Traveling Companions

I’m toolin’ along on my way to work one summer morning not too long ago, and I shouldn’t exactly be toolin’ as much as racing and speeding, or at this point Captain Kirking my way into the vaporator or vaporizer or what ever the hell he goes in so Scotty can beam him up.  I should be Captain Kirking my way so that I could already be there early or at least not within 999/1000 of a second of just about right on time.  Set up time wasn’t worked into the pay, nor is clean up time but that’s neither here nor there…. except that I don’t have much wiggle time even if I get there “on time”.  But it is summer so I’m toolin’ down the road and I’m listening to songs that are making me happy and seem to be hand picked to match my surroundings and that summery thing that’s going on in my mind just until I hit the 807/1000 of a second mark….when I decide…oh well…coulda woulda shoulda I’ll get there officially on time, let’s go!   And my day will begin.  And the fun will continue. And I will greatly enjoy this opportunity to bring Art and Science and Art and Math and Art and Technology and Engineering altogether with small bright-faced little ones, truly.  Everything will blend together in what appears at first to be chaos and disorder but will somehow gel, and even become almost seamless. Sort of.  Maybe. At least to a few, mad scientist types with globs of paint on their pants and hair sticking up at 73 degree angles and a penchant for plastic zip ties and scotch tape and bungee cords….

But before all that, during the toolin’ part of my day, Lucinda Williams is doing her thing.  And in my head I am giving it my all, a twangy, edgy rendition of Getting it Right With God….so off I go into my mind thinking and working and figuring stuff out, or lately just letting it land where it will and pausing momentarily before pouncing, and sometimes even a bit longer and not pouncing but just taking it all in.  A regular old Rube Goldberg machine, my brain, one thought rolling off to switch on another thought that bounds ahead and stops just long enough before something else is fired up or weighted down….

Lucinda, pure grit and Jack Daniels infused honey, is sanging her heart out.  Getting it Right with God.  This song always makes me stop and take stock. Or stop and wonder what might need a little tweeking or readjusting to get it right with God.  And just then I’m off and thinking that Lucinda’s god in this song can be the 12 step higher power version, it could be some in the flesh, living,  breathing mortal, maybe a loved one, or not quite loved enough one… that might be needing a little bit of compassion, or an apology or maybe just a wave hello.  It could be the Almighty God the Father version, Allah, Buddha, Krishna too (and/or?) you get the drift.  Getting it right with God is a good goal to pursue.

I start thinking of God at the stop light that’s slowing down my journey ever so slightly.  God, the father, God as in Who’s your Daddy?  I know it might seem sacrilege, but it’s my mind and that’s where it took me.  Father…Daddy….what can I say?  I think more on this as I gently release the break and move forward with the green light guidance of an early morning traffic light.  Maybe divine intervention to move my thoughts elsewhere and I just missed another cue?

Maybe we all could benefit from asking, “Who’s your Daddy, your God,  Who’s your higher power, your science and religion?  Who do you need to get it right with?  What’s in your shadow life that needs to see more light?” 

I love Lucinda Williams, that throaty, smoke-graveled voice, her lyrics always leading me to some light.  How can I Get it right with God? For starters, I can get out of the house earlier and make it to work with less stress, I can start practicing what I learned a few years ago at a diversity training workshop, Assuming Goodwill.  These words together have lead to so much openness and consideration.  (The chain reaction of putting them together would make Rube Goldberg happy I’m sure.)  Assume goodwill, when someone cuts you off in traffic or seems to refuse to say good morning for no apparent reason.  Assume goodwill when you start to feel slighted or take something personally.  Prosper. Be kind. Forgive. Assume the other person is preoccupied, stressed, in crisis, or just simply unaware.  No harm intended, no harm needs to be received, choose the good thoughts or work at switching over to better thoughts.  Let go. I can certainly do more to get it right in this life. Rolling down the windows and breathing in some real beauty and joy helps.

I continue on, Patti Griffin is next on my shuffled playlist.  You can feel how large LIFE has happened to both of these women.  They have each lived and loved, traveled far, lost and tried again…and again…and still….a few more times to come.  Haven’t we all?  Some more than others it seems, but we can’t know what goes on with everyone, or even most others, even those we believe to know so closely, can we? Patti has gotten me through some trying times.  No Bad News had been my rally cry for weeks on end, months and a couple of especially grizzly years.   Occasionally a song seems to resonate so directly and personally on so many levels, you wonder how the singer/songwriter could have possibly known…Patti Griffin is one of these artists that connects deeply with life, hers, and yours too, or certainly mine. She just places it all out there in a way we can see, and recognize and own the messes we create or quietly support, until we can’t look past without attempting to take what is ours and want to make a small piece of the world better, by attempting our best.

Tift Merritt brings me around the final bends, and back roads with early morning sunlight sparkling through.  Lilting. Soulful. She can hold on to a note and subsequently whistle it out in a hope-filled coo, or hold it in a moment of tense silence that makes you hear every sad sound ever made onto the world.   As if the world and you and Tift Merritt are joined in holy trinity, understanding each other completely, all offering some different part to a mechanism.  Gears and switches interdependent and symbiotic.  This morning she’s singing Travelin’ Alone. This song has carried me across the country, into sleep, slowly out of a relationship, or at least through to the other side, and into an inner peace still in it’s long-in-the-making-developing stage.   Which unlike the new teacher’s scoring rubric, seeking inner peace should remain in the developing stages until you get it ALL right with God and have ring side seats and VP passes to the banquet.  Inner peace doesn’t come quickly no matter what is being peddled by Dr. Oz or one of his magic pill products that enhance sex and love and weight-loss and reduce wrinkles at the moment.  (Can I have an Amen to that?)

I love to travel alone.  I love those moments of solitude, of going at my own pace, at times too fast, or slowly toolin’ down a back highway toward some new discovery.  I love the freedom to listen to the same song twice, or even a third time because it sounded that incredible at that particular moment.  I especially love the opportunity to decide without discussion or input if I’m going to change course, push on, or stop at one section of the journey just because something caught my eye and I want a closer look, to sketch or photograph or call that friend, now, because I miss them or I’m twirling at some four corners of the Earth and feeling particularly blessed or excited, or maybe just so that I can hear someone else’s voice and take a break from only my own inner one.  I wonder if Tift has seen all the great places I have?  I’m finding me out there on these roads.  And I’m liking what I’m finding, and giving myself the chance to change the stuff I don’t like quite so much. 

Laura Marling, Brandi Carlisle, Ricki Lee Jones, so many, many more…  All these strong, hard living, tenacious women have been filling my car and leading me on.  Next week I am going to make room for a travel partner.  I am looking forward to this opportunity to bend, and turn without breaking.  To carefully consider, to camp, to craft, to create and embark on a journey and find so much more.  My strong and beautiful daughter and I are reinventing the Oregon Trail, to get her out to Portland, for a new life, the start of her MFA pursuit, the start of a health filled, cancer at least contained, bright new future. I can’t wait to see what happens next in her life, and I am overjoyed to share this part of the journey toward whatever lies ahead. 

Maybe we’ll see the collared peccary, otherwise known as the javelina, which has been in my mind, a mythical beast…(I’ve looked for it before.) Maybe we’ll watch a few consecutive sunsets over the “soaring pinnacles, massive fins and giant balanced rocks” in Arches National Park.  See that giant ball of string? A UFO shaped diner? So many wild fricking things just right out there! We’ll keep it right with God.  We’ll get it even better.  We’ll test it and tweak it and emerge knowing…we are living life large with gusto and sometimes an overwhelming fear, that always passes. We love each other deeply, and are able to have a better understanding of the value that comes with knowing that, well past the obligation.  We will have this beautiful opportunity to get to know each other as the women we are becoming, growing into, finding our way toward.  We will be creating this moment in time that leads to the next and brings us across the country in a non-linear, but interdependent path of spiraling connectivity.  (I love Rube Goldberg!) We will be singing, or trying to, and laughing, and crying, and talking, for long stretches of time.  We will be quiet and we will get it right with God from sea to shining sea with the help of many a strong women and the support of a couple of loving, good men.

Godspeed my little girl grown.