Something to Say

for you

As I was reflecting not just on what I want to say to you tonight but how to express it, a scene from an old favorite movie I’d almost forgotten came to mind. In Children of a Lesser God James (William Hurt) tries to show Sarah (Marlee Martin), who is deaf, what Bach sounds like:

It’s not that you, dear Reader, have any difficulty hearing or understanding. It’s more that some things that have been welling up in me feel urgent and yet impossible to convey.

This week I was talking to a voice student about performance anxiety. I told her a story from early in my career. It was my first tour of concerts with Charles Wadsworth. In our group were violinists Ida Kavafian and Corey Cerovsek, pianist Ruth Laredo, and cellist Leslie Parnas.

Riding to the reception after our first performance, I mentioned that I’d been seized by nerves in a quiet and exposed song by Richard Strauss. Leslie said, “Yes, I could see that.” Trying not to take offense, I thought the great cellist’s noting my anxiety couldn’t be a good sign. He then said, “I like it. It means you have something to say.” He went on to tell me about a celebrated pianist who suffered from withering stage fright, referring to the piano bench onstage as “the hot seat” before transferring that nervous energy toward something exciting and transcendent.

I have a lot to say. I imagine many of us do, and that what we have to say is shifting like tectonic plates. There is something in the air. In our collective bones.

Thank you for bearing with me while I try to say it.

Much of it is coming out in a longer work I’m not quite yet ready to share, but getting closer. I’ll offer a small bit today. This flash memoir sample came from a writing prompt by Janisse Ray. Fellow writers in her recent “Magical Craft” course did beautiful things with this simple prompt. I wish I could share them all with you.

My heartfelt thanks to those of you who have been sitting for interviews, reading for me, and supporting me through the difficult process of writing a memoir. Thanks especially to my family, to Janisse, and to Hannah Anderson, whose wise and gentle guidance has helped me find clarity and overcome hurdles. In a blessing of synchronicity, Hannah and my younger son Alexander separately introduced me to Ignation spiritual discernment, for which I’m immensely grateful.

I’m also grateful to my family for how they continue to remember our brother Bryant, never giving up the search for ways to help others dealing with the tragedy of suicide, which in 2023 was the second leading cause of death among ages 10-34. It feels lately as if every week I’m hearing another account that brings those old memories roaring back like ocean waves in a storm and reminds me that one life ended too soon leaves many more in its wake that will never be the same.

Our hometown paper ran a story last week that highlights some of these recent efforts. Despite a few tiny errors (our family is Methodist, not Baptist), I appreciate the article and the Newnan Times-Herald for publishing it.

I am deeply touched by all of these offerings—those of my baby brother Wesley and his wife Lauren, my parents, siblings, and all who have contributed in his memory, Coweta Samaritan Clinic and Choosing Him Ministries. I pray they bear real fruit as the needs are great.

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In That Kitchen

In that kitchen the soup was always on, its heavy aroma dominated by celery and ground beef and warming its way down through my chest. Grandmother never rinsed the dishes first but stuck them straight into the dishwasher streaked with food, and encouraged us to do the same, She was all about making things easy, comfortable, and fun for everyone. To this day, when tensions rise in our family, one of us utters her legendary response to an argument among hot and irritable children on a long drive to Florida: “We are going to have a good time!”

In that kitchen she puttered in her house dress, with a cotton apron tied around her snuggly waist. She made good use of the apron’s pockets, for reading glasses or crinkled and crumbling Kleenex or a place to rest her hands.

There were dishes and sauces and trivets and all kinds of accoutrements crowded together covering the counters. She hardly seemed to notice the cramped size of the kitchen or lack of counter space. She used every inch, and moved from one task to the next with a sprightly, bouncing, joyful energy given expression later when she sat at her piano on the other side of the wall to play a Chopin waltz or Up on the Rooftop.

In that kitchen she must have been standing when she got the news about you. Right there where she’d made you breakfast and heated Hot Pockets when you’d lived with her the year before. She must have loved having you in that kitchen.

my sister Dorothy and me in that kitchen with Grandmother Budd and her cat Mugsy

Speaking of something that cannot be expressed in words, here is another memory and attempt to express the inexpressible, through Rachmaninoff’s Vocalise with Ruth Laredo at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, in what turned out to be her final concert: