But right after the challenge was made, I read David Whyte's poem "Fifty," and I found inspiration to write about my most recent reset in 2013. As I wrote I realized how deeply this particular reset affected my life and my marriage. All good, may I add.
Resets are a good time to rediscover blue space and green space and the river flow of life, so I feel this fits right in with the theme of this blog -- to recognize where we are in the moment and spend a little time rejoicing.
Reset 2013
Deep December,
my back freezing up at the least convenient moment.
Dissatisfaction with every part of my life, our lives.
Struggles, trying to figure out
how to fix where I was, where
we were. Changes on the way, changes
that had already come, pushing it
forward. Talking to friends and watching
rainbows in fountains and writing
notes and reading poetry, stressed and angry.
One Saturday afternoon I find myself crying profusely
reading the words from
Edna St. Vincent Millay’s “Mariposa”:
“Death comes in a day or two.”
Why did I feel I was dying?
I soak my back. I walk slowly.
I decide “answers” will come soon.
I have to believe. I am an empty cup.
I have cleared a space.
What would replace what is,
now that this harvest
is in?
We had taken on this paper route
when we were dangerously deep
in financial crisis, seven years running,
and finally we can leave it behind. We
set the day. Made a firm plan to finish
paying off some bills by April 1st.
On February 1st I have a vivid dream: I’ve returned to
teaching middle school, my high school position
having burned me out so fiercely I hardly
recognized myself, and soon I knew there
was a way. Sometimes
we are surprised
at how quickly answers can come.
Ready in a moment to
believe again.
And April came.
Easter was our final hurrah.
A wide open path. Our resurrection, perhaps.
A new position on the horizon,
the interview done, the references in,
the papers just waiting to be signed. We
now have Saturday evenings to discover
what is waiting to be discovered, rather
than giving ourselves over to early
bedtime. I buy
a brilliant blue notebook.
It is divided into three sections. I start to
plan adventures, my writing life, my new teaching
life. We start watching music programs,
learning more about traditional music
and the music of America, sparking us in
a direction I could not have planned to go in
prior to this time. This was all new, exciting,
all possibilities open and waiting. Ideas
are flying at me beyond the speed of light.
I ask a friend to start a writing circle
with me. She says yes.
I say goodbye to all that was. I drive
away. I get new
eyes. I get an iPad just so
I can write from the road. We plan
our first trip in seven years – places we’ve
been waiting to see, but dared never dream
could be a reality. I complete my final
National Writing Project Summer
Institute. My
friends and I start the Trail Brazen
Writing Circle. I start writing a daily blog.
What was once out of reach is now
starting to feel familiar and fulfilling and
exciting and newborn. No
end time now.
Teaching has been a series of ups and downs,
and that is to be expected. What we didn’t know
was that we would become pilgrims seeking
the roots of American music and all things related.
We began with Kelly Ingram Park in Birmingham,
traveled the Natchez Parkway to Nashville to
experience the Grand Ole Opry and meet new
friends and tour RCA Studio B and start to think
about how all this music that has meant so
much to us for so very long came to be,
the people who made the music, who
discovered the greats in alleys and stages
and street corners, who inspire the world
with their voices and their words and their
melodies. We stayed along the Ohio River and
ate at a restaurant in a building that had been
a stop on The Underground Railroad. We stayed in
Gatlinburg and enjoyed the views and the cool
mountain air. We caught up with my cousin in
Asheville and what we were doing was setting
the pace for vacations to come. Our curiosity
only grew, about Civil Rights and the roots of
American music. Meanwhile, I was also writing
my heart out, adjusting to teaching
at a new school, which hasn’t been exactly what I
expected it to be, but it has grown on me over
time. Unable to fight off the urge, I decide it
is time to learn mandolin, and return to my old
guitar teacher to forge a new relationship which
continues today; it adds to my life. As well as the
reading I do, and the music I listen to, and the
concerts we have attended. So many great ones.
Future road trips found us in New Orleans,
Memphis, Graceland, Sun Studios, the Lorraine
Motel, the Mississippi Delta, stretching for miles,
the deserted store where Emmett Till
made his famous mistake, Robert Johnson’s grave,
The Tallahatchie River and Bridge, downtown
Philadelphia, Mississippi, the glorious Square Books
in Oxford, the Rockabilly Museum in Jackson,
The Birthplace of Country Music in Bristol,
The Bluegrass Underground in McMinnville, and
centers dedicated to greats like B.B. King,
Johnny Cash, Patsy Cline. And an hour spent
listening to Charlie Patton singing across the farm
that is said to be the place the blues were born.
More time in Nashville, shows at the Ryman,
falling in love with mandolin greats Jesse McReynolds
and Bobby Osborne, a visit to the International Bluegrass
for bluegrass which was always there,
just needed a lot of tender loving care and feeding.
Lots of cousin time in Asheville, visiting Carl Sandburg’s
home with his 70,000 books.
home with his 70,000 books.
Fabulous waterfalls, and a little town called
Black Mountain, eating barbecue along the
French Broad River and playing music in the living room.
Four trips that have grown our married friendship and
the relationship with my cousin and
our love for music and our love for all that is and
can be about life. It is far beyond what was expected
when I wrote in my little blue notebook, when I
thought we might have a few adventures. The
Year 2013 was a Reset for me personally, and
for my marriage and relationship with everything
important and meaningful in my life.
Jim and I have come to find
…ourselves
  |
looking on,
as if living in a
gifted,
unlooked for
second life,
seeing again
how
an empty cup
can brim once more
to the gleam.
 |
| Along the French Broad River, Asheville July 2015 |
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