![]() My kids were learning recently about natural disasters and the conversation led to the wonder of how animals often sense disaster coming before humans have a clue. It’s a fascinating demonstration of how instinctively in tune with the larger world they are - and, inversely, how out of tune we often are. I recalled for them the horrible 2004 Indonesian tsunami and the stories of how the animals all ran to higher ground well before the waves arrived and all but wiped that part of human civilization off the map. I had never conceived of such a disaster, nor such a response. Both are still difficult to fathom. While certainly different, 2020 has been a natural disaster of its own - both the Covid part, and the lack of early competent response from humans (the incredible feat of the vaccine is the hopeful counterpoint to the absurdity of people’s fighting over wearing a mask). This year, humans have demonstrated an entirely new capacity to be out of tune with themselves and the world around them. I’ve been a bit lost and dismayed about this reality - how humanity has shown its ass this year and what that means for the future (again, a strong counterpoint thankfully provided by our teachers, nurses, and doctors). As I was mulling this yesterday, I just happened to be following my dog who was pulling ahead of me as I took him on a walk to the post office. He doesn’t know what the post office is. Now, I know dogs aren’t exactly the top of the animal kingdom and that our domestication of these sweet animals has certainly made them dumber and less naturally capable, but certainly more loving and lovable. Domestication has had a similar impact on me. Yes, he sniffs the greasy base of a fire hydrant and the still-glistening blades of monkey grass as if he were delving into the depths of quantum physics. Yes, he’ll roll over and unabashedly lick his private parts whenever the need strikes and regardless of who else is around. Yes, he actually stepped square into another dog’s poop as I was on my way back home to write this post. But, this dog is in tune with something greater, I swear. Today, as I turned left onto South 11th Street, about 30 yards down, he started pulling me out into the road, seemingly wanting to cross to the other side. Turns out, he knows where Bongo Java is and is apparently deeply in tune with my coffee needs. He was pulling me to the coffee shop. “Not today, Fitz. We are heading to the Post Office. But, thank you for the offer.” On our way back from the Post Office, we were walking along the South side of Woodland Street, and again, the dog starts pulling me out into the road, seemingly wanting to cross the street. “What the hell are you doing, Fitz!? There are cars!” And, then I realized that we were approaching Woodland Wine Merchant on the other side of the street. He was pulling me to the liquor store. “Not, today, Fitz…well…OK…if it means that much to you.” Returning home with a happy dog and a bottle of bourbon, I felt one with nature. It’s gonna be OK. My dog understands 2020 and coffee and bourbon and me. It’s really pretty amazing and profound - that deep animal instinct and intuitive connectedness. Also, both Bongo Java and Woodland Wine Merchant offer complementary dog treats when you visit, but that probably doesn’t have anything to do with it.
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![]() The approach of Thanksgiving prompts some much needed reflection on 2020, this the year of the shit show. So, here are a few thoughts on gratitude: 1. Gratitude is the foundation of presence. Gratitude requires focus on what you have, not what you’ve lost, are missing, or wish you had, what was or what will be. The sense of loss and longing and loneliness and anxiety that feel so natural to 2020 are only exacerbated in gratitude’s absence. The opposite of gratitude is not being ungrateful, but rather being unrooted. 2. Gratitude is richer when it is more difficult to come by. Sometimes it’s just hard to feel thankful for anything, but these are the moments when gratitude is most potent. Like most anything, the gratitude you have to work for arrives enriched by the investment. So, taking the time to be reflective, to see yourself and the world, yourself in the world, to explore those around you and those who are no longer, to empathize deeply, frequently to the point of tears of joy or sorrow, to learn something, to share something - this is the work of gratitude. And, its reward is far greater than the effort and far more complete than thoughtless appreciation. 3. Gratitude requires perspective. For pretty much the duration of the pandemic, I’ve had a bulging disc in my neck. I’ve been in regular and at times near constant pain. I’ve wanted to complain, but, you know what: who gives a shit!? I don’t have Covid. I don’t have cancer. I’m not going to die. My fortune is plentiful. My privilege is grotesque. Gratitude dilutes the need to complain - even, and perhaps especially, if you have to remind yourself. I am grateful for my health - as it is. I am grateful for the health of my family and friends and that I’ve lost no one close to me to Covid. 4. Some days, gratitude is all you have to get you through the day - and, that’s ok. I lost a friend this summer who I loved dearly, even though I saw her infrequently. Her loss was tragic and painful and her absence has surfaced my deep gratitude not just for her and her life - but for the people and life I lived when we met more than a decade ago. It has spurred deep reflection on the positive impact others have had on my life, hopefully that I’ve had on others, and a deep re-digging into why I am here. While her loss had me feeling lost and untethered, it has in my gratitude for her deeply rooted me. 5. Gratitude is a gift to be exchanged. It’s important to do things for others, to be a part of other people’s lives, to feel part of a community. This can be helping or being helped, or something as simple as engaging in a random conversation at a coffee shop or even just viewing someone else’s art in a gallery. It’s connection. It’s exchange. Of ideas. Of energy. Giving and receiving. In a time of social isolation, these connections are harder than ever to find. Deliberate effort is required. While gratitude for others is critical for creating meaning in life, feeling the gratitude of others is critical to finding it. This year has been a shit show, and yet I find myself more grateful than ever. But, I’ve had to work for it. For that, I am grateful. ![]() The season of 2020 has been like no other. I don’t know whether it has been hot or cold, rainy or dry. I don’t know even how long it has lasted or when it will end. A singular, enduring season. I don’t really remember now, but figure it began with the budding promise of any new season. New year. Life waking, welling up, promising to burst forth. But then, the winds came. While my bows were not broken, they still express the bend of the wind, the subtle arch that tells you where it came from and where it was going, and showing what it left behind. A bend that says I survived but not without a story to tell, not without a little bit of wear. Forever changed. And then disease silently struck. I didn’t see anything - I couldn’t - but I knew others were falling. I didn’t see them fall. I didn’t hear them fall. But, they fell, and it changed me. I am left here - to reach deeper, to understand my ground, to hold what I cannot touch, to feel what I cannot see, to find something new, within. I reach to the wisdom deep in my cells. I inhale the beauty that remains free, above, encompassing - articulated in stark contrast to the fallen, shadow, below. The sun hits me differently now. And then the dog days set in. A hyperventilating time when heat consumed oxygen, when my leaves warmed in thirst, starving refreshment, some drying and cracking and falling amidst the intensity, the urgency. They were false suggestions of a changing season. All of me simply could not endure. More. Fallen. Only the season endures intact. And now, I am losing my leaves. All of them this time. I amidst the others, above and below, wondering how some stand barren while others glow - in reds and yellows and oranges - more alive than ever. I wonder how they see me. I feel frail. Limbs exposed. Bare. But, even in 2020, even in the absence of time, the singularity of season, in the futility of place, in the intensity of the unknown, in the reduction of my self outward, expansion inward, I take solace in that deep wisdom I found in my cells: In this season, I don’t need leaves to be alive. I just need roots. ![]() My commitment to creating has presented me with many media over the years - some art, some not - each of which has its own tools, challenges, and creative outcomes and brings its own unique joy and value to the world. Drawing. Painting. Printmaking. Sculpture. Digital media. Community organizing. Advocacy. Nonprofit management. Educational consulting. Entrepreneurship. Life itself. Several years ago, I even wrote a book about it. Last night, for the first time, my medium was flowers. Thanks to a company called Poppy, I had a box of fresh-cut, direct-from-the-farmer flowers delivered to my door to create with as I saw fit. I had big aspirations of enjoying the process with my two daughters (6 and 8), but the day kind of slipped away from us. So, as they wound down their somewhat hectic day, I actually had some time alone, some me-time, some "studio time" with this big, bunch of color, height, form, movement, rhythm, and rhyme in the medium of Poppy flowers. Part sculpture, part painting, part meditation - my first experience with flowers-as-medium was a treasured and peaceful and unexpected end to my day. And, this morning, the results met me at breakfast - presenting me again not only with the joy of the diverse beauty, color, form, and pure nature of the flowers - but also a moment of reflection and self-critique, seeing things in the new light of a new day, showing me how I could have done a better job arranging them. This is the creative journey that drives life - no matter your medium. Creating matters. Thanks, Poppy. ![]() Someone asked the other day: “how are you guys doing.” It’s a question we are all asking a lot and being asked by those who care about us. It’s a pretty complicated answer given the times, but I now feel like I have an honest - if not short - response. If you’d asked me three months ago how I would be doing if a tornado ripped through my community and then two weeks later we started hearing about hundreds and then thousands of Americans dying of a strange virus that would ultimately be killing upward of 100,000 in the U.S. alone with the epicenters being in states where much of my family lives and then another week or so later schools would be canceled and businesses would all be forced to close and we would need to wear masks to go to the store and stay at least 6 feet apart from people wherever we are, that this condition would last for two months and counting with the kids never returning to school and my wife and me not returning to work outside of our home and much of my community still looking like the tornado just happened… Stress. Anger. Disillusionment. Loneliness. Fear. Sadness. If you’d asked me to imagine all of that back then and how I would be doing two months in, all of these emotional responses would have been easily assumed. But, my imagination would have colored them far more intensely than reality has. All of us are more resilient in life than we are in our imaginations. Anyone who has experienced the loss of a loved one knows this. But, resilience is about bouncing back. We are still in it! We still don’t know how or when or if this thing will end - or when it will come back. Dealing with this requires something different: less wild imagination - more observation, less reaction - more reflection, less action - more stillness. Presence. Presence asks: what of this situation can I control? Stress scleroses around all of it that I can’t control, thus constraining my ability to control what I can. Presence allows me to maintain agency in the face of what feels like chaos. Anger reduces agency to reaction - a destructive behavioral loop. Presence asks what I know differently today, and based on that, what will I do differently? Disillusionment wanders and wonders in all that I don’t know, thus leaving me unsure of what to do at all. Presence makes the most of the connections and the tools within my grasp. Loneliness feeds on what I don’t have or is no longer within my grasp given the circumstance. Presence builds muscle. Fear builds scar tissue. Presence reminds us that our sadness must be accepted and tended to. It won’t go away. It may be stuffed or hidden or put aside for a variety of healthy and unhealthy reasons. But, it will be expressed at some point, in some way, and its easiest expression is in the present - as sadness. It is important for me to note that I am fortunate to-date to have remained healthy and to have not been touched by Covid-19 directly. That’s first and foremost. I am also fortunate to still have work and a home that was only modestly damaged by the tornado. So, let me be clear, I feel very fortunate despite the times. And still, Presence isn’t easy for me. In fact, it’s a discipline that, as often as not, loses out to all of these other emotional responses. So, Presence must also be a principle as much as it is a practice - a principle that drives and encourages the practice in the face of all the rest. Presence in the time of…whatever happens next. Here are 7 more things I hope my kids are learning as a follow up to my blog a couple of weeks ago: “10 Things I Hope My Kids are Learning During a Pandemic (so far).” And, even though I still can’t fathom how my children are being taught their math, I’m pretty sure this makes 17 things to date.
It’s OK to cry. I heard my daughter crying the other morning, and I could tell by the tone and how long it lasted that it was something different. This wasn’t about not getting dessert or her sister not sharing the screen when teleconferencing with friends. This was just sad. Just the night before, I had walked in on her telling her Oma how stressful it was not being in school (kindergarten). She took the play-by-play approach, but my summary is that she needs more structure and she needs the love and attention of her teacher. She loves her teacher. “I’m really frustrated” she said through her tears. I was so proud of her using her words and so thankful for the opportunity to say these critical words out loud to her, to myself, my wife, and my other daughter: “It’s OK to cry.” Your parents don’t have any more experience with this than you do. The “It’s OK to cry” line was quickly followed up with an opportunity for another critically important message and one I’ve always been committed to as a parent: I don’t have the answer and I can’t solve it. We are all just figuring this out together and doing our best. This my-parents-are-human perspective for a child likely makes a lot more sense in a pandemic than in the normal day-to-day. But, the message for really difficult personal and life situations is no different today than it was six months ago - or will be six years from now: I don’t have all the answers and I probably can’t solve it. We are on the same team. When we can’t control things - and we can actually admit it (something we can control) - it’s really important for us as a family to “be on the same team.” We have to work together. Of course, it’s natural for us to get frustrated or annoyed with each other. It’s natural for siblings to pick and prod and snipe at each other some. After all, they’ve been together in the last month probably more than they ever have before. But, it’s also important for them to see and hear and acknowledge what they are doing. That what they are doing is normal doesn’t necessarily make it OK. I asked my girls the other night what they would think if they heard me speak to their Mommy using the words and tone they had been speaking with to each other. They obviously didn’t like it and clearly were not comfortable with my thought experiment. The older later apologized, triggering something similar from the younger. The next day was markedly better. Grief is a process. We are all grieving to some degree in this odd, unknown, new experience. We are grieving a loss of freedom. My kids are grieving missing their friends and teachers and just a normal schedule. I am grieving for my children. We are grieving for our friends and family and elders whose lives are turned upside down, whose jobs are evaporating. We are grieving for over 30,000 people we don’t even know, grieving for their families, their children. We are grieving a quiet awareness that we’ve lost some degree of innocence. We will not be the same after this. Our grief will last awhile. Laughter is healing. I don’t even remember what happened the other night that got us all tickled. It’s likely I may have been making up some crazy song and singing in a terrible voice (my only option), possibly dancing. It’s equally likely that someone just farted. Either way, we all were laughing, cackling. And, it was clear we all needed that moment of joy. I felt that moment deeply as I looked at the sparkle in my kids’ eyes and their face-swallowing smiles. It felt like oxygen. It felt like a breath I haven’t taken in weeks. You’ve gotta take care of yourself to take care of others. We have to recognize when we aren’t taking care of ourselves and acknowledge that the impact is all around us. We each have to find ways, whether a quiet moment alone, a few minutes with a book, a few minutes walking the dog, exercising - whatever it is - to do something every day for ourselves, for a little bit of space and self care. As parents, this is not only about sustaining ourselves but modeling behaviors that our children can learn and internalize deeply in such a difficult time. My older daughter asked to read a kids yoga breathing book last night and commented on how different she felt after some deep, intentional breathing. I hope she always remembers this. There is always beauty to be found. I have never walked my dog in the middle of a work day. I have never taken a walk with my children in the middle of a work day. I have never walked with my dog and my children to get hot dogs and have a picnic during a workday. I have never had hot dogs customized with my children’s names on them during a workday, or ever. Lunch today was a gift. “You gotta keep pedaling, babe, or you’ll fall!”
“Keep pedaling…keep pedaling…keep pedaling…” “Look forward…pedal…pedal…pedal…” This was my refrain yesterday as I got my 6 year old out to ride her bike for only the second time without training wheels. As I started to hear myself repeating it, I thought maybe there was a timely life lesson here akin to my reflections the first time she rode with training wheels a couple of years ago. Given a recent tornado and a current pandemic and the pain of friends who have lost homes, are losing jobs and businesses, and my own challenges in keeping a startup alive, the message of “just keep pedaling” seemed like it might be wise. After all what else are you going to do!? And, there is some truth to this. I fear if I stop pedaling or my community stops pedaling amid this almost unfathomable reality, I may just hit the ground. I’ve got to keep some momentum, some inertia, or steering will become more difficult. I’ll end up jerking the handle bars back and forth more rapidly, erratically, directionless, just to stay upright. I will ultimately lose my balance anyway. As these thoughts were flooding my mind and my simultaneous refrain to my daughter echoed in my ears, my daughter did something else. She had fallen once again. But, this time she had stopped and started quietly looking at a patch of clover, focusing on something else, engaging in another component of her world, other senses, shifting her perspective. Stopping. Not pedaling. And then, she got back up, got back on her bike, and started pedaling - and she kept pedaling this time. When she did fall, she suddenly figured out how to do it without hitting the ground. She also figured out how to get started on her own, to generate her own momentum, to start riding again. The reality is, I guess, that yes, sometimes we do have to keep pedaling…pedaling…pedaling or we will fall. But, maybe sometimes we also have to stop pedaling for a bit to learn how to fall, or to learn that falling isn’t necessarily all we feared it would be, or maybe it’s worse, but we figure out how to start again, more wise, more prepared to keep pedaling, more resilient knowing how to - and that we can - get back up. This morning, in many ways, I had my first Communion. Well, let me clarify: I had my first Communion that I felt I could truly believe in - with full heart, mind, intellect, emotion, lived reality, and faith.
Growing up as a Christian, I have been through all of the key sacraments and milestones. Communion did, however, take two tries because as a Protestant in Catholic School, I was denied my first Communion when all of my peers prepared for and received theirs. I sat in the back pew and waited while they presumably opened their doors to heaven. I crossed that milestone as a Methodist some years later with markedly less fanfare. I never really resented my presumed lack of salvation in the Catholic Church - presumed damnation depending on how you chose to look at it. I just knew something didn’t make sense in my mind that as an 8 year old child I was denied this central symbol of the Christian Church while my peers partook. And, even as a child, I understood what its denial meant according to the faith of the people around me. Not for that reason only, but for the life I lived and the family I was raised in, faith usually didn’t cut it for my connection with a higher power. Action was what mattered. People - all people - are what mattered. Living the right life was what I could control and living the wrong one could never be overcome by quoting scripture or proselytizing my faith. This morning, I attended Church where a Church barely stood. I attended East End United Methodist’s service outside, in the grass, on a beautiful morning, with the tornado-torn bones of the old Church and the exposed rafters of its roof looming over us. I attended Church with several hundred neighbors, some of whom were members of the Church, many of whom just needed to gather after the tornado to be part of a community, to connect and find comfort. I still don’t connect much with scripture. I love the music and I do like a good and thought-provoking sermon. Today, more than anything, I loved being among people who all in our own ways are struggling with the tragedy of the week - whether our own tragedy or that of our neighbor or the tragedy of the loss of a Church. As the service wrapped up, the minister announced that in lieu of the sacrament of Communion, they would be passing out pieces of the broken glass from their shattered stained glass window - which until Tuesday told the story in light and glass and color of Christian Communion. The shattered shards they passed out even mirrored that of the broken Eucharist in my memory. This simple, beautiful, creative act amid destruction took my recent reflections on the Art of Church to a whole new level. In fact, this loving act, this sharing, this humble gesture, told the story of Christianity better than the window in its wholeness ever could have. It also didn’t require faith to believe. It was a symbol of the present. It was a symbol of the basic human brokenness we are all experiencing. It was a remnant of human creativity and storytelling and inspiration. It was the sharing of brokenness as a means of bringing us together. This is Church to me. This was a sacrament that I understand, and that I can believe in. I didn’t need Christian faith to find its transcendence. I have people. I have love. I have art. I have community. And, I have faith in these things. Communion. There’s a lot that has changed about my community. That happens when you live someplace for 43 years. But, despite an entirely different complexion and economic status and just about everything else, there is some strange and persistent spirit that is East Nashville.
This week, East Nashville friends, families, neighbors, and small businesses have suffered extraordinary loss - including two lives - due to a middle-of-the-night EF3 tornado. It’s been devastating. I have seen the East Nashville community rally before and I know they can work like dogs when it comes to helping a neighbor and uplifting our community. I saw this in 2010 when the city flooded and I saw the results from the 1998 tornado when I was stuck at college and couldn’t get home to do my part. I saw it growing up when families were advocating and organizing for anything from cleaner alleys to safer streets to better schools to battling slum lords. We would gather in the basement of Tulip Street Methodist Church around a potluck of someone’s potato salad, someone’s deviled eggs, someone’s lime jello salad, and someone’s fried chicken - and be a community. I have been reminded this week how, in a crisis, in real community, people will activate and just do what they can: you have a chainsaw, you cut fallen trees. You still have electricity, you offer a shower or laundry or a place just to be. You have a few bucks and a wagon, you pass out water and snacks. You have a pair of gloves, you pick up whatever debris is out there - whether the remnants of a roof or shredded insulation or a pile of bricks formerly protecting someone’s home or business. You have a full heart and just don’t know what else to do, you give a hug and just let people know you care. You do all of it, big and small, and all of it matters. This is a truth I’ve known about East Nashville - all of my life. Tonight, Margot McCormack of Margot’s Cafe hosted a “cookout” outside of her restaurant supported by some needed libations from Woodland Wine Merchant and some sweets from 5 Daughters to bring the community together and share some food, a little alcohol, and some camaraderie and love. Many of us still do not have power. Many others cannot stay in their own homes and cannot run their businesses. Some have lost everything. People are hurting. I went to the cookout because I have felt helpless and disconnected and my spirit has been deeply troubled by the loss my community has faced. I just needed to see some familiar faces. I just needed to give a hug to a neighbor. I figured I’d grab a hot dog or something and just hang out with my wife and kids. It was oddly very important to me to be there. This time, thanks to Margot, I traded the lime jello for a lamb chop - and some greens with black-eyed peas, and a kale salad, and maybe some Israeli couscous salad (guessing, but delicious!), and much more. It was just so East Nashville. All of it. Today. Always. I do love lamb chops. I do love East Nashville. Some things change. Some things stay the same. ![]() We all must find ways to tell our stories, as best we can, in the ways that we can, at the times when we feel the strength to do it - but with a deep understanding that they matter. All of them. No matter how small we feel or how unique we believe our struggles to be or how fearful we are to expose our vulnerabilities, someone out there feels small, feels isolated, and is afraid to be themselves because no one would understand their story - a story like ours. This is the reality of the human story writ large and is the potency of the human story writ small. Far more connects us than separates us. Someone needs to hear our story so they can own and share theirs. This week, I went to a fundraiser for and watched a documentary called Invisible: Gay Women in Southern Music. It chronicles the stories of a surprisingly large number of wildly successful and talented gay women in mostly country music over the last several decades - women who have written countless number one songs, women brimming with vocal and musical talent, and women who have had to hide who they are to do the work they love and to share their gift with the world. I went in to the event knowing it would be an interesting story - just the immediate dissonance that comes to my mind as a Nashville native and a “son of the South” between the idea of gay women and country music is compelling. But, the film and the stories were so much more than I could have imagined. As I sat and listened to these women, as I laughed and cried with them and wondered at their talent and sacrifice and bravery, as I grew angry at the misogyny they have endured and the injustice that has forced their personal and career directions and taken away their individual rights and opportunities, as I heard their individual stories, each unique, I found myself deeply connecting with all of them. Let me be clear: we have seemingly nothing in common. I don’t listen to country music. I don’t play any instruments or write music. I couldn’t sing on key if I were paid. I am not gay, and I am a man. Their stories and lives moved me because I was reminded in a very intimate way that there are people like these women, hidden in places I never even think about, right here in my home town, who have worked and lived and endured daily in ways that I will never know. Their strength, their survival, their courage, and now their sharing of their personal stories will forever forward be a light in my being. They can never again be invisible to me, and those who still feel invisible are hopefully somehow less so. And, it’s not just about them, or me. These women who I had never heard of, never thought of, and otherwise would never have known - except for this documentary - have spent invisible lives quietly making my world a little closer to the one I actually want to live in. Most importantly to me at this stage in my life, they have made the world that much safer for my daughters to grow up in. I am indebted to them and deeply grateful. I can thank my friend Bill Brimm whose idea it was to encourage these artists to share their stories. But, to merely thank these women somehow doesn’t feel right. It’s not enough. It’s an embarrassment of my privilege and the relative ease with which the world has presented itself to me. And yet, it’s also all I have. So, let me thank them anyway - and really all of you who are reading this as well. Thank you for your story. Thank you for your art. Thank you for your willingness to share them. Thank you for your courage and resilience. Thank you for refusing to be invisible so that others may also see and be seen. I hope you will consider donating to help this important film make it to a broader audience. Please visit: https://www.outhausfilms.com/ |
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