Blessed Delay

A travel delay becomes sweet opportunity, when you are a writer. We sit on a plane in the Charlotte Airport, all flights delayed into LaGuardia New York. Ratna Sturz, who is traveling with us, calls her family in New York to coordinate schedules and to check in about the reading at the Bowery Poetry Club tomorrow. Jean naps, then gets up to stretch in the aisle. We’ve already been sitting on the runway for over an hour.

Oh my. How to not be delighted by this unexpected gift? I had wondered how to proceed, when I was already so overfull. I wanted to stop everything, and say Wait!, sit still, stop time, let me think! This morning, Asheville, tonight New York. Tomorrow, reading at the Bowery Poetry Club. Everything moving.

Now this. We’re sitting still, we’re still; it’s glorious. Though I feel a bit guilty, as if my great wish for some unlikely pause had the power to delay the whole plane. Of course not; but I am clear that the power of intention is in fact the equivalent of a laser beam. Nothing could have proved that more deeply than last night in Asheville.

A glorious day. We ended it all at midnight at a pub called The Bier Garden, sampling local ales, eating together ravenously, laughing, toasting everyone involved, who we all agreed, were brilliant. There were eight of us around the table: Terese and Michelle, along with Lynn, a friend of theirs, the amazing artist Robin Rector Krupp, the wonderful Laurel from the Jubilee Community Center, Jean and I, and Barbara, a friend of Judy Phillips who Jean met by serendipity just before reading, who lived in Santa Cruz for years before moving to Asheville.

The energy of the thrilling crowd carried us through to that moment. It carried us through dismantling a three-artist art show with 40-50 pieces—Michelle’s ceramics and photographs; Robin’s paintings, drawings and children’s books; Terese’s nature photographs. It carried us through putting Jubilee Community Center back in order; relinquishing a very happy gathering of 130 people; signing books; hearing stories; talking to the wonderful women and men of Asheville.

One of my favorite things was inquiring how people got there. Every answer was slightly different. Some were connected to Jubilee!, some to the wonderful Debbie Nordeen and Womansong, the Asheville women’s choir; some to Holy Ground, where the art show hangs all month; some from the writer and writer teacher Peggy Tabor Millin’s amazing classes and community; some from Sunday’s newspaper article in the Asheville Citizen-Times. Some, like our new friend Barbara, came because Judy Phillips had called her up and suggested it. But there was something similar about all of these answers: the interlocking webs of love, sistering and connections that hold all of humanity.

Yes. It was an evening of ascent, saying Yes to community, to the webs of connections that make us who we are. Yes to the possibility of finding each our own true connection to the spirit that is not forced or dictated by others. Yes–to women’s voices, to women’s poetry, to the tears in Peggy Tabor Millin’s eyes as she read her story of tending the death of a beloved friend, which begins “We birthed her…” Yes to holding sisters–as Ratna invited her wonderful sister Lisa to read her poem “White Lotus of Peace", with a particular verve that moved us all. Yes to the lovely poet Kimberly Childs, who has a condition which affects her speech, asking her friend Karen to read her poems on her behalf. It was as if Karen was channeling the deep poet with Kimberly, who said she has never heard her own work read in all its profundity and depth. It was one of the more affecting moments of a stunning evening.

How lush, too, to finally meet the artist Robin Rector Krupp... a dynamic being of light and pleasure. Robin had received the Call for Work early in the Sisters Singing process, and sent us a wonderful package of art to choose from. Jane Nyberg and I had been delighted, spreading it all out before us, and in the end we included three of Robin's lovely paintings. How sweet it was to embrace her, after hearing her name for so long, to share history and stories, and to hear her read a poem that night about art as her deepest, most intimate friend. Yes. A woman devoted to her soul's creativity for many decades, living a life in entire connection with her muse. Yes.

And gracing it all there music upon music—Womansong offering a few of their wonderful favorites as well as songs from Sisters Singing–“Rain Fall Down” by Bayla Greenspoon and “Let It In, Let It Go” by Marie Summerwood. One hundred and thirty people singing together in harmony and rounds; filling the room, Marie’s chant carrying us all. And then, after more poetry, ending the night with “Somewhere Over the Rainbow”, and now I was crying, I couldn’t sing along, it was too much, that wish to touch spirit... above the clouds, in the sky.

And then there was Jean giving us the last poem “We Must Insist”, and earlier in the evening, Andrea van de Loo, visiting from Santa Cruz, offering her spirit poetry as if a direct transmission from the divine.

You don’t know. You put forth great effort, you plan and organize and the emails are endless, and you fly to Asheville and you are thrilled to see your friends. You spend the day setting up, hoping it will have mattered, that the word traveled, that there is something in Asheville waiting.

Then they come and the evening is stunning. People take home many books, and Womansong CD's, and gorgeous art; happiness flies through the air like stardust. Everyone floats out, in the thrall of having been well-sistered. Showered in poetry and music and art: what could be better? We couldn’t sleep, we walked the streets of Asheville at 10 pm, finding a pub where we could eat and drink and tell the stories and laugh. There were pitchers of ale and telling how we all got to be there, in Asheville—our own creation stories that remind us who we are.

The stewardess announces another delay. I’m losing power and will have to give up my little writing ritual soon. Around me people are standing and talking to each other like we’re at a party or a bar. The young men in front of us hear Ratna making arrangements for the poetry reading tomorrow and ask all about it. One of them is about to perform in a new Eve Ensler play, and shows us his script. Jean brings out her poem “Just Brushing the Lips Of”, which she will read tomorrow. Everyone’s heard of the Bowery Poetry Club, and wishes us well.

We’ve got another hour on the runway. I’ll walk the aisles, stretch, and read. I’ll think of Asheville, of North Carolina, of the hills outside Terese and Michelle’s home. I’ll think of the town, of the warehouses transformed into artists’ studios, of Twelve Bones BBQ, where we lunched yesterday–known for President Obama’s campaign visit last year. I carry this with me now. I have done this. Next, New York City. But I’ve been given this blessed delay. I sit, I breathe. I take it in. The Sisters sang. We all imbibed the song. It is possible for intention to burn across a continent, to activate the circles of caring and community in the many interlocking webs of our lives, to carry a thing through.