After a long day yesterday of trying to find peace and sitting talking with people for an hour at noon, lighting candles, and keeping up with the news, i finally turned off the tv. I had hit overload. I opened the paper and what to my wondering eyes should appear but Critters Buggin playing here. My first question was not "will the show be cancelled?" but "who can i convince to go see this with me?" You see, suddenly the idea of a dark bar and shaking my booty to drums, percussion, bass and the amazing saxophonic antics of Skerik seemed to be the perfect cure for anxiety blues. Fortunately for me they were indeed playing for the first time this week. Double bonus i convinced a couple of friends to make a leap and trust me on this one. Walking in they started moving and i was struck by the comfort of seeing familiar faces. Granted i don't know Skerik personally, but it seemed like he was always doing something onstage at the OK Hotel, and another familiar face appeared that i didn't even have a name for at the time. You know, one of those people you see nearly every day for years, but never really talk to? Just a familiar face.

So, they played, and we danced, and i felt at home. Actually, it's an understatement to say that they "played." Skerik walked onstage and said "welcome" at about 10:30pm, they barely took a break around midnight, and then kept us moving until 2am. Special added bonus to the evening was the addition of Bob Moog's toys since he lives in Asheville. Ah, toys!

So what next? The latin festival today is hopefully going to be another source of inspirational poetry and music...~w

Mostly i'm just tired this morning. I suppose my sleep hasn't been the best these past few days. I'm trying to keep as much calm around me as possible. I don't want to let the fear and anger that is festering around me from Tuesday's events to fuel a fire of misplaced vengence. Zillions of thoughts and conversations are racing through my head, but i can't seem to identify anything more that a need for a sense of peace within myself and sharing that with the world around me. Even that can be hard somedays.~w

some words from another song taught to me by cora jackson...

Peace I leave with you,
My peace I give unto you,
Not as the world gives,
Not as the world gives.
Don't be afraid
Don't be afraid.
God has not given us
a spirit of fear,
but of love, power, and a sound mind.

It has already begun. I was saddened last night as i watched the news not only by the aftermath and wreckage, but at what is begining to happen to arab-americans and muslim-americans. A friend of mine is in LA and reporting on the effects in that city for Time magazine. It's disturbing. The government says it still has around 2,000 suspects and because there was a rumor from "sources" that they hijackers looked arab there are already people receiving hate calls because of what their last name looks like in the phone book. What happened to the story about the investigators finding black hair dye in one of the hotels? Just because they looked like someone from the middle-east doesn't mean that anyone whose family immigrated from there is a suspect. At a time like this we shouldn't be turning against members of our own community just because of their religion either. In fact, of the folks i know in this country who follow the teachings of muhammad, i can say with certainty that they are some of the most gentle, loving and caring people i've met. They are no more terrorists than the average fundamentalist christian is a right-wing militant.

I know people are angry and want to have an enemy to blame, but i pray that citizens of this country can be wise enough to place blame where it may be due and not on innocent people.~w

p.s. a song crept into my head last night that i learned from Ysae Barnwell a few years ago...

Lord, must I do unto others,
before they do unto me?
Must I arm myself, to protect myself
From harm and injury?
Don't you know, that is not the lesson
That I learned on my mother's knee
When she told me to do unto others
Only as I'd have them do unto me.

So much for the "routine" that i was looking forward to having yesterday. It seems it will be a while before i can get back to that. I found that i hit a point yesterday when the information was too overwhelming and i just had to do something to keep myself busy. The word that keeps sticking with me through this is "tragedy." The media has been using it over and over, but it reminds me of Oedipus or Hamlet whose own hubris allowed or caused a horrific event to occur. While what happened yesterday was certainly horrific, to call it tragic seems a little premature and casts a shadow over the innocence of the victims involved. Still, my greatest hope right now is that Americans don't rush to find an enemy, but that we allow enough time to seek out the root cause. The worst thing we can do is start pointing our fingers at our neighbors because of the color of their skin or their family background the way we did after Pearl Harbor.

So where to now, what next? As an individual i can only hope to spread peace in the spaces i touch. A poem by Rumi keeps running through my head so i'll leave with that...~w

Today like every other day we wake up empty
and frightened. Don't open the door to the study
and begin reading. Take down a musical instrument.

Let the beauty we love be what we do.
There are hundreds of ways to kneel and kiss the ground.

As the world outside my window turns from black to grey i am reveling in the familiar view. Strangely enough i'm longing for a regular routine where i can get some of my own work done. Not only do i have ideas for the office, but i have ideas for my home (the first is to get rid of the excess paper that is currently surrounding me by going through old mail and trashing most of it). Somewhere in between i have some writing to do...

The shows went well yesterday, as did the workshop. I think i would have enjoyed them more if i had had time to recover from rehearsals and finish off the cold that made me cough through the shows. John is picking up the gist of it quickly and only got a little tongue-tied during the workshop.

Other than that, i think this will be a "clear my desk" kind of day since i haven't spent anytime in the office lately.~w

I'm awake in a humid hotel room. I suppose i could turn up the AC, but it tends to dry out the room really bad. Last night we found the school, and had decent (not great) chinese food before going over the schedule for today. My friend in Charlotte didn't make it over to visit because his roommate was moving out and needed help. Instead, we chatted on the phone for a while about where we are and where we're going. Part of me is ready to do a show, and part of me just wants to be home, asleep in my own bed. Fortunately most of my cold is gone except for a stray cough, but John seems to have caught the bug that's going around now. At least it's only one day, and only a 2 hour drive back to Asheville if we don't get stuck behind an accident like yesterday.

I'm going to try to remain peppy instead of lapsing into grouchy today.~w

So today i'm off to Gastonia to do two shows and a teacher workshop in Belmont, NC tomorrow. I'm not thrilled about having to go and forgot to take care of a couple little things like getting products (which i don't usually carry). I do have samples of the books though and they can certainly order them online or through the office. I do have the handouts and overheads which is good. Plus i think i know the shows. After all, except for 3 new poems i did these same shows hundreds of times during the 98-99 school year. John who will be going with me seems up to speed on them, so we should be fine. I just have to remember that he's not ciro and i do need to communicate with him more directly since this is a new format for him.

Other than that, i'm going to try to get the lawn mowed this morning before i pack. Yesterday i finally managed to do laundry and vacuum (much needed), and sometime in the coming weeks i suppose i'll finally sort through the backlog of unessential mail and magazines that have accumlated over the last year to clear out some of the paper clutter around me. Yes, i think a big tossing of paper spree is in order! But that will have to wait for next week.~w