Thoughts On Abundance

I live in Nashville, a city that identifies as one of the few Mecca’s of artistic collaboration. Go to any local park in this region and you will discover scores of seemingly homeless-looking circa-1950’s Bob Dylan types, weaving each of their sticky guitar riff webs at the root of every live oak tree. While this behavior is generally utilized to attract attention from the opposite or same sex, the hearts of most musicians in Nashville are for excellence in their respective fields of art.

I love the drive and competition. This town pulsates with talent and original ambition, and I often find myself running outside of the lines, trying to keep up and feeling very un-athletic. (Literally and figuratively.) This rat race toward the most prophetic and influential art seems to eat away at confidence and challenge our abilities to support one another. Oftentimes, I fall into patterns of comparison and irrational judgment, simply because I feel there isn’t enough of that good juju to go around.

That’s when the lies come out to play.

You aren’t good enough. The bar is too high. He/she took this/that already and you missed out. Blahdy blahdy blegh megh.

How gross. Am I the only one? In the midst of our well-intentioned quest for beauty and truth, we get caught up in a false perception of how much ‘good stuff’ is out there and ripe for the picking. My favorite visual for this unrealistic striving was bestowed to me via blogger by one of my favorites, Glennon Melton. (http://momastery.com/blog/) She paints a picture detailing the comparative tendencies that we all have by using a typical bowling alley metaphor. The crux of the post questions the nonsensical-ness of even comparing yourself to anyone at all. You are in your own lane, and your lane has absolutely nothing to do with the strike or gutter-ball next door. WHY do we compare ourselves when the reality is that NO ONE has EVER had the same story? Your experience is different from any other human who has ever existed, so how could you possibly equate your measure of achievement to theirs?

These are the things I think about when the lies of failure creep into my bed at night. Living in a thriving city of artists should be only inspiring and never discouraging. This is because abundance is never limited, it flows out of every story that fills our days. 

24

In spite of the scrupulously saved money slipping, nay, marathon sprinting through my fingers, a birthday weekend playing in one of my favorite cities was well spent. I bellow-sang through scores of my favorite obscure musicals with the fabulous gays of the West Village, thrifted in Brooklyn, and shoveled mountains of pizza into my face. #perfect. #yesibloghashtaggedwhatofit.

Other than partying with my galfriends, my absolute favorite part of the trip was feasting upon the greatness of Jessica Chastain and Dan Stevens in The Heiress, a play currently on Broadway. (Go see it, you NY humans.) She was haunting and strangely magnificent as the awkwardly beautiful heiress to a much sought-after fortune. Seeing this from the nosebleed-I-might-plummet-to-my-death section of the balcony was entirely worth it, as I became infatuated with getting my feet wet in theater again. Chastain has really mastered her craft and obviously works very hard, inspiring me to do the same. Suggestions? What do I do with no time and a need to add just one more thing to my frightening schedule??

Oh, and I also went to the Moma for free and oogled at all the abstract expressionism//photography that I know absolutely nothing about.

I won't lie to you, dear readers, (all six of you), I missed my Nash hometown. Is anyone else as shocked as I am by the aforementioned statement?!

I suppose it's rolling green hills, mollasses accents and Yazoo Pale Ale for me. There was a lot of love waiting for me back home.

                                                                                               Sincerely, RR

Bon Voyage a Lala

Well, it's happening. My baby sister is whisking off to her favorite place (Scotland) to study her favorite things (Jane Austen and J.R.R. Tolkien). "I've already read the material for my classes, so I can't wait to learn new things," were words she used this morning while I watched her eat breakfast. I won't breeze over the aforementioned 'while I watched her eat breakfast' because I realize that it sounds a bit silly and obsessive. Yes, a trifle pathetic and sad, but I am going to miss this little Lala. We have never been separated for an entire semester, and I am genuinely weepy at her departure.

Attached much? Proudly, yes. But this isn't about me.....come on Rach pull it together. 

I love you my sweet sister. Your lighthearted and equally dark sense of humor + a hundred million other things will be missed. HAVE FUN KICK ADVENTURES IN THE FACE.

And be safe.

.............I'm coming for you in May.

                                                                          Sincerely,
                                                                                  Sissy

       (PS these pics were taken in Florida and NOT in Scotland.....dumb to clarify? Maybe.)

A Foggy Day on Fogg Street

Keeping in practice with my discipline of doing things simply to do them, I traded beer for a photographer (the smexy Stephanie Creasy) and endeavored to be cool by shooting near Third Man Records. Channeling Jack White, I tapped a barely-there dark side by awkwardly hiking my body on top of a loading platform. Here's to overcast lighting, wearing winter coats in seventy degree weather, and celebratory hot dogs with a friend. 

LKR

"A thing of beauty is a joy forever : its loveliness increases; it will never pass into nothingness."

-John Keats

Leiper's Fork

     

                 

Single & the South

I was sitting at a nameless person’s kitchen table, sipping on some sweet iced tea when a metaphorical sledgehammer charged my brain. After expressing frustration over a recent romantic situation, the kitchen hostess responded with, “I hear that ‘so and so’ church has a great singles group.” Cue needle-off-record-screeching-halt moment. Admittedly, having dealt heavily and painfully with some God issues at the time, I was irrationally averse to such a community to begin with, but it wasn’t the seasonal church-y frustration that stunned me. This is where they send us, I thought. A contrived holding pen where we can rape each other emotionally until maybe making some manipulated spiritual connection that will OBVIOUSLY lead to an ideal marriage. Enlightened and offended, I chewed on that Southern Singularity beef jerky for the next six months.

I was twenty-two at the time. The fact that this meant I was past my prime and reaching some unspoken expiration date confused me. “What does this mean about the South?” I asked myself. “What does this mean about me?” Bladdy bladdy blah. I went to lingerie showers, endured Facebook wedding countdowns, and even wholeheartedly celebrated with the friends who I thought completely ready to jump off the cliff of matrimony. And then, while choking down champagne during an especially heart-wrenching Daddy/Daughter dance at a reception, I discovered something : I do not even want to get married. (Yet.)

Shocking horror of all horrors, arriving at the truth that I may be slightly uncertain about making a decision that will affect my life every day. Forever. I navel-gazed selfishly for a time, and then thought about a hoped-for you. A y’all, if you will. A community of people who can intelligently say that IT IS OKAY TO BE ALONE. Because, the truth is, we aren’t really alone.

So here I am, giving a voice to the culturally pitied single ladies of the South. Maybe we’ve been dealt a shitty man card, maybe it’s by choice, but regardless of your previous travels, it sure does blow to feel like you’re in a holding pen before being shipped off to a ticky-tacky suburban land that bears no resemblance to your current life.

…Is it just me?

Surely not, because I see you in those church singles groups that are mostly just created to address a problem rather than form community anyway. I see you on E Harmony, far too young at that, because your culture has told you that you are past the deserving age for a Pinterest wedding. And I especially see you ladies blowing through thousands of dollars on friends’ weddings that make you feel like there is something wrong with you.

Oh, I see you. I am one of you.

The fundamental problem with our group is the uncertainty of membership duration. We are different from AA or other various support groups, in that typically we aren’t struggling with some mental illness or addiction. (Though many married early twenty something’s might think we are.) For this very reason, we find it difficult to accurately and publicly voice concern, primarily because most of us won’t be in the group for life, and even if we are dedicated to and love this club, we could go out for drinks after a weekly meeting and subsequently be fatedly introduced to some drop dead gorgeous soul mate human. This is not to even say that we’re waiting for this universe-aligning moment to even happen all at once, because right now we just happen to have other priorities.

To summarize, it’s basically unfair, because I want to rally together and make bonds, but the permanency of the aforementioned promises are paper thin due to our obvious magnetic attractiveness.

So….join forces? Come up with a better response to the ever-condescending, “Oh, you’re just waiting around for the right one, aren’t you?” (Gag.) I thought it high time to address a problem in our dear old Dixie land :

Why the hell can’t we be single and happy?