Please Enjoy the following tracks! Stream, download, keep! My birthday gift to you <3 (and let me know which one you like best!)
Before I gleefully share with you my birthday surprise announcement, scootch in and let me set the stage with a little folk tale about 3 siblings: The Head, The Heart and the one who finds herself in that place where they intersect…
I choose this - I press continue. Mystery, pounce me! Crossroads haunt me.
That’s the chorus from my song “Continue”, written in the Brooklyn apartment of an old flame from Michigan I was visiting because I needed a place to crash while in the city on a whim; I had just met a wild-eyed woman in Woodstock whose name was Journey Blue Heaven. She invited me to come sing at what I thought was her gig in NYC the following night.
Upon arrival, I realized I was a tag-along who the host obligingly squirted into the show through his gritted teeth. That’s the second time within a week that I was an invited but unwelcome surprise, and was quickly catching on to how one man’s “go with the flow” is another man’s “look what the cat dragged in.” But hey, it was 2008, the Year of the Whim and the Witch…the full tale for another time.
‘MERICA’S MIDDLE
I grew up in the 1980’s “Midwest” - America’s middle child, popped out between the smart Older Brother of the East and the free-spirited Younger Sister of the West. I didn’t really think about either one that much until…
In my high school English and creative writing classes, we learned about people like Henry David Thoreau and Emily Dickinson, and other thinkers, activists, and writers that all seemed to have one thing in common: the East.
In my American History class we learned about explorers, Native American tribes, rugged wilderness - environments I’d never considered before: mountains, deserts, wild rivers, which likewise all had one thing in common: the West.
The East, Older Brother, captured my mind, and the West, Younger Sister, captured my heart.
Older Brother was more refined, more transfixed. Thoreau hunkered down in a tiny home in the woods, Dickinson was a recluse; their minds and lives, narrow - but deep, strategic, precise.
Younger Sister was the opposite - she wasn’t filled with famous names, historical landmarks, and cemeteries with exquisitely carved marble monuments; her vast vistas - too ineffable for poets, her openness - too expansive for woodland hermits; her gravesites - rock piles and wooden crosses.
In the East, you hide. In the West, you get lost.
(SHOULD I GO) EAST OR WEST?
I resonate with both archetypes. I’ve lived in both worlds.
in 1999, the summer I graduated high school, my parents took us on a trip West. We took the train, and I was utterly mesmerized and stunned by the beauty and ruggedness of Younger Sister. I wanted to be like her: dust on my boots and feathers in my hair.
We attended a tourist event where guides take a group off the beaten path and act like pioneers. At one point, the camp is ambushed by an Indian tribe. The guides tell a true story about a young white girl who was taken and raised by the tribe. She kept a diary which served as a great historical account of the peoples and events of that era. Part of the show was for a young girl from the audience to play that role. Of course I volunteered, was grabbed onto a horse, and whisked away by a strong buck-skinned man. The audience laughed and the guides joked with me that I was ruining the show when I refused to protest this happening. I wanted to gallop away with that buck-skin forever…
I distinctly remember hiking a trail in the Tetons that lead to an overlook that took my breath away and I wrote out the lyrics to “How Great Thou Art” in my journal…a journal which also contains the lyrics to my first official song I composed on a guitar, which my dad gave me as a graduation gift:
SIBLING RIVALRY
Big Brother is chased out by cold winds;
Little Sister is drawn toward flickering fires.
1999 also led me East for the first time, when I went to college outside of Philadelphia. The campus was quaint, with old stone buildings and bridges over creeks, with iron vintage lamp posts. The city was hip, loud, fast, stimulating…I was fascinated by Older Brother - with his book smarts and his street smarts, tweed blazer by day and leather jacket by night. What he learned about as a coed was profound, and he sang about it all in the cafes.
I found out I was good at this. Words, concepts, music, school - it all came to me naturally, like Older Brother, whom I tried to live with once, to fully realíze these abilities...
I was singing at a bar in Michigan when a flatterer with a fat tongue convinced me I was too talented for a joint like that and belonged among the name-makers. He let me stay with him in New York City where he was going to show me the ropes by which I could swing into status. But up from the chasm I had to cross to obtain it, a coldness arose - so bitter it frosted my heart. I looked down into that pit and saw nothing but rats, dog shit, and the dreams of many that had frozen, slipped off the rope, and smashed into shards below. I loved Older Brother, but I didn’t know how he could live like this.
I visited Younger Sister once, too...I crashed at her place for a college semester in the mountains above Ashland, Oregon. I was able to combine the head and the heart there, as we both backpacked and lived in rustic cabins, and wrote essays and discussed deep topics. But my mind convinced me that such divine union wasn’t realistic - after all, I was only able to have this experience because Older Brother paid for it; I was getting school credit for being there.
So I accepted the fact that Older Brother, being the eldest, was probably the wisest and I should just listen to him and choose it. I hustled in his world for 15 years, learning and jiving…but anemic.
Then one day, Crazy Uncle showed up. He said he was jail-breaking me and taking me to stay with Younger Sister. I protested - I did not find this practical or necessary, plus - he’s crazy.
“Get in the car!” He honked impatiently. (This is how New Yorkers talk to each other.)
“No - you’re creepy.” I said to him. (This is also how New Yorkers talk to each other.)
But the Lord said, “Don’t worry about him. Get in the car - you need meat!” (He said this because Older Brother was a soy boy and I’d not had a hearty meal in quite a while.)
I knew He was right, so I got in the car. I wasn’t sure exactly how I’d be able to get by in Younger Sister’s world, but she had good sushi, so I’d give it a try.
JEHOVAH JIREH
Last month marked my 4 year anniversary of moving to the West, and becoming Canadian. I think I adjusted as well as any skilled chameleon can. But being Middle Sibling - Crossroads Child - there’s a part of me that is perpetually neither here nor there - a coping mechanism of creating an escape hatch in case things get too boring, or difficult.
Something that has proven difficult about living with Younger Sister is the cost of rent. I was financially floundering. Another thing I’ve been struggling with is truly fitting into a community. I was sinking into reclusiveness. So I was planning to leave, to swim out of the deep end...
Then came a pandemic, one that locked up borders and created parameters, and I no longer had that escape hatch as an option. I had to commit to this place. But I didn't want to just be forced here by circumstance; I had to choose this - I had to deliberately press continue, here. It was only then that I realized how unadjusted I’ve been all this time. I was conforming, but I wasn’t settling in. So with an exhale, I stayed, like Emily Dickinson in her room. And that’s when things finally began opening up, ironically due to a global shutting down.
GIFT: Joan the Ark. God saw my needs to remain afloat on this island, and sent a boat. Inspired by #vanlife dwellers, and truly taking on the tiny home lifestyle of Thoreau, I procured a 1987 Ford Vanguard 30ft RV. The cost of the RV is less than 1 year’s rent, and instead of paying it over and over each year, I now own something outright. It needs work, but it’s a guaranteed roof over my head. It was a massive leap of faith, for I know nothing about vehicles, didn’t have a place to park it yet, and I will have to drastically minimize my life. But I knew if God was keeping me here, and He provided an ark, He would also provide a dock.
Joan’s interior atm; even comes with bohemian hippie man for aesthetics.
GIFT: the community. I have been leading worship at Mosaic Church in Victoria since this spring, and I couldn't feel more connected, appreciated, and supported; we have all become true friends, and indeed - family. They have been behind my “Continue” every step of the way, including providing a place for me to park, and assistance with the renovation work it needs. (Shout out to Eric, Dan, Sean, Tara, John, Heather, Cameron, Brian and Elise!)
The Lord even provided a job for me from within the community, to pay for the renovations. Amazingly, it’s a construction job, giving me a chance to learn the skills for the renovation, and having access to tools.
So that’s my birthday surprise announcement: a home on wheels, a community that cares, freedom within the boundaries of choice - all given by Jehovah Jirah, my provider, who gave me life in the first place, 41 years ago, whom He has not overlooked, even as the Middle One from Michigan. Honestly, it all makes sense.
MYSTERY, POUNCE ME!
There is SO much more to come - so please stay tuned; The Story is just now beginning! I plan to use my RV as a unique tool for evangelism and music by creating Vanlife videos, incorporating those subjects. By utilizing Joan the Ark, I see ways in which I can blend both the Head and the Heart.
In Joan, I am neither chased out by the cold, nor coerced by the heat; I am just where I am supposed to be, content, deliberate. I am neither hiding, nor lost...I am protected, and seen, by His eye, on this little silly sparrow. I know God is using me here, and in ways that are not yet revealed, but I feel it about to come upon me...I am ready, open, and available for the Spirit moving over the surface of these deeps...
Way to go, silly sparrow! That's awesome, Liz!!