Stories & Time

When I discovered that the author of A Lesson Before Dying was an African-American author from Louisiana who grew up on a plantation, I instantly began scanning the Google results for biographies and interviews, sources to give more details, the grit on his life.

What was is like for Ernest J. Gaines to grow up on a plantation in a small Southern town with deep racial divides? Was he mistreated? Does he talk about the landowners? Is he still connected to the family there? I assumed there were juicy details (doesn't every life have some juicy details?), and I wanted to know them all right then and there.

But I couldn't find much.

I learned of his parents' absence in his childhood, his relocation to California as a teenager and the name of his hometown. I know that a new world seemed to open up to him when, for the first time in his life, he had access to books through the public libraries there in California.

He went on to teach, write books and return to Louisiana, settling down there on part of the very land where the plantation of his childhood stood, building a home of his own.

The basics, the highlight reel. But no juicy details.

He tells us in an interview that the aunt who raised him, teachers who taught him and the versions of himself that could have been, show up in some form in his stories.

To get more of Ernest J. Gaines, I have to do the time.

I've got to read those books.

______________________

I've been known skip the small talk. What starts as a "hello" at the drink table of the New Year's Eve party may turn into a 2-hour conversation about your last heartbreak which may turn into a song by midnight.

While I generally like this about myself, I've learned in recent years that, in certain circumstances, there are questions best left unasked, stories left unknown, until time has passed, life has been lived and permission has been granted into the parts of a life that are opened by the stories we tell each other.

I cringe at some of the invasive, personal questions I've asked before enough trust was established. The advice I gave to the person sitting on the couch across from me because I was, perhaps, more anxious to fix than to love.

Now, I know I have to do the time: cook the meals that make the space that give the freedom for the stories to spill out over the kitchen, ready to be heard at just the right time, usually when I least expect it. 

As I write this, there is impatience being stilled in me, the desire to get quick to the finish is subsiding. Because there is no quick to the finish.

There is only the long, slow reading of the stories and living of lives, weaving together histories, making new stories along the way.

Thursday Poem: Joined

Might God give the weak to the strong, for one to lift the other up, for one to keep the other humble?

Might God give the sure to the shaky, to keep each other rooted, lest pride or wandering take them each too far?

Might God give the quiet to the loud, giving one more strength to find her voice and the other wisdom to learn to listen?

Might God give the joyful ones to the sorrowful, that there may be laughter where skies have been gray and grief where sadness was never recognized?

Might God give us to each other to be what we cannot be on our own?

Photo Update

Some photos, in chronological order, of random things:

April 2013. In Ackerman and Louisville, MS, where we played a show
for Matthew's Bright Came the Word from His Mouth

Brothers, Matthew and Sam. 

May 2013, a ghostly image taken from the porch of Jeff's parents' home in southwestern NC.

July 2013. During a retreat weekend, we let Matthew cut the cheese, because he's so darn good at it.

September 2013. Our first T-shirt! We promoted this via social media and gave 2 away!
Designed by Susan Kizzee, printed by Ambrose.

October 2013. The Great Midwestern Tour took us to Minneapolis.
The sun peeks over a bridge in Minnehaha Falls State Park.

Brian insisted on jumping and walking on things that looked very dangerous to me.

Brian and Jeff love each other. Sweet.

Tour Update: Gifts from the Great Midwest

Wrapped in what looks like a Native American inspired blanket, I'm sitting in an old mill-converted-to-condo in Oshkosh, Wisconsin, listening to the wind whip furiously around the corner of the building and the rain splashing against the windows.

We've only 3 shows left on the Great Midwestern Tour, which has, indeed, been very great.

Nebraska, Iowa, Minnesota, Wisconsin: cities states I've never been to and all of them, I found beautiful.

More than the hills and the fields and the golden leaves on the trees, we spent time with some really beautiful people. For us, touring and music-sharing without people and story-sharing would empty and hollow.

Our hosts and listeners, old friends and new, come from our past (fellow Mississippi-natives!) and our present. Some like to be quiet and slow and talk thru the hours, others tell louder and funnier stories that give us good, hearty laughs. All have been beautiful.

Rebecca Johnson, our host in Oshkosh, WI, also a fellow native Mississippian.

The super-cool set-up for our Oshkosh show, at New City Church.

Phom and Kaylee Sisoukrath, Little Rock, AR hosts and friends we met through working at SOS

Minneapolis, MN-area house show

Matt & Su, Omaha, NE hosts. We loved all the Mississippi-art in their home!
Su, also sporting the Abbye West Pates shirt.

Omaha, NE house show. This was a really, really good night.

The whole Omaha crew!

Before we left, and even often on the tour, we've been asked in various ways how we make this work, how we make any money. It's a legitimate question; there's no fault in wondering how we "make it work". But while I believed it before, I believe it more now: this isn't about money. If it were, then we'd be doing something else.

It's about people and story-sharing. It's also hard work: writing, practicing, traveling, set-up, tear-down, meeting people, selling merch, giving attention to listeners after the show. This is our work, and it is good.

The final word: I'm not ready for touring to end!

A Quick "Here's What We're Doing"

Sadly, the writing that I love so much, has taken a backseat to booking, practicing, juggling multiple types of work, etc. and I have neglected to write here. It isn't forever, but it is for now.

Filling our house are guitars, cables, suitcases, air mattresses, drums, and computers. We're practicing, singing, cooking, Instagram-ing, practicing some more.

Tomorrow we set out on the Great Midwestern Tour beginning in Little Rock, AR, followed by a stop on Sunday at Central UMC in Fayetteville, AR, leading morning worship services there. On the way, we're going to Omaha, NE; Minneapolis, MN; Oshkosh, WI; Chicago; Holland, MI and Elkhart, IN. We'll come back and play a few Mississippi shows with Matthew Clark, who is traveling on the tour with us, mixing in a couple of his shows.

Our friend and brother, Brian Mulder, drove down from Michigan to spend the whole month touring with us. It's crazy that the 4 of us are basically going to spend an entire month together, but it's happening. "How are you traveling?" you ask: We bought a trailer. That's right, we're loading up the trailer, hitching it onto the back of our 11-year old SUV, and praying for those traveling mercies that we hope get us from point A to point B or at least help us have patience with each other if the tire goes flat.

If you're not already, keep up with us at www.abbyewestpates.com, or on social media: FB, www.facebook.com/abbyewestpatesmusic or Twitter, @AWPmusic. 

Here we go!

Thursday Poem: In Harmony

To the untrained, unschooled ear
the different notes against each other
mean nothing profound.

Show them written on a staff
so correctly
is like the most foreign tongue.

But put those notes in your throat
out through your lips
and even the untrained ear
recognizes the beautiful mystery
that is the sound of harmony.

Mini-Tour: Kentucky

Sun and wind have an agreement today: be perfect.

Just enough breeze to rustle the leaves and make you feel good after you top the hill on your afternoon run. Just enough warmth to make you feel thankful for now and hopeful for later.

The goldenrods line the creekside, in full September bloom. At the top of the hill, red and green tomatoes share the vine, mint spills over the edges, and okra grows tall. Steaming past is the Norfolk Southern, right at our back door, amazing us with its power and speed.

Smells of stovestops from around the world drift over to where I am, reminding me of many places where I've been, in the living rooms of friends both near and far. Past the stovetops, out the door, down the steps run the children - so many children! - from Singapore, Sudan, China, Tennessee, Kenya.

Running, jumping, claiming these streets, these children proclaim with their play, "The Kingdom is here!"Grown-ups, as so we are, reminded that though it is "not yet" it is, too, "now".

"A glimpse" they call it. A wonder, it is. Beauty almost too good for me to behold from this porch in Wilmore, Kentucky, home to a school giving such life and community and hope to its students, its families. They show us it is possible, we can live, play, eat together, in unity, in love. No matter the color of our skin or the color of our past. Jesus died so that we could be One as he and the Father are One.

We've jumped into the middle of this, with our instruments and our stories, seemingly unworthy recipients of such beauty.

And this is just Day 1.