Archive for January, 2008
NWMWP: 1
Bet you’re wondering what NWMWP stands for, huh? Well, dear Pendroppers, it’s a new category I’m excited to introduce to you.
(Drum roll, please…)
Non-weekly, Mid-Week Picks!
That’s right…the NWMWP gives me the chance to rave about my latest favorite things, from restaurants to books to wine to the greatest hair product ever. Nothing is off-limits – all that’s required is that it puts a smile on my face and a spring in my step. Oh, and it might not be weekly, but you already knew that.
On that note, let me kick off the inaugural NWMWP with a question: How do you know when someone is doing the very thing they were created to do?
Is it…
A. Observing their talent gives you goosebumps on your toe nails.
B. Said person harnesses their skill effortlessly – almost to the point where you say to yourself, “Hey, I could do that.”
C. Said person’s authenticity, kindness and humble confidence make you want to be their sister (or brother).
D. All of the above.
The answer is D. And I had the pleasure of experiencing all of the above last night while hearing newbie artist Lanae Hale share her exquisite songs and honest stories of life, love, redemption and hope.
The 24-year-old Florida native pronounces her words like Death Cab for Cutie frontman, Ben Gibbard; gives flight to her notes like Sarah McLachlan; and captivates every shred of your attention in a way few performers do.
It’s almost unheard of for an artist so new to Nashville to perform so flawlessly, so powerfully, but Lanae is the exception. Distinctly her own, an unparalleled talent, Lanae makes it clear to anyone who hears her that she is, quite simply, doing the very thing she was created to do.
Do yourself a gigantic favor this week and check out Lanae at her MySpace page to listen to a few of her haunting and memorable songs. Or just go straight to iTunes and buy her EP. You’ll be glad you hopped on the Lanae bandwagon early!
1 Commentbreath: a moment
Sometimes prayer is nothing more – and nothing less – than a moment. A moment that does not ask or hear, contrive or intercede, praise or demand, weep or warp. But a moment in which our very breath contains the entirety of all we could, all we would, say. And all that would be said to us.
No Commentsbig sky country (some old dream)
I slowed my step as I passed the off-white Jeep-like vehicle in the parking lot. I’d never seen a Montana license plate. Crazy…I’ve seen Hawaii and Alaska plates, Maine and New Hampshire plates, even Vancouver and Ontario plates, but never a Montana plate. (Am I the only one who can’t figure out how Hawaii cars get here?)
The plate was pretty. Blue. The color we think of when we think of Montana, if we think of Montana. The DMV has indeed captured the spirit of its state and I couldn’t help lingering to admire it for a small moment alongside the tall, gray-headed gentleman with rugged, wrinkled skin.
We didn’t say anything – only studied the so-real-to-life plate together. Is that an actual photograph, I wondered. Then I moved on with grocery bags in hand.
But the gray man didn’t move for a few long seconds. When he did, he walked to the front of the vehicle, stooping to look for a plate on the front bumper. A quiet smile spread across his face as he searched. Not finding one, he came around to the back again and gave a final glimpse to the blue-sky picture.
As I closed the back door and prepared to climb into the driver’s seat, I saw him at his own car. He also prepared to climb in, but turned to see if maybe the owner of the vehicle had returned. He might like to talk about Big Sky Country, I thought to myself.
But that wasn’t all I found in his faded blue eyes. He wasn’t just searching for the Montana resident who happened to be in town. He was searching for something else, some old dream that had resurfaced for a brief instant, resurrected in a parking lot thousands of miles from its burial grounds.
He smiled again, close-lipped, and slid behind the wheel. A hope stirred for endless scapes and skies. And an aching for home.
1 Commentthank you, raymond carver (or what one doubting writer would say to another)
“At the risk of appearing foolish, a writer sometimes needs to be able to just stand and gape at this or that thing – a sunset or an old shoe – in absolute and simple amazement.”
Raymond Carver
I have loved you since my first introduction, freshman year of college, some eleven years ago. I loved Cathedrals and your many commas, your abrupt periods, your dense words, your lengthy characters sprawled on short pages, your subtle way of proving that brilliant writing isn’t all Hemingway, James and Faulkner (all of which I never liked anyway).
And I loved you when I met you again briefly – always briefly – when I happened upon What We Talk About When We Talk About Love, many years later, my second go-around in higher education. Your consistency, your immediacy, your sparseness and weight, the simple way you hinted at necessary beauty dancing with reality.
And I loved you again, today, loved you very much in fact, because you – you, genius, you (of all people) – understand why I can’t, don’t, won’t write so many days, showing up to the desk as I might only to leave drained and empty-handed. Understand why this may be the wrong time for the right thing. And, nevertheless, understand why I must write.
And that is because, as you say, we will be “moved off the peg just a little from where we were before. Our body temperature will have gone up, or down, by a degree. Then, breathing evenly and steadily once more, we’ll collect ourselves, writers and readers alike, get up, ‘created of warm blood and nerves’ as a Chekhov character puts it, and go on to the next thing: Life. Always life.”
So, thank you, Raymond Carver, for one- and two-word sentences, for fragments, for doing what you had to do – writing included. And for understanding. You have influenced me – then & today – more than I can say. Indeed.
2 Commentsfor justice*
“This is for everybody. It has to do with justice.”
~ Rev. Cecil Williams, Glide Memorial UMC, San Francisco
On a day when the old black-and-white footage of a marching, link-armed Martin Luther King, Jr. plays on every newscast…
On a day when segments of the old black-and-white speech “I have a dream” echo from radios, classrooms, and TV stations…
On a day when the old black-and-white ways are incredibly difficult to understand…
I remember King, an ordinary man. I remember what he cried out for. Something we all cry out for. Justice. Though, only a few in the pursuit are willing to live – and die – for it.
*In honor of the ordinary men and women who extraordinarily live and die for justice.
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