You can feel it in your bones.

The moment the wind hits you…

You arch your back and breathe deep.

You stare into the cobalt sky and realize that the new season is on its way from the great North.

Though we, as a country, celebrate the New Year at the end of that Yuletide month, Fall brings upon me a feeling of new. The leaves are changing and scarves loop their way around our bare necks. I assume that most people understand the changing of colors as a sign that the once vibrant green-sleeved branches are losing life.

And, they are. But it’s so much more than that.

This season brings the Harvest. Grapes are picked, pressed and by the grace of skilled hands, eventually, gives us wine. I never grew up around vineyards, but I did grow up around pine trees. In fact, the smell of burning pine needles is one of the very few things that can bring me back in an instant.

The red embers burning and curling like a fiery beard upon the face of my memories.

This season brings contemplation on the last time the leaves fell…and where I was in life and what I’ve come to learn from it since. Maybe there’s a reason we all sit around a table and give thanks – maybe it’s in all of our bones.

I think looking at our lives in seasons is good. I think we should learn from the trees outside our windows. That is, to always be ready when things come and go and when the wind is too much for the last leaf standing.

What I’m trying to say is that we give thanks for the fruit.

We collect as roots dig down deep for the mighty Cold and remember how good they’ll be next time around. So know that when we see the leaves falling and the plants hiding, they are still alive. Perhaps they feel it all too. The way the Great Mystery leaves us all.

Thankful to dig our roots in for another season.

Many of us called her “G.G” – short for Great Grandmother. She was also known as Bonnie and to a few, Mother. She was my “mom’s mother’s Mom” if such a phrase makes sense. It’s the only way I can say it without the lineage becoming too fuzzy or dropping names that you probably already know.

G.G was a character in a world that seemed to be moving too fast. Walking into her home that had seen many transformations was always an event. In the colder seasons, it smelled of gas burning heaters and maybe a little something sweet. In the warmer parts of the year, it was the window unit that sat directly behind her kitchen table that pumped furiously cold air.

There always seemed to be (in my memory) a rolled down paper bag filled mostly of pecans and other various hard shelled snacks. The coffee pot was always hot and filled with the stuff that accompanies much conversation and friendship. Because you see…G.G had lots of visitors.

She owned a small trailer park behind her home that hugged a gas station and a main highway that led to the Gulf Coast. Driving by on the way to our favorite catfish house we’d say, “There’s G.G’s house!”

“Mother”, as my Gran and Great Aunts call her, was a storyteller. There was the one about the ghost that threw a flashlight at her from atop the refrigerator or the fact that she’d see people walking around her home and sitting in her furniture. It didn’t scare me much only because G.G felt pretty calm about it all. It never seemed to bother her that these things happened in her home.

My favorite is the one about the roach that would come out and watch TV with her. She would say the roach came out when she turned the TV on. It would prop itself against the chair as though it were lounging about. It was to be…an unexpected, but welcome friend in the house of Mrs. Bonnie Tate.

This is the same woman that had an out-of-body experience and swears she saw in real life, a UFO.

G.G would take my sister and me out to Ward’s every now and again for an “after-school snack” that consisted of those saliva-inducing Big One’s – which to you non-Southerners is a cheeseburger with chopped onions and chili. Oh and of course with French fries and a shake. What is a snack without your protein, veggies and dairy?

On cold days, my sister and I would huddle underneath a blanket in front of her tiny heater and watch Saved By the Bell, USA High and umm…oh yes, Barney. Why we watched Barney…I can’t remember nor does it matter. We were youngin’s and it was our comfort.

I miss her.

When I think about myself as an adult, I come to realize the things she taught us in her wisdom. Many things, I cannot remember. But her character and hospitality rubbed off on me and with no doubt, most of the people she knew and cared for.

We are all, in one way or another, a product of people like her:

a storyteller, a mother and a G.G.

“I’m Hannah’s husband…” I said to the midwife wearing all white, which grew into the color of her long and wise head of hair.

“I know who you are…come in!” she said in an excited whisper.

I walk past a beautiful old black and gold stove that has cooked hot meals for many exhausted Mommas after giving birth to their sweet little ones. I am nervous and intimidated by these midwives – not so sure why, only because I think they come from the Earth and not a womb. I come to see them as mystics. I suppose it is all the same and I’m learning to see it that way.

I thank one of the midwives for doing such a great job as she points to my sister-in-law, Leah, and says, “It was her…she did everything.”

My wife, Hannah, was her sister’s doula and no doubt, all pieces of this birthing process were so equally important. Bryan, Momma T and the midwives were welcoming in a son, a grandchild and my newest nephew, Wellington Ray. I was simply in awe that a birth could be such an intimate and spiritual moment.

I always seem to contemplate on life and how two of the most influential women in my time on this earth are doulas of the beginning and the end of our journeys. I get the humbling opportunity to listen to these stories – stories of joy, struggle and mourning. I say this as the words joy, struggle and mourning can account for all areas of life.

I sometimes refrain from using the term, “death doula”, only because it sounds quite grim, but it should not be so. It is what it is and those who have experienced hospice care know the benefits of those final moments of peace and being surrounded by those things that comfort you. My mom is good at what she does. She has held many hands and has comforted the lives of the Beloved.

We are often kept away from these moments that claim our existence. How often do we get to be a part of an intimate birth or hold the hand of a person who is taking their last breaths?

It surely shakes our bones. It turns our thoughts back to mortality and flesh and time.

As I saw baby Welly for the first time, one thought among many was, “Wow…this guy has no cholesterol…” And to my amusement, it was real for me to see all things new again — new heart, lungs, fingers and toes. [And precious little bits they are at that…]

Many of us come into this world wrinkly and bald – and many of us leave the same way.  Needy, tired and always learning.

To the women in my life – always growing into gentle forces of nature. Sweet mommas, nurturing wives and mystics who bring life to our world; and for those who walk people through the end of their journey…

Thank you…

thank you…for giving us life and helping us to further understand its beauty.

I’m reading a book right now entitled, “The Working Poor” by David K. Shipler
I’m not very far into it, but the first sentence pretty much broke me down…
He writes:
“Most of the people I write about in this book do not have the luxury of rage…”

And so it goes, the oxymoronic term, “working poor” - why those who work generally the hardest (most physical) jobs are often the poorest.
“No one who works hard in America should be poor”, he writes. And I presume anywhere, for that matter.

They do not get the luxury to complain or fight for something better. Most companies know they can hire this labor pretty quickly. 
They cannot save for a better opportunity or afford healthcare.

The working poor are an ER bill or major car problem away from losing their means.
It is far more complex than the word “poverty” even entails, because generally, when most folks imagine people who live in poverty or at the poverty line in the US, are lazy welfare driven men and women who won’t get their act together.

In reality, they are the invisible. 
They wrap your food in large factories and clean up your mess as you check out of your hotel room.

“The man who washes cars does not own one. The clerk who files cancelled checks at the bank has $2.02 in her own account. The woman who copy-edits medical textbooks has not been to the dentist in a decade.”

Something is severely wrong.
I’m not sure what the poverty line in America is, or if I’m there…which, surely, we are close. 
I am though, a doctor’s bill or a major expense away from completely having to rely on family or friends. [And the luxury of having extended family, though they are not necessarily rich, but generous.]

You make it to the next paycheck in hopes that there is nothing radical you must pay for - which just blows my mind that folks with expensive cable and big TVs are considering themselves poor. That new iPhone apparently wasn’t a big deal, eh?

Some of us have the luxury to live simply. We can choose what we want to get rid of out some place of ridiculous excess.
Meanwhile, there are the men and women who grow your food and sew your clothes that are fighting to keep up as we shave unnecessary luxuries from our lives. 
And granted, simplicity is important and I hope is encouraged. Simplicity as legalism is dangerous. This is when our excess shines the most. 

If I’ve learned anything about the poor or working poor, is that it is a constant fight. It is a fight out of homelessness, welfare or addiction. It is a fight to maintain something normal in the midst of various and numerous socio-economic problems.

The person in that tall building somehow gets paid $100,000 more a year than the person cleaning their floor and having to answer to asshole bosses who cut wages and hours to improve profit.
They will most likely never have to worry about feeding their babies or fixing their car because that oil change just wasn’t in the budget. [And it rarely ever is.]

Our value system is severely messed up.
Recession or excess in our country doesn’t matter too much for the working poor. They have no investments nor will they ever have the luxury of saving money for a better opportunity.

My fear is that people just don’t and won’t really get it. There is nothing wrong with making money, but there is something wrong with where our money holds value. It is the same for food culture. People would be able to afford more vegetables and better processed and humanely farmed animal products if we simply did not have all of this government money going to places like T.G.I McFunsters, Sodexo or Monsanto.

Oddly enough, the folks who work under those types of places and companies are in fact, the working poor. 

My hope is that we shift our views on which types of jobs deserve more money. 
There is absolutely no reason a farmer should need to sell their farm to survive. 

They are the invisible.
Look more closely, and you’ll see them. 
They’ll be carrying much more than their workload…

…but you will see them.

[As a preface, I direct all of this upon myself, because I am an addict of destination wifi spots and the “oh so” convenient idea of wireless internet…EVERYWHERE.]

It’s a sunny day in Portland, so most are outside. Sipping their Rosé and snacking on some nice home-baked goodies. 
I notice the inside crowd. 
Hunkered in front of their laptops — generally facebook or twitter or other time consuming and mindless programs.

I hear everyone yelp that the internet is down and that it sucks and isn’t reliable.
Now, I know in cafe/coffee shop culture, good internet means longer sitters. That doesn’t mean more business, but only that your cafe looks busier. Which, like I said, is not usually the case.

If a person has to pay two bucks for a cup of coffee, you’re gonna bet their gonna be sitting there for five hours and jump on you every time the router knocks them off. 
Most compliments and complaints I hear throughout my days in the cafe world revolve around the fact that the WI-FI is good and dependable. 
What about the coffee? What about the food? What about our glowing faces that love picking up your nasty habits?

My problem is not so much with the Internet…though we are connected and disconnected by it in several ways…
My problem is the understood idea that it has to be EVERYWHERE in order for a place to be “good”. We get pissed when airplanes don’t have wifi! [Anyone see that Louis C.K. bit?? Ok, anyways…]

What is this need to have internet everywhere??
I swear, I see people come in and hardly say a word before they pull out their iTouch or iPhone and go at it..never making eye contact - just a rushed, “…thanks!” as they nearly run into the door before looking up from their shiny toys.

But, I have an iTouch and I like that I can check the internet at places without having to have a computer. Hell, I even have a data plan on my phone so I can check email. 
I ask myself, “Is it really that important?”
My inbox does not need to be in my front pocket at all times.

As I come to a place in life where I will soon be getting rid of internet in my home, I’ll find it necessary to find a place where I can connect, but maybe not so much more on a daily basis. 
The internet and I have a sketchy past, and I don’t want it to come back anytime soon.

It will be in my best interest to fight this. To fight the urge to always know I can look at my inbox - to update where I’m at…or what I’m doing…
Maybe I’ll learn again to bring a book. Or a pen and some paper…and maybe a good friend. 

Hopefully I’ll learn to look around again. 

It is an addiction I’m fighting to break.
No, the world does not need me on the internet writing silly blogs and rants, such as this - though I must say, it feels damn good to do so. 
And I am not kissing this idea goodbye cold turkey, but it is a start.

We lived fine without it.

I think we can do it again.

There’s this song by My Brightest Diamond called, “The Ice & The Storm”
I’ve always found it to be a song on communication and perhaps the lack there of.

The Ice, being a metaphor for miscommunication, builds up in our places of shared intimacy.
The Storm, being that of “hashing out” and conversation, is the force that drives us all to talk about our heart’s place within each other. 

And so it goes, the ice builds and builds until we are absolutely cold.
We wish for that storm, but have no way to go about it. 
Until…it happens.
The ice shatters and falls from our mouths like an avalanche. 

It is now that we begin to heal and confide within each other and remember our sacred places and our need to know each other fully.

I’m not some expert on marriage, nor do I know the secrets of its place in our lives, but I do know that without communicating to each other what you need and how you feel, that ice builds up awfully heavy. 

It is the thing we humans do best, but often forget how to do thoughtfully - active listening and giving. God forbid we know [at all times] what the other person is thinking. 
It’s the lesson I’m learning and fumbling through.

It’s amazing the weight of this ice, as it slowly chips away from our frustrated hearts into a place of understanding. After all, you know you both love each other deeply. I believe it is in our human nature to assume all too much from others in how we learn to understand the ones we choose to do life with. 

All this could be complete gibberish, as I’m still trying to figure it out myself. I’m not the best at communicating verbally, hence my introverted and quiet personality. It doesn’t mean that I can’t work on becoming a more thoughtful person…in listening and giving. 
Which I guess is what this is all about. 

A lot of marriage is giving and receiving and learning when to do both. I think that each, in and of itself, is crucial to a good relationship. You learn how it works when you live life with someone. 

I think we could all learn to be a bit more thoughtful in our interactions - and I place much of this into my own self, knowing good and well I can be a selfish sun’uva gun. 

And I hope some of this made sense, in the midst of my own processes, trying to figure out the ice and the storm…

and learning to, as the song says…

let it go.
let it go.
let it go.

He throws down his tip box on the curb side, straightens up his shirt and sings.
I hear, belted out, those familiar words to an old song,

“I was born by the river…”

Sam Cooke’s, A Change is Gonna Come fills the back streets along the French Quarter - weaving in and out of drunken circles and out-of-towners on that haunted tour. 
It’s a wistful cry to a reality close to home and rings constantly in the back of my mind.

Is change gonna come?
If so, will it last?

By day your stocking shelves…arranging retail or putting up with arrogant upper class and/or disaster tourists…
By night, these streets are your rehearsals…your stage…and you, are our Soulful Sirens, stopping us dead in our tracks…if not physically, then most definitely spiritually. 

Around the Rues of Bourbon, Chartres and Royal, the songs and sounds of these streets remind me that these words and voices are important in our understanding of culture…
We cling to change, as we hope for better and more promising futures - but are reminded that some change is not sustainable. We lose “umph” - for lack of better wording. 

It sinks in when I’ve left. 
When something about that place is beyond my means of understanding. 
The beignets and dark silhouettes find their places in a production of something far more substantial than I can come to realize. 

I like this place…if even for a night.
It settles me back into an understanding that time heals…

And that we always hold on to that…because in the recesses of our souls…

..a change gonna’come…
oh, yes it will…

I think about the harvest.
Whether or not a farmer is sad to see those greens, reds, browns and golds disappear from the dirt he or she’s tilled from start to finish.

I wonder if there’s sadness and hopefully thankfulness as it produced a good yield. Another year to grow. Back to this tired dirt and placing that worn down wood back into those worn down hands.

There must be some sort of spirituality to this practice of digging up dirt and planting new life. To plant — To grow — to harvest.
Somewhere, you’re putting food in someone’s belly and that has to be meaningful.

I’m not exactly sure where all these thoughts came from.
Maybe as I sit on my back steps and look at the baby greens stemming from our old wooden crates and pots, I imagine life and I think about its yield.

There’s the sun and water and those hands that placed their gentle and sacred roots into new soil. A metaphor of times past, present and future. Look around nature, we are all designed to mimic one another. 
Our roots, branches and leaves. A sacred swaying of Mother Earth and humanity - generally, Momma taking better care of us than we do of her. 

We get chances to put back in what we’ve taken out. Not nearly as genuine as a ripe tomato or a fragrant stem of thyme and bay leaf - but an opportunity to give thanks for such a meaningful exchange. 

The red stains my fingers as I indulge in these Oregon strawberries and raspberries - a burst of something so good and sweet it can only be from love. The gift of these tastes - I dare not ever find myself ungrateful for their season in our lives. 

Those seasons, we eat what’s good, when it’s good. And selfishly mourn when they hide their roots for the cold again. We’re thankful and sad as sweet grows into bittersweet. 
We’ll see you again next year, God willing. 

Plentiful harvest for the Beloved,
thankful for my daily bread,

and thankful,
for what Mother gave to us.

I know it’s worthless to rant.
I know there’s absolutely nothing I can do about it.

But I say,
We are angry.
[and so very sad.]
And so we should be. 
I sit helplessly watching this decrepit pipe gush oil in the waters of my homeland.

I watch from the coast of the Pacific Northwest and exclaim the beauty of these waters; the cold crisp blue into dark mysterious rock.

This dirty water, washing upon the very sand I dug my toes into as a child, now littered with black sludge…and there’s no end in sight.

I stand thankful for a new president and politics are not my forte — but may we not forgot the apathy of Katrina. When it happens somewhere else, it is out of sight and out of mind.
We need action. We need accountability. 

We can blow up a country, but instead, we’re slowly killing ours.

We need people working those two lousy robotic arms 24 hours a day until the job is done.
I understand the difficulty of the logistics, but my friends, we are much stronger than that. And as we’ve seen, we’re much more dangerous to ourselves than we’ve ever imagined.

The earth groans.
She cries for help and we’re stuck watching birds lose their wings and fisherman lose their nets. 
It hurts me because this is how many of my people make a living. And it’s not a glorious living. It’s fishing. It’s cigarettes and too much alcohol…but for the sake of humanity, it’s how they put food on the table.

I ask that we continue to not be silent - to cry and continue making others remember that there is this wound in our Gulf bleeding upon the shores of my Beloved Deep South. 
This is a fight involving everyone - not just the fisherman and residents of the Gulf, but for humanity. We speak louder than any government or president — so let us speak. 


let us speak.

Everyday, I watch people shake hands, hug and talk.
I watch people love and often, become angry at one another. [And sometimes, towards myself.]

This is the life of someone who has a tiny part in one person’s struggle to learn the other. 

We are all simply fascinated with one another. I don’t think we’ll come out and say it, but we are. This is why TV provides such great entertainment. We love watching fake lives. We love watching real lives. Drama or no drama, we are fascinated that other people live, eat and talk like we do [and billions of others who do not.]

This is also why Facebook is so damn addicting.

I think hard about the people who show their distaste in something I make…or am a part of making. Walking up to the counter, they say, “This wasn’t good.” **In obvious passive aggressive tone**

It was a hot chocolate. You didn’t like it because you didn’t like the chocolate…that’s not really my issue..but you made it known to me. 
[My heart hardens.]

And the thing is, you kept telling me it wasn’t good, somehow trying to put me in my place. I was decent in my response telling you it was a different chocolate, but you were bent on making me feel very small. 
There are so many ways to say how you feel, but when you choose a way that is hurtful, you’ve done so much more damage than you think. 

I don’t understand this. 
It’s what makes me nervous about eating out with certain family and friends who make it well known that their food sucked or something was wrong. 
I get embarrassed. I know how it feels and I know those of you who have worked in this line of business know how it feels. It makes you [and me] angry people.

And so it goes, the next person apologizes…or makes it known that they extremely grateful [and my heart softens again.]

I learn how my soul aches for justice and dignity. I think on the people that have absolutely no say in the destructive decisions other people make in their lives. My heart especially breaks at the site of one person demeaning another. It’s so childish, but I see it all the time. And, as it breaks my heart, I see it in myself.

I don’t think we communicate really well. At least, the way we see it on TV is generally not how we should act in real life, though sometimes we learn from it. Our natural reaction to something unpleasing involves more anger than it should, if any at all. This stuff is on TV for a reason, because we know if we all acted that crazy, we wouldn’t have any friends. If we did have friends it was people that liked the idea of you; not you as a person. 

I think we assume people automatically understand us and our intentions. Believe it or not, people can’t read your mind or expect you to do exactly what they’re thinking. We get upset when we are let down.

We have high expectations and get utterly discouraged when we realize that life, for the most part, works better in its simplicity. 
But this isn’t romantic, you know?

Working everyday. 
Buying groceries. 
Cooking food and eating.
Conversation.
Laughing.
Visiting. 

These things are beautiful in their simplicity, but not nearly interesting enough to be on TV.
Funny enough, I love watching people eat and talk about food. 
Sitting down for food at a table is the great equalizer.

I beg of you, whoever read this, to be kind to those who make your food. Even if it’s not good…let them know, but not in a way that’s hurtful. They need to know, but not at the expense of how they view you from now on. 

I’m not the best at communicating, but I’m willing to work on it for the sake of our Belovedness. 

And for you, hurtful hot chocolate guy: 

…!@#$ you.
(just kidding.)

kind of.