I don’t feel that way.  I’ve faced much harder times.  Maybe that’s what gets me through.

I lost a dear childhood friend of mine in September.  Such a blow, and I haven’t given her a proper eulogy here in my little online world.  The words don’t come to me the way they used to in the past.  But, as I told her family, she was a very important friend to me.  She helped shape my life and was the center of a group of people who kept me going during some very dark times in my family.  What can you possibly say about a person like that to do them justice?  All that came across my lips to her sisters ears during her funeral were “she was very important.”  She was.  I will never forget her.

I don’t feel cheated.  It was her time. It was my father’s time.  Life is short.  LIFE IS SHORT.  There was a blog post circulating a few months ago titled The Top Five Regrets of the Dying.  I saw many people repost it on Facebook. Those same people hate their lives, hate their marriages and hate their jobs.  All I could think when I read those words were that it would resonate with some people for a day, maybe two.  Then they’d be back to whatever they were doing (or not doing) before.  I’m not being critical.  It’s human nature.  But, every day, I think of those things.  Every single day.  When I drive down the road I think “this could be it” and when I lunch with a friend I think “this may be the last time we speak.”  Losing people close to you, especially someone who is your contemporary,  changes how you view the world, the actions you take and the words that part from your lips…

Things make a bit more sense now than they used to in ways I cannot explain.  I will pursue my passions.  I will live my life on my own terms.  I will cherish my time here on this earth. I will be happy.  Being happy is a choice. I won’t “try.”  I will, I will, I will do these things.  I will not be hungry.  For once, I will be satisfied, but still strive for more. Thank you, Kathleen.

Does anyone remember Emmet Otter’s Jug-band Christmas?  Jim Henson, in all his sentimentality and wisdom, took a very deep concept and translated it for children.  He used a John Denver/Paul Williams song about the peace that comes when you understand the path of life and applied it to the character’s seemingly hapless circumstance.  It’s a consoling song you sing to yourself when you realize that you want to know, but you cannot know.

“Though our minds be filled with questions
In our hearts we’ll understand…”

Happy New Year, and cheers to the unknown.

-Lennon/McCartney

The call came 3 weeks ago from my mother telling me that I had better hop on a plane to Houston right away as my father was swiftly declining. As some of you know, death is so hard to predict when people are suffering from a terminal illness and she was not sure how much time he had. I somehow felt that I needed to take two days to “wrap things up”, which seems so foolish now. But, it’s the being alone and doing everything for yourself (including working for yourself) that makes responsibility feel like such a weight. I don’t trust or feel that I can really count on anyone but myself…

(…a feeling that has been seriously challenged by so many friends that have swooped in and tagged team to help me with the animals, my house, etc. I suppose the lesson to that is to never live your life thinking you are on an island. If you feel that way, it’s only because you put yourself there.)

I flew into Houston on Saturday the 9th and arrived at my parents’ home around 3:00 p.m. By this time, my father was completely out of it; he had not eaten since Tuesday, his pulse was weak, his breathing labored.  The first thing I did was tell him that I was there, that I loved him, that everything was taken care of…and then I told him that it was okay for him to let go. I chatted and caught up with my mom and Marilyn, the home healthcare aide. I talked to them about my life and what I was doing, about my clients, my writing, the groups I was leading and my volunteer work.   My father’s illness had really brought home the value of spending every moment I can doing things I enjoy and surrounding myself with good people, taking care of my personal health, and doing work that I truly loved.  At that moment in time, the roller-coaster of life was creeping uphill and not barreling downward, and I was excited to give him that peace of mind.

I grabbed jazz CD’s that I thought he might enjoy and played them on the small clock radio near his hospital bed. I buzzed back and forth between every room in the house because I can never sit still, but I always circled back to hold his hand, stroke his hair, and tell him I was there.  Finally, I managed to settle down my nervous energy and pulled out my laptop to attempt to finish my dad’s eulogy and obituary. I looked over at some point a few minutes later and noticed that his chest had stopped moving. I waited and looked; his respiratory rate was so low, I thought that maybe there was another breath coming and it would just take a while.  But, that was it.  He took his last labored breath and died at 6:15 p.m. with only me by his bedside.  The song playing on the clock radio was Ike Quebec’s “Easy- Don’t Hurt”.

I guess my family somehow expected it to be more dramatic than it really was.  No bells and whistles.  No visions or last words.  He just stopped breathing and that was it…that was his big exit.  I arrived and said hello and then he quickly said goodbye.  Some people say that he waited for me; I’m not sure if I believe that.  In my experience, life is a bit more chaos than coincidence. Inserting meaning into those coincidences is simply for solace.

He was there when I came into the world and I was there when he left.  Not everyone gets that chance, so for that, I feel very fortunate.  I will miss him more than I can explain or express in a blog post.

RIP Michael John Kirby, January 22, 1936 – April 9, 2011

I know we should be

Answers don’t seem easy

And I’m wonderin’ if they could be

- Townes Van Zandt, “High, Low and In Between”

Hi.

I thought of “Of Interest” to be the place where I lay down all the thoughts on the news of the week that caught my interest.  Of course I immediately got behind…sidetracked by life and other things.  And then this past week I started to gather my list again and then it all got swept away.

Into the sea.

I was up late last Thursday night (the night owl I have now become), so I heard the news about the earthquake and Tsunami in Japan as it happened.  The story “broke” to me not by a major news source, but by Robert Scoble and others on Twitter who happened to be up late embarking on their SXSW Interactive adventures.  I got to see the horror unfold through messages and via live feed from Al Jazeera.  It was a mixture of deep concern with a touch of “I can’t believe Twitter broke major news YET AGAIN.”  My first tweet was about driving home in the rain after a Kenny Chesney concert in 2007.  I had no idea what a major force this medium would become. We have the power to be this global tin-can-with-a-string network, and there is good and bad that comes with that.  Yes, I want to be connected with you and hang out in the same treehouse.  No, I do not want panic and rumor and the branches to break.

The earth literally took us by our shoulders last week and shook us.  Culturalisms of the past are gone; the Japanese made an uncharacteristic move and said “yes, you saw all this too.  It’s this bad.  We need your help.”

The world, as ever, is changing.  Are we closer together or further apart?  I shared the experience, like many people perhaps shared my live experience during 9/11 via the television.  But, knowledge doesn’t always lead to action…we’re all still here, and there are many people across the world who are dealing with the aftermath of a disaster we are only beginning to wrap our heads around.

The high, low and in between…

___________________________________________________________________________________________________

A few interesting ways to give:

• SXSW 4 Japan
• Living Social will match your donation of $5 to the Red Cross for a limited time.
• Local (Nashville) design company St8mnt has designed some beautiful shirts.  A portion of the proceeds from the shirts sold on Myshirthelps.com will go to the International Medical Corps, Save the Children, and Samaritan’s Purse for relief in Japan.

I read.  A lot.  In fact, I feel inundated daily by news coming in from Twitter, my RSS feeds, facebook, breaking news from AP mobile, and everything in between.  I want to stay informed, but it’s exhausting.  Often when I am in discovery mode, I will click on a hyperlink and keep the tab open for the entire week in Firefox.  Or I will email a story back to myself to read later.  Compelling headlines, interesting topics…I’m hooked on learning.  Things could be worse, I suppose.

It’s impossible to know it all.  I can’t possibly always keep up.  I am, by nature, a hoarder.  Perhaps at my age this will not change.

Sundays mark the culmination of my frantic news and information gathering of the week.  This past Sunday as I was catching up on my New York Times Magazines (about 4 of them), it hit me that it might be nice to share a few worthy items on this blog.  Some of this may be a few weeks old, but….you’re behind too, right?  Let this be my new Sunday blog ritual.  Enjoy.

- Loretta Lynn comments on her song “Portland, Oregon” in American Songwriter Magazine‘s “Lyric of the Week”.  She has always been a favorite of mine, and I love to hear how songwriters approach their craft.

“When I write a song, the melody just comes in my mind to fit that song,” says Lynn. “And if it’s a slow tempo, I think of a slow melody to get in that mood. I let the song come to me. I just gotta get by myself and get that song. And if it don’t come easy, I lay it down. And sometimes I’ll pick it up, and sometimes I won’t ever go back to it.”

This should all make us feel better about our unfinished projects.  Inspiration drives us, but only half way.  Somethings are unfinished for a reason.

- Brian Solis thinks Malcolm Gladwell is being irresponsible about his opinions concerning social media’s part in the Eqyptian protests.  Fight, fight, fight!  I see Brian’s point.

- Social media and the end of gender?  This TED talk from Johanna Blakley caught my eye, so I had a watch/listen.  Think old school demographics vs. new ways of discovering and sharing interests.  Women, it seems, “are driving the social media revolution.” I didn’t catch the loop back to really ending gender per se. The real point I caught was that people will be less “genderized” and more “categorized”.

And I will mix this one up with the new AOL/Huffington Post partnership.  AOL has been targeting women in their content and advertising strategy because they see women as an important and under-served “demographic” (sorry Johanna!)

- My mother will like this one.  Design student Indhira Rojas created a data gathering service that isn’t geared toward selling to us blindly (think your Kroger card), but letting us be responsible, better consumers.  IndexR tracks consumption and behavior and reveals patterns (buying too much junk food) and tells you if certain products come in recyclable containers or can be composted.

It’s the the idea of a “zero waste culture” where everything has a purpose, and that purpose is to lead us all in a better path.

I like the last quote from Rojas: “It’s about creating a culture where we own this data.  This data is ours.”

Kroger!  I want my data!

Wow.

I spend a great deal of my time thinking about the family that I want but do not have.  I walked out of there with the reminder that, as cliché as it seems, everything happens for a reason.  I’m without a child, but I am also not bringing one into the world surrounded by a bunch of  misery.  And, as fate unfolded over the last few years, I probably avoided that type of situation by the skin of my teeth.  God, I am so thankful things turned out the way they did.  Somebody must be looking out for me up there.

Happy New Year to me.

Creativity is just connecting things. When you ask creative people how they did something, they feel a little guilty because they didn’t really do it, they just saw something. It seemed obvious to them after a while. That’s because they were able to connect experiences they’ve had and synthesize new things. And the reason they were able to do that was that they’ve had more experiences or they have thought more about their experiences than other people.

– Steve Jobs

Ain’t that the truth, Steve.

Making connections is one of the few “skills” I have…and when I was young, I used to be vain and naïve enough to think that I was some kind of creative genius or something.  I’ve just been thrust into a lot of situations that other people perhaps have not, been forced to find creative solutions and make something out of nothing.  For all that, I am grateful.

2. Unless you have Giganticism or some kind of glandular disorder, no one person needs two seats on an airplane or a seat belt extender (see #1).

3. Mourning lost love is a complete waste of time.  I have literally lost years of my life doing it, only to find someone else eventually.  Every. damn. time.

4. I don’t know one single woman who hasn’t been abused, marginalized or had some body issue at some point in her life.  Society, we gotta work on this.

5. People don’t change.  They can soften or adjust, but our true nature is always hiding down there somewhere.

6. Art is an opinion (and boy, do I have one!)

7. I love the IDEA of responsibility.

8. Most people live beyond their means.

9. Piano.  Best idea ever.

10. We have many soulmates.

11. Whenever I say that I will never like something or do something, I always end up liking it or doing it.  Like clockwork.

12. Music has probably saved more lives than any psychotropic drug or therapy.

13. Love is a choice.

14.  Replacing the “S” in your name with a “$” is completely unnecessary and weird.

15. America used to embrace the ideal, and now we crawl toward mediocrity (see #14).

16. Anyone is really capable of doing anything, good or bad.

17. My NYC experience was nothing like “Sex and the City”.

I get a distinct feeling that some folks get what is going on here and others are still a bit in the dark, for no other reason than they are not sitting next to the coat closet at 105 Broadway (like yours truly.)  It’s difficult to articulate, but I can say it’s something that is going to make a lot of people who have complained about resources, progression and growth in this area shut up.  Hooray for the problem solvers for winning the battle against the critics!

All of my favorite Nashville square peg rabble-rousers and ne’er-do-well‘s are doing very well.  This pleases me.  I always felt that there was a pull for me to be here, but I couldn’t quite put my finger on it.  I remember the strong urge at 24 to move to New York, if anything because I was lonely on my little island of hopes and dreams.  When I got there, I was so bombarded by people just like me that I found it hard to connect.  It was stiflingly familiar.  I guess when you are forced to trail blaze at a young age, you can’t stop and anything other than a tiny battle feels false and boring?  I recall when I left New York, one of my former bosses told me that I had a great opportunity to create change and to bring all my ideas about art and life back with me to influence others.  I didn’t really feel like I had that chance in Texas, but I do feel like I have that chance in Nashville.  We can really shape this city to be what we want it to be, what it needs to be.  In fact…we already have.

So, here I am.  Sitting in Nashville in my little office, not stifled or overwhelmed, but not entirely alone, watching the change, catching the wavelength and poised to leap.

- Joni Mitchell

I’ve had a lot of what I am calling to friends, for lack of a better term, “garbage” rolling around in my head right now.  It seems that I am either completely swept up in life to such a large degree that not an arrant thought enters my head, or I am totally self-absorbed and introspective.  Guess which plane I am on now?

I guess that this is pretty typical when you are in the throws of a life change.  I thought that I have had many of those over the past three years, but what is going on now is truly a mark.  My father has been ill for a number of years- diabetes, cancer, Parkinson’s, a new cancer.  As my mother said to me on the phone, “we always wondered what would get him first?”  No need to wonder now.  The answer is liver cancer, which he has been valiantly fighting for the past few years.

My parents called me the very night before we had a huge event for my job to tell me that the best cancer center in the world told them it was all but done.  It’s quite strange and sobering to actually hear from someone that they acknowledge that their own life is coming to a close.  Although I was not shocked as I knew his chances of surviving this were slim, listening to him tell me he was leaving my life was like getting a cartoon anvil dropped on my head.

And I have to kind of get on with it.  I have a job and obligations.  But I am decently preoccupied and irritated at the moment, and I imagine this will be the course for a while.  A friend of mine recently lost her father and before I knew of my own father’s solid fate, I emailed her and told her how empty I think I will feel when the people who made me leave this world.  I suppose it’s a tiny taste of what parents must feel when they lose a child.  It’s a taste of your own mortality…bitter, more than sweet.

I want to write something compelling and meaningful about what a great person my dad is and what an impact he had on my life, but everything seems very jumbled and I am not sure where to start.  And I feel like no one will hear me or care as much as I do.

And of course (in tribute to the selfishness I referred to earlier), back to me and this nagging sense of WHAT THE HELL HAVE I DONE WITH MY LIFE!  I have almost entirely walked away from being an artist and at times it is relieving, but often it’s more empty than anything I can describe.

So, that’s the view from this side.