I struggle with feeling
That all my parts
Were the ones leftover,
In the back of some heavenly stock room,
On the highest shelf,
Sandwiched between the plastic forks and some angelic decorations;
Angelic decorations used for some angelic theme party in some angelic anteroom
And then promptly forgotten.

I stare in the mirror
And try to recognise
What I wish wasn't mine
And yes,
I know,
The Almighty doesn't make junk
And who am I to say He was wrong?
But Dear Lord,
Is it ever hard to be a girl these days.
Dear Lord
Is it ever hard to be me these days.

That longing in me,
To be a beautiful creature,
That wish in me,
To be a graceful measure
Of womanhood in blossom,
Is squelched when I find myself
Tripping-falling-stumbling-crashing-slipping
Into everything literal and figurative.
And brushing my hair back,
Trying to recover,
I catch sight of myself,
In the random windows of eyes
And blush at the picture
Of such a silly,
oddly made
woman.

I am currently sitting in a Tires Plus not far from my home. My poor little Scion needed a spa treatment. I call it "spa treatment" simply because it's more fun to say that than an "oil change". I'm in the waiting area which, to me, is reminiscent of what purgatory would look like. There's a small television directly in front of me that drones out commercial after commercial and to my left is an industrial sort of coffee maker and coffeepot, the latter of which is halfway full of some sort of brown sludge that closely resembles what I imagine is being changed in my car presently. Not too long ago an older gentleman appeared there at my left elbow, poured himself a cup of this concoction, and then proceeded to shake generic coffee creamer all over me. Oh yes, and also managed to get some into his cup. I watched in amazement as he shuffled off. I looked over at a man sitting to my right to see if he saw what had happened and saw that he was grinning at me and my creamer dusted dress and the pile of creamer on the floor.

One of my waiting room buddies is an older woman who is remarkably unmatched in every possible way. It would seem it took her more time to be so...haphazard looking than it would to have tried to match. The moment I walked over to my little chair (exactly four chairs away from the man to my right who was exactly four chairs away from the unmatched lady) she blurted out, "Where did you get your skirt?".

I looked down. "Ah. I got this in Vancouver. It's a dress, actually."

"Is that where you're from?". She was very loud, yelling, really.

"No, ma'am. I've lived here in Atlanta since I was four years old."

"Oh. Well. You look different."

And with that she turned her back to me to face the television and left me wondering if I looked just as odd to her as she did to me.

This Tires Plus Purgatory stands in such stark contrast to where I was just recently:

On a cruise ship. Hanging out with other musicians and a whole heck of a lot of fans, sipping the cliche fruity drinks with umbrellas in them and sunbathing. I, technically, only laid out in the sun for a total of 45 minutes the whole time as I don't really tan. I burn, start to go brown, and then all that browness just gives up and scatters into more freckles.

But I digress.

When my manager told me that I was going to have the opportunity to play my melodies on a large cruise ship in the middle of the ocean, on route to the western Carribbean, in relative close proximity to Lyle Lovett, Patty Griffin, Emmylou Harris, Brandi Carlile and others, well, I thought I was going to pass out.

I didn't. But I came close. I´ve always wanted to pass out, but never have, in my whole 29 years of existence thus far.

If this should ever occur I will be sure to mention it to you.

I was invited to play on the "Cayamo: A Journey Through Song" songwriter´s cruise. It was a week long. I was able to play my music for people who LOVE music and LISTEN when musicians are playing, who hang onto every note, every lyric, and relish them. People who don´t yell, "Freebird!", and chuckle to themselves as they bask in their overwhelming originality. Not only did I get to play for these glorious people I also was able to see some of my favourite artists in the world perform.

I was paid for this.

I still can´t believe it.

Here are some things that come to mind when I think about the experience, in no particular order:

How the decor on the boat resembled some sort of Vegas nightmare. I wondered if the interior designer had designed it out of sheer spite. Of course, with my luck, the designer is probably READING this right now.

Getting seasick the night of my first performance, making through my set (which was packed, that was cool) and then not making it back to my room in time to...er. Yeah.

Watching Lyle Lovett as he drowned his salad in ranch dressing at the salad bar.

Just SEEING Lyle Lovett. He exudes a force. And not a Star Wars kind. He´s the kind of man that LOOKS how he IS. Make sense?

The moment Patty Griffin came on the stage.

The moment EmmyLou came onto the stage to sing WITH Patty.

Clinging to Zack´s belt loops on the back of a scooter as we drove around the island of Cozumel, Mexico. That was fun.

Watching Edwin McCain, Shawn Mullins, and David Ryan Harris play together.

Clay Cook´s solo performance. Why isn´t this man more well known?

Why isn´t David Ryan Harris more well known?

There was so much talent on that ship it was unreal.

Swimming with Stingrays and snorkeling in Grand Cayman.

The horrific moment when Zack realised he had left his wallet in a taxi cab in Ocho Rios, Jamaica and the look on his face when the port guard began to sing, "You´re staying in Jamaica, man, you´re not going home..."

The amazing moment when Zack returned having FOUND the taxi cab and it´s driver AND his wallet. This was great timing as I was fending off Wayne Carty, a Jamaican Police Officer who was trying to convince me that I didn't need my boyfriend, what I needed was to come back to Jamaica so that he, Wayne Carty, could show me a good time.

I am not doing this justice. I keep looking at the letters on the keys wishing I could just transmit all the loveliness and craziness that I saw and heard to you telepathically or something...

I made so many new friends (Martin, Chris, Julia, Suzanne, Angel, Adrienne and so many others...) and was able to connect with ones who have been with me for a while now (Hey there, Will and Stephanie!).
I´ve heard rumours that Sixthman (the fine folks who came up with the crazy idea in the first place) are going to do it again next year.

You must go.

I hope I get to go again.

I still can´t believe I was a part of it.

I am a lucky, lucky girl.

There is so much more I could share but this would become a book.

Write to me if you were on the boat! I want to hear your stories too!

I am still waiting here. Ah, but there is my dad come to take me to get a little lunch. I'm going to have some mexican food for lunch and hopefully my little Scion will be ready soon...

I have been thinking of my mother a lot today. I stumbled across these words that I wrote a while back.


Five of Us...

I grew up
in a house with no room
for much of anything
that one could call a childhood.
Our spare living room
with nothing much to sit upon,
All we had were bookshelves with
books that we could live in,
books that we could dive into,
books that we could hide in.

We never stayed
in one place for too long as
Father was a minstrel
looking for his lost song.
I made up
fancy things in my own mind
to keep me occupied
from the monsters outside,
from the monsters outside me,
and from the monsters inside.

Five of us,
making do,
when all we had
left with you.
Five of us,
pushing through,
all these years
without you.

The prophet, he said,
that five was the number of grace.
That prophet, he said,
that he saw your beautiful face.
He spelled out my name
and made them all cry
but you still died.

I wanted to write a little somethin' somethin' to those of you who have been emailing me about a couple of songs that I sang at Northpoint and Buckhead churches in the past couple of months.

"Loving A Person" and "Maybe There's A Loving God" were both written by a very nice lady by the name of Sara Groves who is, I believe, a CCM recording artist.

I was asked to sing these songs by the wonderful people at the above mentioned churches and was honoured to do so. It truly was amazing to have met and talked with so many of you. I was blessed in so many ways.

Thank you.

However, while I happen to love Jesus more than anything, most of my songs aren't about Him. Or rather, He factors in but not blatantly. I just tend to write about other things. Jesus and I have talked this over and He's really okay with it. I write songs in a different sort of a way and, if you've had the chance to listen to my music so far, you'll hear that there's quite a bit of difference in my writing style as compared with Ms. Sara Groves.

"Meg", Jesus whispered to me the other night as I lay on my bed mulling over the fact that I can't seem to write a "churchy" song to save my life, "please don't worry about this. You write the songs that are in you just fine."

"Really?", I squinted my eyes in the general direction of the ceiling. While I knew he was there, I'm never clear on WHERE to look exactly. "I gotta tell you, I enjoyed very much having the opportunity to play music for people that you love a whole lot. BUT, it was weird that they weren't my own songs. I feel awkward when people thank me for singing a song I didn't write. You know me, my songs are...different."

"Everybody's songs are different."

"Well, I KNOW that. I mean, different from what they've HEARD. Sara is a bit more...bubbly than I am. I dunno. Do you want me to write you a song?"

"You have. Loads of times."

"Well, do you want me to let other people hear 'em?"

"I'll let you know. Get some sleep and stop fussing. And stop COMPARING yourself. You're lovely."

So...there you have it.

Here are some words to a song I am working on even now, and will most likely stay up to try and finish after I'm done writing this here.

Picture this
In the dark
The tiniest of sparks.
Gossamer mercy wings,
A holy moment made.
And that shame,
When called out
For covering,
Did go
Fleeing
At the mention of His name.

As I write this it is 4:28am in the morning and I am actually quite sick with some sort of strange illness that is causing me to run a really high fever. I am currently hovering somewhere around 101.6 at the moment, which is discouraging, as it seemed to start to go down earlier.

And now I am no longer writing anything of merit at this point.

Before I end this, though, I want to share just how excited I am about this new album that is coming out. Dare I say I love it more than "All Things Being Said"? 'Tis true. It's not as polished and not as slick but it's good and I am proud of it.

Must go to bed.

G'night. Or G'morning.

Where has my writing gone?

It's still tonight. Ten minutes till four in the morning still. The sound of a dryer in the background and the air conditioning in this house is running a bit too cold, which is odd for me to notice, because I am usually the girl who is always too hot. I am currently in a friend's house, he's gone for a couple of days, and I have come over to use internet, and to drink some coffee at the blue diner booth table I found for him at a consignment shop. (A fact of which I am ridiculously proud of...)

I came here tonight with the intent of answering the load of emails that had gathered in my inbox. I sat down here at the table, opened my laptop and there they all were, waving and shouting at me, squawking and squeaking. I covered my ears and glared at them to be quiet. Shutting my laptop, I turned on a movie, "Bridge to Terebithia", which was a book I loved when I was a girl, and then proceeded to cry more than necessary at the end, even though I knew what the end would bring.

I have a bruise on the upper part of my left arm and I have no idea how it came about. 'Tis true I am a clumsy girl, but this is the sort of bruise that doesn't happen casually.

And now I wonder if all my bruises inside are merely making their way out to the surface of me.

Tut, tut, Meg. Now, now. Let's not get so very melancholy as that, hear? You're a strong woman! You're doing fine! Just keep pushing onwards, like you do, and you'll pull through.

Nevertheless...I am a tired woman these days. Much to do, much going on but it's the sorts of goings on that tend to leave me breathless, not with excitement, no...more like breathless with never enough time. Never enough time.

Yet I am so very blessed. I am so very rich in so many ways. The owner of this blue diner booth being one of my most treasured blessings.

And, of course, for those of you who already know of him, there is my darling Phoenix. He will be seven soon. He is only a head shorter than me. He is as smart as they come with a face of an angel and I relish his little hand reaching for mine.

"Mommy? Did you know that you are the funniest lady I have ever met? In this whole universe?"

"The WHOLE universe? Wow. I had no idea you were so well traveled!"

He cracks up, "See? That was GREAT!"

Phoenix kisses me on the hand and bats his eyelashes, "Wouldn't it bless you to buy me a toy? Don't you love me so very much?"

I raise my eyebrow and respond dryly, "I love you so much that I am not even going to let you get away with such an obvious playing of my heartstrings." But I cannot keep a straight face and he sees this and begins to kiss my hand again.

"Let me ask you this, Phoenix, how much money do you have?"

"Oh! A LOT! I have like, at least 2 WHOLE dollars and something close to TWENTY coins in my piggy bank, some of which are from CANADA, so they've got to be worth more!"

I laughed.

He didn't get a toy by the by. I had to explain to him how asking for a toy in the way that he did wasn't at all the kind of thing he should do. I explained how he needed to trust that I had good things planned for him and demanding them or wheedling for them or striving for them would only make everyone involved frustrated.

Which reminded me of someone.

Me.

Oh Lord. I've so much growing up to do.

"Watch out
for those eighteen million bitter pieces
that threaten to overwhelm you.
I've seen
you carry your longings in a basket
that is breaking from the weight
and you never let them out."

The above are lyrics to a song that wants to be written but I haven't yet had the chance to sit down and give it time to be born.

AHA!

I just stumbled upon a realisation just now. I believe a bit of my moodiness and peevishness is stemming from the fact that I have a lot of songs milling about in my heart, I am pregnant with melodies. It's time for labouring soon, time to bring them into the world.

If only I had the time. ;-)

It's in this hour, these wee morning moments, that I have a bit of space to think, bits of moments to breathe.

Ugh. All this writing feels so...selfish. So very redundant. I can FEEL words scampering about in my head but every time I begin to pin them down into an order that might make sense they wriggle out of my grasp and hide behind other words. Words like, "I" and "me" and "myself". I need to get out of my own way. I become so transfixed on what I haven't said that I leave myself no room to write what I need to.

The dryer has stopped. I suppose I shall go home now, to my house, and begin to get ready for the day that is very near to dawning. Phoenix is at his father's house and so I have no little boy sightings until Friday.

I miss him like macaroni misses cheese.

I spent two hours at the pool in the twilight hours of the day today.

It was wonderful.

It wasn't long enough.

Do you remember when you were little how pools were such magical places? How they seemed like a kind of vast contained ocean, and not just an ocean of water, but of people as well?

The pool of my childhood (and the pool I was splashing around in today) starts off at an infant friendly one and half feet and gradually makes it way to a respectable eight feet. Nothing fancy. No diving boards or slides, just a wide expanse of water with an occasional rope or two.

The pool is owned by the city now and so has been reduced to a boring sterile environment from the pool I remember. The pool used to be owned by an enigma of a woman named Claudia. Claudia was tall (of course, all adults were tall to me at the time) and seemed to perpetually wear sunglasses. She had short, slivery hair and a big, gloriously goofy dog named, Bear. Bear was the kind of dog that I knew would actually talk to me if I could just catch him at the right moment.

"So, Bear...do you hate cats or what?", I would ask casually and wait patiently for an answer as he made sure to clean every inch of my face with his tongue. Sometimes I was sure he whispered in my ear but when I asked him to repeat himself he would respond with a sneeze.

Anyways...

Claudia's pool allowed diving, and had paddle boards and a swim team, the Stingrays, of which I was a member. I won first place in freestyle quite a few times. My sister, Erin, hated to swim in competitions. We have a picture of her sitting in a chair by the side of the pool, sunburned, hair wet, goggles in hand and scowling. I suppose I would've been scowling, too, had someone taken a picture of me when I was crying at a swim meet.

It's a cute picture.

Claudia's pool had giant Pixie Sticks that you could get for twenty five cents and Atomic Fireballs for five cents and there was many a boy that I shamed because I could hold that hot bit of fire in my mouth the longest without having to spit it out. There were hot dogs and nachos and sodas if you had the right amount of money which I and my sister never had. We had a brief moment of wealth to spend at the pool because we stole all of our mother's wheat pennies out of her purple piggy bank, the one that read, "KATHY", on the side. I got spanked vigorously when she found that out. (I don't know if Erin was ever spanked for it as she never seemed to get into trouble. To ME it seemed that mom and dad just gave me the punishment for both of us to save them time.) I didn't understand that wheat pennies (pennies minted from 1909 to 1958) were, and still are, worth twice their face value.

That would be two cents each for those of you who abhor math.

I remember vividly the prissy yet oh-so-beautiful lifeguard who asked me to paint her toenails and her horror when I proudly declared that I was done. As she looked down and surveyed not just her bright red toenails but her bright red toes she shrieked at me,

"What have you done? Haven't you ever painted someone's toenails before?"

I was so confused and walked off dejected, throwing myself dramatically into the deep end of the pool. I floated there for a while and consoled myself with the fact that she hadn't SAID toenails when she first asked me. She had said,

"Meghan, would you paint my toes for me?"

So I did.

Sitting in the shallow end of the pool today, watching my son and his friend splash and flounder about, I realised that to them I am now the pasty ol' mom sitting off to the side trying to pretend that my thighs are an acceptable size and that I wasn't at all winded when I attempted to freestyle across the pool.

There was a point, though, that had you been under the water, watching me swim in the blueness there, you would've seen me briefly swim like a mermaid, my legs together and kicking gracefully, my arms down by my side.

For that brief moment I was me at eight again swimming with the me at twenty eight in Claudia's pool.

...is the current soundtrack for my porching time this morning.

Intoxicating stuff to be sure.

Dappled. Everything is dappled from where I'm sitting. I'm the most perfect kind of contented right now.

The only thing that would make this better is having a lavender plant that hadn't recently perished. But my orchid is hanging in there. It's scrappy and making itself at home in my kitchen at the present moment.

I am drinking coffee out of my, "Love me I'm Irish" mug, the one with the small chip on the lip of it. I identify with this mug a little too much. I think that if I were a mug I'd look like this one. Cute and a bit cracked.

I have not been very good at communicating where I am these days. At least not here.

I'm on a slow upswing. The songs pouring out of me these days are surprising me.

This day feels as if it's swarming with possibilities. I can hear them, just around the corner, in the back of my head, a way down the street. Gives me a thrill thinking about where my day will go. Makes me wonder what sort of drastic changes would take place if I linger here just five minutes longer?

Five minutes can sometimes mean the difference between a tragedy and a comedy.

In my case I seem to be in a perpetual state of both.

In a bit here I will get myself out of these pajamas and get myself decked out in acceptable everyday attire. I will put on my shoes. I will begin to gather my day. Right now my day has gathered me.

I have a slow good sigh just waiting to come out.

I'll let you know how it goes.

I want to share with you the words of one of my favourite poets. Billy Collins writes the kinds of combinations of words that sets my heart a fire and my mind to a waltz like whirl.

If you have the time, and care to learn more, you should visit his website.

http://bestcigarette.us



The Lanyard

The other day I was ricocheting slowly
off the blue walls of this room,
moving as if underwater from typewriter to piano,
from bookshelf to an envelope lying on the floor,
when I found myself in the L section of the dictionary
where my eyes fell upon the word lanyard.

No cookie nibbled by a French novelist
could send one into the past more suddenly—
a past where I sat at a workbench at a camp
by a deep Adirondack lake
learning how to braid long thin plastic strips
into a lanyard, a gift for my mother.

I had never seen anyone use a lanyard
or wear one, if that´s what you did with them,
but that did not keep me from crossing
strand over strand again and again
until I had made a boxy
red and white lanyard for my mother.

She gave me life and milk from her breasts,
and I gave her a lanyard.
She nursed me in many a sick room,
lifted spoons of medicine to my lips,
laid cold face-cloths on my forehead,
and then led me out into the airy light

and taught me to walk and swim,
and I, in turn, presented her with a lanyard.
Here are thousands of meals, she said,
and here is clothing and a good education.
And here is your lanyard, I replied,
which I made with a little help from a counselor.

Here is a breathing body and a beating heart,
strong legs, bones and teeth,
and two clear eyes to read the world, she whispered,
and here, I said, is the lanyard I made at camp.
And here, I wish to say to her now,
is a smaller gift—not the worn truth

that you can never repay your mother,
but the rueful admission that when she took
the two-tone lanyard from my hand,
I was as sure as a boy could be
that this useless, worthless thing I wove
out of boredom would be enough to make us even.

- Billy Collins

I have been wading around in the sun today. The beauty of the day is so rich that it feels as though I have taken one bite too many.

My sister, Erin, is to my left. She is eating sesame sticks and obsessing over why she likes them so much.

Cait's new puppy, Sailor, just wandered into the kitchen.

"Hey, Sailor!", Erin just crowed, "Your mommy likes boats and stuff!"

My father is here at the table as well. And now Cait is on the floor.

Erin is asking us how we say the word caramel.

"Say "caramel", Dad.",

"Caramel." It comes out like "care-a-mel".

Say "caramel", Meg."

"Caramel." Without thinking I respond with "car-a-mel".

"Truck-a-mel", Dad says and we laugh.

Erin has just told us how Emma, her 2 and 1/2 year old, cannot say the word "truck". She is unable to pronounce "t" and "r" together. It comes out as an "f" sound.

I'll let you figure that out.

I love my family. Love, love, love. We have been through so much that we do not take each other for granted. We all think we're funny. It's helpful to have SOME people who think I'm funny. All I have to do is make a weird face and Erin is on the floor laughing.

I had a dream the other night that I was in labour. In my dream I gave birth to a darling little girl. I named her Maeve. I told Erin about my dream. She said,

"You feel like someone is missing."

"Yes, I do."

"Yeah, I feel that way, too. I have my three but I still feel that someone isn't here."

The smell of peppermint in the air. Erin and Cait have coated their lips in chapstick. Sailor has carefully smelled my father's feet and is now eating random things off of the kitchen floor.

I am happy in the way that cats in the sun are happy. I feel drowsy and content and very alive.

"Look at the trees, look at the birds, look at the clouds, look at the stars... and if you have eyes you will be able to see that the whole existence is joyful. Everything is simply happy. Trees are happy for no reason; they are not going to become prime ministers or presidents and they are not going to become rich and they will never have any bank balance. Look at the flowers - for no reason. It is simply unbelievable how happy flowers are." ~ Osho

...open coffeehouse to my right.

Ah, Octane. How I miss thee.

I mean, I'm HERE but I'm not here as much as I used to be and it's nice to be back.

I now live on the other side of town and so stepping through the door into familiar territory doesn't seem so familiar. If that makes any sense.

I met today with a dear, dear, dear old (not elderly...) friend of mine, a gentleman by the name of Kris McDaniel. He is the pastor of Trinity Vineyard (http://trinityvineyard.org), a church I used to attend, for a long time. I can count on one hand, and that's not even using all of my fingers, the people that I truly respect in this wide world and Kris is one of them. He is a gem of a human being, for sure. I have always been able to be completely up front with him and he with me. That's a good thing to have in a friend. No beating around the bush. We need friends who will love us where we are and yet be able to say things like, "I love you, but you can be a dumb ass sometimes."

He didn't say that, by the way. At least not today!

We were catching up and catching up some more. It was so good to talk and laugh, especially after not having much of a chance to do so in a long while.

Don't you just love the feeling of history that comes with knowing someone for a long time?

In other news I am currently without any news. Well, that's not true. I have some shows coming up, after having had a bit of a break. I am trucking along, making strides, you know, living life. And it's a beautiful thing. Not that living life ISN'T a beautiful thing but it can sometimes NOT feel so beautiful, if'n you know what I mean.

My stomach is growling. Loudly. To the point where I keep looking around apologetically. I know this happens to all of us. Where there almost is a moment where one wants to stand up and make a statement to the room.

"Excuse me, everyone? I just want to put it out there that, yes, my stomach is making unearthly noises (well, I guess, in a sense they are earthly but I digress...) and I know it's not as loud to you as it is to me, but if you do happen to be disturbed by my hunger issues, I do beg your pardon. Please be assured that I am going to be eating something soon, hopefully healthy (if I don't cave to the idea of a big bowl of pasta) and this situation will soon be resolved. Thank you."

My sister and I are on a crazy diet, one we kind of made up, where we're eating only fruit and veggies and nuts, with the occasional allowance for dairy, cheese and what not. For instance, a bit o' cream in my americano.

I feel very healthy. I feel very hungry. Standing in front of my refrigerator with the choice of a very nice plum or Caitlin's leftover birthday cake, though, is a battle of the will, that, if portrayed as a war scene in some epic movie, would be a very violent and bloody R rating.

I need to get going as I have things to DO! Most notably I need to get home and play my piano. I started writing something last night before I went to bed that wouldn't leave me as I slept. So, I need to go play with it for a while.

Oh, and I chose the plum.

...is not so little anymore.

Today she turns 20. Twenty. Too-wen-tee.

Boggles my mind that does.

I got married when I was twenty.

(For the record that is something I HIGHLY recommend NOT doing. ;-) )

Caitlin Aileen Quinn was born on the 21st of February in 1987 somewhere between 2 and 3pm in Douglasville General Hospital. We lived in Decatur at the time, in fact, about two blocks away from where I live now, and yet my parents drove all the way to Douglasville so that my sister could be delivered by a midwife my mother loved. Douglasville Hospital was the only place that allowed midwives to work at the time, I suppose.

I was sleeping on the couch the night that my parents left to go to the hospital. I don't know why I was there exactly, that part I don't remember, but I do remember begging to be allowed to go with them.

I wasn't. When they came home, though, we (my other sister Erin and I) marveled at the littleness of this new person. I was 8 and 1/2 and Erin was almost 7 and we were thrilled that this baby was a girl.

I remember changing Caitlin's diapers. And now, as I write this, she is sitting across from me, eating a PB and J and brooding over a phone call she was hoping for that never came. She is a roommate of mine. We sit out on the front porch and commiserate over broken hearts and life and love and God. I give her crazy haircuts and borrow her t-shirts. I listen to her music and she listens to mine and tell each other just exactly what we think about the melodies we make. She is a dear friend.

I feel old.

"Thomasine Foss and the Moon Moths" is a side project that I started back in August of 2006 as a way to process the moodier songs that I write. They don't quite fit, I don't think, into the "Meghan Coffee™" style. Which is weird because I AM Meghan Coffee. Huh. The ™ symbol next to my name, by the way, is a bit of a joke, although I do, at times, feel as though I am a "product" that must be marketed! Ugh.

Anyway, the reason for the telling about Thomasine Foss. Caitlin and I have decided to collaborate our musical genius (cough cough) and back each other up. So far we have recorded one song. Badly. Not that we like it that way, but that the monetary resources that are needed to record something well are sorely lacking. It's a joy to work with Caitlin. A sister who thinks in music is a wonderful thing.

Just what or who is Thomasine Foss exactly? I was reading a book called "Persuasion" by A.S. Byatt quite a long time ago and in the book a couple of the characters go for a bathe in the Thomasine Foss. A foss is, by definition, is a moat or a canal. I didn't know that at the time, I was just enamoured with the name. It jumped out of the page, into my eye gates and made its way into my imagination where it made itself quite at home.

The Moon Moths part? That is a name of a song written back in the early 1900's. I stumbled across the sheet music cover and loved the imagery it evoked. I've no idea why I decided to put the Thomasine Foss with the Moon Moths. It just seemed to fit.

So. All that to say. I have a sister moving into her second decade tomorrow and she and I are writing music together. And I'm excited about it.

Oh and that phone call she never received? She just got a text message that made it all better.

(To listen to music from Thomasine Foss and the Moon Moths please visit this link:)

http://www.myspace.com/megcoffeeandthenewestditties

I am late in posting AGAIN.

Sorry about that.

I have had a wonderful morning. I got to have breakfast with one of my favourite people in this wide world. Jessica T. is not only one of my best friends but she is also my roommate! We're both ridiculously busy and our hours are literally night and day (bet you can't guess which one I am...) and so we made an official date to have breakfast at The Flying Biscuit. Two roommates, meeting outside the house, to finally catch up on each other's lives. Crazy.

The Flying Biscuit is an Atlanta thing. Fantastic breakfast, lovely biscuits...well my Dad hates their biscuits, but I love them. They have the most amazing apple butter made with cranberries.

Crapple Butter? Sure.

My friend is in love. In love. In love. She was describing to me her Valentine's Day, how she laboured over a homemade roasted vegetable lasagna, and how she WANTED to labour over it. How she almost sliced her thumb off, how the recipe was a three star recipe, three being the most difficult to endeavor. How her beloved would rest his chin on her shoulder at times, watching her work. How NORMAL it all was.

Sounds lovely.

I told her how pleased I was that she is with the man she is with. How I see that they are such a good match. They are both strong. They are both equals. They cherish each other. He is strong and good and wise. He sees her, truly sees her for the treasure that she is and doesn't take her for granted. It really is a beautiful thing.

We spoke of much. We laughed.

Jessica's beloved frequents a monastery out in Conyers and Jessica has started to go as well. It's not as crazy as it sounds, apparently it's a lovely way to leave the convoluted weirdness of everyday life and just have QUIET. A place to breathe, if you will. Jessica was telling me of a monk named Father Tom who helped to build this monastery and has lived there for something close to fifty years.

Fifty YEARS! I've never lived anywhere longer than two years. I don't know that I can even grasp the concept of staying in one place that long.

Jessica and her Beloved (his name is Scott by the by) have had lots of conversations with Father Tom. They have become friends. Friends with a monk! I love it.

Jessica spoke about a story that Father Tom told her, a story about how he fell in love with a nun, and the nun with him, so much so that the nun left her order so that she could be with him. She wrote him pages and pages of a letter telling him just how much she loved him and all the things she saw in him and asked him to leave the monastery so that they could start a life together.

He sat with the letter for three days, praying and thinking and finally wrote her a letter back saying that as tempting as it was, as lovely as it sounded, that he felt he needed to stay a monk. But he still loved her. Something like twenty years later he had an opportunity to visit with the woman he loved for a day. She was married then but he said that his love for her had unchanged. That the day with her was one of his most precious gifts from God.

That blew my mind. I teared up at this story.

I am going to go meet Father Tom soon. I want to talk to him very much. I want to ask him why? Why, if you loved her, did you choose to stay? And you have loved her all this time? He told Jessica that he never saw his love for her as being wrong. He loved her. It was as simple as that. Loving someone is never wrong.

Loving someone is never wrong.

Phoenix is playing with my keyboard right now, more enamoured with the buttons than the keys, but still there are all kinds of crazy sounds coming from the music room in my house. He has it on an organ sound. Sounds like I have a miniature Phantom of the Opera.

He and I are going to watch "Short Circuit" here in a little bit. "Number Five is alive!"

I am a blessed woman. A good breakfast with good coffee and good conversation and a good boy in a good house about to watch a good movie.

Life is good.

Good looks weird. Look at it. It's just a weird looking word.

Loving someone is never wrong.

My brain is rushing along on its merry way, my thoughts stopping in for tea and then with a flurry they leave and reduce me to feeling like a bad hostess, a blank smile on her face, who didn't get the joke.

I stare at these keys, at the letters. Stare long enough and they start to look strange and magical. These little symbols could unlock so much in me if I just knew how to use them.

Wubba wubba woo.

What does it mean when I can't be in a situation or place without thinking of how I would describe it? I have always been a storyteller, it was just misguided when I was little, and everyone just thought I was a liar.

Now I am too honest. But I still write stories. One day I will compile them all together and see what I've come up with. My son is beginning to show signs that he does the same thing, describing word for word the details of his day. I try to show him how to look at mundane things differently.

"Look, mom. And old sock on the ground!"

"Yes, perhaps it was banished by the other socks for misbehaving in the dryer."

I am a mother. Shocking. I'm a good mom. Maybe because I don't take it so seriously? But I do. Maybe because it doesn't define who I am? But it does in a way. I am my own person, Phoenix is his.

God said,

"Here. A little boy. He's awesome, don't screw him up too much. Teach him what is right and what is wrong. Tell him that I love him everyday and pray for him. Don't make him into what you want him to be."

Being a parent is bittersweet.

Here he comes bounding in
belongs to me, loosely
with a face just like mine only sweeter
I could hold him forvever
If he'd let me
he slips away in minutes
each click of the clock
pulling him into his own beginning
his own take on things
for which I rejoice and mourn for
my baby boy is leaving me
without even having to leave

If I could explain this beating of my heart, the way I turn my head, my insecurites, how young I feel, how little I know, I think, in the long run, I'd feel a little better.

I'm relieved to know that God has this thing figured out, the universe, time, space, lives, loves, moments all put together like some sort of well oiled machine. It might not look like what I think it should look like but that's because I'm in my place in it, I can't see the full operation.

I think I could use a little oil though. I feel a little stuck. Not too much though, too much and I might go too fast. I'm good at fast. Not slow. I need to learn the slow.

I really need a game of chess. Or Scrabble.

The day began without me. I am a puzzle, my pieces scattered, and I need some Holy Spirit inspiration to put me back together.

...in writing.

I'm sad these days. It will pass. I keep myself busy. I dive into distraction.

The following will most likely not make a whole lot of sense. I had a moment of free form writing! I have a sneaking suspicion some of theses thoughts are going to find a melody soon.

A broken record,
stuck on the scratch
that was pulled across the surface of me.
The sad repetition,
of a mournful lament;
and no amount of cleaning seems to bring a reprieve.
The tracks that I followed
are now covered in a kind of snow
bitten by the coldness of words towards me
towards you.
I struggle to make do.
Tick tock,
Tick tock.
Night drags on and
I fear those eyes
watching me from outside my own windows,
Eyes spitting curses,
"No one can have what I don't want."
I was there to pray over a broken house.
Why were those eyes skulking at mine?

I know that I am brave,
I know that I am strong,
I know that I will live!
I will not be a bitter thing,
I will not fall into curses.
I will be a different kind of a creature.
i will measure my steps along the lines of heaven.
I am weak yet He is strong.

Hearts betray us everyday,
Busy bees are we,
Keeping thoughts at bay.
Locked tightly up in a jail of willpower.
Mine, at times, straining against a few flimsy bars.
I go about my days;
Motions, motions, motions,
Motions to quell emotions.
A normal day is all I need
To blot out days that were on fire.
Wrestle with the lack of peace
That threatens to pull me under.
I'm a girl who looks better on paper.
And when I fall, I fall, oh so much harder.
Watch the subtle change,
In how I move with pain, with grace.

...I mean the Truth about the Tooth Fairy. :-)


Have you ever heard about what the Tooth Fairy really does with our teeth? I found out when I was about 7 or 8. It's the sort of thing that I've known for so long that I don't know where it came from anymore. Possibly my head.

There isn't any one specific tooth fairy, there are actually a whole family of them and they share the load. Some of them even go on to become fairy dentists.

Apparently fairies have a penchant for "tooth tea". It's quite the drink of choice, a hot commodity, if you will.
Sometimes the demand for the beverage is such that the fairy chefs can't keep up with the requests and so in their understandable haste to serve the tea they put in two teeth instead of one. This serves to make the tea too tart. (Teeth are sour by the way upon being soaked, apparently, which is why we should always brush them after swimming).

Well, you can only imagine what a ruckus that creates. The fairies with the two-teeth tea start to holler,

"The two-teeth tooth tea is too, too tart!"

Sometimes quite a few of them can get going at once, it can get noisy. In fact what you think are the sound of crickets at night are really fairies with too tart two-teeth tea making a fuss about it.

Also, in case you ever wondered, the green stuff that grows on rocks and other such natural surfaces is really grown by frogs and toads. It's their eye-makeup.

"Sometimes I've believed as many as six impossible things before breakfast."

Lewis Carroll

Stopped at a red light, by chance I looked out the passenger window of my car, where I was safely buckled in; where I was warmly warm and the warm was in a continual state of warmness as directed by the knobs that turn and slide on the contol panel. (The same kind of knobs that I used to pretend were the levers that controlled the Millenium Falcon when I was a girl).

You were standing on the sidewalk, at the intersection of Marietta and Forsyth, staring intently into the garbage can there and presently you gingerly lifted the lid and peered in closer, your head cocked to the side as if someone was inside and telling you something very important.

"It´s dirty in here," they might be saying, "you might want to back away. I smell something awful."

Or,

"I´m looking for my contact lens."

Or,

"I fell in by accident (looking for my contact lens) and can´t seem to climb back out. Do you mind giving me a hand?"

And you reached into the garbage can, still holding the lid off and back to the side, all square on the perimter with a hole in the middle; you were fishing around and straining a bit and I held my breath and waited for the person inside to emerge. I could pretend that I saw the hand and then the head, and then the torso, and then the legs, and then the awkward tumbling out of the garbage can and the brushing off of clothes, twirling of the head back around to see if there was anything attached behind. That didn´t happen. I watched as you slowly drew out a small styrofoam container and brought it to your nose, glancing quickly back and forth to those passing by you. Carefully you put the square lid with the round hole back into position, fiddling with it a touch until it settled into place just so. Leaning over the hole again you gave one quick look and I imagined you saying,

"Sorry, I´ll just take this for now. Take care."

With cold hands (I could see they were cold hands, even from my place I could practically hear them freezing up, making cracking sounds) you popped the lid open and drew out a half eaten chicken wing and began to gnaw on it, thoughtfully it seemed. I myself don´t chew on a chicken wing quite as gracefully as you did that day. Of course, as you ate it, my tears were in the way, your expression might have been blurred and smudged.

Still carrying the box you turned on your way, shuffling and chewing up the street towards the Omni Hotel while I, in my warmly warm car, started off towards Peachtree Street, the green light having given me the signal to move and your hunger signal giving you yours.

What did I do?

I said out loud,

"That is so sad.", and kept driving.

Kept driving. Kept driving. Kept driving.

The thing is, as I sit here, I´m not quite convinced that it was you I was talking about.

Of anyone it was me.

How sad that I kept driving.

...and I am feeling small and still. I have much in my head but no words to explain what is there now.

I am on my bed, the light through my stained glass window is bathing me in multi-coloured warmth; the sound of the traffic outside of my house has died down now since the early morning rush of getting to school, getting to work, getting to somewhere.

I hope you are getting to your somewhere and that your somewhere is where you want to be.

I am in limbo. Neither here nor there. A place of suspended moments and the holding of my breath. But it is good for me. I am growing in this place. All my usual reliances and excuses are being peeled back and I'm left with just me.

It's a good thing. I am learning more and more about myself these days.

"Men go abroad to wonder at the heights of mountains, at the huge waves of the sea, at the long courses of the rivers, at the vast compass of the ocean, at the circular motions of the stars, and they pass by themselves without wondering."
~ St. Augustine

(This was originally written in August 2003. A fan wrote me to ask if I would repost it. So I have.)


Let me see if I can capture this for you. I am worried you will not be able to see it but I want to try and make it known.

Here, next to me on the table, is a photo of a beach. It is sunny inside the four corners and I can almost smell the salt in the air captured there. Kneeling in the sand is a beautiful woman, she smiles up at the camera, slightly squinting, her hair in wisps around her face. She is holding two little girls in front of her, her arms wrapped far around them. The smallest girl, the one on the left, is in diapers that are sagging from ocean water. She is delicate, and precious, and studying the camera with a perplexed look on her face. As I write this, in a moment of fancy, it would seem she is looking in my direction, her little mind working to figure me out in comparison to herself.
The girl on the right, the not-so little one, is knock-kneed and her bathing suit is slipping down and she is looking back and away from me. Looking back at the ocean. Trying to figure out how to escape. Wondering what she is missing.

That not-so little girl would be me around the age of three or four.

I started this little bit...of something and now I've lost my reason.
I suppose I was just struck by this picture. How even as a little girl I was never in the moment, always looking to see what was coming next, what's going to happen next?

It is Sunday morning. Phoenix is playing with the most annoying toy he has in his almost three year old possession. A loud sort of mock saxophone contraption that has Sesame Street characters adorning its outsides. Lights. Noise. Headache.

"Play hackey-sack with me, Mommy!"

I try. We are not good at this game. I attempt to keep the bean bag little ball in the air with my feet and Phoenix laughs at my awkwardness. He thinks I am trying to be funny. I let him think that, in a few years he'll be onto me.

I go back to the pictures, back to the albums. What is this in me that loves to remember? Why do I have such a propensity to reminesce? I find that, like the children in the Narnia book "Voyage of the Dawn Treader", I stare into these pictures and want to crawl in through the frames.

Phoenix points to a photo of my three year old self and says,

"Look, there's me!"

"No, little man, that's me."

He looks at me blinking then back at the photo. In the image I am in my underwear wearing a pair of yellow shoes much too large for me, my arms spread wide in eager happiness. I have a black hat on that is longing to fall down over my eyes. It's a cute photo.

(I used to be so unaware of the camera. I used to be so unaffected.)

Phoenix looks at me again. I see him working this out.

"That's you mommy? When you were a little baby gur-rul?"

"Yes, sir. That's me. I wasn't so much of a baby, I was maybe your age."

His eyebrows shoot up, his mouth puckering in a familiar Phoenix face.

"Oh, that's great mommy! Who's that?"

He points to my mother.

"Is that Grandma?"

I am surprised at his insight. I study her face. In this photograph she is my age, young and smiling and clueless as to the fact that she'll be alive for no more than 11 years.

"Yes, Phoenix. She's your Grandma."

Looking back over what I've written I've realised something about myself so I want to give fair warning to all of you who will be my friends when I'm old and growing senile. I will most likely be one of those old ladies who will regale you with stories from my past. I will wax philosophic on the years that have sped past me, those years that did race and left me windswept and breathless in their wake. I will probably bore you. But I will be loving life and possibly will have arrived at the place where I can like where I am at that moment. Maybe I will have learned to love the here and now; which for me now is the distant and not yet.

At least hopefully.

I do hope that made sense.

Here is to the here and now's and the distant and not yet's.

While driving through Alabama or Mississippi, (I don't remember which as they sort of blend together a bit) I looked up at a bridge that we were passing under, a small one, nothing fancy, just your typical ol' overpass. And there, on the side, in blazing, blue letters was,

MITCH AND MANDA

I immediately began to wonder about these two. Possibly were they the Romeo and Juliet of their bit of the world?

Was it a mean joke that some guys pulled on their "buddy" linking him with the local, hairy laundromat owner?

A hopeful youngster pining for the town prom queen?

Or maybe it was her? Maybe Manda herself walked down the aisles of the local Wal-Mart and picked out the just-right-perfect blue.

I thought about these names a lot over the weekend.

First off there's the glaringly obvious point (at least to me) of why?

Why, and how.

I remember when I was little wanting very much for people to know that I existed. I would write messages and send them off in helium balloons, my own messages in the bottle, not even hoping for an answer really, just putting myself out there.

I did get a response once from a lady in South Carolina.

"Dear Meghan,


Your poem was very nice. Thank you for sharing. The bit about the clouds was sweet. Your Mother must be very proud.
You should know however, that it's not a good idea to let balloons go into the air. When they pop, birds and animals sometimes try to eat the pieces and then they slowly choke on them and die.

Take care,

Mrs. Something or another"

So, I didn't do that anymore.

I think I do understand what would compel someone to, for instance, write their name in the sidewalk or to declare their love on an overpass. It's being able to go back to a specific place and say,

"Look. I was here. I did something. It was stupid and badly done, but I made a mark. People will see my name for a long time."

How silly we are. I am very guilty of this. I know that God sees me and knows me and thinks I'm great and yet I want to see a tangible something that I have contributed in one way or another.

I don't think I'm doing a very good job trying to make my point. If I ever had one.

Can't you just see it, though? Mitch with his paint can, slightly drunk, perhaps Manda's with him and they're staggering out of the car and across the road to the other side and he's yelling,

"I'm gonna show ev'ry one that we's goin' out!"

She's giggling and saying,

"Miiiitch, you're sooo crazy..."

Or maybe Mitch and Manda have been married 5 years already now and on the morning of their 5 year anniversary Mitch awakes and thinks,

"I know just what I'm going do to surprise her..."

Every times Manda drives to town for milk she sees her name linked with Mitch and gets just plumb tickled at how "romantic that man is and all..."

Was it hard, I wonder? Was it tricky? Do you need a lookout to tell you when cars are coming? What if a police car came by?

"Oh, hello there sir...oh, the spray paint? This? Um...I was just out walking on this random overpass in Alabamippi or Mississama in the middle of the night and...tripped over the can sitting here and it got all over me."


When I think about it, it becomes sort of romantic, sort of goofy, the cement version of the heart carved into the tree trunk. How nice.

I hope they're happy

This word and it's meaning, my friends, is what is on my mind today. A guy I don't know, but have read words that he's written once said,

"Self-discipline is an act of cultivation. It requires you to connect today's actions to tomorrow's results. There's a season for sowing and a season for reaping. Self-discipline helps you know which is which."

I am ashamed to say that this is an area I need to work on. Sorely. Don't get me wrong, I'm not giving in to every whim and desire, floating along blissfully in whatever direction I fancy at the moment but there are areas where I need to dig in and just deal.

Franklin P.Jones said, "What makes resisting temptation difficult for many people is they don't want to discourage it completely."

How true this is.

King Solomon himself wrote, "Like a city whose walls are broken down is a man who lacks self-control."

I am a spontaneous girl; which has been both a good and bad thing for me over the years. If I could get ahold of discipline, of self-control, and still have my spark of spontaneity, why, I think I would be unstoppable.

I have had a lot of HUGE character building moments in my life and I feel that I am now on the cusp of yet another one. I am excited. Truly. I want to grow, to be better, to never stay stagnant.

I want to be a good woman.

...I've decided that I am going to write a little sumthin' sumthin' every Wednesday.

Dear readers, I have been looking at my screen for about three minutes now. I am thinking about all sorts of things but my brain isn't thinking of what to write. I THOUGHT I had an idea of what I was going to write about, was eager to begin really, but then when I sat down to start the idea retreated somewhere into a corner of my mind and is currently refusing to come out.

I think I know why. I am going to try and explain. My imagination has just created a whole picture and I will share it with you.

My idea, which is a small slip of a thing, pale and wan with big eyes and a flowered print dress, is painfully shy and soft spoken. About twenty minutes ago she very politely whispered in my ear that she had something to say and suggested, meekly, that I write it for you to read. So I began. Unfortunately she was bullied out of the way, scared into a corner by a lot of large, lumbering mundane thoughts. They were loud and pushy and I was distracted by their abrupt manner.

One was shouting, "Hey! What's that smell? Are those your socks? Do your feet really smell that bad? You should put your shoes back on, that's atrocious."

Another declared, "You have had far too much coffee already, and now you're jittery. You really should drink more water. It's better for your skin anyway, and, while you're at it, you should eat more greens."

Then one piped up with song lyrics, "I wanna know what love iiiiiiiisss....dum dum dah dum! I want you to show me! I wanna feel what love iiiiiiiiissss...."

The first came back with, "Really. You need to put your shoes back on. You're starting to permeate the room you're in."

I looked over at my little idea friend in the corner and caught her eye and she mouthed to me, "Maybe another time."

So, there you have it. A snapshot, a personification of what was happening in my head that led me to stare at the screen for three minutes.

I assure you that I don't hear voices by the way, in case you were wondering. I just tend to anthropormorphsize WAY TOO MUCH.

And now I must go.

Have a gloriously, ridiculously good day.

I am in my bed, warm and toasty, under my covers.

Literally. I am under my covers. It's like being in a little cave. Under normal circumstances, if I was actually IN a little cave I would be very, very, very upset. I am so claustrophobic it's sort of silly. I have small panic attacks if my arm gets caught while trying to get my arm through a sleeve of a jacket.* I don't like the feeling of being stuck. These covers are movable, I can still breathe, I am not permanently doomed to being under them. Now I am too hot.

Now I am out!

I just recently came back from walking Phoenix, my son, to school. As I was meandering my way home I started reciting lines from an Eddie Izzard (one of my favourite comedians) comedy bit out loud. And I was laughing out loud. And then I realised that it would, to the casual observer, appear as though I was talking to myself. Which, in a way, I sort of was. This got me to thinking about the interesting individuals I've come across on city streets before who are seemingly deep in conversation with no one but themselves. Or the types who almost seem violent, yelling and gesturing all over the place. Or the types who stop frequently and shake their heads at some unseen travesty, looking up at the sky and muttering to themselves. Or the type who quotes lines from Eddie Izzard skits and laughs to themselves....

The next time I think, "Poor crazy person", when seeing someone talking to themselves (unless they have a phone earpiece in their ear, or one of those newfangled do-hickeys that some are wearing these days that remind me of cyborgs) I will wonder if perhaps maybe said "crazy person" was perhaps just really bored and merely quoting lines from a movie or something to that effect.

"The world is gonna end in a marinara jamboree of skiddle-daddle-doodee and my momma is gonna show me where the clothespins are so I can stick my big toe in the water of the tuna fish can in my head!", someone might say as I pass them on the street and instead of feeling sorry for them I will think,

"I wonder what movie that was from? Or perhaps it's an avant-garde comdedian...."

If someone had passed me this morning on my way home they would've heard me say,

"I'm going to eat all the leaves off of this tree. I'm going to eat more leaves than I should so that other animals may die. Bwahahaha!" And then I cracked up laughing.

I would've sounded crazy to myself if I had come upon myself walking down the street.

Ahem.

I am finishing up a book right now called "Society and Solitude", it's 12 essays by the redoubtable Ralph Waldo Emerson and I can feel the pull of the book right now and so I shall go now to dive back into that glorious sea of words. I'm going to make a cup of hot tea first. Irish Breakfast tea with a bit o' cream.

I have much to do today, but first I shall have a bit of time to just BE. I recommend it to you as well. If you can find a small bit of time for yourself, take it. I don't get those moments often at all but I've found It has a way of setting me back down inside of myself again a bit straighter than I started out.

And now the sun is stealing through the stained glass window by my bed and my tea kettle is calling and so I am off to start my day.

I trust and hope yours is going well for you.




*What did the General do with his armies? He put them in his sleevies! HA! I love that joke...

I am enjoying an amazing cup of coffee right now. It's exactly strong enough, not brown water with a bit of flavour, but the kind that makes my shoulders hunch up with happiness, my toes curl with pleasure. I'm sitting outside a small cafe by the name of 49 West Coffeehouse (http://www.49westcoffeehouse.com), a darling little place that also serves as a winebar and a gallery. It's not like my Octane at home but it has character and good coffee and free internet and what more could a girl like me need at this moment?

Tonight I play at the Ramshead Tavern, which, I'm told, is a fine listening room. Last night I played at the Sellerville Theatre 1894, a beautiful theatre in the tiny town of Sellersville, Pennsylvania. Oh it was so lovely! The theatre was the perfect mix of history and modernity, when I placed my hand on the walls I could sense all of the stories that had been soaked up there. The site of the theatre is supposedly where the Liberty Bell was hidden overnight on it's way to Philadelphia (I think?) to escape from the British Invasion in 1777. Of course, it wasn't a theatre then, it was a livery stable or something like that, but I digress.

Goodness, the kinds of conversations I'm hearing as people walk past me are really amusing. Here are some snippets:

"I dunno, I think that Katie Couric is WAY better than she is, 'cause she's got class, you know?"

"I had no idea what a marmoset was until today. Thanks for sharing."

"Do you think I look saggy from behind? Are you sure? I'm just not sure these jeans make me look all that great."

"I'm not saying you had any control over it, I'm just saying it would've been nice to know!"

Dave, who is the bus driver of the tour bus, and quite a kind man, (he calls me "baby girl" and now the other guys on the bus do as well) and I agreed that one of our favourite things to do is to watch people. Dave has a thick southern accent, slow and drawn out, like molasses or maple syrup, but is quick to laugh and full of all kinds of wise things to say. He has a way of saying, "Oh my God" that sounds more like, "Oh, mi GAWD!" that never fails to make me smile. I'll go back to the bus here in a bit and ask him if he's seen anyone interesting yet, from his perch in the front seat.

It's getting a bit cold here. And my stomach is growling. I guess that makes sense seeing as how it's 3:26 pm and I've not yet eaten today.

A woman in a wheelchair, eyes bright with with some kind of secret joy, or maybe sorrow, just stopped by my table and backed up to look at the front of my laptop. When I looked up she said, "I'm looking at the name on your computer, Flo is it? That's a good name and a good face." I laughed and said, "Yes, I've named my computer!"

For those of you who have seen my show sans band you know that I have taped a drawing I made of a girl's face with the name "FLO" written in bold letters above her head. I tend to not take it off ever until the drawing gets so badly beat up from being shoved into and out of my laptop bag that I need to draw another.

Oh my friends! The sky here is so blue, and the air so crisp, and the trees so lovely that I feel as though this isn't quite real. As much as life can catch me off guard with it's harshness and difficulties, it's moments like these that I am filled with gratitude for the blessings that have come my way. It's a bit of grace. It's a lot of grace. Anne Lamott once wrote: "I do not understand at all the mystery of grace - only that it meets us where we are but does not leave us where it found us."

Well said, Anne.

Quite literally actually, as I am sitting here in my kitchen with my feet in my oven. The heater is broken in my house and it's about 5 to 10 degrees colder inside than outside for some reason. I have been waddling around with three layers of clothing on. I have been wearing my slippers with socks and, just so you know, my slippers are good for sliding in. My slippers are slippery. But not when wet. Ahem.

This morning I woke up and everything was warm but for my nose. My nose was frozen. Froze. Frozed. Frosted. Iced. Now I sound like a cake. Which, come to think of it, why do we refer to frosting and icing as such? When we're talking about baked goods? Frost and ice are things I associate with, you know, coldness. Maybe I'm WAY out in left field about this but why "frost" or "ice" something that comes out of a hot oven? I think I shall research this. In fact I will, dang it!

My feet feel amazing right now. I have on my monkey socks with little stars on them and my feet are so warm the rest of me is feeling left out.

I'm remembering something...

My family was a cloth diaper family. We used the Lullabye Diaper Service and my sister Erin and I became quite proficient with the large safety pins of death (disguised as ducks and bears and rainbows) that were used to fasten shut said cloth diapers and help contain our little sister Caitlin's...offerings. At times, we had the honour of rinsing them out in the toilet. Great fun.

One day, as she frequently did, mom turned the oven on to start it pre-heating to make dinner and then went down to the basement to start a load of laundry. Erin and I were already in the basement, miserably, yet dutifully, folding a mountainous pile of fresh from the dryer clothes. Mom was dealing with her own mountainous pile of dirty clothes. There was always mountains of laundry in our basement. In a family of six people, only two of them adults, I suppose it's a given. It made for good sock fights though, but that is another story altogether.

It was at some point, while mom was sorting the clothes by colour, turning socks right side out, and spraying the stains with stain remover, that a smell began to make it's way down the stairs and into our consciousness. It was subtle at first. Erin and I were swatting and kicking at each other with small interruptions of actual clothes folding, and then we looked at each other accusingly as the smell grew more intense. It was terrible. As if our house had been set down inside of a porta-potty. The next question was obvious.

"Where is Brett?"

Erin and I shrugged our shoulders. Mom groaned and took off up the basement stairs two at a time.

Now, I should explain that my brother Brett at this time in his life was around the ripe old age of five years old, which, in and of itself, is a great age for doing all sorts of things you shouldn't do. Add into the mixture the fact that he has Down's Syndrome and it becomes a whole other ball game. Brett, around this point in his life, had or would soon have:

Been picked up by the cops for running away when no one was watching (he was so sneaky!),

Watered our dining room carpet with the outside garden hose (which Erin and I attempted to suck up with the normal vacuum cleaner and Mom was NOT happy),

Had become stuck on the roof a few times (I mean sure, we got him up there but we couldn't help he refused to come down...)

Climbed up into the organ pipes of the Seventh Day Adventist Church (that our church rented out on Sunday) and waved to us all from up above in the middle of worship...

Always managed to, when eating spaghetti, get the spaghetti sauce so spread out over his face that it ended up in his ears,

Ran around the house frequently with underwear on his head.

I could keep going.

Anyway. Mom got upstairs and found Brett calmly watching T.V. and Caitlin still asleep in her nap.

Where was the smell coming from?

We wandered through the house, our noses on alert until we came to the kitchen. There the smell was intensified.

"Where in the world is it coming from?", Mom wondered aloud. And then she saw the oven. And then she walked towards it. And then she opened it. And then we saw what lay inside the oven.

A poopie cloth diaper lay cooking on the middle rack.

I was aghast. It was supposed to have been my job to rinse out and put Caitlin's most recent contribution into the diaper pail and I had started to rinse it but then forgot and left it in the toilet.

"MEGHAN!" Mom whirled to look at me. "Why is this in the OVEN?"

"I didn't do it! It wasn't me!"

Mom raised her eyebrow and her mouth tightened up into a neat little circle.

Just then Brett walked into the kitchen pointed into the oven and announced,

"Look, I'm making us dinner!"

We all laughed our heads off.

We also never left the diapers in the toilet after that either.

And mom deep cleaned the oven something like three times.

I'm pretty sure we had pizza for dinner that night.

In the times where I am not traversing major highways and byways to play my music in far away places I am a music instructor for Courtnay and Rowe "Atlanta's Premier In Home Teaching Service". I have about fourteen students total ranging in ages from six years old to fifteen and tonight I added my fifteenth student. This student is the first adult student I have had this year. Quite a nice fellow he is, and he lives literally down the street from me with his wife and their cat in a darling little apartment complex.

Complex is right.

I arrived five minutes early to make sure that I wouldn't be late. Ah. Aren't you glad I cleared that up for you? I thought you would be. I called my student to let him know that I was there and that I could see his building, which I really thought I could, based on the number of his apartment on my directions sheet. He gave me a few more instructions on how to find it and I said, "Great! Well, I'm outside now so I'll see you in 30 seconds!"

I walked, so very confidentally, towards the building I thought he was in and realised that it wasn't downstairs, it wasn't on the street level and neither was it upstairs.

"Hmmm," I thought, "they must be on the other side." And so I walked down the path towards the street, turned right onto the sidewalk and made my way to the path back down the apartment on the other side.

Did I mention that only a half hour earlier the city of Atlanta had been beseiged with a fantastic thunderstorm, resplendant with lightning and rain that blew sideways? It was so swell to drive in, I must say, especially in Atlanta, why it was postively a picnic!

Hang on, let me get my tongue out o' my cheek...

As I gingerly picked my way down the sidewalk next to the street, I was very careful to avoid puddles (I usually would be careful to step IN them as it's loads of fun, but I was WORKING...and had on cute shoes) and was mere feet from the little sidewalk that led back towards the apartments on the other side, when barrelling down Clairemont out of nowhere came a large bus. A bus for our very own Metro Atlanta Rail Transit Authority. MARTA! In seconds I was covered in a wave of water that had pooled in the street at the exact location where I happened to be. I am not exaggerating when I say it went over my head.

I was soaked.

I stood there, in shock, for a good minute or so, although I did have the presence of mind to actually move away from the street.

Dripping dirty water I made my way down the path to the next set of apartments where I was thrilled to find that they also weren't the right ones. Back into the parking lot I went where I was discovered by my student. He had gone looking for me when I hadn't shown up right away.

What a sight I must've been. My jacket, skirt, hair, shoes, everything was dripping wet.

"Hi! I'm Meghan! I'm your piano teacher. I was just baptised by a MARTA bus, you know...they do that sometimes. Aren't I a lucky girl?", and I extended a wet hand in his direction which he very kindly shook. He showed me into the apartment (which had been on the other side of the complex and in my defense the numbers are not AT ALL logical...) explained to his wife what had happened and his wife immediately offered to put my jacket into the dryer. I was given a towel to dry off with and then we began the lesson.

He did quite well and is now supposed to practice playing, "Jingle Bells", as silly as it sounds, so that he can get his right and left hands to learn how to play well together.

I am now home, showered and warm and just thought I would share this moment with you. I seem to have lots of crazy things happen to me and I wonder if I have some sort of built in "odd moments" magnet somewhere in my body.

I'm swimming around in the Brothers Karamazov again and so I think I shall snuggle back down into the couch and pick up where I left off in the pages.

I should be sleeping.

I can't sleep.

It's 1:48 am.

I am in my living room, sitting in a red and white velvet chair and I am typing this by the light of a red lampshaded lamp. It is very quiet in my house. Everyone is slumbering but me. In my room my suitcase is still on the floor, it's contents spilled out and I have stood in front of it a few times knowing that I need to start the process of unpacking it but I have become so accustomed to staying "packed" over these last few weeks that it feels strange to do the opposite.

I have had the pleasure of meeting quite a lot of fine people during this most recent tour with Jay. Thank you very much to all of you who have offered your hand to me in greeting and for your kind words.

My last two dates were in New York and Boston. My father and stepmom and my darling boy, Phoenix, flew into Richmond, VA on Thursday of last week and I picked them up there. I had played the Lincoln Theatre the night before in Raleigh and so it was on the way north. So good to have company and to relenquish driving duties to my father. Phoenix was such a trooper. While in New York we had a day in between the New York show and the Boston show and we spent it wandering about the streets, discovering the Farmer's Market in Union Square and riding the Staten Island Ferry at night. Phoenix loved the Statue of Liberty. Over and over he would remark,

"Look at her! She's so very beautiful!"

While in New York I took my family to one of my very favourite spots in the whole city, a little tiny shop in the basement of Crawford Doyle Booksellers on Madison Avenue (between 81st and 82nd streets). This basement shop belongs to Steve Belkin, an artist and also the man to go to if you're in the mood to buy very tiny model toys. Literally, they are very small and are mostly soldiers, but such detail! I met Steve when I was in New York in November of last year. I was there with two dear friends of mine, one of them being my roommate, Jessica. She had ducked into the bookshop and I followed suit. While she and our other friend were browsing the books I, in my habit of curiousity, decided to go down the small flight of stairs in the back of the shop. There I met Steve. Such a magical human being!

He remembered my friends and me. Even remembered my name! It was wonderful to introduce him to my family and he let Phoenix pick out a small toy to take with him. My family wnadered back up the stairs and I stayed behind to talk with Steve. I left him something very important for safe keeping while I was there. He promised he would keep it very safe. He thumbtacked it to the wall to make sure it wouldn't get lost.

"That's where it will stay until you tell me otherwise.", he said, his pipe dangling precariously off of his bottom lip. "You walk in the door and there it will be, on the left, safely tacked to the wall."

I caught him up on all the details of my crazy life and he listened quietly to my ramblings and worryings and when I was done he said,

"I have one word for you, Meghan, and it's this: Patience. Patience, child. Everything will work itself out, you'll see. If things are as you say they are then it will only be a little bit of time."

I left his shop feeling lighter and hopeful. My family and I explored the rest of New York, well, what we could get in, and ended the day taking turns carrying a sleeping Phoenix back to the apartment of a friend, where we were staying.

I arrived home on Monday evening, after we drove through the night from Boston. I am still recovering!

Why am I telling you this? I dunno.

I am fond of a man named Paul, who, while he never actually met Jesus, loved and served him quite well. Paul said one time in a letter that,

"I do the things I don't want to do, and I don't do the things I know I should do."

Well said, Paul.

Right now I should be in bed, sleeping. Something I know I should do. And so I shall. One small step towards doing the things I know I should do. Maintaining a safe distance between myself and the things I know I shouldn't do.

Goodnight, my friends.

And patience, it will all work itself out in the end.

Here are thoughts running around in my head these days:

I need to spread my arms out all day,
Spread my breath out.
Spread out all day.

The lines of the road run ahead of me and I race along, trying to keep up. I look into other cars on the road and make up stories about the people in them.

This one is being driven by a man who longs to fly in a hot air balloon; he grew up in Austria and moved to the USAmerica for the love of a woman who reminded him that he had much to give. He never found her. He caught wind that she might be in North Carolina, he sends out heart signals in hopes that her heart will ping back to him; they'll be drawn together by the longing. That is, if she still looks for him.

That one is full of a family and they are all circus performers. Trapeze artists on a break from the big top. They know all the elephants by name and the young girl? The one in the back? She is dreaming up a way to help those elephants escape. She dreams of watching them run down the city streets, trumpeting and blowing and finding the nearst coffee shop where they'll stop for a pick me up before finding a proper place to be elephantine.

This trucker has a head full of wishes to open his own dance studio. He counts in his head the steps, the turns; the sultry tango, the peppy foxtrot; he sees himself graceful, he sees himself dashing, he sees himself in the sideview mirror and looks quickly away. He writes down his own scores, judges the ballroom dance competitions on the television. He is very tired of trucking.

I wonder if others look into my little hatchback and construct stories about me.

I am walking in a lot of heartache right now. I am driving around with it in the car with me. It sits in the seat next to me and strikes up conversations about where life is going and how in the world will I ever figure out what to do? I start out prayers asking for the right things and end up praying for the wrong things. I don't know how to pray anymore. It ends up being conversations into the air, my words hitting the roof of my car and going no further, they fall back into my lap and leave me sitting in a light covering of my thoughts and hopes and words. I open my window, watch them blow away, watch as they blow into wildflowers, into asphalt, onto passing cars.

Oh my friends, if you think of me, and do the thing commonly known as praying, pray for me. Pray that I will come through this. I will walk with a limp. I will be scarred. I will most likely be shunned by some. My life is going through some major drastic changes, as is my heart, as is my character. I'm being tested in quite a lot.

A price that must be paid.

...and I'm in a Perkins Restaurant in...hang on...let me ask my waitress where I am exactly.

I'm in Dandridge, Tennesee.

"The second oldest town in Tennesee, if you want to know."

I usually try to find "mom and pop" restaurants when I'm on the road. I started doing this back in March when myself, Billy Somerville, Josh Gott and Josh's fiancee, Terra, toured with Edwin as his support act. It became quite the adventure to find little itty bitty restaurants instead of chain and fast food locations. The notable of these "discoveries" was the Nottaway Restaurant somewhere in Virginia. They had amazing rolls.

I am in Perkins Restaurant because they had a sign that advertised "wandering wi-fi" and so here I am, eating a little nourishment and really wanting a nap.

I've been traveling alone since Wednesday. I'm a bit bored. I'm learning the french language and listening to a lot of opera. Placido Domingo as Othello in the opera of the same name had me in tears by Act Four when he realises that he's strangled his one true love because of a misunderstanding and in despair stabs himself. I was bawling like a baby and came to the conclusion that driving all of this by myself tends to make me very emotional and loony. I LOVE being alone but there are moments when people are nice. More than nice. Much needed. I'm learning a lot about myself.

Opening for Jay Clifford has been lovely so far. I've met some truly fantastic people.

Last night in Nashville was rough in that I didn't go on until 10pm as Jay and I were the "late" show. The early show was a band I didn't bother learning the name of as it was the kind of music that shut my brain down and caused me to want to curl into a fetal position. Let's just say it was chock full of obnoxious guitar solos, bass guitar slapping and loud drumming.

I did my best to get through my set despite the pounding headache I had from the "music" the first band had inflicted...er...bestowed upon us earlier. The audience seemed to like what they heard and came up to me afterwards to tell me they liked my songs. My favourite moment was when a striking young woman in glasses approached me and said,

"I don't ususally like girls at all. But I like you."

Made me laugh, that did.

The best part about last night was that I was fortunate to have my cousin Sean and his wife Heather come out to the show and my good friend David Christopher as well, whom I hadn't seen in FOUR years. Heather and Sean also let me stay the night in their darling little house. It was a much needed reprieve.

Alright. I'm not writing anything very inspired at all. I need to finish my meal and get back on the road. I have to be in Asheville in an hour!

Hello lovelies.

I was interviewed by the Asheville-Citizen Times a couple of weeks ago as they wanted to do a feature podcast about me.

It will be available for download on your iPod tomorrow if you so choose at:

http://www.citizen-times.com/podcasts

But, if you'd like to listen now you can!

Just click http://citizen-times.com/assets/mp3/B037983816.MP3 to listen to me babble and stammer!

Also, for those of you who live in Nashville and Asheville, I will be in your fair cities these next two days. Friday night, the 18th, in Nashville at Exit/In and Saturday night, the 19th, in Asheville at the Orange Peel.

Check out http://exitin.com or http://theorangepeel.net if you'd like more information.

If you would like to come, are even musing over the idea I highly encourage you to participate. Participation is usually a good thing. Unless it involves crime, weapons or eating things one ought not to eat. And roaches, one should never participate in anything involving roaches.

But I digress.

ALSO.

This is the last day to be able to listen to the new VERY ROUGH track I have up on my Myspace music player, a song called "Quite Contrary". I will also be taking down Phoenix's song, "Rockefeller Center" because I am going to put up FOUR new tracks from my new album.

You can go to:

http://www.myspace.com/meghancoffee

I've been told, though, that soon there will be a music player on this website! Fantastic.

Just putting that out there for all four of you who might actually read this.

Tootles,

Meghan

Hello dear friends.

I am writing to you from my front porch. It's twilight, cars are streaming past on busy Clairemont and I cannot help but wish one would turn up my driveway, someone coming to call, to tell me news of their day.

I'm not lonely...just alone-full. I think it would be nice to have a cup of coffee and a long conversation about something meaningful, something joyous. The crickets are very loud right now. Conversations of their own, I suppose, about long distance jumping and gossip about the ants and near death experiences involving birds.

I am a cricket spitting champion. When I was a younger girl I could spit a cricket farther than anyone else could. So, maybe those crickets are talking about ME.

The album I've been working on since April (on and off) is nearing completion. We're down to final mix tweaks and then onto the mastering process next week. The artwork is being crafted and I'm to have my picture taken on Thursday so that people can see my face somewhere in the liner notes. I want to be photographed amongst a lot of books. I wish books grew in meadows. I think it would be great fun to have my picture taken in a field of books, some blooming wide open, pages soaking up sunlight and some still closed, the story not yet fully grown.

My story is not blossoming yet, my story is still growing.

I am 98.6592% sure that the title of the album will be "All Things Being Said".

It seems fitting somehow. So many songs out there, so many things already said and yet I am saying these things in my own way, putting my own take on melodies and the words that go with them.

I am nervous. I feel like I did when I was a kid and I had worked long and hard on a picture for my mother, labouring over it for days and she knew I was drawing it and yet I wouldn't let her see it. When I finally did decide it was done, and went to show her, I stood there, the picture behind my back, fretting over whether or not there was one more thing, maybe two more things, that I could still do to make it perfect. I stood there a long time before I carefully thrust it out in front of me, eyes squinted shut, hoping she would love it, fearing it would fall short.

And of course she did. She was my mother and mother's love everything their children give them. My mother proudly displayed crayon drawings and badly made clay pots all over our house.

I hope that this work I have made will be, if not proudly displayed, then at least listened to!

I am a drop in this ocean of music, of sound. I hope to make a wave of some kind. And maybe it will wash over you.

Howdy.

I'm sitting outside, at my favourite little coffeeshop in Atlanta, the ever fabulous and never disappointing Octane Coffee Bar and Lounge. They serve marvelous Belgian beers here, of which I am now partaking. A beer by the name of Piraat.

So yummy.

Right, so that's all I have to say for now. I really just wanted to see how this new software works!

Tootles!

I have been sitting safely on my red couch, feet tucked under, watching the rain outside and feeling very alive. My life is turning out to be quite strange. I think I already knew that, but it's been taking some really crazy turns lately.

My front porch, (or veranda, as my friend Kara Pecknold calls it) has become quite the place to be these past few days. I have had quite a few interesting conversations there so far. It's funny how well people can connect sitting on a porch swing. It's lovely to know that I am truly known by my dearest friends.

Zack Arias was just on my front porch last night. We talked about all kinds of things whilst drinking our Newcastles. He has a lot of amazing things to say, that man. He definitely gave me a new perspective on some things.

Here's to front porches and Newcastles, conversations in the night-time, and seeing one another in new lights.

I am sitting in my favourite little coffeeshop, a place called Octane. For awhile there I was the only girl sitting amongst a bevy of men. A woman walked in to order coffee and so now I am not outnumbered. Wait....she's leaving. Never mind. We (we being all of us coffee customers, myself and eleven men) are all staring intently at our computer screens and we all occasionally glance up to see if we're all staring intently at our computer screens or if anyone else is glancing around and then a few of us catch each other in the act and we quickly pretend like we were looking at a spot somewhere on the wall.

The man sitting directly to my left, at the table next to me, is wearing seersucker trousers. Brown loafers. No socks. He is reading the paper. The New York Times to be exact. He occasionally sniffs, loudly.

Now the men to women ration is 15 to 2.

I am a conflicted girl these days. Not over men to women ratios. I am conflicted in the way one is conflicted when one's heart and one's head are not on the same page. When they seem to be pulling in such opposite directions that it leaves one breathless and tired and it is difficult to even write about it.

Ah.

So vague, hmmm?

Hearts and Heads
Rarely make sense to each other
They sit on opposite sides of the bed
trying to make another
point or a plea
that the other would see
just how important
they are.




I grasp hold of moments where my two H's meet in the middle. But they are rare moments. I wonder if I am very alone in this. I feel remarkably inarticulate when it comes to trying to explain this to people. Some things can't be expressed in normal terms and phrases. They can't be expressed in statements or paragraphs. I find that if I stay still long enough, still long enough to be aware of my breathing, of my heart beating, of how my mind spins like a top, I have small moments of clarity. They don't last very long though, and I feel frustrated that I can't hang on to these moments as long as I want. A bit like an amnesiac who starts to remember their name before it flits off again.
I don't know if that makes any sense.

I want to be whole.
I want to know that I am known
And that I don't have to act
To make it all better
That who I am is enough
For some.
I am a prickly pear.
Get through my outside
protection and I swear you won't regret it.
Seersucker Man is still reading.
I am still writing.
Head and heart are still fighting.
I will try to keep trying.


20 to 3. But we women are the brightest in the room. We glow.