Monday Night Inspiration

I had wild plans to get to a dance party in town tonight but there is a thunder storm outside. Before moving to Nashville I had a pretty strong aversion to thunder, or rather, a pretty strong aversion to dying. The overpowering clap and roar make me think of my most recent transgressions and I usually end up running in panic, despite the distance counting my dad taught me as evidence to my safety. I was recently sitting in the Kroger parking lot mustering up some courage to remove myself from the vehicle and walk through said thunder to purchase my dinner. The realization struck (for lack of a better term) that at least if I died during this walk I would be working towards something I was truly passionate about. That was a nice revelation. 

Still, my pace was brisk.

Every now and then I stumble across something or someone that takes my breath away. Today it's Lenka Clayton. Check out her amazing project, Artist Residency in Motherhood

Here are a few of my favorites from her work:

The Distance I Can Be From My Son (Back Alley)

2013 / video series / 1:53 min

100 Bananas2014 / thermal paper / 23" x 3" / checkout clerk; Meghan K.

100 Bananas

2014 / thermal paper / 23" x 3" / checkout clerk; Meghan K.

Women's Intuition (standing men)2013 / 20" x 10" / found photograph, permanent inkI named the 51 men depicted in this anonymous group portrait using only women’s intuition. I isolated and concentrated on each face until I felt certain of the na…

Women's Intuition (standing men)

2013 / 20" x 10" / found photograph, permanent ink

I named the 51 men depicted in this anonymous group portrait using only women’s intuition. I isolated and concentrated on each face until I felt certain of the name of the man.


 

I especially love the description on the tail end of "Women's Intuition (standing men)." It inspired me to think of this time in Nashville as its own little residency, with an outline of terms & conditions coming down the pike tomorrow.

 

Good night, ya crazy dreamers.
 

Questions I Am Asking Today

In a moment of hump day realness (#hdr) today I found myself sitting at the Frothy Monkey, a place where I have had some solid writing sessions each visit past, but this time in a sort of desparation wondering what the hell I was thinking moving here. I constructed a few lists, as an anxious soul often does when confronted with discomfort of the unknown, including such hits as:

  • "Overarching Goals for the Next Three Months & Beyond. No Wait Just Three Months For Now"
  • "Poems That Have Made Me Feel Better About My Life, My Choices"
  • "Things I Feel I Have Failed"
  • "Ways In Which I Become Distracted"

And finally, this list of questions that flowed quite organically from hand to page. I knew some of them had been simmering on low-burn in the pit of my belly, but others took me by surprise and didn't really demand an answer, just an acknowledgment of their presence. It takes some amount of vulnerability to write most of them here, but I wonder how many other people are asking these same questions, and if perhaps we might be able to share in our living of them:

  • What do I hear when I am quiet?
  • Do I like who I am?
  • Can I be happy by myself?
  • Who am I without the structure of work and forms of continuing education?
  • Am I worthy of taking time away from working society? What pressures does this create in terms of the need/hope/expectation of creative output?
  • Do I have something unique to say + is it necessary + is it time?
  • Can I build a life around this path that allows me to be present for the people I love when they need me?
  • How will I measure my growth in the next few months?
  • How will I know when I've succeeded or failed?
  • Will I be disappointed if something doesn't happen + what would that be?
  • Am I a good enough artist be part of the professional community eventually?
  • Why am I here, standing in the midst of fear and aloneness, if no one forced me to do it? 

So in the spirit of the great adventure, let's get to it. 

 

"I Go Down To The Shore"

I go down to the shore in the morning
and depending on the hour the waves
are rolling in or moving out,
and I say, oh, I am miserable,
what shall—
what should I do? And the sea says
in its lovely voice:
Excuse me, I have work to do.

-Mary Oliver, A Thousand Mornings

 

A Summer Move to Nashville

It's fascinating how I have to learn the same things over and over again sometimes. Reading my last entry from nearly eight months ago, I'm struck by how many of the same lessons have been present in the past year, again and again. Perhaps they will keep appearing in their various shades and forms until I am able to incorporate them as reflex. I hope so anyway. There is gold to be mined yet. 

I write this post from my little room in a little house on a little street in East Nashville's Riverside Village. I dig almost everything about it except the fact that I feel like I'm waking up in Satan's underwear drawer every morning due to the heat and humidity. Who knew I was such a wimp? Maybe Satan's underwear drawer is a bit of a stretch but I often feel like I'm melting. I suppose all I can do is hope that the weather parallels my greater goals for purification and distillation.

Last year I came through Nashville for the first time while on a mini tour for The Reckoning EP. I had such a good time enjoying the city in autumn, seeing some incredible live music, eating delicious food, and meeting so many nice people. The experience swept me off my feet and watered a seed I've had somewhere within for many years to get myself here. Back when the thirteen-year-old version of myself had a Music Myspace, my Top 8 (oh yeah, remember that?) were all Nashville-based. It feels fitting to be here now in a lot of ways, and also so strange to be feeling around in the dark, looking for the texture of something without knowing its exact shape.

Around New Year's I had the idea to get here by the end of 2015, and chartered my sails thenceforth towards making it happen. We make plans and God laughs. Here's what happened shortly thereafter: I lost my job. I had my heart broken by two friends. I got a few heavy whacks from the universe. Friends, family, a creative residency, and some sort of whispering moved me onward and upward. In the midst of the chaos, and for reasons still very unclear to my better judgement, I decided it would be the perfect time to begin running so I started running for an hour three mornings a week before the world awoke. I gave myself eight weeks of commitment and a few times, for a few moments, I was able to slip into that underwater world they say comes with running once you stop wanting to die. Happy to report that by the end I looked like Charlize Theron. In "Monster."

The first six months of this year felt like training ground for a void into which I have since jumped. Each question demanded an answer: yes, still, yes. It was emotionally exhausting, it was physically demanding, and the resonance of my response was illuminating. I'm still unsure if this is "my time" to be here but I keep remembering Amy Poehler saying, "Great people do things before they're ready." And I want to be great. I want to show up for whatever it is that needs sustenance in my life, and be a resource and conduit for that vision, however blurry, until it becomes clear.

Six months and a budget met later, I found myself loading up my car with one of my best gals and putting myself behind the wheel. It seems bizarre that amidst many other things in my life that seemingly required much more courage, getting myself to try on Nashville for a few months produced so much fear. But I do think it's a courageous thing to move somewhere where you don't really know anyone and you can't buy alcohol for half of the weekend.* 

I think I must have read Rainer Maria Rilke's Letters to a Young Poet eight or nine times in the last year. I've gifted it to those going through parallel journeys. I've quoted it ad nauseum to my roommates, my teachers ("I'm getting it! I'm trying to get it! I don't get it but I want to get it!"), and mostly to myself as I've stood in the shower at midnight and wondered how I will make it through another fifteen hour day of chasing toddlers around LACMA and making sure eight-year-olds learn the importance of please and thank you. It's been some kind of belly-flop towards grace.

Here I am. I'm breathing and sleeping and trying to write. I bought a ClassPass to help get my ya-yas out. I'm going to bars on my own and fighting the urge to nurse a single drink alone until an acceptable amount of time has passed and it's time to return. At least most of the time. It's been less than a week, but still. If you know anyone who I should befriend, reach out. If you live here and you want to walk through Shelby Park sometime when it's not as though we are swimming on feet, yes, let's.

More to come.

*Sidenote, a new friend told me about a discount liquor warehouse called Frugal MacDoogal and I will go on name alone.*