in light of this year finding its end and more paramount :  our sameness in joy and grief and stuff we hope to relish and other stuff we can’t wait to leave behind  -       hopes of camaraderie   -     i’m offering transparency of what this year has been, for me .        as like all of us,  a lot of things  .

this year  (in somewhat of a spatial order)  :

i drove cross country,   twice .  taken by idaho and the desert .

this year i packed up all my things in the oregon rain, replanted in the great plains,
terrified i’d made a horrible mistake .

i cried my guts out in a kansas city basement or automobile or friend’s living room or grocery store parking lot pretty regularly for about six months .

i met my soul mate . we fell in love .
then we broke up and i wondered if i’d recover .

this year,  somewhere in the middle of it,  i voted transparency .    and realized i could no longer ‘keep it all together’ . or stay enamored with being put together .

i let people see my shit . but more significantly, i needed them to .

i cursed at my piano . stared at blank pages for days on end wondering where the songs went .

this year i’ve been met with much creative silence .  and stage fright .

this year, at the end of summer,  i hit bottom . the bottom of the bottom of the ocean floor … a depth i hope to never touch with my body again .

i found a therapist .
i fired my therapist .

i bought a touring bike and pedaled the shit out of it for september and october . it was part of my new therapy plan and it worked – alongside prayer, journaling constantly, eating copious amounts of plants, and the bolstering that can come only within the beautiful confines of community .  you know,  like over nachos, and bottles of wine and on porches .

this year i was met face to face with grace .   messy glorious profound redemptive real grace .

i learned that every special occasion should be marked with sparklers .  and had one of the best birthdays ever .

this year i learned what the word longevity means … what it means to stay when you feel like bolting . what it means to pray when the words can’t rise through drowning tears .

this year i found love .  love in all kinds of tangible :  summer swimming and scrabble games and laughing til my ribs hurt and meals ’round tables and fireflies and romantic love too,  i’m happy to say .  ( november brought us back together,  to stay ) .

this year getting through days and weeks felt like fighting for my well-being, much like climbing out of one enormous fissure .   and yet,  the songs began to (re)surface .   slowly, patiently, they began taking shape as the most difficult (and possibly most rewarding?) record i’ve crafted yet, teaching me resolve and showcasing the staying power of my first love : music .   namely, the piano .  and the key of d minor .

and so the year comes to an end .

some sort of relief .

one big sigh for all of us .

this intricate
heartbreaking
difficult
staggering
significantly altering
extraordinary

year .

comes to an end .

for one, i’m grateful it’s over, honestly .   but there’s another kind of grateful inside, for how hard it’s been and for richness that could not have been known without the struggle - not in a cliché way but in a gutsy way .   maybe you know this too :

the keeping going,  the surrender of being just who you are,  the loving & being loved,   and then pouring it all back into making art   –   gut level honest arresting awe-inspiring art .

i’m hopeful for this,   this new year,   for you and for me,  more than ever before .

* photograph by carl zoch