Jesus, y'all, I'm a mess.
I mean, not really but yeah, really.
I can't stop crying these days. I cry for sweetness, I cry for pain, I cry for joy, I cry mostly just because the earth turns and the light changes and the it's too much beauty for me to hold in my heart and it keeps bursting forth, wave after wave of salt-watered emotions.
Just stop it, I want to tell myself. Quit it!
Really. I can't. It's all too damn much for me to bear.
Yesterday I sat in the audience of the Opera House which is a different perspective for me entirely and for an hour I sat and listened, often with my eyes closed to Lis and Gabe and Lon playing and tears just streamed down my face. Lis's voice is a pure thing. It's pure like water and it satisfies my soul. It comes straight from her heart and it finds its way into the listener's heart and when she's singing her own songs, the ones she's written, it's that much more.
More of what?
Everything you need.
And that Opera House stage is a perfect place for her to sing. Nothing stops the notes and they rise up and soar and they settle down and whisper of all things: love, joy, comfort, adulation, despair, wishes, dreams...
No one talks when Lis is singing at the Opera House. No one would dare to miss a note. And when Lon joins her in harmony, it's two voices together who have spent thirty-something years singing together, onstage, over breakfast, wherever they are together. Combine that with their love for each other and it's like being witness to something so damn good that you know what holy is.
And maybe that's what's making me cry.
Witnessing the holy in every damn thing.
Last night after the festival, Lon and Lis came back here with Lon's sister and her husband and I made chicken and dumplings- a simple, old-fashioned dish in one pot and heated up the last of the collards and we all sat down around my table and we held hands and said this prayer together: "I am grateful. For all of this."
And we ate.
And we laughed. And we told stories. And it was good.
This morning we got up and ate our breakfast outside where the birds were singing, blackbirds and cardinals, mockingbirds and doves cooing and Jessie and Melissa came out and joined us and again- holy, holy, holy.
And there was silliness and banjo playing in the kitchen
and (I can't talk about it) knowing that Jessie is leaving soon, that this funny, silly, beautiful, radiant, music-making girl is about to graduate from college and go live in Asheville, North Carolina (only eight hours away!) is breaking my heart into so many pieces that I'm not sure I'll ever be able to put them back together.And it's okay. It's great. I'll just have to learn how to live with my heart all rescrambled and stuck back together with glue and baling wire and paper clips and ribbons and clothespins and sticky tape and I will and so will her father and her brother and her sisters and her nephew and her friends. We will (only eight hours away!) but she won't be in my kitchen on a Sunday morning with Melissa, shaking her maracas and sticking out her butt and giggling away and saying, "What else is there to eat?" and kissing and hugging me
and teasing me and petting the dogs and washing the dishes and making me laugh.Or making me cry.
But she was here this morning.
Doing all of that.
And now everyone has gone. Lon and Lis are playing in St. Augustine tonight. "Don't you want to come with us?" Lis asked me. "Aw, no," I said. "I have to clean the hen house."
We laughed because that was so lame and I could hardly let go of her or of Lon either.
And we all went out front and sat for pictures. Lis and I had to do our kissing picture.
"We've kissed here before," Lis said and she's right. We have.
And Jessie posed with her fairy-godparents.
And then Lon caught us in full laugh.
I don't even remember what we were laughing about.And then everyone got in cars and drove away and we waved forever and here I am.
Crying again.
It fucking HURTS when your heart breaks. It pushes up and it lodges in your throat and your nose runs and you cry.
Because you know that life is all about comings and goings and the things that happen inbetween those things. And because fuck it- it's just so damn important.
We think the important things are more money or a bigger house or a new car or losing weight or a diamond ring or a trip to Europe and yes, yes, yes. Those things can be important but no, mostly, it's sitting around a table and eating a meal with people you love and it's listening to notes from humans making music and it's laughing so hard your stomach hurts and it's someone playing banjo on your porch, in your kitchen and it's nothing you can plan for.
You can't know when you get up that this holy thing or that holy thing is going to happen so you have to pay attention! You have to be aware that this moment in time will not ever return, not exactly like this and that there has been a coming and there will be a going and yes, new things will come about which are holy and that's the way life is.
And I guess you can't hold on too hard, can you? I mean, what good does it do?
You have to say, "Go with my blessings. My blessings and my joy at your leaving because it's not a running-away from this life, it's a running-toward that next part, more goodness, more music, more LOVE, more of everything and we're only going to be eight hours away.
Or three hours, as we are with Lon and Lis. Nothing. Pffft, like that.
We wave forever. We come in the house, we look around at all the empty space where a few moments ago there was so much activity. You listen to the silence where an hour ago there was singing and you realize that now the space is holy, too, because it held all of that.
Just a minute ago.
Just an hour ago.
Just a lifetime ago.
We come, we go, we stay, we leave, we sing, we cook, we clean out the hen house.
Yes. We cry.
Because it's all holy. And because our hearts shatter again and again and before we've figured out how to bind them together with all that stuff, whatever we can find, they're just going to leak.
A lot.
Or at least mine does.
Well. Sunday here at the Church of the Batshit Crazy.
Here's our hymn for today. Love Hurts by Gram Parsons (rest his soul) sung by Lon and Lis Williamson at the Gamble Rogers Folk Festival and I don't know what year. My favorite part comes right at the end.
Holy, holy, holy.
Love...Ms. Moon
