What A Wonderful World

After nine days away in Colorado, playing shows, teaching songwriting and performance, connecting with old friends, making new ones, writing new songs by the St. Vrain River, and being inspired by many, I got home exhausted yesterday to Nashville, to Huck, to having to do all the post-tour things, like unpacking and laundry, as well as the life things like make sure I have enough peanut butter and jelly for Huck’s lunches, jumping on the trampoline, throwing things to my dog Dusty in the backyard, making sure we’ve got the school supplies in the new backpack for 3^rd grade. There are no real ‘days off.’ Things are moving quickly now.

Huck starts school this week. My book comes out in less than a month, which means I’m putting together a new show for my Fall tour (poetry, old songs, new songs, new stories). My desk is a mess. My office is boxes of new merch, posters to be shipped out, guitar pedals to try out, old clothes in a pile to sell on Poshmark, because, of course, today was the day to cull out the old clothes. I’ve got bills to pay and still have my taxes to do. But, most importantly, I have an eight year old to go on a bike ride with, to play with, to enjoy. I get to take off the makeup and just be Mommy for a few days.

We went to our church this morning. I always write these posts on Sunday night, so they are always informed by my church service. It’s not so unlike being inspired by songwriters for a week of Songwriting Camp in the Rockies. Today’s music went from “All Creatures of Our God and King” to Bob Dylan to Dawes to Alicia Keys to Louis Armstrong. Our sermon was longer than usual but honestly, Yuri could have gone on forever and I’d have been fine.

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Start watching at 12:36. I’m not sure who this young woman is, but she sang Alicia Keys with our pastor Yuri. Then Yuri reads the gospel. If you want to skip to the sermon, go to 18:29. You can watch Yuri Rodriguez preach in as powerful a sermon as I’ve ever heard. She talked about underdogs. Joseph the son of Jacob. And Peter. What she was talking about in brief was a surrender. It was powerful. I heard the lyrics of “What A Wonderful World” differently after her sermon: “the dark sacred night.” The idea of needing the dark to find the light. Of having to go through the storm to be able to see the beauty of the calm water. “Shelter From The Storm” hit differently today.

I have had a few moments of bright shining clarity lately. Where someone who I thought was long-gone is back in my life, all the past melted away. Where I found I am still capable of judgement and the ugly Critic came out (quietly thank goodness, but still there, bitchy as ever). I came up against my own ego and wrestled with it until compassion won. I learned these tools in the recovery world. I do believe the world is a beautiful place, but it’s filled with darkness half of the day, and we have to navigate through midnight so we can reach dawn. If the world were all sunshine and puppies, what would we write about? And I tend to love the broken. Someone this week asked me how I was. I answered “Actually, pretty wonderful right now.” And they leaned in and said, “Oh come on. That’s the answer you give to most people. Really? How ARE you?” And I replied, “Actually, no. That’s the truth. I’m pretty happy right now.” Which is true. But in order to be happy, oh boy, there’s a lot of darkness in the journey. I don’t need to tell anyone about it. I write about it.

When I wasn’t teaching this week, I would sit in on other teachers’ classes. I was in three of John McCutcheon’s classes. One was on faith and songwriting. I think. I’m not even really sure what the subject was, but he was teaching with my friend Rabbi Joe Black and I wanted to hear what they were going to talk about. The first prompt was “How I Pray” and they gave us 15 minutes to go off and write. I wrote a verse and a chorus. I’ll finish that song soon. I listened to John just roll off a bunch of sing-along folk ballads, Appalachian coal tunes, union songs, and I said to him, “Wow. I think I need to write some sing-a-longs” and he said, “well, grab your guitar, let’s write.” And we sat down with Paul Reisler and wrote a new song called “All We’ve Got” for me to sing. I premiered it at The Rocky Mountain Folks Festival this past weekend. It’s about that same thing Yuri was preaching about. About finding an essential truth only by walking through the darkness. And, taking it a step further, only by sharing the dark path with others, so that they can feel like they’re not alone.

I was looking through my photos for an old photo of a rainbow I took once that means a lot to me. I came across some drawings and paintings I’d done when I was at Cottonwood, a trauma/recovery residential treatment center in Tucson. I wrote a bunch of songs there while I was grappling with my own darkness that became my album “Tucson.” I don’t know where this drawing came from, more of a cartoon. I’m no visual artist. But seeing it tonight was a nice reminder of the whole dark/light metaphor. I wrote out the lyrics to Ben Glover’s song “Kindness” that I play and recorded on my latest record on this page. A kind of listing of who I am, what I do, what I love, where I was then. Still me. Just 6 years later.

I’m young. I feel very young. Huck keeps me young. But I’m also creeping up on 60 and that means I have less time left than I have already spent here. Thus, I have very little patience for talking about puppies and unicorns all the time. I love a good rainbow, but I also know the beauty of a rainbow is that it comes after the storm. Jung’s work centered around the shadow self, that wholeness only comes from acknowledging and integrating our hidden parts (our brokenness) rather than pretending they don’t exist. I have experienced that true serenity for me only comes after surrender and surrender hurts the knees, both literally and metaphorically.

I’ve been down this dark road, brother, and I can’t deny
That no matter how I tried
I’ve got to look that goddamn demon in the eye

When you’re feeling lost and all alone
All prayed out your soul worn down to the bone
When the truth just can’t be found
Take my hand and take a look around

We’re all we’ve got, that’s what it’s come to be
We’re all we’ve got that is all we need
We’re all we’ve got When times get tough
We’re all we’ve got, friends, and that’s enough
We’re all we’ve got, yeah, that’s enough

From “All We’ve Got” by Amy Speace, John McCutcheon & Paul Reisler

Amy Speace is an award-winning Americana folk singer and songwriter discovered by Judy Collins. Her songs have been recorded by Ms. Collins and many others and she has won International Song of the Year from the Americana Music Association (UK). Her writing has been published in The New York Times, The Guardian, Working Mother, and Salon.com. She received her MFA from Spalding University and teaches English at Cumberland University. She resides in Nashville, Tennessee, with her son, Huckleberry, and her dog, Dusty Springfield.

The Cardinals, coming Sept 1st with Red Hen Press , is her debut poetry collection.