Taken from “Teaching a Stone to Talk”:

One cold Christmas Eve, I was up unnaturally late because we had all gone out to dinner – my parents, my baby sister, and I.  We had come home to a warm living room, and Christmas Eve. Our stockings drooped from the mantle; beside them, a special table bore a bottle of ginger ale and a plate of cookies.

I had taken off my fancy winter coat and was standing on the heat register to bake my shoe soles and warm my bare legs.  There was a commotion at the front door; it opened, and cold winter blew around my dress.

Everyone was calling me.  “Look who’s here! Look who’s here!”  I looked. It was Santa Claus.  Whom I never – ever – wanted to meet.  Santa Claus was looming in the doorway and looking around for me.  My mother’s voice was thrilled: “Look who’s here!”  I ran upstairs.

Like everyone in his right mind, I feared Santa Claus, thinking he was God.  I was still thoughtless and brute, reactive.  I knew right from wrong, but had barely tested the possibility of shaping my own behavior, and then only from fear, and not yet from love.  Santa Claus was an old man whom you never saw, but who nevertheless saw you; he knew when you’d been bad or good.  He knew when you’d been bad or good! And I had been bad.

My mother called and called, enthusiastic, pleading; I wouldn’t come down.  My father encouraged me; my sister howled.  I wouldn’t come down, but I could bend over the stairwell and see: Santa Claus stood in the doorway with night over his shoulder, letting in all the cold air of the sky; Santa Claus stood in the doorway monstrous and bright, powerless, ringing a loud bell and repeating Merry Christmas, Merry Christmas.  I never came down.  I don’t know who ate the cookies.

For so many years now I have known that this Santa Claus was actually a rigged-up Miss White, who lived across the street, that I confuse the dramatis personae in my mind, making Santa Claus, God, and Miss White an awesome, vulnerable trinity.  This is really a story about Miss White.

Miss White was old; she lived alone in the big house across the street.  She liked having me around; she plied me with cookies, taught me things about the world, and tried to interest me in finger painting, in which she herself took great pleasure.  She would set up easels in her kitchen, tack enormous slick soaking papers to their frames, and paint undulating undersea scenes: horizontal smears of color sparked by occasional vertical streaks which were understood to be fixed kelp.  I liked her.  She meant no harm on earth, and yet half a year after her failed visit as Santa Claus, I ran from her again.

That day, a day of the following summer, Miss White and I knelt in her yard while she showed me a magnifying glass.  It was a large, strong hand lens.  She lifted my hand and, holding it very still, focused a dab of sunshine on my palm.  The glowing crescent wobbled, spread, and finally contracted to a point.  It burned; I was burned; I ripped my hand away and ran home crying.

Miss White called after me, sorry, explaining, but I didn’t look back.

Even now I wonder: if I meet God, will he take and hold my bare hand in his, and focus his eye on my palm, and kindle that spot and let me burn?

But no.  It is I who misunderstood everything and let everybody down.  Miss White, God, I am sorry I ran from you.  I am still running, running from that knowledge, that eye, that love from which there is no refuge.  For you meant only love, and love, and I felt only fear, and pain.  So once in Israel love came to us incarnate, stood in the doorway between two worlds, and we were all afraid.

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As a follow-up, be sure to listen to eastmountainsouth’s “Still Running.”

Merry Christmas, friends.  May you all experience “that love from which there is no refuge.”

My friend Haley Shaw is utterly lovely.  She sings like an angel, and is wicked smart and real, and is one of the most beautiful people I’ve ever seen up close.

I’ve been listening to her song “Iowa City” on repeat this week.  It’s good, y’all.  Real good.

There are these two other girls in Nashville that I don’t know, but I wish that I did, because I’m pretty sure we would get along smashingly.  If you want to hear some great music, check out Sara Beth Geoghegan’s “Tired of Singing Sad Songs” and Emily DeLoach’s “The Lucky Ones.”

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Merry Christmas Eve Eve.  I’ve switched to morning workouts, and haven’t worn a stitch of makeup since Sunday.

That’s all of my news.  Do YOU have any news?

The best Lärabar that ever existed was Cocoa Môlé – but earlier this fall, they retired the flavor, so I gnashed my teeth and tore my sackcloth.

But late on Friday afternoon, Miranda pointed me toward an announcement on their Facebook wall:

We just uncovered 35 boxes of Cocoa Môlé (16 bars/box). It’s the last of the stash and everyone here agrees that we should give them away. Since we only have a small amount, we’re asking that you share with us an ‘Ode to Môlé’ – a video, a song, an illustration, something that demonstrates how deeply you care for that lovable Cocoa Môlé. Good luck!

So on Saturday, I wrote a little song.

And yesterday at work, Miles and I made a little video.

Behold:

I hope “Holy Môlé” is stuck in your head all day long.  And I really, really hope they send me a box.

I secretly believed that if I didn’t post any blogs in November, I would still continue to write and stockpile posts so that when December rolled around, I would have an arsenal to draw from.

That didn’t happen. At all. In fact, I’m checking my computer for any scraps I may have written that I could form into a full post today, and all I can find is a short snippet about watching “The Business of Being Born,” and how I could have gone my whole life without seeing Ricki Lake naked in a bathtub, and ending with something along the lines of “I prefer my birth tidy.”

And yes, I know that statement will come back to bite me someday.  Something about placenta?

What I DID write in November is three new songs, and I’m recording demos while I’m here in Nashville – starting after work tonight. The process of writing these songs was different than it has been in the past, maybe because of the long creative drought that preceded it, or maybe because I moved 1,200 miles away from the weird comparison game that goes along with living in Nashville, or maybe just because the past year has included some personal earthquakes – things I haven’t written about here, but that have rattled me in a very real way.

As a result, I have no idea if these songs are any “good” – but I know that they mean a little something to me. It feels good to have something new to share.

I’ve got a few boxes of CDs in the trunk of my car, and I need to move them out.  You know – to make room for the dead bodies.

My EP is on sale for half-off – yes, that’s right, just $5!  Now is your chance to get a few extra copies to set aside as stocking stuffers, or a gift to suck up to your boss, or a birthday present for your niece.  I’m big with the tweens.

Or you can do what I do, and occasionally put them on the windshields of complete stranger’s cars.  A wee bit awkward, yes.  But then I remember the dead bodies.

So THIS IS YOUR CHANCE.  Go ahead and place your order – for the price of a sandwich at Subway, you will get 7 songs, and help pay for my cavities.  And because they’re half-off, you can order multiple copies.  Right?  Right??!?

Thanks, all – my cavities, and EIGHT UPCOMING CROWNS, are grateful.

It’s September 28, and on tap to be 92 degrees today.  While I am seriously perturbed at Denver’s unwillingness to budge into fall, the good news is that there is no snow in the mountains, and I was able to get several more 14ers under my belt this past Saturday.

I did the Decalibron – that is, I climbed Democrat, Cameron, Lincoln, and Bross, all mountains over 14,000 feet high.  I don’t know that I have a goal of climbing all 54 of the Colorado 14ers, but with 12 down, I’m well on my way.

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On Sunday, I bought a piano.  I know I’m only 36 hours in, but I am absolutely giddy over this new acquisition.  For the last two nights, I’ve stayed up playing it for hours.  It’s a necessity for getting ready to record some demos when I’m in Nashville in December.

That’s right, folks: new songs are on their way.  I’m stoked (yes, I said it: STOKED) about sharing them – even if a few aren’t entirely finished yet.  Nothing like a deadline.

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I’m pretty sure that my life these days could be summed up this way:

“You climb a mountain because it’s there; you write a song because it’s not.”  -Jon Foreman

For me, writing songs is like kissing boys.  There might be some good luck for awhile, but then, for one reason or another, it just ends.  There is always the hope of it happening again, and that when it does, it will be fantastic – but it might take years.

Years.

Anyway.

I finally finished a new song!  It’s super sassafras, and I think I really like it.  Maybe one day you’ll get to hear it.

As for the kissing of boys, WOULDN’T YOU LIKE TO KNOW.

- your hair just needs to be cut?  Immediately?  Because all of a sudden, and without warning, you are Morticia?

- you wear the black racerback tank with the rainbow graphic eagle on the front?  Because it’s so awesome?

- you eat breakfast at an oatmeal cart?  Because this is Portland?

- you hear a song that changes your life?  Because it gives you the words and the framework to deal with what you couldn’t deal with before?  And it’s called “Closer to the Moon” by Alli Rogers?

- you write a blog in a format that gives the illusion that we’re all on the same page, when really, we’re probably not?  Because not everyone can own a black racerback tank with a rainbow graphic eagle on the front?

Last night, I was working it at the gym with my iPod on shuffle, when this song came on.

Lazy Summer Love by annieparsons

Honest to goodness, I had all but forgotten that I ever wrote it.

This old demo made me remember what it felt like to write songs before anyone ever told me I was doing it wrong.  When I had an idea, I just wrote.  Unreserved.  I didn’t “know” enough to “know” what was wrong with my writing – which is what made it ME.

I miss that me.

It’s been a long, long time since I’ve written anything, music-wise.  I don’t even want to say how long, for fear of no longer being able to call myself a songwriter.

But I’ve been getting inspired again (why does it take senseless, underwhelming man-drama to stir it up?  And yes, that is all I’m saying).  I have ideas. I even think they’re good ideas.

And I want to write them.

These ideas have been bothering me for awhile now – like a stray hair that gets stuck to your shirt somewhere between the armpit and the elbow, brushing against the back of your arm, out of sight and out of reach.  Phantom pains.  Rogue apparitions.

It’s time for them to materialize.

So I’m telling you.  I’m going to write them.  I’m going to finish them.

Hold me to it.

Just don’t tell me how to do it.  This is going to happen my way.

My friend Fred Wilhelm writes great songs.  I talked to him a few months back, and told him that some of my happiest moments of the past year were the times that I heard him play this one:

I mean, seriously?  That is just the coolest.  I hope this isn’t sacrilegious, but when I hear him play this song, it feels like church.  “I’m here today ’cause that brave woman begot me” – I want to shout hallelujah.

I’m thinking about my own family today – how we have our own unique story, one that keeps progressing and morphing with time, for better and for worse, each of us changing and becoming and growing into whoever it is that we are, whoever it is that we were created to be.  We are equal parts comedy and tragedy – and a total gong show, at times.  We are far, far from perfection, but still, “when I’m with ‘em, it’s like Thanksgiving.”

Today, my littlest sister Sarah is moving to Haiti. At 22-years old (and more mature than the other three of us kids put together – no offense, Jeremy and Becca, I know you agree), she bought a one-way ticket, and is moving to one of the poorest countries in the world to do a little good.  Those of us who know her know that she will do more than “a little” good, and while we will miss her terribly, can’t put into words how proud we are of her.

If I ever wrote a song about my family, today would be an important line.