KRIS KRISTOFFERSON

It was 1972.    I was 16 and I loved outlaw country music.  My vinyl collection boasted music by Johnny Cash, Waylon Jennings and Kris Kristofferson.  Not many of my high school peers shared my taste in music, but my best friend, Dusty, who I’d known since we were 11, was as crazy about it as me, which is just one of the reasons we were best friends. 


The day we learned Kris Kristofferson was going to be in concert, we begged our parents for permission to go, collected our saved up our allowance and babysitting money to buy the tickets and waited impatiently for THE night to arrive. 

The concert venue was downtown and I was nervous about driving in unknown territory.  Dusty assured me that with her riding shotgun, we’d be fine.  That night we climbed into my 1966 VW Bug and traversed the puzzle of one-way streets to the concert hall.

We sat on the edge of our seats in the balcony and dramatically sighed, when, at last, Kris Kristofferson sauntered on stage, dressed in a pale blue wrinkled shirt, sleeves rolled up, faded jeans, worn boots and his guitar slung over his shoulder.  We were in ‘teenage-girl-with-a-crush-heaven’ when he began singing.  We knew every word to every song and were disappointed when he left the stage after his final song.  We hoped we could score an autograph and pushed our way out of the venue to the street and around the corner, hoping for even a glimpse of our beloved star. 

We giggled and looked around, surprised that we were the only two waiting outside the side door.  We stood in the glow of a streetlight, otherwise draped in darkness.  Suddenly, the door opened and three men emerged, each carrying a guitar case, laughing and mid-conversation.  They stopped abruptly when they saw us. 

Even in the dim light, we immediately recognized Kris Kristofferson.  He smiled at us and I felt my knees shaking and I suddenly couldn’t even remember my name.  I could not believe I was standing next to Kris Kristofferson.  He was so close to us, I could smell him.  He smelled like whiskey.

Dusty and I were so star-struck that we could hardly find the words to speak, but I remember finally gushing about how much I loved the concert, and then asked for an autograph.  He scratched his head and drawled, “Well, this is the first time anyone asked me for my autograph.  I’m not sure what I’m supposed to do.”   I was in disbelief but dug into my purse and pulled out a scrap of paper—which happened to be the receipt from the concert ticket purchase. He took it from me, our fingers touching briefly (I was never washing that hand again), signed his name (I was staring at his face) and handed it back to me. I could not stop smiling and giggling.

Then, he grinned again and queried, “Do you girls want to party?  We’re going to a party.” 

I remember freezing in place, blushing and then panic hit me.  I stammered and muttered something about our curfew and thanked him for the autograph.  We raced back to the Bug, slid in, slammed and simultaneously locked the doors.  My hands were still shaking as I turned the key in the ignition and drove away.  Neither one of us had said a word.  I was still waiting for my heartbeat to slow down.  Dusty, in her usual style, and too loud voice, blurted out, “THAT was crazy!”  I laughed hysterically and we both started singing ‘Me and Bobby Mc Gee’.

I’ve never been to another Kris Kristofferson concert but I still have his autograph on that faded receipt and wonder if it really was the first one he’d ever signed.

FACE THE FEAR: A WRITER'S CONFESSION

The Fear quietly follows me like a shadow, never leaving and like the proverbial Boogie Man under the bed, pulls me under the surface of my own insecurity, suffocating me with imaginary whispers of  “I told you so”.

Sometimes at night, when I am trying to go to sleep, this Fear creeps into my thoughts and prevents me from even closing my eyes.  I stare upwards to the ceiling and can feel it choking me as my thoughts stomp wildly inside my head.

“I didn’t write today…I should be writing something right now…I should get up….I write best at night, but I’m tired.  Tomorrow will be better…I’ll never finish any of my projects…I will die before I actually become serious about my writing…I have already wasted so much time…”

I despair over the wasted days, weeks, years and then fervently promise and plan to start the next day, so that the Fear will go back to its corner.  But, the next day I don’t write and the Fear charges me again, pushing me back further under, into surrender to its grip. 

I have plenty of excuses, but none of them are valid.  They are only lies that I tell myself to quell the Fear.

“I have no time, I work full time.  I’m too stressed…I just want to come home and relax, not write.  My recorded shows are filling my queue, I need to watch them. Next week looks better.”

The truth stands accusingly before me.

I have time to write.  I have a place to write.  I have talent.  I have passion.

What the heck is holding me back?

The Fear may actually be that I won’t write well enough, that I won’t be able come up with the pieces to fill the frame of my story and finish it.  Maybe the Fear is also that no one wants to read what I have to say. 

I must stand up face to face with the Fear and write anyway.  I must write because it is who I am.  A writer.

THE TRUTH INSIDE

Sometimes, I change things up from my usual posts and my writing becomes poetic and introspective. This is one of those times. Since I haven't posted in awhile (but I have been writing just the same), I decided to publish this piece, here.
   


This is me.  This is everyone.  We've all fought hard to get where we are in our journey. We hide our scars from each other and pretend we're unscathed.  But in time, it's evident, we are all brave warriors, each having survived different battles.


warrior


masked exterior
Madonna smile
but inside
weary, wary, vigilant.


The fragile soul
bears the scars of ancient battles.
Remnants of busted, bruised pieces
and holes filled with 
loss and fear.


Damaged but resilient
with wounded parts cloaked
behind bravado
which like a fortress
protects the broken child within.


A solitary dented shield
warns that a sword
she keeps
buried deep
can be sharpened,
and hailed
to defend that child
from harm.


standing
protecting
surviving

5 THINGS I'M NOT WAITING TO DO

I'm through planning for the 'whens, afters and somedays'.  It's time for action, now.

I've jumped feet first into some pretty great projects that I'm excited about, and though, there are times I feel I am knee deep in mud with my endeavors, I am doing what I love and I am not wasting time talking about it anymore.

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1-- Writing
This last day of the month of January marks the most consistent writing I have done in more than 10 years (which embarrasses me to admit). After all, I'm a writer. So why haven't I been writing more? I've delayed, put off, made excuses, and procrastinated for a myriad of reasons, but only a few of them are valid.

I am so grateful to have been a part of an amazing group of writers on Facebook through Jeff Goins' "My 500 Words" challenge.  I am proud to say that I have been consistently writing at least 500 words, on more days than not, for the challenge month of January.

2--Art
I also happily discovered another group of creative souls who are inspiring and helping me unleash another layer of my artistic side.  The page is called "The Documented Life" and this is a group of people creating their own planners/art journals, guided with weekly prompts, each person making their planner, a santuary, a place to journal, doodle, and organize. 

Mine will be a place to journal and write, brainstorm ideas for future writing projects, songs, dreams and inspiration.  I have always loved to doodle in the margins of notebooks or on scraps of paper and this is permission to do that in a very purposeful, creative and unique way.

3--Bible Study
I am attending my church's women's Bible Study to deepen my relationship with God and develop friendships with other Christian women. We meet for an hour of worship and Bible Study followed by an hour of break out classes. The breakout class I signed up for is a digital photography class. I already have some knowledge through a class I took when we first got our camera, but I'd like to start using my camera all the time for documenting and memorializing all the moments in my life.

 4--Spanish
Recently, I'd been bummed that I'd let my Spanish get rusty and wanted to brush up on it and expand my vocabulary and fine tune my ability to speak, read and write in Spanish.Recently, through a friend, I learned about Duolingo, a free app, that I downloaded on my phone and use every day.

5--Music
Music.  I learned how to play the guitar (chords and some picking) beginning in the 7th grade and took lessons through my junior year of high school, but my guitar was abandoned and has not been played in several years.

I've regretted not completing my lessons so that I can read music. I began learning to read music when I was a junior, but my music instructor was very intimidating and demanding. At that time, I didn't have the desire to put in the time and work to meet his expectations, so I quit. I am now picking up where I left off in my music.

 

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Each one of these five of these pursuits filled my time in my younger days.  I was active in my church, studied Spanish, took guitar lessons and played it often, wrote every chance I could steal away and sketched, painted and doodled on blank pieces of paper laying around. 

All of these things have a connection. They are creative outlets that compliment one another. I am excited about the journey that I've begun. I feel renewed and energized.

I am no longer just idling, waiting for the right time to accomplish the things I WANT to do. I am DOING them.

What are you waiting to pursue?

SNOW, TEARS AND GOOD-BYE

I felt sad, burdened and travel weary as I stared out the car window at the passing landscape. The highway was lined with three-rail farm fencing and leaf barren trees. 
 

We were back in Kentucky. We were here to bury my father. Tears welled again, uncontrolled, and rolled down my face. I glanced over at my mother, sitting next to me in the back seat of our rental car. Her own tears spilled down her cheeks. She, too, was lost in her own grief laden thoughts. It was even more heartbreaking for me to imagine her loss.  My head pounded like a thundering drum inside my skull and I squeezed my eyes closed and tried to shut the pain off. I couldn’t. I opened my eyes again and looked out the window trying to make sense of it all. 

A snow storm had arrived at the same time our plane landed in Louisville. After a 3:00 a.m. start to a long day of airport lines, snafus, plane changes and a cross country flight, we were finally in the car on our way to my cousin’s home.

Snow was blowing around us and frosting the world outside. We had an hour drive to go from Louisville to Lexington and my husband (a native Californian) had stepped up to the challenge of driving this leg of our journey. My brother rode shotgun next to him. They were a good team.  Their conversation consisted of road directions and traffic and I welcomed the distraction from my grief.

I'd been back to Kentucky for a visit with extended family when we made a trip to Nashville, three years earlier, but it had been a very long time since I'd visited Lexington with any snow on the ground.

I was in the 7th grade and we'd come to visit my grandparents for Christmas. All of the rest of our annual trips were during the summer, since Dad was a teacher and had all of his summers off.

Dad.  

This time we’re here for you.  This would be his last trip.  I tried not to think about leaving him here.  About having him so far away from me.

It felt surreal to be making this trip for the purpose of laying my dad to rest next to his parents. How did this happen so fast? I was just talking to him, he was being funny, teasing us.

I remember feeling confident that he'd be fine, probably weak and not feeling like coming to our house for our traditional family Christmas Eve dinner, but I was certain that the New Year would arrive with him out of the hospital and with us again.

I was right.

He was no longer in the hospital. He was home. His soul was home with his Heavenly Father and his body was home in KY. And now, January 2, 2014 we were home with him, too.

At that moment, I wished we could have been anywhere else. I wished that all of this was just one of my disturbing nightmares and I would wake up from it, with my heart beating fast and my day thrown off, but grateful that it was just a bad dream. 

But, it was not a bad dream this time.  It was real. It was a sharp piece of truth that had spun the world I knew, upside down and left me disoriented.

I continued to look out the window but my vision was blurred by swirling snow outside and the veil of tears. I blinked, took a deep breath and prepared myself for what would end up being the hardest day I’d lived, in a very long time.