But you’ve stayed there as direct as the truthful force
of the waterfall whose passion knows only gravity’s pull.

Your eyes pierced through my
yearning soul and your tongue
asked the hard questions and
shared your authentic self.

Sometimes I cried
while you held me in your arms.
Sometimes you cried, when you
dared to see again, but differently.

You propped me up with your embrace, your spirit.

You fed my soul through the food we shared.

You voiced the words that could break my heart–open.

We danced among the spirits, and invited them in.

We celebrated thin space and uncovered
what gratefulness is, and could be.

We spoke, intimately, of what we thought
the soul is, and where it goes and when.

We sat, silently, in the comfort of chintzy
pillows, now the supple cracks of new leather,
resting, dreaming of peace.

We sang for the fallen and sang for the strong.
We cried for our journey and the presence
of something greater than all of us.

And now we rise:
Ever nearer, ever taller,
ever more grateful.

Good question.

Recently I learned to ski. On day one I found myself on the bunny hill, amid 7 and 8-year olds. They deftly glided by me, as my 33-year old body struggled to stay upright. I fell, often. I was twice their height and 1/50th their skill level. I grew tired, and bruised. My ego was challenged, too. My skis were crossed like pixie sticks and my legs tangled in the air. I wanted to stop, but I kept going. While I had given up learning to ski years ago when I was fourteen, this time something inside me–and my coach, Manu–helped me own each fall and continue down the gentle hill.

Manu smiled each time I fell. Not in a judgmental way, but in the way that a trusted advisor knows that falling is compulsory, a required part of the learning curve. He cheered me on and encouraged me to keep at it. My fear said I should turn around and climb back up the mountain. But I finally realized there was no going back up (the slope of the mountain made this next to impossible). And so my only choice was to figure out a way down toward the lodge. My options were limited, and so my mind had a choice to make: live in fear about the prospect of tumbling down the mountain, or embrace the idea of getting to the bottom. I chose the latter. Slowly, I began to understand the importance of leaning into the fall, leaning into the fear that we so often pool around our daily lives. So, gradually I abandoned my fear of leaning downhill (which is counterintuitive to us, especially those like me with a fear of heights!). I reached forward, bent my knees, and accepted this falling as a way to safety, to success.

Each day I continued to practice falling. And I challenged myself to stay present in each moment of the fall. The more I embraced the fall, the more I found I wasn’t falling at all, but swallowing any fear, facing it with fierce, courageous passion. I crouched forward, ate the snow with my skis, and kept my face forward, parallel with the face of the mountain. I was getting better! Slowly and surely the fear yielded to fun!

By the fifth day, Manu had helped me progress drastically. He brought me from the bunny hill, to–get this–a black diamond run, among the most difficult of ski runs on any mountain. Sure, I began to master the physicality of skiing, but that was just a speck of the gift I developed: Over my week of learning, of falling forward, I began to conquer fears inside me. I challenged that part of me that didn’t believe, that didn’t love. And suddenly, there I was, careening down the mountain, having grown and with a renewed sense of self. Living out of love, not fear. Living by falling, forward and unabashedly, accepting the way down was quite literally the way ‘up’.

I gave in that week, to my fear, to my ego’s desires of control, to learning to love in a new way that fostered growth and self-confidence. So next time you trip, realize you may really be falling forward. Let it happen. Doing this, you might just like the way success finds you.

A Summer Story

When the hummingbird
sinks its face
into the trumpet vine,
into the funnels

of the blossoms,
and the tongue
leaps out
and throbs,

I am scorched
to realize once again
how many small, available things
are in this world

that aren’t
pieces of gold
or power —
that nobody owns

or could buy even
for a hillside of money—
that just
float about the world,

or drift over the fields,
or into the gardens,
and into the tents of the vines,
and now here I am

spending my time,
as the saying goes,
watching until the watching turns into feeling,
so that I feel I am myself

a small bird
with a terrible hunger,
with a thin beak probing and dipping
and a heart that races so fast

it is only a heartbeat ahead of breaking—
and I am the hunger and the assuagement,
and also I am the leaves and the blossoms,
and, like them, I am full of delight, and shaking.

~Mary Oliver
from Red Bird, Beacon Press

At this point I am still alone with the music, which is perfectly fine by me. My fix comes from the physical act of moving my hands, fingers and arms and knowing not necessarily where the song will go, but really knowing just before the key is played just how it will sound. Except for the first note, each note–each moment–thereafter is filled simultaneously with satisfaction and expectation. I play, I enjoy, I anticipate, over and over again.

So aside from each moment, nothing is planned. It’s precisely the act of being that is so enjoyable. And that being is not the music that comes out but the making of the music that comes out. That feeling that but for me moving this way or that, the sound wouldn’t happen. I alone, am the creator. Inspired, of course by the world of friends and emotions and all experience–my experience.

It’s clear that I play for no one but myself. I used to think that was selfish. Others did, too, especially my piano instructor Muriel who encouraged me to play what was written on the page before me, by some great composer or another. Of course it’s great music, but it isn’t mine! I would bang out tune after tune in my ostinato style in Muriel’s absence. Then, when the sixty-something farmwife would show up for my evening lesson I was forced to resort to Easy Piano Arrangements by Dan Coate. When I would add my own personal flourish–and mind you, I’m not a technical player in the least–Muriel would wrinkle her sinewy face and slap my hand. That isn’t what the composer intended!

But in that moment, that’s what the world got. Anyone with enough drive and devotion can replicate some other person’s work. There’s room for this, but at 15–just like 32–I had something to share.

Muriel deserves credit for forcing the little technique I do follow. So does Katiana, the Russian piano teacher in college. Both tried, but often failed as my fingers went elsewhere. I tried to force myself into the rigorous practice of sticking to it, but time and time again I would fail. When I did, I would break down and just cry. I was driven and devoted, but not to play the page, but simply the heart.

That is why I like playing so well, and to this day, it is the heart that drives my music. I will always defy the teachers, and although I respect them, know my place is away from theirs. My defiance was rooted in the simple idea that the piano was the one place in my world where it was just me. The bench was my stage, the keys were my audience. Nothing else mattered. This was a space for the most intimate outpouring of the heart there was. And no teacher was going to tell me how my heart was feeling.

In the living room, I continued to play. What started somberly in B-flat morphed into a brighter tune in D. The tempo picked up, as did my delight. My cat voiced his presence (or disdain) obstreperously but I didn’t care! My fingers flew. The air in the room was fresh and alive–and so was I!

Todd entered the room during a brief pause I took for a sip of water. Just enjoying the concert, he said. As much as I am endeared by this, I do not regard my playing as a concert, or recital or public performance in any way. But if playing what flowed from my heart is my creative right, then so is his creative experience of it.

At one point I sensed that both the cat and Todd drifted off to sleep. Some might be upset by this, but not me. My fingers continued, the expectation and release of each chord pushed me to encounter the next. This, as usual, can be a problem, since once I begin and find that creative space where the music simply flows, I can almost never stop. Try as I might, but it is a high–a wave I never wish to end.

I continue. Notes pour out of me–including the occasional klunker. But I just keep going. Some songs are happy, but the others become soulful. I mix styles, much like the complex waves of emotion that color our every experience. And all of this, simply, for me.

Playing the piano by ear is my self-therapy. It’s that creative act that belongs solely to me. Nothing else matters and in it there is absolutely no judgment–maybe why I detested lessons. And almost always, if I play long enough, I strike something so deep within that I cry. It could be a memory that pops up, but more often it is just the feeling of making a sound so clear, so precise and so simply authentic.

Really rambling along now, both Todd and Mr. B. begin to stir. I can feel myself healing, and it’s tiring! Soon my session will end and I will be completely exhausted. That’s when you know you’ve done a good job.

I encourage anyone who hasn’t to play the piano. Take a lesson, even. Play what sounds good, but more importantly, play what feels good. It doesn’t matter if you play Bach or if you play chopsticks. Just play. Give yourself the freedom to experience something, and you might be surprised how easily the music flows. If nothing else, you’ll get the chance to learn something. The more you practice it–whatever that means to you–the more you’ll feel empowered by your unique creative act. It’s serious soul-defining action, and those who get to do this every day are, in my book, the luckiest of all people.

I know you’ve been dying to know these things, so for now sit tight and know that we’re working on it. Come September I’ll remind you, again, that I’m in a show and that you should come.

Now, I want thriving perennials rich with new growth, abundant hostas and a few choice plants. But first, I’ve got to uncover all that other stuff and do something with it. That takes work and isn’t necessarily the fun part. I envision a few days of scouring the ground with a spade. Maybe renting that jack hammer to remove the old steps. It sounds like a ton of work, just to create some space for the new stuff to thrive.

There’s a lot of this type of work in our world: stripping away the old to create space for the new. Sometimes it’s not even the ‘new’ we are uncovering. Just creating space for what is or could be. Who knows what I’ll discover during the weeding process?

One theory behind learning to be a great singer is to strip away all the bad habits we’ve acquired over the  years. At 18, it’s amazing how many ‘things’ were covering up the natural voice within me. Stress, exams, all that book knowledge, homesickness, recollections of old Saturday Night Live sketches. Some of this good, some of this not so useful. These ideas manifested themselves in layers of tension on my vocal chords. But, like gardening, the deconstructive process of removing these layers and reorganizing them made good, unencumbered space for growth and freedom. Chipping away at it lesson by lesson slowly uncovered the singular voice within me. It’s a never ending process, too–finding the right place for all that stuff, especially as it keeps accumulating.

Somewhere deep within our overgrown world lies that beautiful song or fantastic garden. Are you willing to uncover the rich authenticity and create the space for it to grow?

After a few days of this I realized I was suddenly creating a volume of ‘work.’ I created lists, poems, stories about my grandfather, jokes and even doodles. My mind started to open up and I felt a sense of freedom, like something had to get out, and once it did, I could go on with my day. And of course, the best part was that it was okay that some of it (if not a most of it) made no real sense. It was just fine…and fun to write.

I’ve gone in and out of phases of writing morning pages, but in times of not writing feel called to get back at it. Now we’ve entered the blog world. Typed words this time, perhaps a video instead of a doodle, but who knows. And this time for you to see, instantly.

When I go back to my pages, whether they’re typed or scribbled, I find the real treasure: a journey from one idea to the next, connected day after day. It’s an exciting re-discovery.

Keep writing.