138.

part of my practice as a writing teacher is to write with my students. in an attempt to establish a studio-style classroom, writing with them helps bridge what could otherwise be a wide and scary gap between me (teacher lady) and them (eager, yet terrified students). the result has been that it makes us feel like a “real” community of writers who seek advice from one another and take risks together.

historically, writing with my students has been a clever excuse for me to actually have time to write. going into work, playing Gillian Welch, and writing for a few hours has always felt like a gift, but this year feels different.

a little context:

i follow our study of The Stranger with a modified version of NPR's "This I Believe".

while preparing for the lesson today, I found my “This I Believe” essay from two years back and was moved by the ways two short years has changed me. don’t get me wrong…my belief in the magical closeness that singing songs with friends offers is still in tact. its just that while reading i was taken back to the process of writing it. i remembered the warmth that the memories of those georgia summers brought me. i remembered the certainty with which i wrote about who I was in those moments. i remembered what it felt like to believe in something, as particular a sentiment as it was to me, with my whole heart, and what it felt like to be deeply connected to that belief and those past experiences.

as i consider what I believe in now, two years later, i feel that i'm at a loss. there are no memories that speak so firmly of home anymore. i think it means my idea of home is remaking itself, as it should, but it feels like a loss. what is home, after all, if it is not rooted in southern something? what does that mean for me, the proud southern transplant?

these questions feel so, so big.

i’m interested in learning (through the experience of this assignment) how time has affected me, how my heart has changed, and what in the world I actually believe in these days. Townes was right – time, she is a fast old train.

 ***

[This I Believe, 2011]*

I believe in singing circles.

Sunday morning, elbow deep in flour and buttermilk I greeted Tess with her quiche and Andy with his banjo from my biscuit-making station. Henry’s upper half was occupied by the tossing of breakfast potatoes around in the skillet, but his lower half was fast and loose and moving to the melodies drifting over from the Vision Church of Atlanta. His hips and legs would shimmy then shake, as he tossed that skillet and made the potatoes dance too. Then Celo’s “Sup y’all” as he lugged his guitar up the stairs and delivered his mama’s famous enchiladas to our table. Sarah showed up soon after him, sticky buns in one hand, harmonica in the other.

There is something quite unremarkable about breaking bread with people you care about. Folks do it every day, so I guess this means I also believe in the unremarkable. Those mornings in the thick heat of a Georgia summer taught me a few things about living right.

Rubbing our full bellies we’d grab music makers and our songs would slowly drown out the neighboring gospel choir. Rise Up Singing! was always in an arms reach, and we’d pause after a hearty rendition of “I’ll Fly Away” (a little gospel singing of our own) to determine the next tune. Townes? Country miles less holy, but that’s no matter, that’s not why we gathered anyhow. There was a strange way that those mornings, sitting and singing, silenced everything else that has a way of weighing you down as you grow big in the world. We simply made songs happen…together. I’ve never been a woman of faith, but with a house of God in shouting distance, there was little I could do to not let the vibratos work their way into my questioning heart. Those mornings where folks brought their whole selves - sweetness, vulnerability, collaboration, mistakes – those mornings felt like church to me.  Filling more than my belly, those brunches nourished my soul and silenced my wanderings for a moment brief enough to allow me to glimpse an honest sort of love.

While those Sundays are as distant as my daddy’s old farm now and professional life or passion has uprooted most of those early morning all-stars, I still believe in singing circles just like I believe in endless pastures, home-cooked meals, and hard work. I believe in them because I’ve learned that a campfire burns the same in Vermont as it does in the Blue Ridge Mountains and everyone loves a hand-crafted brunch. That harmonies never stop sounding like an old friend, even when they’re a collection of new voices and the goodness that folks give each other and themselves in those moments is disarming...and we all need to be off-duty from time to time. I can’t quite name this magical sincerity and goodness, and I’m okay with that. It’s the feeling that I believe in anyhow. 

It feels like slowing down.

It feels like home.


*people's names have been changed...just because it felt right.