage, pain, hurt, grief, anger, fear, despondency, disappointment, alarm, and anything else you’re justifiably feeling, and let it move through you. Let the free flow of emotion clean you out from the inside. 

And if and when you wish to begin (or get back to) the work of healing this nation, may we find ourselves standing together. 

Because healing is what needs to happen here. Not reconquering. Not showing those so-and-so’s what’s what. Not smashing the “bad” people with our “good” “right” “truth.” 
(Challenging yet?) 

Not winning. Healing. 

I know I’ve said a lot already, but it has all been a lead-up to this, the “first thing” I want to say. 

I live mostly in a liberal bubble between Denver and Boulder, Colorado. But right now I just happen to be back in the area where I grew up, an extremely impoverished region of rural southwest Pennsylvania, visiting my mom, who is seriously ill. It goes almost without saying that this is deep Trump territory. When the results came in, I was wishing desperately that I could be back in my home community, comforting and being comforted by my friends, expressing my solidarity by standing together, singing together, praying together. 

But I that’s not where I was. So I stood, sang, prayed here – alone but connected. Together in spirit with not just my friends, but ALL the people. 

And then I went out. Into the world. Among the people. The people who are here. The ones that some of my liberal friends might consciously or unconsciously think of as hicks, rednecks, uneducated poor white trash. Racist, bigoted, homophobic, misogynist or simply duped and misled Trump supporters. My family. My relatives. The people I grew up with. The people I came from. Who shaped the course of my early life. 

And I saw

Their hearts. 

I saw their hearts. 

I FELT their hearts. 

And I recognized 

what I felt

because I have felt it 

in me. 

The opening in the chest when the fear, pain, hurt, anger that have been pent up inside, get to finally be spoken. 

The sudden shaky lightness of having been delivered of a weight of feeling that was crushing the soul with its heaviness, strangling the spirit with frustration, suffocating the life force with the despair of never being allowed to be spoken. 

And I see, above these hearts that have this sudden shaky lightness about them, jaws that are still clenched, facial muscles tense and twitching, necks stiff and unbending: People determined and ready to fight to keep from being forced back into silence. 

And what came to me was Marshall Rosenberg’s work on nonviolent communication, in which we recognize that people who are lashing out are doing so be they have needs that aren’t being met, and they’ve lost faith in peaceful means of getting their needs met, and they’re resorting to aggression out of desperation and hopelessness. 

And so you witness. 

You let them speak. You let them know you hear. You ask, Is there more?

You welcome them to speak until enough pressure has been released to make space to talk about other solutions. Effective solutions. Sustainable solutions. Solutions in which another person does not have to be harmed for the needs of the first to be met. 

Really met. Fully met. Lovingly met. 

So in the face of this group of people collectively waving their fists and shouting, I’M ANGRY! I’M UPSET! I’M SUFFERING AND I BLAME, I BLAME, I BLAME!

I’m going to say, Wow. I see that you are angry. 

I hear your words. 

I hear you when you say you’re frustrated. 

And I feel the fear and pain you’re in, underneath that anger. 

It must feel really bad. 

I’m really sorry you’re feeling that way. 

I hear you. 

I see you. 

I feel you. 

I love you. 

And I am committed with every cell and holy atom of my being to building a nation, a world where you, and you, and you, and I, and ALL of us, EVERY ONE of us, can have our needs met. 

In solidarity. 

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What stands out

I’m getting ready for a trans choir “flash mob” performance that I’m going to be in tomorrow. We’re going to be “spontaneously” singing on 16th Street Mall in downtown Denver tomorrow afternoon. The chosen date falls just between National Coming Out Day (Oct. 11) and the Transgender Day of Remembrance (Nov. 20). We’re singing, “We are here in the memory of those who have fallen…” Celebration, pride, and grief are all somehow simultaneously present.

I was going to bring a list of transgender people who have been murdered in the US in 2016, for anyone who is interested. I pulled some articles. One account noted that back in September, the 23rd killing made this the deadliest year for transgender people since such things have been tracked. I found this list of names and short descriptions on a Wikipedia page that’s clearly lovingly maintained by someone (or some group) who cares. And here’s an interesting fact:

Out of the 23 transgender people killed, sixteen are described as black. Three are described as Latina. One is described as a trans woman of color. One is described as white. Two are not described by their race.

What can be said here?

Here’s what comes up for me: That we talk some about how fucked up it is that realizing someone is transgender is a valid legal reason for murdering them, but we talk not much about the clear fact that being of a non-white race most definitely comes into play when it’s being determined how expendable your life is, here in the US.

Right now, I am just pointing out what stands out to me. And at this particular moment, that’s all the words I have.

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Mbira & Magic
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Mbira & Magic

I just got to be part of the coolest musical event. My friend Mary Ellen is having a landmark birthday – you know, one of those big round numbers with a zero after it where everyone says you need to have a party and invite all your friends from different areas of life. But Mary Ellen had a better idea. She’s a multi-instrumentalist and singer who’s part of numerous music communities around the Front Range (and around the world!) and so instead of the usual awkward unstructured birthday mingle, she decided to have a concert/recital in which she performed a variety of songs with “musical colleagues” from all of her different spheres. This would bring together people who didn’t know each other and give them something in common, and it would raise money for several charities that work in Africa and the Middle East – where (just a few of) the musical traditions she practices in originate. 

Imagine what a delight and honor it was for me that this lovely being thinks of me as a “musical colleague”! 

I got to accompany her on guitar for a few songs, assist with leading rounds for the whole group to sing, and be part of some a cappella pieces. Some of the people I sang with were old friends and some were people I had just met, but the shared purpose of celebrating Mary Ellen’s rich life and uplifting those who were gathered for the concert created a powerful heart attunement. 

(Side note: The effects of community singing on the people doing it have been very much on my mind lately, which may be the topic of a future post, once I sort out my thoughts about it a little more. In the meantime suffice it to say, this was that.) 

Anyway. She divided the program into sections by type of music. Once the parts I was involved in were complete, I got to sit back and enjoy a whole different style. This friend is a very accomplished teacher of marimba, and she plays with several marimba ensembles – which all came together to perform for this event, creating an incredibly joyful sound. And as she was introducing the marimba groups, she also mentioned that a lot of the music that is today played by marimba groups was actually composed for a different and very old traditional African instrument: the mbira. 

As she explained what the mbira is and how it’s played, I was reminded of something I learned from her years ago – a seemingly small thing, but something that had a profound impact on the way I think about playing music. It’s this:
The mbira is an instrument that’s made up of a number of metal tongues attached to a board. You play the metal pieces with your thumbs, and each one is a different note. The sound is clear, melodious and rippling – it reminds me of a flowing stream. 

Traditionally, this part of the instruments would be placed inside a large gourd with a big opening cut out for the player’s hands to reach in. The gourd was a natural amplifier. 

But there’s more to it than just volume. The gourd would also have shells and (more recently) bottle caps loosely attached to it, so that they would rattle and buzz when the mbira was played inside the gourd. 

This is part of the instrument in its classic form.  

The idea, as Mary Ellen explained it to me, is that the other sounds in the environment in which the music is played are PART OF the music. 

The light buzz of shells and bottle caps stand in for ALL the other sounds. 

The wind.
The river.
Bugs.
Kids.
Dogs barking.
Doors closing.
People talking nearby.
Cars passing in the road.
Planes overhead.
Your heartbeat pounding in your ears.
Your own breath.

These sounds are all part of the music that’s present when the instrument is being played or the voice is singing or the radio is on. 

Yes. The static when the radio station is far away: Is part of the music. 

See? It’s a small thing – the size of a Coke  bottle cap, the old metal kind. 

But it blew my freaking mind. 

This concept literally altered the way I look at music – especially community music, which is what I mostly do, but also things I compose for performance. 

When my guitar strings rattle – ok, that’s part of the music that’s here today. 

When someone’s coughing: part of it. 

When an ambulance goes by with siren wailing: those are also notes in the song. 

When someone looking for the bathroom accidentally walks through the room where we’re chanting: That’s part of the prayer. 

Sure, I’ve had those moments when the pure sound of a perfectly tuned choir or orchestra fills a silent concert hall and everyone’s holding their breath so as not to miss a second of this otherworldly beauty, and I’m in no way saying that’s not a gorgeous thing. We need that too! But even in those halls, and even when everyone is using their best concert etiquette and no one so much as shifts in a creaky chair – there are still other sounds present. 

Unplanned, uncontrollable sounds. 

Your own body is constantly making sounds, and they’re part of what you hear when you hear music.

From this perspective, all existence is a constant symphony, layered with infinite richness, sometimes harmonious and sometimes dissonant. Sometimes someone is playing music in an obvious way – sometimes it’s simply playing, the world singing, and humming and drumming and bowing and blowing and whistling and rattling like she always does, all the time. 

When I look at it this way, I can’t see ambient sounds – or missed notes – as ruining a song. It’s more like – a different song.

I remember that even when I’m up there playing on stage, there are so many elements, so many spirit beings, who may have something to contribute to the song of the moment, and who are utterly uncontrollable by me. I can resent and resist them, or I can see them as part of the magic. 

So – thanks for that, Mary Ellen. And happy birthday!

❤

​

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I Pledge 

They tell us
Don’t focus on the negative
Look for the good
Share THAT
Talk about THAT
Promote what’s going RIGHT
Yes
Yes
What we give attention to, grows
Yes
Yes
But
When black men are being shot
Lying down on the ground
With their hands up
Surrendered
And EVERY SINGLE PERSON DOESN’T KNOW ABOUT IT
How can I not
Use my tiny platform
To say
PLEASE
LOOK AT THIS
PLEASE STOP
PLEASE STOP
PLEASE
STOP
PLEASE

If I’m telling the truth
It seems so pointless
To write about
How racial minorities are targeted
And killed
In the US
In a thousand fast and slow ways.

If I’m being honest
I actually doubt
Whether anyone’s mind
Ever was or ever will be changed
By anything I say.

But
This is my channel
And I get to say
What I want
And
I
Will
Use
It

If nothing
If nothing
If nothing else

I am saying
To someone else out there
Who is finding it hard to stand up
Under the weight
Of all this grief

You’re not alone
I see you

It’s breaking my heart, too
And because I can’t stand
To be represented
By my country
In this way

I’ll rise
With you
I’ll carry
Some of the load
If you’ll let me

I have energy
And strength
And will
And heart
And I
Am at your service

Some people look around
At oppression in other countries
And say,
We have it so good here.

I
I am grateful
For all the innumerable blessings in my life.

And
I know
That although we appear to be separate
We are one being.
And what we think we’re doing
To someone else
We’re doing to ourselves.

I know a lot of you
Don’t feel it
When another vulnerable human being
Is killed
By the state
At home
In front of their neighbors
In the Middle East
Or anywhere.
Yes
We’re numb,
And that’s no accident.
Unbelievable resources
Go into keeping us from feeling
The grief
And shame
And rage
And frustration
We would certainly feel
If we weren’t carefully shielded
And distracted
From the pain
That some groups
Must carry
All of,
So that the rest of us
Can
Keep
Working
And
Paying
Our
Bills
Like
We’re
Supposed
To.

Well
I don’t know
If I can do anything
To change it.
But
I’m looking
Hard
For ways
To try.
I know
Other people
Are out there trying too.
And I know
That there are good things happening.
And I’ll celebrate them.
And I hope
I’ll be a part
Of something
That helps.

And if
Until it’s better
I feel
Some waves
Of grief
At what
This country
Does
To itself
I won’t deny them.
I’ll cry out.
It’s what I was made to do.
I’ll cry out
Just because
I need to say it
Or my heart
Will
Explode:

AMERICA
WE
CAN
WE
CAN
WE
HAVE
TO
DO
BETTER.

by

GALA, Ready or Not

 

Phoenix

Bad ass choir t-shirts

 
Ok. So, for anyone who has been like “Angie / Gayan / Verdana Leviathan Strong, WHY have you not replied to the email I sent you two months ago / done the thing you said you were going to do??? I’m WAITING!!!” I have a four letter word for you:

GALA. 

(Warning – that wasn’t one, but there are lots of f-bombs below.)

The GALA International Choral Festival that’s being held in Denver this weekend, where queer choirs (LGBTQetc) from around the world get together at the Performing Arts Complex and sing to each other for like 5 days. 

This time, I’m singing with Phoenix: Colorado’s Trans Community Choir. 

It’s a very new group founded by my partner Sam less than a year ago. We’ve been busting our asses to get our set ready since we found out in April that we could actually get on the program. 

Our rehearsal schedule has been steadily increasing in the fashion of a snowball rolling rapidly downhill. 

And our set, which is made up entirely of original pieces written by choir members, includes one of my songs, for which I wrote a choral version, with parts & everything. 

We’ll be performing right before a choir from Beijing, for an audience of a couple thousand people. 

I think it could safely be said that one of the unofficial themes of our set is Everybody Outside Their Comfort Zone (Together).

For some folks, this is about being in a choir at all … Singing with a group … Learning to blend and taking the risk that someone might hear their voice. For others, it’s about discovering a whole new vocal range after beginning the hormonal journey of transition, and the uncertainty of opening one’s mouth and not knowing what sound will come out. 

I’ve often said that one of the things I value about this group, and my personal experience in it, is that it’s an equal opportunity comfort zone challenger. I really mean that. Although I’m pretty at ease with group singing as a general concept and I’m not dealing with any big changes in my voice (or my gender presentation), I sometimes feel like I spend almost as much time resisting the process as I spend engaging with it willingly. (And yes, that’s my excuse for being slow to attend to other commitments, like that email I really do intend to reply to … )

For me, the stream of resistance looks like this:

– OMG what do you mean I’m the lead/only instrumentalist on this song? What if I fuck it up???

– OMG I’m fucking it up!!! It’s happening!!! In front of people!!! What do I do? How can I even continue living after this horrible fuck-up???

– OMG. Sam wants us to perform this song that I wrote. How can I possibly make other people sing something I wrote? What if no one but Sam even WANTS to sing it? Maybe they think it’s dumb, or just not choral, and we’re only doing it because I’m Sam’s partner. How can I bear the shame of people hating my song and being forced to sing it?

– And – ok, if I DO agree to do it, I/we (really “I” because I’m too afraid to let go of control) have to come up with an Arrangement. And write it out. In notes. On a staff. Like a, you know, I think the technical term is real music person. That sounds HARD. And very time consuming. And intimidating. And I am bound to fuck it up. 

– And speaking of intimidating, how am I supposed to teach it? I don’t know how to teach a harmony. And don’t I also need to play it on the piano then? Like, 2 parts at the same time? Um, I can’t. I especially can’t in front of these, you know, real music people.

– Geez, and then there’s, what is my relationship to trans-ness, anyway? I have a transgender partner. A fair number of trans people in my life. I’m part of the “trans community.” When I am singing in a trans community choir, this aspect of my identity/life comes to the forefront for examination in a way it doesn’t usually. Are there certain things I should be doing? Fights I should be fighting? There’s an odd feeling of responsibility that comes with contemplating these things. A feeling that I should be … standing up more. 

And then there’s … gosh, GALA itself. 175 choruses. That sounds really fucking BIG. In case you haven’t noticed, this year I’ve been embracing my tendencies toward introversion. This is going to be thousands of people in a smallish area downtown, which is already full of humans. That’s a hell of a lot of small talk. And don’t get me started on the parking! Plus, I still have to work my day job. I’m going to be exhausted. 

SOOOOOOOOOOOOO that’s been my inner monologue over the past few months – I’m sorry you had to witness that.

But. 

It’s getting close to go time. 

In fact, it’s happening this weekend. 

And …

Ok, I’m excited. 

The resistance is still there, an underlying mutter. 

But there are these spikes of … This is going to be cool. 

The tide is shifting. The things I appreciate about GALA are coming more to the surface. The great concerts. The solidarity. Performing in this incredible space. When I think about it, how did I get so lucky?

Working and singing with the trans choir over the past year has been a really wonderful experience. This group is so vibrant. The energy of each rehearsal is uplifting and energizing. Every member is truly bringing their heart. And even though it seemed at first like Mission: Impossible, we have really pulled together on this set of brand new songs that didn’t even exist three months ago. And it’s sounding good. And they don’t hate my song. A lot of them seem to actually really enjoy it. Astonishing! In fact, when the choir joins me (in harmony) on these lines that felt so idiosyncratic and personal when I wrote them … It’s like … Man. An amazing feeling, actually. A wave of joy spreading through me like warm, gentle surf. 

I love singing with this group so much. I am really looking forward to our sharing this moment, well, this fifteen minutes, together. 

It is going to be fucking awesome. 

And after that … Sleep. And, yes, email. I promise. ❤

Angie - I Encompass All Pronouns - Colorado Trans Community Choir - Phoenix

Other side of our bad ass t-shirts

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All I want to say about Orlando is

All I want to say about Orlando is

Here in America we have so many mass shootings
It’s kind of our thing
By one count, we’ve had 136* of them
In just 164 days this year.
And most of them …
Well, the ones I hear about, which is a small percentage …
They don’t necessarily
Shake me.

Like Sandy Hook, for example.
I remember friends who are mothers,
How their hearts broke
For the parents of those kids.

Or the Aurora movie theater
Right here
In my own metro area.
So many people I knew
Worried about going to the movies.

But me
I was just
Not thrown

And I wondered
About my lack of grief or fear

Mostly
I felt frustrated

I wanted
To shake
The whole country

I wanted to yell
That it wasn’t about gun laws
It’s about our culture

That these shootings
And the predictable debates
About regulating firearms
Are such despicably handy
Distractions
Everybody gets emotional
Everybody takes a side
We yell at each other for a while
We move the needle a hair
And while no one’s paying attention
A bunch of bullshit gets passed in Congress
And it sort of seems like
That’s the plan

Who does it serve
When we kill each other in this specific way?
Because somebody sure benefits …

And that’s
What I wish
We could focus on

Because
All around the world
People are profiting
From distractions
Just like these

A lot of those people who are profiting
Are Americans

And THAT
Is what makes me
So upset

Because this is our culture
It’s written into the contract
By any means necessary
Profit
Power
Control

And I want
Us to see this

I want
Us to change

I want
Some new values
Here

Well
What’s different about Orlando?

I guess
For me
This is one of the
One of the ones
That hit me
Hard in the chest
Though I didn’t know any of those people
And I’ve never even been to that city

Is it just because I am a queer person
Too?
I have questioned

I don’t feel attacked
And I don’t feel defensive
I honestly don’t even feel
Like gayness is really the point here
In some ways
It’s just another flavor
Of the same shitty medicine
And gayness
Homophobia
Is just
The excuse
There’s nothing new here
Nothing really different
From any other
21st century
American style
Mass shooting

But
Irrationally
I feel
Responsible
For those people
At Pulse nightclub
I feel
Like they were
Part of my family
And honestly
Even if they were my real distant cousins
Who I’d never met

I probably would not feel
So sad

I didn’t know any of them
And who knows
If their experience of queerness
Was ever anything like mine
Who knows
If any of them
Would have felt a connection
To some random lesbian
In Colorado

But I do

And the loss of these lives
I feel
Like a light going out
I feel
Like a sandbag
Hitting me in the chest

It doesn’t make sense
That I should care
Like this

But I do

And I want to say
That the majority of these people
Were also
Not white
I don’t want it to be lost
In this conversation
That these people
Who were chosen
For elimination
Were vulnerable
In multiple ways
In most situations
In life
Not just at the gay bar
But in a society
Where it’s ok
To talk about
The growing proportion
Of the population
That’s Latino/a
Like
That’s a danger
To some
American way

Like they
Were the danger

I want
Us
To be different

And although it will seem to some
Like it’s none of my business
Like I’m getting worked up
By focusing on the negative
Like I am always
Picking a fight

Today
Right now
My whole body
Is full of sorrow
Still

For these lives sacrificed
For the friends and families left behind
And for the knowledge
That this
This
Is what we’ve created
After two hundred and almost fifty fucking years
Of nationhood
This is what we’ve done
With the land
We massacred
The previous occupants
To get

Oh
Fuck
That came out too

Well

It’s part of the same problem.
Mass killing is written into our contract
USA
And we’ll never change
Until we can know that
In our hearts

…

I keep thinking I’m out of words
But I keep not being

I keep thinking I should shut up
But I keep not

I keep thinking I’m too sad
To talk
So I write instead
And I feel a little better

I’ll quote again
One of my favorite poems ever,
Allen Ginsberg’s “America”

There must be some other way to settle this argument …
America I’m putting my queer shoulder to the wheel.


———-

*That’s defining “mass shooting,” as The Gun Violence Archive does, as “any incident where four or more people are wounded or killed. That number can include any gunmen as well.”

Post Camp – Piano Zikr 1
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Post Camp – Piano Zikr 1

Sufi Camp. Here’s what it is in my experience: You pack up all your baggage, everything you’re struggling with, you wrestle it into your car and drive it across the country so you can keep working on it … in the presence of your beloveds, with their encouragement and energetic support. You do a bunch of practices that clear out your cells and rearrange your molecules into new prismatic patterns. You start to sense things shifting on one of the subtler levels, even though you know it may be weeks before you really understand what’s changed. You get a lot of good advice and a lot of good hugs, and hopefully you, too, pour your little dipper  of love into the cauldron for others to drink and be nourished. You come out the other side scrubbed fresh, and you turn around blinking, not quite sure where you are. But something inside you feels more at peace.

Well, that’s how it works for me anyway.

This time, my post-camp feelings came out in the form of a zikr, which I am calling Piano Zikr 1. You can hear it, if interested, below. I hope you’ll enjoy. 💗

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Piano Lessons

My roommate has this lovely, battered, honey-colored upright piano. Her ex husband literally bought it from the thrift store on a whim for his very musical kids. They carried it up the stairs themselves – losing perhaps a few bits of wood in the process (those weren’t important, right?). The people who played the piano don’t live there anymore (though they visit from time to time) and it was mostly serving as a cute, decorative accessory for the living room -slash- place to put the odd tchotchke.

One day last August, out of nowhere, the thought struck me that I really wanted to play that piano.

I was thinking, like, fool around, play some keys in an unschooled but emotionally satisfying way, for, you know, half an hour or so.

I sat down on the bench and suddenly had the thought, “I think I need to learn to do this right.”


I don’t know where it came from. I hadn’t been considering it previously. Indeed, I felt like my life was already over-busy with work et cetera. But I couldn’t shake it.

I needed, with all my heart, to learn to play the piano.

I knew something about the music-lessons path, though I’d never felt like that was a path that was open to me at any previous point in my life. I knew it was a discipline, and I knew that one doesn’t get very far by half-assing it. I gave myself a few days to ponder whether I was ready to commit to piano as a daily practice before taking any action towards finding a teacher. In the meantime I started working with an adult method book that was lying around.

I soon knew: It wasn’t just going to be a daily practice. It was going to be a relationship.

Full of passion and angst, joy and drama, and life lessons in abundance.

A real relationship – like where you are pretty sure on Date #2 that you could do this forever.

Then, if you’re me, you spend the next 9 months going “But WHY??? WHY do I feel this way? What does it MEAN??? Am I making it up? Is it all in my head? What’s the purpose, and why is it making me so CRAZY???”

Like wtf … … … … …

Ok, I suffer from chronic distrust of my own motives, and although I am fairly good at acting on my intuition, I am NOT good at then abstaining from giving myself shit about my choices for weeks, nay, YEARS to come. (Was that the PRACTICAL thing to do? Am I somehow being SELFISH? Was there someone else’s needs I could have, should have, tended to instead?)

Hence the life lessons. Piano is continually triggering my feelings of unworthiness. The deeper I get into this relationship, the more I find myself spending hours instead of minutes each day with this new love, the more the demons in my head start acting up, telling me it’s stupid, I’ll never be truly good at this, like a real performer or accompanist; it’s just another way of avoiding REAL work, REAL service … The kind that actually helps people …

But the sudden-onset piano virus I contracted also seems to be chronic; it doesn’t let up. However much time I spend practicing, I want to be doing it more. I could easily lose days this way. Even though the doubts are at time cacophonous, the keyboard is magnetic and it draws my hands back and back and back again.

And I get to practice ignoring the voice of doubt.

Maybe this is the true daily practice.

Like returning the wandering attention to the breath. It doesn’t matter where it flies off to – just keep bringing it back.

Come back to the senses. The cool, smooth keys under my fingertips. The breath.

I am so, so, so lucky to have found a piano teacher who helps me to do this – who gives me tips for quieting the mind and reconnecting the heart to the body – who has held compassionate space while I cried my way through lessons an embarrassing number of times. (Thanks, Gary!)

And here I am, nine months later, at the end of first grade.

This month I had my first two public performances. One song each. First, I filled in for our regular accompanist at a choir concert. Then I played this song that I wrote in a low-key show that my piano teacher organized.

Neither performance was perfect. I finished each one with my mind full of all the things I wished I had been able to do better.

But I also finished each one feeling badass.

I had been imperfect, in public, no hiding, my mistakes hanging out – and had kept going – boldly and with as much heart as I could muster.

And I think that on each occasion, I benefited from that rule that says, when you play or sing with sincerity, the angels can come in and smooth out some of the rough edges from the sound you make between the moment it leaves your body and the moment it reaches someone’s ears.

Because at least one person was touched. And I think that’s the point. Though I can’t prove it to myself logically, I am pretty sure that is the point.

So here’s the main lesson I’ve learned from the piano so far:

It’s all about the comeback,

from the moment you realize it’s not coming out like you practiced,

to the sickening panic when you’re sure it’s going over the edge of the cliff,

to the teeth-gritted determination to hang on to that motherfucker and go over the cliff with it if you must,

to the weightlessness

of playing something

with your own hands

that can carry you out over the terrifying empty space

and place you safely on the other side –
still alive

and just a hair more experienced

and less afraid.

The more I do this

the more I ignore the voice of doubt

and go do it anyway

the happier

I will be.

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Dogwood 

So … This is really the first song I wrote for piano. It’s the video I tried to make before, the one that sent me into a dramatic tailspin of self doubt. I guess I must be pulling out of it a little because I decided to give it another go.  Soooooo … I don’t know what else to say about it by way of introduction except, it’s semi seasonal, and I hope you enjoy!