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.