While I’ve lived all over the place, and sometimes can’t even remember my own address, since the beginning of 2006 I’ve lived in Carrboro, North Carolina. It’s a teeny tiny mill town adjacent to Chapel Hill, home of the University of North Carolina.
While I tend to have a love/hate relationship with the tinyness, the dial tends to point to “love” most of the time. What other tiny town do you know that has a free bus system, two free newspapers and its own song? It’s the kind of town that my co-worker used to say “where everyone rides bicycles with smiles on their faces and eats granola.” And, well, he’s not too far off.
The photo above is when I was waiting for my segment to come up on “The State of Things” at the WUNC studios in nearby Durham. The other day I had the opportunity to be on Carrboro Bookbeat, which is broadcast on WCOM, the local community radio station! I had loads of fun, and the interview can be downloaded and listened to here. Thanks so much to Audrey and Paul for inviting me on the show, I had a great time!
Another upcoming local event is “Make a Blanket Day” with the local Project Linus chapter on Sunday, February 22! Project Linus is an organization that collects blankets for children in need, so they can have something comforting and familiar when times get rough. It will be held at the IMAX theater on Hargett Street in Raleigh from 12-5pm.
I can sense it
Something important
Is about to happen
It’s coming up.
It takes courage to enjoy it
The hardcore and the gentle
Big time sensuality.
We just met
And I know I’m a bit too intimate
But something huge is coming up
And we’re both included.
It takes courage to enjoy it
The hardcore and the gentle
Big time sensuality.
I don’t know my future after this weekend
And I don’t want to.
It takes courage to enjoy it
The hardcore and the gentle
Big time sensuality
Sensuality
Lately I’ve been posting videos instead of photos. Here’s one more video as I’m way behind on my photo taking and editing…
The lyrics and video are from Bjork’s first solo album, Debut, the song “Big Time Sensuality.”
Over the past few days, I’ve used “It takes courage to enjoy it, the hardcore and the gentle” as a mantra. Humming it as I drove around town, hearing it in my head at work, keeping the words in mind in yoga.
I guess you could say I’ve been meditating on the word “courage.” In many ways I think that for a long time “courage” for me, was nothing but a simulacrum. It became distorted and disjointed from its original meaning. How for so long I thought I was brave and strong, when instead it was nothing but a well-crafted facade cobbled from bits of my past.
Somehow I’ve gone from Woody Allen to Diane Keaton, still charmingly neurotic yet less annoying. I listened to this song by Bjork over and over and felt that resonation where even though you wished you could apologize to everyone who has seen your not-too-hot sides and reintroduce yourself and hope for better endings, you’re okay, really okay, just where you are.
Writing this book, and then talking about it has meant putting something tangible into the world, instead of just into the ether or as part of a group effort. It meant staring down old playground fears and worries that kept me awake all the while thinking that I was being courageous. It meant okaying and forgiving so many negative and damaging years, and finally putting them to rest so I could focus on the recent good ones.
It meant realizing that without all the years so close to self-destruct or implosion, I wouldn’t be able to fully appreciate and adore what was on the other side of the coin. Maybe it was all down to that “fake it til you make it” mantra that puts a shine and a smile to everything.
As the simulacrum crumbled and I was left out in the open, I wondered why, honestly, we tend to see feeling fear as a failure or weakness. Isn’t a part of courage feeling fear and pushing through it? If passing through fear leads to courage then we are all both cowards and heroes, as you need to feel the fear of a coward in order to be brave and your actions noble. It, too, is the other side of a double-edged coin. No one ever says that courage is needed both in loss and in victory, that even though the outcomes are opposite, bravery was there the minute you stepped in the fray.
It takes courage to enjoy “the hardcore and the gentle,” both the rough and the smooth. Courage to feel, courage to fight, courage to love, courage to give without expecting reciprocity. So here, at the tail end of 2008 and the fresh start of 2009, I wish you courage.
May you have the courage to enjoy.
Also, the amazingly inspiring Nancy McNally (who makes the most wonderfully beautiful peace cranes) passed along an article about a new campaign to get artists in schools and in our communities. You can read more about it here and vote for the idea over at Change.org over here. Thanks for spreading the word, Nancy!
Every year it happens. Although I keep trying to replace them with my favorite holiday song, Feliz Navidad, because it’s a bit kickier, two songs get stuck in my head for the entire holiday season.
Today I’m getting ready to head to my parents for the week to meet my brother’s new puppy, wish for snow even though we’re in the South, sleep in my childhood room that still looks kind of like 11th grade, drive relatives around town even though Charlotte has grown so much I keep getting lost, and to generally spend a few days surrounded by family to celebrate Christmas.
While craft and book stuff are still well in my thoughts, for a few days I’ll be offline and enjoying talking and knitting by the fire instead of checking my inbox or answering email. It’s a nice reboot at the end of the year where I embrace the tactile and face-to-face contact and try to get in as many hugs as possible.
So I leave you for a few days with best wishes for the holidays and the two songs that no holiday has been complete without since I was in junior high.
We burned up the highway in the family station wagon for years listening to this album, and this song always was put on repeat atleast once. The part we all like the best and would belt out is: “It’s Christmas time in Hollis Queens, Mom’s cooking chicken and collard greens…” After all, we are Southern.
When I was in 6th grade, the mother of a Jewish classmate came in to talk to us about Hannukah. She gave us little plastic dreidels. We spun them. She also taught us this song, of which I only know the chorus, but still find myself singing each winter. It’s pretty darn kicky, too, especially this jazzy version I found.
I grew up in Charlotte, North Carolina and spent a good half hour every Christmas holiday with the bears above, watching them sing their songs at the mall. As this was in the early 80s, these bears were super cool because they were better than the band at Chuck E. Cheese.
I had the pleasure of finding them while with a friend’s 5 year old not too long ago and it was indeed a very happy reunion as they still sang all the same songs. In the same order.
The run-up to the holidays this year will be spent wrapping packages and trying to sell people pretty handmade things in a little local shop as opposed to mass-produced things. I’m trying to remind myself of the excitement like the bears above bring, not the freakout, what-the-heck-do-I-get-for-this-person excitement which is not as fun.
Am off to work again perfecting my package wrapping and bow placement, but wanted to quickly say thank you to Etsy for the wonderful Q & A they did with me!
Also, if you’re still trying to find a pretty calendar for 2009, check out this one that you can receive from Mibo when you sign up for the newsletter over here.
