Dedication: This is dedicated to the workers out there who have to go out.  I am indebted to all of you working at the grocery stores, those doing double duty cleaning and trying your best to make people safe.  This is going out to all the healthcare workers and first responders.  You all have my respect and gratitude.  I hope these ill-informed morons going out in protest to “open up” do not end up putting more extra burden on you in the long run.

Song: “Tell It Like It Is” by Aaron Neville – oh my how this song hits the nerves and gives the goosebumps.  For the numerous layers of truth in this song we’ve lived, one of the greatest for me is that the phrase “telling it like it is” is what my grandfather says when he’s “laying the law down” or rather, simply describing reality as he sees it.  Unfortunately, folks who “tell it like it is” and see their reality as the way things SHOULD be or the way things are, ignoring other people’s right to exist and live without imposition, are creating havoc in the U.S. right now, going out there, being told “like it is” by extreme right-wing nuts with bad information, led by a bad president.  Now I’m telling it like it is, huh… ? I say, speak from your heart, be honest and truthful, but also, have some critical thinking skills y’all.  For Pete’s sake. Aaron Neville, “Tell It Like It Is”

Quote: “The status quo sucks.” – George Carlin  …it’s going to take some major shit for things to change in our world.  Perhaps we’re seeing the beginning.  I sincerely hope we end up better than where we were when this began… The nihilist in me doubts that.  The idealist in me knows that it is possible.

Dear Humans,  This week, there is so much to say, but I’m so exhausted I can’t really say it.  Work has been 3 times as much with my teaching going 100% online.  I am doing 3x the work in preparation, grading, keeping in touch (ha… touch, not really) with students, and honestly, feeling very despondent about it all.  It’s all the shitty things about teaching with none of the good stuff.  No more students’ faces lighting up in those lightbulb moments, the chatter and laughter after I play a Trevor Noah clip and talk about how critical thinking is an essential skill to exist in this world, and the knowledge that everyone saw the material if they were there that day.  When someone’s not in class, you know they didn’t hear or see the lecture.  Online, you have to somehow quantify it and find out who really did see the lecture, then you have to grade them on whatever quantification method you’ve used to ascertain whether they understood the material…. it’s a circular nightmare, one I will refrain from boring you with from this point forward.  Instead, I’ll read you some poetry about how I feel.  Enjoy.  Happy Tuesday.  Pray for me, I’m struggling with motivation and depression, anxiety and deprivation.  I’ll pray for you because I know you’re going through something too.  I love you all.

Poetry video:

This week in pictures:

TuesDay NewsDay Vol 3, Issue 5 – April 14th

Y’all, I have been up to stuff… I’m just about to go to bed: Fed the cat. Cleared the floor of the random things on it… a sweater, a shirt, some discarded sticky lint tape, my water bottle, the plein air paint set that I made, and some letters I need to read. After looking at the clock, realizing yet again that bed is further away than I would like for it to be, time-wise, and bam! I haven’t written my newsletter as yet and it’s STILL Tuesday, so I have time! Ok well, here goes: (Be sure to make it to the bottom. There’s a video of my grandparents dancing that is quite literally the most amazing video ever made. Perhaps I am partial.)

Bangin news: Tiny Desks accepted my new song. I wrote/completed that song 3 days ago (started the bones of it back in December), but the hefty sum came on Sunday. It feels surreal to have a song I’m barely familiar with to be accepted with such fervor, embraced even. I’m reeling in thanks and in disbelief.

Now, I’m sipping on mugwort and lemon balm tea to see if my subconscious dream world can help me process all that is happening. The mugwort AND lemon balm are just beginning to fill out in the forest and in my neighbors yards.

The new song is called “For Us To Seek Her”. It’s about Isolation versus Solitude. Depression versus Hermitude. (A word I may have made up.) Technology versus Flowers and Stars. Strength vs Vulnerability. It’s also about whether or not we need the VERSUS at all. How can it all co-exist without judgement? In Love, that’s where. …if only I could find that. Find it and know it.. Find it and keep it? Can we keep it? All those things, those dichotomies can all co-exist in our voices as we sing along to the natural soundtrack of our lives, no matter where we live. They can co-exist in flight or in grounding and rooting.. Choice versus subjugation. Something I said to a friend at breakfast one day was this: “Choice is all we get and change is all that’s real.” This new song is honoring the choice, the humanity, the disconnect and the connection of right now. It’s about how I want love and stability and to stand up straight and tall while flying headfirst into a blinding love that knocks me off my feet. It’s about how the world is keeping us apart and driving me mad. It’s about how we ingratiate technology with such reverence while it robs us of our perfect imperfections and our time. I guess this song is about life. Life as we know it. (Cue R.E.M. …and I feel fine)

All that said, I’ve been busy. Teaching, grading, checking up on students, talking to them on the phone, painting, singing, writing poetry, drawing, reading, journalling, dreaming, trying to sleep, walking, learning about more plant identification, smelling the blooms! The Black Locust tree has a divine smell….

This newsletter today is dedicated to all the people who have passed and their families due to the COVID outbreak. Just found out today that Sturgill Simpson has the COVID. I HOPE that man stays alive. He’s a visionary and one of the only modern country (alt-country, but seriously…) singers who gives a damn about world peace. (Sorry modern country, it’s true though.). This period has been heartbreaking and is changing our world. This is a divine culmination of which we cannot see the light at the end of the tunnel just yet. We must know there is light. There must be light. It is within each of us. We have to let it shine, now more than ever.

The QUOTE for today’s newsletter is this:

Because damn… don’t we all need to know that’s the case sometimes? I mean, let’s look at the “President”. His actions surely don’t reflect us as people, they reflect how inept he is at running a country full of living beings and at being a human himself… I will say this however, we NEED to not REACT, we need to ACT! COLLECTIVELY to fight this insane mfer and his cronies. Stripping the W.H.O. of funding? Are you effing kidding me? Jesus H. He and Richard Burr and all those money whores are just asking for protests in the streets when people can come out of their houses. I am looking forward to it. I digress.

The Song for today is this: I’ll share the new song “For Us To Seek Her” – here’s the version my friends got to see first. I think it’s better than the one Tiny Desks got, but hey, what do I know? Rules are rules. I had to make a new video just for NPR. PS Did I mention I’m effin’ STOKED. It’s such an honor to just say that they liked it enough to put it out there! So rad…

Dearest Humans,

This world is giving us some lemons. Please let us make more lemonade and not try to arrest the folks trying to sell it on the corner to pay rent. Let’s make a shit ton of lemonade. The good kind, with the pulp in the bottom that squirts in between your teeth when you get finished and it’s still cold because all the ice hasn’t melted yet. Just sayin’ y’all. This world needs more lemonade than a bunch of bitchy lemons. (FYI though: if you’re feeling bitchy, go with it. Honor it. Dream with it. Know the next good time is coming. If you’re feeling keen on seeing the world as a better place and hopeful, go with it. Make something better happen than what was happening before all this took over.) Let’s get creative and change our perspectives. I love you. Thank you for believing in me.

Now here’s a pretty painting I’m working on. I love pansies.

Keep going………. I promise the wait will be worth it. You get to see my grandparents dancing in the last video.

See? I told you Lucy. This is my favorite video in the world. I will most definitely go to my grave loving these two. Earle and Juanita Moore, you are so very sacred to me. Thank you both for making me into who I am, all the good and the not so good. All of it.

How about a hundred songs for your quarantine? Or your ride to and from work if you’re having to go in (and THANK YOU 🙏)

Here’s the hand-picked playlist I made for everyone to enjoy, love all-a-yaz!

RIP John Prine, you are featured prominently in my musical love affair.. ♥️

These Arms of Mine: Songs for the Quarantine by Anita Moore 100 tracks about the body, desire to fly and what is and isn’t anyones business being stuck at home.

This week (these weeks?) in pictures:

I saw 10,000 news stations stirrin up anger

I saw neighbors and friends feeding the hungry

I saw teachers and students all doing their best

I saw 1000s of people fighting for toilet paper

I saw my people make music in the front yard

I saw an orange man who talked about nothing

And its a hard, its a hard, its a hard, its a hard, its a hard rain, that’s fallin. (Except its Sunny.)

(my current version of Dylan’s “Hard Rain’s Gonna Fall” – here’s my favorite version, by Edie Brickell and the New Bohemians: https://youtu.be/kgpF5VjWO34

Here are some other things I’ve seen:

Some poetry from my morning pages:

This morning,

I awoke to the sound of an alarm too early set.

After dreams of my old friend suffering, rightfully so, I wanted some peaceful moments.

So after an hour of mind trickery and snooze,

I lifted my head.

The space we create is our own.

Nothing in this life is guaranteed,

Except change, choice, and the love and care we give our very own home.

Here is my latest painting:

This is exhausting. They are being a pain in the ass.

I went guerrilla shopping for my grandparents and brought them a ton of food the other day and then said “Please let me go to the grocery store for you, it’s dangerous to go for so many reasons.” They said OK!

Then today, about 10 minutes ago, I get a call and my grandmother says, “We’re headed to the grocery store. I need some chocolate milk and some other little things.” I’m flabbergasted and my jaw hit the ground, “I can do that for you Maw Maw! Remember?” To which she says “oh it’s just a few things…” To which I said “it doesn’t matter how much you need, it’s the fact that you’re going into a place where it’s deceptively possible for you to get a virus that could kill you. I don’t want that. You don’t want that, let me go to the grocery store for you!” To which she argued… Round and round we went.

To add insult to injury, on the poor side of town in Burlington North Carolina, the Food Lion does not offer curbside pick up. In fact, when I called to try and see if that were the case, they wouldn’t answer my phone call. She has to go to that Food Lion because that’s the brand of chocolate milk that she wants. 🤦🏻‍♀️

They are determined to go out in this and put themselves at risk. I’m going to have to exercise a boundary that I don’t go to their house after this. I don’t wanna put my roommates in danger just because my grandparents won’t be careful… God what fucked up times these are… Please pray for them. If you have any advice, please feel free to share with me about how to deal with this.