He's come to take his children home.

I spent my childhood quietly (or not so quietly) singing along with my dad from a chair or blanket or stool in a restaurant or cafe or park while we sang for the people assembled there. I used to think he wrote every Grateful Dead song into existence--with a few Beatles songs peppered in for good measure and popular appeal.

Despite years of practice, I have struggled to find ease and confidence in playing my own music and performing live. It felt like this private, essential part of who I was, strung together at birth and so important that I couldn't possibly risk sharing it. I wrote music and played primarily for the look of awe in my dad's eyes. He--with the constant writer's block and knack to make popular songs his own--he made me feel like a combination of Joni Mitchell and Patti Smith when clumsily clanging chords and words together.

Up until the last day I saw him, I was convinced my dad would get better. Even as frail as he was and as bleak as the circumstances were, I thought things would improve. He made me believe in magic so many other times throughout my life, I thought this must be just another magic trick to add to his repertoire. Dad's popular magical acts included making bottomless pancakes from a cup of batter, singing songs that made your heart beat like you were sprinting long-distance, and an innate knowledge of when the most beautiful things would fall from the sky in an exquisite extraterrestrial light show.
I am just now beginning to recognize that my father is gone for good, in the physical sense. That this is not some prolonged silence caused by a meaningless fight manifested in physical distance, one day to be resolved with a phone call and a long chat over Magic Hat #9 and some hummus. This is it. This is life now.

Dad was not a man to sow lofty expectations for his kids, and I mean that in a good way. If I spent the rest of my life drinking merlot on my couch, watching JOY and crying ( like I have today), he would not fault me for it. But I lived for his giddy smiles, and I lived for his music and I can't help but think--I can still find a path through this world with that motivation and love riding shotgun. I can still make music that would make him smile, and feel in awe of life enough that I feel compelled to write a song about it.

But not just now. Today, I am crying with my eyes open.

Looking inward vs. Looking outward:


Lately, I have been frustrated by my inability (or lack of desire?) to turn my gaze outward, and write down what I see. So much of my inner focus involves looking at my surroundings, the rooftop gaze that includes both the entirety of midtown Manhattan, ringed by the Farragut and Walt Whitman Projects in my backyard. The woman who takes cans out of my recycling bin offering me a warm smile and a "good morning". My dog's first successful foray into an off-leash park.

But when time comes to write down what I see, I turn inward., to personal disappointments. How much I miss my father, or how hard it is to go to a dress fitting without Emily in tow.

II want to write about what I saw in Guatemala--the ugly and beautiful--and how the current political proceedings are both a wonderful sign of progress and a damning symbol of how the political system is failing the Guatemalan people.

I am still trying to write something cohesive about my year spent working in a Charter School--what worked and what did not. What was situational, and what appears to be endemic in a system that siphons money from local school systems and gives them to private companies and individuals.

Fall always feels like an opportunity to jump into something new. Despite the bitter memories associated with November, Fall never fails to invite us to start over. That crisp fall air has a lot to do with the smell of trees dying, but somehow that smell feels new, a sign of good changes to come.

Another dream about a Bush

streaming everywhere,
it had particular preferences &
personal affinities, altogether unattached
from the rest of us.

Got into the pumpkin soup and
tapped a good-looking girl on the shoulder while
tickling a gentleman's ear--
not my idea of a good night, but
overshadowed an otherwise
 dull dinner party.

It had hidden
childlike with sequined hot pants
but someone shouted stolen
and without further investigation,
demanded their return.

So let it
envelope the room.
tendrils clinging like wispy
arms, thin and appealing
yet coarse, memorable, unmistakeable.

The bush is not afraid of her.

Brendan Irving, who should be 25 today.

"I will miss you more on some days than others, but I could never love you any less"
--Brendan Irving, aged 17, writes to Olivia Lloyd, aged 16, while she is away at summer camp.  

It is still difficult to look through pictures from what is now my childhood--you are a prominent fixture in them, oscillating from brown curls to a mane of black-and-white hair, depending on the month and year. It is so odd, finding a photograph of you that I haven't seen before, your jawline well-defined. A trait that I found handsome, even as a girl. Although my life is not really so different now as it was when we were together, I sometimes think that we lived a different life in a separate universe. If only I could pull the curtain between those two worlds, I might see you  again. Lying in the grass of some public park, driving too fast on back roads, and covering the car floor with doughnut crumbs and coffee stains.

I am 24, an age that sounds distinctly adult, and you would be 25. But in my memory, you barely reach 19. Is it so strange, to hold a lingering affection for someone so young?

It took me a very long time to be happy again after you left, and sometimes feeling so happy and in love now feels like a betrayal to the rarity that was us. How often does one find real love before 30? How did I find it twice, and in the same town?  Do I just love too easily?

Perhaps the last is true, and definitively your fault. You taught me that love is really the only remedy for this nameless panic and dread that not-so-occasionally erupts in my chest.


The anger is finally gone, five-point-five years later, and the panic at losing our love has eased. But I will never shake the feeling that you were my big failure. I couldn't have possibly--but there is a lingering nag that I should have found a way to keep you alive. I cannot shake the feeling that this was on my great cosmic "to-do" list--and I missed it.

This feeling does not permeate every waking hour,
but hits me in moments, like when I see a photograph of you that had gone unnoticed before.. It is almost like discovering a new memory, as I try to decipher your mental state, your facial expression, what you are trying to tell the camera.

Then,
I am reminded that eventually, this re-discovery of living moments will end. profound failure settles in for a prolonged stay. But as the years pass, the moment becomes rarer, and today--your birthday--is the first time in a very long time that I have felt the sting of defeat at your preemptive departure.







"who the hell can see forever?"

tectonic plates over Baltimore // riots under Nepal

(A multitude of voices) 

The earth is shaking
Can you feel it?

an aftershock lasting for years
like grief, without promise of abatement
                                                                    causing
hair on the back of the neck to stand vigil
unable to discern the bullhorn from the bullet.
quaking
in

                                                                     throes of

earthquake sensation                     earthquake rhythm
                                                                                              earthquake movement
                        earthquake minute
earthquake music                                                earthquake second                      earthquake innards
                                             earthquake lovers
                                                                                       earthquake bodies
earthquake houses                                 earthquake tempers                                      earthquake mother
                             earthquake sinners
earthquake cities                 earthquake heat                                  earthquake moans    earthquake outer

                                                  e a r t h q u a k e f le e    i         n           g
to the edge of the world.

which world?emerging?decaying?recessing?static?moving?imagined?concrete?concrete?concrete?
can you repeat?can you repeat? can you repeat? can you repeat? can you repeat? can you repeat?
                                                               can you repent? repent?

after so much compression
and heat--                             nearly unbearable--
over time                              immeasurable--
struggling--                           to--'

be--                                         seen---

until finally, it erupts.

(settles in the dust)


We are revolve, re-evolve, revolving
Mother Earth says:
Chaos can only rule for so long,
but for me
a thousand years--


may-

               -be

                                        one


                                                               heart
                                                               beat.

on Fatherhood

Today, I had lunch with the 4th graders. Lately, I've been half-present during lunch duty, anxiously refreshing the e-mail app on my smartphone, and praying that someone is interested in hiring me for a different job. However, I am often disappointed. No answers, or not the answer I was hoping for.

But today I sat with the kids and talked. We talked about our favorite songs, and what the week had in store for us. One student assured me that the summer break would come faster than we might expect "like---that!"
The subject of Mother's Day came up. A boy noted that he was surprised to hear that his first word had been "da-da" instead of "mama".

My heart ached a little, but I was enjoying the various contributions. I wasn't about to share such sadness with nine year olds.

He went on to say that his dad had left the family when he was very young. This sentiment was echoed by a chorus of his peers

yeah, me too
me as well
yep, that just happened to me.

All casual, in the way that 4th graders so often echo this kind of truth. The words rain down like pebbles, hard in spite of their carelessness.

I think of my father, as I often do, and his aching absence. His constant, steady presence--followed by a sudden, permanent absence. The grateful stinging of his love throughout my childhood, and how in his last days, he expressed gratitude for his community of family and friends.

Do any of these men have a community, now that they have left their sons and daughters?
One boy murmurs that his dad's got a new family now. I wonder what it must be like, to be on the outside looking in.  To only invite half of your pride to the dinner table, and know that the other is eating elsewhere, perhaps missing you, or trying his best to forget you.

 I ache for them, for my father, for those fathers without the bravery or wisdom to claim their titles.

 Thinking of my niece and nephew now, I realize that this phenomena is all too common; not at all a rarity. Sometimes, I forget about their lack of a father. Partially because my sister takes up both roles so well. Partially because--until recently--my father filled  the remainder of those shoes.  His calm spirit amongst rowdy women made him a favorite among babies. My father's patience led to countless games of "Pretty Pretty Princess". After he fastened clip-on earrings into his beard, I would place a crown upon his head as he exclaimed, "I'm a Pretty Pretty Princess!" with only a hint of irony.

I do not think that fathers are superflous, nor are they a necessity. But when they become yours "my father", rather than "a father", they are indispensable, irreplaceable.


Claim it or do not. There is no middle ground.


The conversation switches back to summertime, like a sinking boat with the leaks plugged slowly righting itself. The leaks plugged, the fear forgotten. Children are resilient, but not impervious. They mend, but they break.

Spring

Spring is here, although it often feels like it is playing a trick on us--

peeking out, only to slink away again, hiding through another cold and windy day.

Condensation on my skin feels like a whispered memory, rather than present tense

Perhaps I thought that winter would last forever.

Changing colors usher us into the Now, 

and I am chanting my mantra internally, waiting for good news. 

Not because I deserve it. Because it might come to pass. 

Changing lenses, I realize that I am not set up for failure,

 so much as I set myself up for endless possibility. 

One day, chance and good energy and opportunity will align,

For now, I sip my water and try not to sink.

It is Spring. 

on the prolonged and overlapping manner of grief.

There was a time that grief, confusion, distraction--motivated a kind of creative flow within me.
I can remember moments in which I had pure, rabid focus, determined to forget my present circumstances, and delve into a world that I could predict, control.

To craft a sentence that states more than one thing.
To sing a song, which speaks to more than one person.
To make a play that says mouthfuls upon mouthfuls. Words that tell a story, a story that holds meaning.

Today, I stare at half-finished projects, listless resume spaces--unfinished and clumsy songs.
some internal strings have been cut, the hardware is outdated, dusty, ill-fitting.

It is as though
I am standing with my nose nearly touching a painting, unable to see the full picture in front of me. And if I step away, my nearsightedness is so demanding that the whole thing jumbles into  patternlessness, it is meaningless.

How do I tell you that it feels as though the whole world is slapping my cheeks and telling me to wake up, get up, starting moving, keep moving, be strong..
And yet.
My first love. My best friend. My father. Gone in less than five years.
~~

Yesterday, I saw a girl that looked like you. Same hair, same clothes, and with a similar manner of speaking.

I thought I was hallucinating, and momentarily wondered if  I have finally cracked,  tipping the scales of grief and tumbling into a sort of madness.

"excuse me, but you look like someone I used to know"

I discreetly take pictures, seeking confirmation of this fact from far away informants. I am relieved to find some level of commiseration. Deciding that this is not, in fact, a hallucination, makes conversation easier.

"you--actually, you look like someone I know as well",
she says.

It is a bricolage of memory-- pieces taken from different inhalations in time.

 The now and then smash together for a quick kiss before parting.

In an instant, I am reminded of the time he switched his black hair to white, and the white to black, only to be disappointed that it took me weeks to notice the difference.

we smile at one another, and I think about my past life for a moment longer, before I am flung back into the now. My nose trained, once again, to a dot on the painting.

~~

This too, will not pass.
He too, will never disappear from our lives.

We will carry them on our backs, stacked three high, and our muscles must become stronger. Our throats must learn not to close from sadness. our skin must toughen--it cannot turn to hives any longer. After enough time,there are no more allergic reactions to absence.

But it is an indiscriminate, an unpredictable time.

I do my job, but not much else. I come home. Depress guitar strings, but my father is at finger's reach, and I am quickly fatigued from the stretching.

Well-worn songs promote blindness. Certain stretches of highway may cause spontaneous combustion. Photographs are suspect. Ambition is arsenic.

On Student Loans.

Let's take a moment to talk about Student Loans.

Let's talk about how everyone told us they were "no big deal", essentially "good debt" .
because they went toward expanding our opportunities in adult life.

Let's talk about how they tricked us. They duped us into believing that they could buy us stability, happiness, and the life we always dreamt.

Let's talk about how Student Loans can decide how much you can afford to pay, regardless of residential situation.

Let's talk about the moment you feel like you might be safe, able to save money, able to take a pay cut for a job you like--

--they rear their ugly heads in a stream of anxiety and panic, and quadruple in size.

Let's talk about Sisyphus and his boulder.

Let's talk about how we keep  aspirational, low-income Americans stuck in a cycle of debt and disappointment, while the upper-middle class shrugs its shoulders and continues to widen the gap between the haves and have-nots.


let's talk about why I hate unpaid internships.
Let's talk about how truly evil they are.
How they dangle opportunities in front of our faces, only to pull them away at the last moment.
There are no guarantees.


There are no guarantees.

Let's talk about how four years in Ann Arbor got me $30,000 in debt and a job as a glorified secretary at an elementary school.

Meanwhile, my friends ask why I stay in a job where I'm so miserable, where my zest for life went, where my passion and plans flew away to.

they're in my wallet. They're draining out of my wallet. They drain it all, along with 20% of my paycheck.

And you wonder why I'm so bitter.

I don't know.

some rhymes that came to mind when I was sitting in pidgeon pose and suddenly started bawling at around 7PM last night: 



I hold my grief in my hips
and my lies on my lips
but if you give me a kiss
they'll come tumbling away.

I keep my strength in my thighs
and my tears in my eyes
but Still  no will to disguise
the strength of  my memory.

Snow days now, then, and before.

The blizzard of '15 sounds like a Victorian short story, hand-printed on some antique magazine, full of words that common folk couldn't pronounce, yet strangely fixated on the lives of those same commoners.

There are eight inches of snow on the ground. The blizzard, like the city, is not really much to write home about, after the hype dies down and we see it for what it is. But I am grateful for the odd quiet over Brooklyn. The only sound punctuating this blanketed silence is that of a man shoveling snow. He is doing this as the snow falls, scraping every thirty minutes, in Sisyphean repetition.

I resent him for the shoveling, the reminder that underneath my feet is not grass but concrete and asphalt. The soft snowy down underfoot helps me forget.

Snow days (most days) remind me of my father. For once, these memories make me smile rather than lay back down and sigh and try to get up once the feeling has subsided. He loved any excuse to eschew his hour long drive to Virginia, any excuse to get out the sleds and nearly concuss us all by group sledding into the woods by our house. A few times, the Appalachian Mountains  that stood guard over valley where we lived would let a little extra snow pass through, allowing for snow forts and full weeks without school. One of my earliest memories is  that of a blizzard of  a foot of snow or more. Dad had to pick me up and carry me to an igloo he built with my older sisters. When I walked, the snow buckled my knees and made  me fall. Everyone laughed, but I remember the snow burning my cheeks and nose and turning the inside of my mouth cold.

 Snow ice cream--maple syrup drizzled over the cleanest snow we could find--was always an appetizer for midday pancakes or oatmeal cookies. Long days spent reading books from start to finish, because we didn't really have a TV. Perhaps these memories make me smile because they feel as long ago as Laura Ingalls Wilder tales, a family homesteading in the great wilderness. In my childhood memories, it is always Fall in Shepherdstown , Winter at the Lloyd house, Spring in my grandparents' backyard, and Summer at Camp Frame. A constant cycle of moments that weave together a tale I did not realize was ending until it was long gone.

I can recall the first and last time my father and I paddled the Potomac in our canoe; The first snowfall in my mind has his grey-brown hat bobbing up and down the driveway just as it did this time last year, when I was home and lost and trying not to be afraid of adult life. I cannot remember the first time we played music together, but those songs weave through every memory, a soundtrack to our time together I am a child, I'll last a while, you can't conceive of the pleasure in my smile--you hold my hand, rough up my hair, it's lots of fun to have you there.

The memories, like smoke, are visible but neither tangible or traversable.
I can stare into the fire,  make them known on paper, or stuff them down into a drawer until one day, I finally clean it all out, and it ignites sparks of sadness and reminiscence all at once.

A note to my father, on the occasion of his Birthday.

trying to play my dad's song about the moon that he so meticulously taught me during our last meeting. The chords are simple but are tripping me up. The story I know. The melody I have inhaled and exhaled every day since that last day, when he bent his poor body over his Taylor for one last jam session, to make sure that I knew those words and chords. Someday I'll be ready to play it, because I think that was his intention, for it to continue to be played. He was, i think, passing it down in a sense. An honor I only slightly deserve by virtue of my acoustic preferences.

 Today I cannot get through it. Yesterday I could not finish. Tomorrow will likely be the same. But in that moment, not quite three months ago, he knew that a time would come when my tears would dry and my whole body would not shake at the thought of his absence, and I would be ready to remind everyone that Greg Lloyd wrote a song. A pretty damn good song.

And so I keep practicing, Dad. Because despite the fact that this feels like an endless pit into nothingness and more sadness and a life that is just empty, empty empty---you seemed to believe otherwise. Even in your last days--you seemed to know that we would all wake up one day with light hearts and eyes not so red and puffy from tears, and we might want to hear that song you used to play so often in our living room, sweat wicked away by old bandanas, yellow light twinkling off of your eyeglasses, dancing along to the rhythm. Somehow, you knew that it would one day bring me joy, instead of this keening sadness. Despite the wretched illness, despite the sorrow creeping into my throat even then, as I saw you so sick, and realized that it might be the last time-- those months not so long ago.

And so I'll keep playing. Just so I don't forget  when the time comes. For once, you were right.

When I'm Fat.

I want you to track all of my movements in the same way that you read my e-mails, my tweets, my LinkedIn account.

I want you to record it all.
"January 5th. Half Mile. Lost car somewhere on Flatbush. 45 calories."
"January 6th, 90 minutes Bikram yoga.  Misguided New Years' Resolution. 300 calories." 
"January 4th, 10 minutes, rigorous sexual activity, interrupted by dog barging in and pissing on the duvet. 76 calories." 

I want it on a public file somewhere, so when I am over 30  years old and 15 pounds overweight, people will see that I do a moderate amount of exercise. This includes (but is not limited to) the  occasional bike-to-work day.  On further inspection, they can see that I eat (and cook) fresh vegetables, although my one weakness is pizza.

This information will flash across the screens of passing strangers'  Google Glasses (or whatever screen-stalking technology is currently en vogue), so that judgement can be reserved for the more lethargic fatty a few blocks over.

That way people will know that, despite being overweight, I am a functional human. There is substance beneath the rolls and cellulite.

I want "she's okay, considering everything",
to roll across the screen every time I turn a corner and run into a stranger while my thighs rub Indian burns onto one another, and my ass cheeks sweat Rorschach prints into my fruit-of-the-loom panties.

I will have a fully functional online body-profile. Not only will you see the stats, but while you are staring with disgust at my swollen ankle, there will be a recording of my voice, repeating:

I  eat grass fed beef, goddammit. I buy quinoa instead of pasta, despite possible economic consequences for Peruvian farming communities. My eggs are cooked in coconut oil.

It is time to let the world know, as they tap on their their illuminated screens, attempting to make me shame-famous on their twitter account: I have done my part in eliminating global unsightliness. My failings are less willpower, and more genetic. I have resolved to marry a skinny man. I am doing my part.
 For the most part,I try to be a happy, healthy member of society.

Otherwise, how would they know?

free form.

All I have is empty.

The space next to my bed, the places in my head that used to usher me onward and forward. The impetus to care. The persistence of self-worth. Despite the $2 gallons of gas, less expensive than the organic milk that we buy, I am

running on empty.


I have a new pack of strings. I can't unstring it. I think he played these strings, these strings have skin cells still clinging to their metal casings, so that every time I press them it is like we are holding hands.

But it isn't, really. I don't have the energy.

I am supposed to miss you, a series of yous but like the first CD I bought when I was eleven, the missing is worn down after being played over and over and over and...

yet i can still feel it. I know all of the words, the beats and tones and timbres of the feeling. I have sung along so many times that the ghost of the emotion is with me.


Sometimes, I wonder if the friends I thought I had but never call don't do so because I am such an unconscious downer. Then, I feel better that they do not call. They'll get their day. it will be horrible. And I won't help. Or I will. Maybe I'll still help. Maybe, if I can convince myself to get out of bed, stop rewatching the same television shows ad nauseum. Until I'm not really watching, nor doing anything else. I am doing, thinking, planning exactly nothing. I am nothing.

Is that the goal? I would prefer to hope not.

It could be the goal. Being nothing, empty. No sensation at all-- That would be a new sensation.

Needing a break but feeling as though there is just trouble, trouble trouble trouble. And very little net left, after so many falls.

Gutless Metropolis. (draft)

you can't have it both ways.

you can't say you live in the best city in the world
strip it of its uniqueness
install a hundred Chipotles
anoint Taylor Swift as God and Muse,
and call it by its former name.

you can't instagram break-dancers on the Q train 
or buy groceries from cash-only storefronts
or purses on canal street 
and lay claim to neighborhoods that were never yours
with no regard for the people you are displacing.
you can't have it both ways.

You can't say that Columbus was an asshole
but gentrification is a mark of progress.

And What About the World Cup?
You were only paying attention
after they ousted the poor
now homeless
in favor of your stadium
for a sport we forgot how to play.

 you cannot broadcast Jimmy Fallon
into a million taxis
our driver used to listen to the news
from our country or his country
or a combination of the two.
Audio melting pot of languages
drowned out by last week's Fallon soundbite and a reminder
to buckle your seatbelt.

You cannot put bodega into a Diet Coke commercial
bodega is not for your advertising pleasure
bodega is a registered trademark of people who don't give a fuck
about eighty-pound pop-stars
or which soda is more popular
as long as the pop pays for itself,
it can stay on the bodega shelf.

You have to stop asking for a gut renovation.
You cannot have a gutless metropolis.

That's just a suburb with too many people.


You can't say that stop-and-frisk is fair
but mistrusting the force is discrimination.

That isn't how it works.

You can't be angry about Rafel Ramos
And not weep for Eric Garner.
and the reverse too, is true.

Empathy is not only for the easy to love


You can't have a neighborhood of only affluent white people
and call it New York City.
or Brooklyn
or Queens.


You can't take away our dream of authenticity
just because you never really wanted to live in a city.

Lists so I don't forget.

1.first song I learned to play on the guitar: "House of the Rising Sun"
old folk version, from a book of songs dad gave me.
It's one foot on the platform, one foot on the train

2. First duet "Imagine" by John Lennon
sung at the Presbyterian Church with Dad.
Imagine there's no heaven, it's easy if you try.

3. First Song I Wrote  was at age 13.
It was untitled but included the line,
"And will you climb a tree/barefoot at night/fulfilling your wildest dreams before light."

4. First Paid Gig: A wedding.
The Our Father Prayer.
On Earth, as it is in Heaven. 

5. First Fan: Dad.
he was happy to have me play along.
God gave to you now you give to me, I'd like to know what you've learned.

6. First Fan Who Wasn't Required To Be A Fan: Brendan Irving.
the first person to make me believe I was good.
 Just yesterday morning, they let me know you were gone. 


7. Last Duet: "Highway to the Moon" by Greg Lloyd
he played with an unsteady hand, but made sure I would remember all of the chords.
and We know we will never be the same, after walking on a highway to the moon. 

8. Last Serenade: "Boots of Spanish Leather" by Bob Dylan.
Sam played guitar, and I sang to him as my dad fell asleep.
Oh I'm going away my own true love.  I'm going away in the morning. 

9. Last Song I Heard: Ripple, The Grateful Dead.
Over and Over and Over and Over and
if i knew the way, I would take you home. 

Lessons from Dad.

When I think about the lessons I learned from my dad, I am mostly reminded of music.

When I wanted to learn guitar, he handed me some chord charts, an old guitar, and promised that we would jam together once I could stretch my fingers around the neck of a guitar and strum A, C, E, and G chords. Our first gig was playing John Lennon’s “Imagine” at the Presbyterian Church we attended every Sunday.  As I struggled through shaping my hands so that my guitar would make the proper noises, I often wondered why my talented father never offered to “teach” me how. But, when I finally got the hang of chord transitions, he said, “isn’t it rewarding, teaching yourself to play an instrument?” He was right. I felt like superwoman.

My father taught me that West Side Story’s “Ma-RI-A” is a good example of a tritone in contemporary music.  He taught me that if you raise your soft palette too quickly, you might have to stave off a yawn, so it is best to inhale slowly and pretend your lower lungs are inflating like a balloon. And belting usually sounds best when you use your “mix” voice; a combination of that light, airy head voice and low, gravelly chest voice. All of these snippets of knowledge were shared while leaning over the top of our guitars, after I mastered those elusive A, C, E, and G chords.

Dad and I didn’t always communicate very well, but when we put on those half-shields-- our matching Taylor guitars—we learned how to harmonize, both in our little makeshift band and (usually) in our daily lives.  Although he rarely understood me when I wasn’t singing—he always said that I talked too fast— when we were playing music, we were totally in sync.

He used to tell me that my strong belt and big personality made me a lead singer,  but I always found myself seeking his voice when I felt lost in the flow of sound. Looking back on videos of our performances, I am always watching my father, following his lead and waiting for his head to nod before I took the next steps.

Now, things have changed. Without my dad’s voice as a guide, taking the lead feels intimidating, sad and hollow.

But then I remember; my father didn't create my love of music; he never sought to define who I am.  He planted the seeds for thoughtfulness and creativity, and stood by my side as I became the woman I am today.  He let me learn the chords on my own, and applauded my progress. He was never the architect; he was the gardener, coaxing his seedlings until we set down roots and flourished.

Dad’s absence is a great sadness; for my sisters and me, my niece and nephew, my mother--and so many more. But we are blessed, immeasurably blessed, by the years of love, music, and nurturing provided by Greg Lloyd’s kind, creative soul. 

Five years later

Dreamt you opened your mouth but no words came out

The dream was false; you were not silent.

Quiet, but not silent.

Sometimes bursting with song,

A quiet chuckle here and there

But never silent.

Our mind is a great pretender

When concealing the weeping
sadness that accompanies your absence.

Five years later,

we are still preparing to say goodbye.

Plastic Surgery, Brazil, and our new Pope, Renee Zellweger.

Today on the internet, everyone is:
 wiggin' out about Renee Zellweger's new face,
mad about people being mean about Renee Zellweger's new face, or
depressed the pressure to be young and beautiful in Hollywood.

Much like the girl who told me fairies weren't real in elementary school, I think that if you truly feel outraged about someone's personal life choices, you should just ignore them. Which, coincidentally, is the opposite of what most internet folk have chosen to do, whatever the opinion.

 In all fairness, I didn't ignore that girl, either. I kicked her, and I got detention.

She will be a bridesmaid in my wedding next October.

As a digital shin-kick to everyone and anyone, I'd like to bring up  a couple passive-aggressive, vaguely linked points in response to your overwhelming personal sadness over a stranger's apparent plastic surgery.

Zelly knew what she was doing. She's got agents. She's got publicists. She's got personal assistants, and--I hope--some friends.  In all likelihood, the idea that this would be taken negatively by any and everyone on the internet was factored into the discussion of "should I receive an apparent face graft". The negative, explosive press was likely on the "pro" list of this transformation, and her recent statement  all but confirms that suspicion. At last, people are watching her again. The gaze. The beautiful, intoxicating gaze.

The part of this that is most troubling to me is NOT  so much that older women are altering their bodies in order to be "more beautiful" (more on that later).  I'm more concerned about the growing trend in deciding that anything is better than obscurity. We've always been obsessed with the idea of celebrity; modern society makes the collective psychosis more obvious. In my humble, largely unheard opinion, the message behind this internet explosion is as follows:

Being famous is so important, that I'd literally rather rip my face off than dive into obscurity. 


It's about fame. Our culture  commodifies storytelling, reducing it to something as unimportant as notoriety.

We don't love people because they are brilliant artists.
 We love them because they help us believe in a great and powerful falsehood: immortality.

The links between fame and illusions of immortality are pretty easy to spot.  When your Uncle Maury dies, it's tragic, but only inasmuch as it affects Maury's relatives and friends. Eventually, days pass when Maury is thought of with less frequency. Indeed, months slip by without his name being mentioned aloud. Maury not only physically dies, but his memory in the living world dwindles to almost nothing.  That's dying. The forgetting. Just ask Thorton Wilder.

Celebrities enjoy a lasting power that extends well beyond their final pulse. Foundations are started, Facebook is flooded, news is halted--for the remembrance of one celebrity's birthday or death. Think about CNN or Fox on the anniversary of Michael Jackson's death. Still. Still, this happens. They are, in a sense, immortal.

 The illusion of immortality clings tightly to our brightest entertainers, and so we love them.  Think, then, of the pressure of obscurity. The challenges associated with no one taking her picture. In the unreality of fame and a culture obsessed and terrified of death, Renee was dying long before her time.

We are replacing old gods ( i.e. God, Zoroaster, the Beatles) with the notion of celebrity. The deification of humans always puts me on edge. Think of the problematic rule of the Pharaohs. Or the Papacy.  Trust me, we don't need more popes  running around, eating kale salads and forgetting to wear underpants with their mini-skirts.

Ironically, when celebrities elect to dramatically change their physical states, it causes a troubling inner stir which might otherwise be reserved for, i don't know, people we actually know. 

As for plastic surgery, I'd like to reference an article posted earlier this year that explores the lives of Brazilian women undergoing surgery, sometimes in teaching hospitals that subsidize the procedures, Ivo Pitanguy, the namesake of one such institute, waxed philosophical about every person, even the poor, having the right to be beautiful. 

Many friends and peers lamented at the "distorted notion of beauty" that this mentality supposedly embodies. There were cries of "every body is beautiful" from all four corners of the internet, as men and women alike weighed in on this oft- discussed issue of plastic surgery. I can understand the argument that beauty should be less important than it is today. I nod my head in assent at the argument, "why does everyone have to be beautiful? Can't we all just be good people?". I think it is esoterically sound.

. I just contest the feasibility of a collective change of heart toward beauty, given our aforementioned affection for glamour.

As a conventionally attractive, "normal looking"  cisgendered white female American, it's easy for me to talk about self-love Its easy for me to look at magazines and disregard my cellulite or crooked teeth and say, "every body is beautiful".

 It is easy to go on about inner beauty when you are, in fact, beautiful. Even if you don't feel beautiful all the time.

 But there are physically ugly people in the world. Some would argue that beauty consists of a series of metrics., It's a simple mathematical equation that doesn't add up properly in some bodies,

The golden ratio tells us that exceptionally beautiful people exist for no reason other than that their bodily proportions add up to about 1.61. Aesthetics are not a myth, or even, in some ways, our choice. That ratio has held true in our bodies, paintings and master works of art, and was even referenced in a Dan Brown Novel.   Thats how you know it's real.

Please note, this observation comes from the existence of subsidized or even free plastic surgery, which provides greater access to cosmetic surgery than we have in the United States. Here in the states, cosmetic surgery is generally available to wealthy people with time and money to burn.  Like everything else, it is used as a symbol of our status and power. It indulges those Calvinistic urges that say that some people are just intrinsically better, and therefore more opportunities are available to them.  But that's not cosmetic surgery's fault. It's due to our ongoing obsession with wealth and status.


There is something beautiful about the Brazilian perception of cosmetic surgery. Something lovely about a woman taking control of her body, looking the "I-Was-Just-Born-Better" mentality in the eye, and manifesting one's own destiny in the realm of physical beauty. If its so unimportant, then why sweat the changes?

After all, if our exteriors are merely shells,  and not that important anyway--what is it about altering one's body that is so sacrosanct?

Renee's example is not that of bodily empowerment or ownership. She is seemingly entranced by the immortality illusion. But, why are you so sad about plastic surgery in itself? Why aren't you more concerned with the waste of money, or the glaring wealth inequality that allows for such frivolities in this country? Why are you lamenting Renee and demeaning these Brazilian women? Both took control of her body in an unconventional way. One received it for an affordable price. But we are more worried about the transient changes of our godlike examples than the prospect that physical beauty can be created and still  be genuine. It's just that it can only be achieved under certain circumstances. Like wealth, pre-existing beauty, and godliness.

I'm not trying to say that Renee Zellweger is an anti-Calvinist egalitarian demigod, championing female empowerment. Hell, she's saying that she didn't  get plastic surgery in the first place.

 I'm just suggesting that maybe, it's not plastic surgery that's problematic in our shallow, self-absorbed society. It's wealth, fame, and our endless obsession with the pursuit of immortality.

Dear West Virginia 4-H: We Have To Stop Using Cultural Appropriation in Our Camping Traditions.

It's national 4-H week, and I am flooded with memories of campfires, once-close friendships, and old songs. I miss my old friends, and wonder why we grew apart. I am grateful for Kyle and the Russo sisters, probably the last holdouts from that  category.

There's one part of camp that, as I have grown in age and perspective, has become disconcerting. It's not the ever-encroaching over-supervision of campers. Or the gossiping counselors.

Every summer (which is the pinnacle of 4H participation in West Virginia), we assemble into tribes.  Four groups, separated by a color, totem animal...and a Native American name.

One of these things is not like the other...one of these things just doesn't belong. 

The 4H camping tradition is over 100 years old. My mother, sisters, and now niece have all participated in this fun, lighthearted and loving week of youth vigor, valor and vim (guess which tribe I was in). Words like "Tradition"  and  "Legacy" are thrown around the campfire pretty regularly. We hold many practices sacred.

I understand. I loved it, too, I loved being a "proud Seneca", serving as both a "Sagamore" and a "Chief" of my "tribe".  Wakonda jokes were great stand-ins when nothing funny happened that day, and wearing a chief's headdress or sagamore tag made me feel proud, even though it did create a week-long ring of green around my forehead.

When I try to relay memories of camp now, I find myself censoring most of the aforementioned events. In my present mind and worldview, these traditions that we hold so dear seem like hurtful, reductive pantomime of a marginalized and oppressed culture that has been ignored or ridiculed by American society for too long.  We are not those people. We do not oppress, tease, or marginalize. We are here to make the world a better place, and this tradition is keeping us from doing it.

Dear fellow West Virginia 4Hers, you're going to hate this. You're going to get mad and feel sensitive, because for so many of us, 4H was a haven from the world, a reminder of how to be a kid, a true outlet of joy.   But we have to stop using tribal symbols in our Camps. We have to let everyone know how wonderful we are, and part of that means making 4H and 4H camp accessible to everybody.


As a community, we strive to uphold the 4 Hs--Head, Heart, Health, and Hands. Mimicking tribal names and traditions is an egregious violation of these four pillars.

  Head: It encourages us to make a moral exception for ourselves, despite the fact that we all know that mimicking Indigenous traditions is racist, reductive and damaging to our society.

 Heart: By denying this fact, we are closing our community to minority groups. Do you think a Native American would feel comfortable joining our group? 4H is for everyone. Camping is for everyone. But, when the basic structure of our camping model violates the personal history of others, we unintentionally exclude those who might view our traditions as offensive. WE need to open our hearts to the potential for change.

Health: Racism is, in many ways, a mental health issue. Using tribal jargon for pantomime desensitizes campers to the implications behind the use.  By making this a non-issue, our organization is sweeping hundreds of years of oppression under the rug. If we are capable of doing that with one group, why not others? This practice sends a subliminal message to campers that some racism is okay.

  Hands: As an organization, we are dedicated to using our voices to make the world a better place in every scale. "For my club, My Community, My Country, and My World."  This may not cause big waves in West Virginia, where there is a largely homogeneous culture.  But we aren't just worried about West Virginia (although it is the Best Virginia). We are concerned with the world. We want to make it a better, more loving and equal place. Mimicking indigenous cultures is counter intuitive to this mission.

I know that  intentions are not to offend. I understand that 100 years of "tradition" can make our perspective hazy.

I am also aware that we have been through this before, and someone said it was "OK" as long as we are "culturally sensitive". But let me tell you---there is no situation where mimicking another culture is sensitive. Especially when you consider the historical treatment of Native peoples by the United States. I'm not just talking about smallpox blankets and the Trail of Tears. I'm talking about poor resources on reservations, continual socio-economic inequality, and continued cultural appropriation throughout many aspects of popular culture, media and organizations such as 4H. So this time, let's not have to wait to be asked---and sued--by Native American Peoples. Let's do the right thing, and reach this conclusion on our own.

We can keep the bears, turtles and birds. We can still shout our approval, sit by a campfire and sing songs while competing for the funniest skits or best top ten lists. Those are our traditions.They are what make 4H special, sacred even.

 Seneca, Cherokee, Delaware, Mingo and Big Foot are not ours. They do not uphold the 4Hs, and they are holding us back.  Please, for the sake of creating a more conscientious, equal and loving world, consider removing Native connotations from our 4H traditions. I want 4H camp to be open for everyone.  In order to do that,we must create a landscape of equality for everyone, not just for some.

I take my stand, I make my pledge, and each day it means more. And from now on, through all my life, I'll pledge the H's 4.