humble grace

grace – noun; the free and unmerited favor of God

Today I received a heartfelt testimony from a friend that made me feel blessed and humbled to be included on her recipient list.  After reading her email, the first thing I thought was, I, too, fast-forward a year find myself growing weary again.  I’m not happy with my job. I’m not happy with my love life. And yet, I thought I gave that up to God?

But as she said in her email, “The devil is a liar and he knows just how to convince me, but this time I’m holding onto my lenses. ”

I recently returned to LA after spending the first 3 weeks of my writer’s rehab in Chicago and while Chicago was everything creatively, spiritually, and companion-wise that I needed, I came back to Los Angeles, unhappy again.  Almost jealous of what others accomplished in the time I spent away, and anxious to get out and move on to the next place.  I always say that I have virtually no vices but travelling.  I use my lack of fear to take off in an airplane and privilege of growing up with a mother who spent her paychecks on weekends in Palm Springs and Jamaica to get away from it all and do the same.  But it wasn’t until a few weeks ago when my father, in a rare conversation, said calmly in reply to my tears and hysteria, “You are afraid of being happy.”

I know exactly what I need to be happy: God.   And God in my heart and life is not contingent upon my job, boyfriend (or lack there of), location, or living situation.  Her email made me think of a passage that my roommate last year shared with me after I tip-toed into her room frustrated that our classmates and acquaintances were getting the jobs, men, and happiness that I thought we deserved.  It’s from James 4:13-17 and says,

Now listen, you who say, “Today or tomorrow we will go to this or that city, spend a year there, carry on business and make money.”  Why, you do not even know what will happen tomorrow. What is your life? You are a mist that appears for a little while and then vanishes. Instead, you ought to say, “If it is the Lord’s will, we will live and do this or that.” As it is, you boast and brag. All such boasting is evil. Anyone, then, who knows the good he ought to do and doesn’t do it, sins.

Proverbs 3:34 says that God opposes the proud but gives grace to the humble.  And is it not His grace that we are after?  His power to reveal our hearts?

I know that if I let go of my Northwestern-trained mind to boast about tomorrow and instead reflect on the good I ought to do today, today won’t seem so dark and rainy but instead necessary to get up out of bed (God-willing) and get somewhere in life.

this. is. still. my. writer’s. rehab.

“Closer to my dreams.  Getting over, I’m gettin’ higher…Sometimes it feels like I’m stuck forever and ever when I’m going higher, closer to my dreams…Sometimes you just have to let it go.  Leaving all my fears to burn down…” -goapele

“closer” by goapele

blue griot

griot – noun; a member of a class of traveling poets, musicians, and storytellers who maintain a tradition of oral history in parts of West Africa

I noticed a blue tree and it immediately caught my eye. It stood still like an abstract, blue moment in time. Everyone in the park noticed this tree. I wasn’t the only one. So strange and striking…it was something divine as if it had been planted from above. The children played in circles around its stump. The birds flew down in arcs from leaf to leaf. And me–well, I could only observe the strange beauty rooted in the ground before me.

Instead of sitting under it, I sat across from it so that I could look at it, watch it, sympathize for it? But no matter how hard I tried or stared, I couldn’t uncover what this tree must have been feeling. At my first gaze between the tree’s crooked, blue arms, I saw what appeared to be a land all too familiar to me; a peek through a window hinting to a green field lush with all of the feelings I’ve been searching for but the ones I’m too mute to speak, too afraid to write, and too shy to sing.

Before I saw this tree and the field beyond it, I asked myself everyday, “Can I cry now?” But,

the. tears. would. not. come.

My soul felt dry and in desperate need of a heavy rain. Because we all know what happens after the rain. The sun comes out again.

but. i. could. not. cry.

Each morning was gray as if it was going to rain and each night ended dry, adding just another day to the drought. I imagine this is how Africa must feel. I know it senses the tears building up. I know it prays for rain. But does it ever have a chance to cry? Has it ever seen the sun come out after the rain?

Like the tree. Everyone wants to play around it, fly on top of it, or sit across from it but meanwhile no one else is blue like it. All we can do is imagine, tell others about the lonely, blue tree in the park, write a story about it, sing a song for it…

I imagine this is how Africa must feel. I wish I were born a Griot. I wish my mother passed on to me from her mother and her mother’s mother, the gift and privilege to sing stories of blue trees, of all the things in this world that I know and don’t know; the things that make our tears flow. Then I wouldn’t have to ask my dry, blue soul, “Can I cry now?”

“Blue, here is a shell for you. Inside you’ll hear a sigh, a foggy lullaby; there is your song from me.”

–joni mitchell

“blue” by joni mitchell

nina’s courage

courage – noun; the ability to do something that frightens one

One of the most inspiring things that has come out of my stint in writer’s rehab thus far is the accountability I have received from those around me.  It’s the type of accountability apparent in a rare conversation with my father who asks, “Have you been writing?” instead of “What have you been doing in Chicago?” in a tone of voice that insists I better be writing.

Or the accountability that comes in a message that says, “I’m so glad you’re writing again” from an acquaintance who knew me in my notepad and recorder carrying college days…the days when I didn’t have to tell anybody I was a writer….it was written all over me.

Or the kind that sparks from a bar conversation with a fellow alum who asks why I’m in Chicago.

And I say, “So that I can write again…”

And he replies, “Okay, well what’s the larger goal?”

i’m. writing. again.

Now what? How do I answer the alum’s illustrious question?  The question that sits Indian style at the tip of everyone’s tongue.

i’m. writing. again.

But what’s the goal?  What’s the point?  Why am I even writing again?

I’m embarrassed because this rehabilitation period, this re-birth and artistic renewal has been all about me. It’s intended to provide myself with time, to pick up the pieces of me I left behind and diligently put them back together, to reveal myself to myself.

But shouldn’t this journey take me somewhere outside of me?  Is that not the true responsibility of an artist?  Maybe that’s how I know I’m not there yet.  Maybe I shouldn’t dare yet call me or my work artistic because it’s still about me.

Or maybe I’m just scared.

When my dad asked if I’ve been writing I answered “yes” then went on to quickly tell him about all of the other creatively therapeutic ways I’ve been spending my time. And when I said I’ve been listening to and studying Nina Simone I could hear his smile over the phone as he suggested all of the ways in which she and I are similar women.  He did this before I could confess my admiration for her and explain our commonalities and proclaim why I think we are soul mates.  He saw a little bit of Nina in me without me having to point her out and that made me really proud.

But the truth is, I wish I were just like Nina.

I wish that in all of my constant channeling of Nina, I could just adopt her courage; her artistic fearlessness; her ability to write, sing, and speak about things in this world that shook her, moved her, made her cry but things so much greater and riveting than even her.

One of my current goals is to match my heart to God’s.  I talk a lot about following my heart but find myself hesitant and even fearful to do so, but I do believe once I have transformed enough as an individual and matched my heart to His, following it will not seem like a gamble and will instead be a given.

Well maybe this is precisely why I’m writing again. Maybe that’s the goal.  To write with a heart that matches God’s.  To hold a pen that transcribes messages from my heart and illustrates a reality and struggle so much larger and more beautiful than the one in my mind.

Tonight I will pray for courage like Nina and a heart like God’s.

“An artist’s duty is to reflect the times…I choose to reflect the times and the situations in which I find myself.  That, to me, is my duty…How can you be an artist and not reflect the times?  That, to me, is the definition of an artist.” –nina simone

a painter’s reverie

reverie – noun; a state of being pleasantly lost in one’s thoughts

Sometimes I wish I wasn’t a writer. Sometimes I wish I were a painter with an easel on my balcony and watercolors in my makeup drawer.

If I were a painter, I wouldn’t have to choose between logic and sense.  My abstract reverie would be my homeopathic remedy and personal sense of normalcy.

If I were a painter, I’d have all of earth’s tones to choose from just to express one emotion and I wouldn’t have to rely on me.

Or would I?  Do painters get painter’s block the same way writers come down with writer’s block?

Would a painter prevent herself from making debilitating artistic decisions for the sake of her career?

Do we all eventually find ourselves in rehab when our rainbow is not enough? And speaking of color (ed) girls, is the only way for us to overcome our masochistic reality to find God in ourselves and love ourselves fiercely?

When I think of God and fierce love, I think of peace and happy hearts worth following.  I think of pre-chosen paths that hide themselves from us until we are ready to fearlessly walk down them.  And I also think of how a painter masters this long before a writer.

My best writing has come from the most agonizing painstaking moments of this petite life of mine.  As a writer, misery is my comfortable hiding spot.  But a painter listens to the God within her and follows the vibrant path laid before her with an anxious brush.  A painter grows up to be a painter.

Just like an actor, photographer, or athlete, there’s only one route for a painter right?

You ask a writer what she wants to be when she grows up and she says, a journalist, a producer, a director, an editor, a studio executive…

but. i. want. to. be. a writer. And I want the world to give me no other choice.

I want to keep watercolors in my makeup drawer. I want to have permanent cerulean blue acrylic stains in my nail beds.

I want my desires to make sense.  To be a part of the plan. To be the only plan.

We all want what we can’t have.

I’m sure there’s some painter out there who longs for similar simplicity; who wishes they were a writer; who wishes all they required was a pen and paper to create a masterpiece.

this. is. my. writer’s. rehab.

“If I were a painter I would paint my reverie if that’s the only way for you to be with me…If I were a painter and could paint a memory I’d climb inside the swirling skies to be with you” -norah jones

“painter song” by norah jones

a moment with glory

glory – noun; a thing that is beautiful or distinctive; a special cause for pride, respect, or delight

Today is day 6 of my writer’s rehab. And the most honest and simple way I can describe how it has felt to be here is…”like home.”  Everyday I wake up with a familiarity of someplace I know all too well and the tranquility to not rush a single second.  Even when my mouth isn’t smiling, my heart is…and that’s how I know I’m home.  Memories are fresh here and peace is within arm’s reach.

Today, I was sitting on a busy, taxi-clad corner of downtown Chicago before noon and found myself in immense gratitude for right now.  As the sun magnificently beamed down onto me from the budding space between the skyscrapers above, I felt as if it selected me to be its Golden Child.  Even if it was only for that moment, right then, I felt chosen; compelled to thank God for my gift and go out into the world and share it.  Even if it was only for that moment, right then, I found myself in awe of the power of now.

For one moment of my day, planets seemed to align, peace filled the atmosphere, and, literally, nothing else mattered but me, the sun and that radiant moment.  The constant physical pain I’ve been feeling, the lingering decision I only have 4 days to make, and the to-do list I wrote this morning suddenly dissipated.

I think what’s so mystical about living in the now is that only a select few can actually do it.  Only those at the top of spiritual hierarchy gain access to that glory.  But today, something even higher than a monk or prophet sprinkled down some deity-like dust on my crippled soul just to prove to me that a moment, a second, a day, maybe even a life is feasible when the honking horns in air mute themselves, the sirens in the distance are not my emergency, the pain inside of me doesn’t belong to my body, and the world around me works in my favor.

this. is. my. writer’s rehab.

” ’round my hometown memories are fresh…’round my hometown the people I’ve met are the wonders of my world.” -adele

“hometown glory” by adele

writer’s rehab

rehab – noun; a course of treatment designed to reverse the debilitating effects of an injury

People have always told me that writing is a muscle.  If you don’t use it, you’ll forget how.

For me, when I don’t write, I bring myself closer to a crippling injury.  I bring myself farther away from my best self and long to exercise as my former self once did.

this. is. my. writer’s. rehab.

Here is the background story for those of you who don’t know it.  One year ago exactly, I found myself submerged into a fantastical illusion of what I believed to be my best self.  I had the best of friends, my pick of men with jobs and good looks, a God working in my favor, and a pen that blew words onto paper like fire.  I was happy and quite frankly, lucky.

I graduated 3 weeks later with a bachelor’s degree from the number one journalism school in the country and wanted nothing more than to stay in Chicago and write. Well just 3 weeks after that I grew impatient at an underwhelming internship sitting by my Gmail account waiting for a job offer from someone fabulous at someplace fabulous.  It didn’t come and I let fear and logic pack my bags and put me on the first one-way back to Los Angeles.

After only 2 weeks, I had met with the executive producers of the number one talk show on television and had an above entry-level job offer waiting for me to start immediately.  I could quickly check a job, a plan, a job in television, and start on my career off of my list.  But what happened to Chicago? and writing?  I guess that would have to wait until the end of the three-year contract I had just signed.  Funny how quickly we’ll abandon our dreams.

So here I am. One year later. Submerged into a depressing reality of what I know is not my best self.

this. is. my. writer’s. rehab.

Here I am.  One year later. Back in Chicago. With nothing but a pen and a prayer.  I’ve gone back, way back to the basics.

I promise to keep myself in this sunny little studio until I write myself back to health.  Yesterday at church, a woman named Bertha told me to ask God to reveal myself to myself.  She was convinced that I am not who I think I am.  I knew that she was right because the tears that filled my eyes the moment she said that told me so.

So here’s to reversing the debilitating effects of me.  I know that I am my own worst injury.  I hope that this blog lives longer than these three weeks that I am in Chicago.  But I promise you and myself, that in these three weeks, with the help and accountability of you, I will re-birth the words, love, and happiness buried in my soul.

welcome. to. my. writer’s. rehab.

“I wish I knew how it would feel to be free.  I wish I could break all the chains holding me.  I wish I could say all the things that I should say.  Say them loud…say them clear for the whole wide world to hear…”

– nina simone

“i wish i knew how it would feel to be free” by nina simone