Is Satisfactory Enough?
This morning my singing partner and I did a scary thing. We took a tough song, with cutting and horrifying lyrics, added a dissonant and haunting harmony and performed it a cappella for our congregation, twice. We had a total of 5 songs to perform, 2 others that were new for us and new to to them, but only the one had me nervous. I knew we had really pushed some boundaries on what was comfortable for people to hear, certainly on what was easy for us to learn and perform, and on what we would do with the information of executing it poorly or being poorly received.
The song fell in the middle of the service. She was shaking before that song. I started shaking after and shook so hard that my hold torso was trembling a bit. All that fear and all that adrenaline sorting itself out after nailing that song, which was still impossibly difficult to perform and to hear. We sang Strange Fruit, made famous by Billie Holliday. While a musical masterpiece, it is not pleasing to listen to in the way that most music is. The song lyrics are a metaphorical description of a lynching, written by a white Jewish man from the Bronx, after seeing a photograph in the newspaper. My partner and I decided to sing the song facing one another to maintain our concentration and keep our emotions at bay. It was haunting. It was powerful. It was profound in exactly the way that we hoped. And we shook with the effort of getting past the fear and doubt and concern that we brought to the microphone with us.
Let me be clear, we didn’t have to sing that song. We chose it, really against our better judgment in many ways. We knew it was risky. We could easily have found something else, either that we already knew or that would have served and been easy to learn. We could have satisficed. Do you know this word? I LOVE it. Satisficing is “accepting an available option as satisfactory.” Satsificing is doing what you know so it will be okay – and believe me there is a time for satisficing. My husband is preparing to leave town for two weeks, and while I single-handedly wrangle our domestic zoo, I imagine there will be plenty of satificing. Continue reading → Is Satisfactory Enough?
There’s a lot of raw emotion out there these days, at least in the United States. Social media is full of accusations, outrage, opinion, art, strident cries for justice and humanity and pleas for civility and peace. I find it difficult to wade through the level of emotion so readily available even as I find myself feeling raw and edgy lately. I tear up more easily (in anger, fear, and out of waves of love and in awe of connection). I feel my outrage surface more frequently. I feel the walls that have been holding me back, shrinking me to an acceptable attitude, crumbling one rock at a time.
What do I do? I usually stuff something in. I eat something I didn’t want to share with the children but am not actually hungry for (yeah, I do, don’t judge). I drink something I didn’t want to drink earlier for fear of falling asleep before the house got quiet. I watch something incredibly stupid on TV. I get the quiet I’ve been seeking for some measure of the day, and then I do everything I can to avoid myself in it. I numb myself. I block out my own feelings, the feelings of others, my fears, and my loneliness. A little chocolate, a little wine, a little reality TV and there, all better. Number. Less in touch. Less sharp. Less connected. Less honest. Less me. 
I love you.
What feelings and thoughts would you have room for if you set aside all the judgments?