In-Between Land

Aaah I haven't blogged in forever! There have been even more hundreds of thoughts swirling around in me lately, but I think that the sheer vastness of topics has hindered writing.

Also, I'm realizing more and more that I don't know anything about anything... which is an exciting place to be. I trust myself more here.

But all this does not contribute to blog posts, and I've also been aching to write. Well, enough about me. Let's talk about...

In "The Magician's Nephew (C. S. Lewis)," there is an intriguing land with many pools. Each pool, or puddle, leads to a different world, and characters travel time and space through wearing rings and slipping into these pools.

I don't remember if the land had a name, but I like Jack Johnson's album title: "In Between Dreams." Let's call it the "In-Between Land." I've always felt an affinity for the characters in this place, and can picture the look of it.

If it were music, it would be Peruvian wooden flutes and pipes, with low cello and bass sliding scales... and maybe an accordian. A bland wind blows half-heartedly through eerie space, just enough to chill you into picking a destination. Grey and gray and dirty browns stain the mossy floor, and the sky blankly keeps the seasons secret.

It's been years since I've read the actual book, so I forget how Lewis described it.

In-between worlds. In-between time. No-man's land. transition. pause.

Translation?

Between the motion and the act falls the shadow (T.S. Eliot, "The Hollow Men".).

Airplane rides. Not the ones for vacation but the ones that are the finality of months of labeling boxes and smelling packing tape and quietly observing a life shrinking, by degrees, into __________.

First the books then the less-used clothing then the extra bedding then the cookware (leaving a remnant), then the crafts then the toys then the boxes of superfluity that no one knew existed, then more clothes, then giving away furniture, then the night on a mat and the mad dash for the last items on your bed stand that were almost forgotten because they were so close...

Then the eery time when you brush your teeth in airports for morning, night, and morning.

You glide over "In-Between Land" and fall as the plane's nose gently dips into another pool. Then you continue falling in freeze frame. Living in the pause. It takes time to fully materialize. Does that make any sense?

The whole thing is quite fascinating.

I've spent a good amount of life in the "In-Between Land." I've been told that TCKs disconnect six months before a move. My lease is up in 5 and I'm already saying goodbye to parts of my apartment. I'm already there and can hear the delicately painful music. In a minimal way, of course. I didn't even think that I'd mention it when blogging, but there you go.

I have the sand of nations in my soul... please don't wash it away...

Typically one day a year I ache for every place I've lived and visited and loved--where I just miss EVERYTHING. I've experienced it to a lesser degree each year, but I desperately hope it won't go away. It's not this awful thing; on the contrary, I think it's healthy. It feels like remembering who I am. And an honest grieving that I can't ever go back.

But God is ushering me forward--instead of "The Magician's Nephew," the present and future feels like "The Voyage of the Dawn-Treader", which is probably my favorite. Although it's SO hard to choose.

Instead of passively watching worlds emerge and fade, God is weaving me through all kinds of waters, visiting distant islands and having marvelous adventures. Instead of "In-Between Land" there is a constant Presence upon which I ride; singing under mighty wings and tasting sweet water.

He's been the only one who's always been there, and I know that He is faithful. He's been my rings that slipped me in between worlds. And we've had lots of conversations in "In-Between Land", God and I. Lots of whispers and tears and screams.

Maybe I wouldn't have longed for Him as much otherwise.

Thanks, Jesus. Ni mei tian yao wo, mei tian xiang wo, mei tian ai wo.

my life in lyrics...

~mary had a little lamb, little lamb, little lamb... (plus 5 more verses)

~I will sing unto the Lord for He has triumphed gloriously, the horse and rider thrown into the sea! the Lord is God and (CLAP) I will praise him, my father's God and I will exalt him, the Lord is God and (CLAP)...

~Faithful One so unchanging, ageless One I depend on you... you are my rock in times of trouble...

~Shen zhen mei hao, Shen zhen mei hao, Shen zhen mei hao, ta dui wo zhen hao

~Bien bien bien bien bien bien bien, wo yao bien!

~o God you are my God and I will ever praise you

(the nutcracker, Trepak!)

~there's a new way to be human, it's nothin we've ever been

~o gently lay your head upon my chest and I will comfort you like a mother while you rest

~and I don't want the whole world to see me, cause I don't think that they'd understand

When everything's made to be broken

I just want you to know who I am.

(radesky's march)

~I can't stand to fly, I'm not that naive

I'm just out to find the better part of me

I'm more than a bird, more than a plane

more than some pretty face beside a train

and it's not easy to be me

(les miserables)

~sing to me of the song of the stars

of your galaxy dancing and laughing and laughing again

when it feels like my dreams are so far

sing to me of the plans that you have for me over again

so i lay my head back down...

~he leadeth me o blessed thought o words with heavenly comfort fraught

~come back to find you tell you I need you don't know how lovely you are...

(clair de lune-- arr. for orchestra)

~when you try your best but you don't succeed---when you get what you want but not what you need--when you feel so tired but you can't sleep---stuck in reverse--and the tears come streaming down your face--when you lose something you can't replace--when you love someone but it goes to waste--what could be worse?

~no woman no cry

~BIcycle BIcycle BIcycle ... o so much more Queen...

~make you banana pancakes, pretend like it's the weekend now

~honey you are a rock upon which I stand... green eyes, yeah the spotlight shines upon you...

(jeux d'eau)

~grace-- she carries the world on her hips, champagne flute for her lips

~baum baum baum baum baum ba baum I feel free...

~and the truth is

I miss you

and the truth is

I need you

I should not have let you go

~you turned me into somebody loved

~don't you dare speak for someone you don't know, I feel it in the back of the throat, you know I can't construct a poem cuz words like girls get bored and run,

c 'est la vie...

~when clouds veil sun and disaster comes, o my soul o my soul

~I was a little girl alone in my little world who dreamed of a little home for me, I play pretend between the trees...

~I go to Coney, the beach is divine, I go to ball games, the bleachers are fine...

~I've got a scar for every song and blood left still to bleed, but I don't want to waste your time with music you don't need

~once there was a way to get back homeward

once there was a way to back home

sleep pretty darlin, do not cry, and I will sing a lullaby

~you hem me in with skin all around me

~my love is real before your eyes, He's ravished by the sight of one glance from me

got to stop this foolish mission..

keep remembered more songs that changed me!

sea glass

i try to be honest

try to be kind

and honestly leave

when i know that it's time

i know that it's time

~the weepies ("hideaway")

I don't think I do well with self-inflicted transitions. I could blame it on my childhood (what can't you blame on your childhood?), but I think it's hard for everyone to step out into a change that is not required.

Right now I'm wading into something new. The final details are slowly coming into reality like sea glass bobbing in on the last night tide.

I miss the ocean, can you tell?

One vacation in Heng Chun (south Taiwanese city) we were on one of our almost daily beach excursions, complete with swan floatie and sunscreen (I hope. Oh I hope). I fought past the surf and dog paddled, safe within my inner tube. After I had drifted and gotten tired I turned around and started kicking my way to the beach.

Halfway there the waves picked up and I, already recklessly holding the tube from the outside, slipped

down

into green saltiness.

I held my breath and opened my eyes, looking up at the sun wafting through increasingly darker shades of green-gray. Saw the black circle of my inner tube.

The next half second I was up, up--spluttering, eyes itching, clawing at the tube. Dad and some other people were nearby and helped me get back to the beach, where I recovered in the shade and rubbed my stinging eyes. I didn't go back in for a whole half hour.

Now~

I think I'm still rubbing the salt out of my eyes. Feeling rough sand, a million colors, reassuringly under my feet but still battling the suck of the waves--pulling the sand from under me even as I walk the last few feet to sun-baked sand.

I just hope that I'll take sufficient courage to start what I've already begun and turn away from what I have already left.

Over the Rhine

I had the chance to see "Over the Rhine" last night.   It was perfect.  Artsy, intimate and crowded venue, great opening band, and of course, the jazzy/folk/blues "Over the Rhine."  They are a couple (with a few others for a full band) with the husband playing the piano and bass and guitar and background vocals, and the wife singing and playing the acoustic guitar and piano.  She has a voice you can live in.

         There's something about career musicians that have been doing their thing for a couple of decades-- if they have stayed truly musicians, then there's always (I've observed, at least) a loose-handed way about them.  Kind of a careless manner and a lazy grace in the way they talk about themselves and music.  Then it begins---and even when they're not playing, emotion and blood sweat and tears pours from their fingers... you see why they have to do this.

I used to think about all the different careers, and concluded that the arts were a form of prostitution.  You must sell yourself for all to see and hear and use as they will. 

I still think that's true, but instead of prostitution I think it's more true to say: you either sell something or sell yourself.  

And if you're really blessed, you either give something or give yourself.

If you're in business you sell something.  You could extend this to teachers, engineers, etc (sell/give ideas, knowledge, technology).  Of course, this gets fuzzy because you do give yourself as an educator and as all of those jobs--your time and energy and talents.

 

But in the arts when you're specifically creating something-- you are selling your lifeblood.  your heart, your soul.

         That's why for the time being anyway, I'm a closet songwriter who shares with a very limited audience.  Not because I have an ethical dilemma with selling/giving songs to everybody, but I don't want to yet.  It's a cowardice that I'm fine with for now.

         The switch between selling and giving is interesting, because if you're a professional artist, for example, you're selling yourself.... but can do so in a posture of giving.    I think that quite a few artists who originally were givers became merely salespeople... manufacturing their trade just for the money, without letting creation affect them.  That's horrific.

         But the ones that I most admire---and I sensed this in "Over the Rhine"--are the ones that bear the scars of continual creation, the stretch marks and the pain of birthing something new into creation.  It costs them.

If it's any good, it's a part of them.  And whether they get paid or not (I hope they do, always) , their creation is a gift.

 

One of my favorite songs is one they opened with, and has a verse that goes:

I don’t wanna waste your time

With music you don’t need

Why should I autograph the book

That you won’t even read

I’ve got a different scar for every song

And blood left still to bleed

But I don’t wanna waste your time

With music you don’t need"

         This touches on other things--the connection between musician and audience, and really the connection of all humankind, and how music is not possessed but experienced and entered into.... but that's too much for this blog now.  I'll end with another of their songs.  When I first heard it, I realized with a lovely shock what it was about, but then forgot about it and got to realize again when they performed it last night.

the Trumpet Child

The trumpet child will blow his horn

Will blast the sky till it’s reborn

With Gabriel’s power and Satchmo’s grace

He will surprise the human race

 

The trumpet he will use to blow

Is being fashioned out of fire

The mouthpiece is a glowing coal

The bell a burst of wild desire

 

The trumpet child will riff on love

Thelonious notes from up above

He’ll improvise a kingdom come

Accompanied by a different drum

 

The trumpet child will banquet here

Until the lost are truly found

A thousand days, a thousand years

Nobody knows for sure how long

 

The rich forget about their gold

The meek and mild are strangely bold

A lion lies beside a lamb

And licks a murderer’s outstretched hand

The trumpet child will lift a glass

His bride now leaning in at last

His final aim to fill with joy

The earth that man all but destroyed

(piano ending... theme, jazz improv...theme)  Satchmo is a nickname for Louis Armstrong ('satchel mouth'--great for playing the cornet). Thelonious Monk was an amazing jazz pianist.

snowy thoughts about life (and trumpets!)

It's snowing furiously outside.  I'll have to go back out tonight to accompany a choir/orchestra concert, and am hoping I get all the page turns right and remember to pause after a certain introduction.  But overall, it should be pretty stress-free and fun.  

Just wanted to jot down a new thought:  what if I don't have to make use of every opportunity that comes my way?  What if some are purely for enriching my life and can be left undeveloped?

This seems rather obvious, but as I often sorely need the obvious restated, I'll plunge ahead.

I had the opportunity of substitute teaching for a friend, the band teacher where I interned for choir.  It was strange going back to the school again, and I was very nervous about subbing. 

But after a few brief moments of panic, I found the music folders and things unfolded well.  I remembered more students than I thought I would, and they were all cooperative (mostly.  very mostly).  We went through different songs while I conducted and tried to bring people in.  It was near their concert, and so other than keeping the percussion and everybody else together and changing tempos, they didn't need much help.  

I just felt lucky to be able to be a part of it.  

That day as I was talking to a friend, she mentioned that I had taken those music ed. technique classes in college, and would I take a band teacher position.

My first reaction was, "are you CRAZY?"  

But then, I think I could do it.  It wouldn't be very pretty at first, and would take a ton of work.  But in, say, a beginning program, it could work.

That night I went to Revival Town (hooray! It's pretty much my favorite time of week), and it was a wonderful time of worship and had a real emphasis on God's love, and living fundamentally from an identity of God's beloved.  Which is what God has been emphasizing to me for years and years and years, and which is a posture I so often slip out of.  

It always bugs me when people say, "Well, God is a God of love, but He's also a God of justice."

When did those become mutually exclusive?  

Where is justice without love?   Love is the thesis, the structure in which all resides.

ANYHOW  I was thinking, during the prayer meeting, about how I was filled today by middle school band music.  Who would have thought?  

My next thought was, "What do I do with that?"  What should I do with that?

And I felt that maybe God, or maybe just me, thought, "Why should I have to do anything with it?  What if I never direct band again, and don't have to worry about remembering if a trumpet is a P5 above or below C?  What if that was just something to bless me, for my joy?"

and I liked that idea.

GOD never wastes anything, but I don't think I have to worry about using all the little bits of my life to their fullest advantage.  God can work them in.

peace be still.

caution, tilting world

Sometimes you're going along your normal daily business and then, suddenly, the world tilts.  

Or, things that have been slowly buried in the crevices of your memory, as hard to unravel as twisted coral, suddenly float to the surface.

That's what the past few days have been for me; a violent yet gentle wrenching of the old into a new unknown, with unforeseen possibilities and, I'm sure, still unknown challenges and fears.

I had the chance to go (for free!  my bank account rejoiced) to a conference for Christian artists this past Friday, and it was so refreshing.  I sat in a pew and listened to how the world and the church needs the artists, writers, musicians, actors, etc. because theology is far too grand to just let theologians have at it.   (and  I felt they did this while still granting theologians and intellectuals deep respect and purpose)  I don't want to describe the talks and sessions and worship too much, because I don't trust myself to articulately justify what the conference did for me.

But I felt strongly that--- I was with my PEOPLE!  the lovely crazy right-brained people who try to become vulnerable enough and crazy enough to create.  

And while sometimes it feels as if there's so many cross-currents of my life, this stream was wide enough to encompass all that I hope God does with me.  And Madeleine L'Engle always could put her finger on it, and Rob Bell does, too, in "Drops Like Stars." 

The creative masterpiece of living--the irrevocable marriage of creativity and suffering--how Van Gogh said once, "the more I think about it, there is nothing more artistic than loving people."

I can't say it without bordering into cheesiness and I loathe when important things are spoiled with cheesiness.  

So on to the next thing that further put the world on its end-- the Wall!  There is a prayer and worship movement starting here in the Springs.  It's in the same vein as IHOP in Kansas City, and is housed in the Jericho Center, the international hq of Dick Eastman's ministry of evangelism and intercession.  There is a vision for these houses of prayer to cover the globe, and Mike Bickle's (IHOP guy) vision is to be able to hire thousands of singers to worship full-time--paid--like David did.  

They are looking for more musicians (it was funny, they kept calling it: musicians and singers, which would have driven Pat Edwards, a voice teacher, mad.  Singers are musicians too!  Singers and instrumentalists!) to do intercessory worship.  Right now, it's M-F, 6-6pm, with live worship form 8-4pm.  And I feel like I've got to do it...I so want to be part of it.

So I'm trusting God for it; hopefully, they'll contact me (they have my info), and I'll be able to do it for a couple days a week at least.  It's just tricky financially, because unless I get 20 or 30 more private students, I'll have to sub at least 3 times a week as well as teach.  But with my schedule now, I could do this for a time, and then teach my normal afternoon students.

ANYhow.  it's just exciting, because especially as this worship and intercession movement grows around the world, it's something that you could give your life to.  Imagine international worship ministry... it would be incredible.

A closing rather-unrelated note: I LOVE private teaching.  Absolutely love it.  Voice and piano--the lessons are so different, but I love teaching both instrument.  And getting to know kids one on one and just hanging out with them and watching them grow musically...it's delightful.  I would be so blessed if I could do this and worship full-time.  We'll see...God, please somehow take care of the money.

lyrics

fly me

diamonds are

it's too darn

see the pyramids

cept for me and my monkey!

hush little

of angel hair

lady is a tramp

green eyes

to fix you

lucy in the

blackbird singin

belong to

but you're just

turn me into somebody loved

~lyrics. 

It's funny how snatches of songs conjure up the entire verse, or song... the above list goes from jazz to coldplay to beatles to random artists...   I just read a bit of e. e. cummings and feel unconventional.  

I wonder how it would be to change your entire name to lower case letters, and if cummings ever did it officially. Probably not.  

s. e. littlefield.  Kinda like it.  Except littlefield is a bit long.

stacia e. l.    Except now I'm a slimy fish.

I saw the mother of one of my show choir girls today at church, and it took me a second to place her.  Has it really only been a month since the Mann days?  After church I saw their whole family, including the girl.  weird.  Wonder if it was weird for her--to see Miss Littlefield in the summertime.  Not that she'd see me again anyhow, even if I went back to Mann; she'll be a 9th grader this fall.  Maybe that's what got me on this name kick--I must have heard "Miss Littlefield" several million times this past year.  Well, 100,000 at least.  :)  

Miss Littlefield can I go get a drink?  Miss Littlefield I need a pencil (27x a day).  Miss Littlefield my throat hurts.  Miss Littlefield can I go to the bathroom?  Miss Littlefield the teacher let us out late so we're not tardy, right? Miss Littlefield I hate worksheets Miss Littlefield why are we singing/writing/doing this Miss Littlefield there's only three, two one weeks left! 

Miss Littlefield are you married Mrs. Littlefield (so often) how old are you Mrs. Littleton (yup) can I change seats??  Can I change seats today?  Now? Tomorrow?  Miss Littlefield he swore at me Miss Littlefield look at the bruises my Dad gave me Miss Littlefield it was his fault he pushed me Miss Littlefield she kicked me Miss Littlefield can I write on the board Miss Littlefield this is your new student, his name is Buddy (plush pink bear) 'Welcome, buddy, nice to meet you--here's a worksheet.  Make sure he writes his name, ok?'

Buddy did very well in class.

Teaching.... way too much for this post.  I had better leave it to another time.  in it, Time is crammed full, close to exploding, and each day is rich in anecdote and exhaustion and growing people. 

do I even want to do it again?    Very divided...

set up chairs each day

scrape white to words on the board

listen talk learn teach?

a little haiku for ya.  Would you believe it, I have another paper to stop procrastinating about now!  (hehe will I even write when I finally finally graduate?  procrastination is just such a marvelous literary tool!)

Switchfoot and music

Wish I had what I needed 
To be on my own 
'Cause I feel so defeated 
And I'm feeling alone 

And it all seems so helpless 
And I have no plans 
I'm a plane in the sunset 
With nowhere to land 

And all I see 
It could never make me happy And all my sand castles 
Spend their time collapsing 

Let me know that You hear me 
Let me know Your touch 
Let me know that You love me 
Let that be enough 

It's my birthday tomorrow 
No one here could now 
I was born this Thursday 
22 years ago 

And I feel stuck 
Watching history repeating 
Yeah, who am I? 
Just a kid who knows he's needy 

Let me know that You hear me 
Let me know Your touch 
Let me know that You love me 
And let that be enough 

My sister and I traded a bunch of music a few months ago, and I discovered this song.  Neither of us knew who wrote it; it was just in a random playlist.  But ever since I first listened to it (maybe...March?  April?), it captured the essence of so many things that are 'me' now.  I didn't even know it was Christian--thought that the "You" in the last verse was just another family member or friend.  

But today when I googled it (I was trying, unsuccessfully, to have it play on my blog), I found out that it was from an early Switchfoot album!!!  And I'd listened to that album a lot, back in the day (or actually when I started getting into Switchfoot and then listening to their older stuff, too), but that song had never stuck out.

It's interesting to see what speaks to you now, and what is simply saved until a more auspicious time.  That's why the same things are still new, and perhaps why we don't have to fear growing old.  Because there is still wonder--mercies are new every morning.

I love how a simple song can capture so much.  It seems like the great musicians never shied away from simplicity--the familiar I IV V vi (ooh!) V I.  And yet there is so much creativity there.

They also reach far beyond the regular progressions, but it isn't forced... they have the creative maturity to handle weird and wonderful things like French 6ths.... unlike when I was taking Music Theory and tried to force the new chords I was learning into songs I wrote.  Just stilted and weird.

I guess it goes back to the right time.  We need to be content with where and who we are now, with what God is doing in and through us.  This isn't embracing stagnation, but instead lifts burdens of misguided expectations.  Which goes back to the song-- 

let me know that You love me, and let that be enough.

enough.