For those following and wishing an update, Mom's doing well right now. Or as well as she can, between randomly striking strokes. She worked up to using a walker, until another seizure last week knocked her back into a wheelchair for a while. She rolls around the home now every day, and calls with updates every night. She seems happy; knows she is loved and well-cared for.
And I live in Houston now - land of hurricanes, sources of well,-at-least-I-don't-live-there comments-for-Dallasites - Houston.
And like Nashville turned out to be more than rednecks with longnecks, carefully constructed open-mindedness and Music Row dreams, Houston holds more than Barbie dolls living in cement forts, hair jacked to Jesus, listening eagerly to Joel Osteen spewing prosperity theology.
It's stunning news, requiring time to absorb. It's taken me about 2 1/2 months.
About a week ago, my housemate asked if I wanted to attend a jazz pick-up jam session. I'm really glad I said yes.
Truth be told, I have serious issues with jazz. It wrestles me more than any other type of music and leaves me in an awkward, serene mindspace where I can only dwell with the experience. Especially bothersome? Jazz doesn't tell me a story. It's not blues, sharing burdens and anger. Anything I feel with jazz is all me, my head. It's far more intimate than music should be.
Jazz is life; unnerving, audacious, glorious. It doesn't resolve; instead opening doors into the grittier, rougher parts of the soul we rarely have the nerve to admit exist during our brighter hours.
But much like other facets of truth, jazz tends not to leave any soul the way it finds it. Mine almost always feels murkier, too-new afterwards.
Houston, far from Mom and my soul's home-nest, feels more like seeping into mire than crafting a new life. But as someone said tonight in one of those kitchen-honest conversations, just because I can't easily see life in the unfamiliar doesn't mean it's not present. It may be lounging, jazzily.
And I live in Houston now - land of hurricanes, sources of well,-at-least-I-don't-live-there comments-for-Dallasites - Houston.
And like Nashville turned out to be more than rednecks with longnecks, carefully constructed open-mindedness and Music Row dreams, Houston holds more than Barbie dolls living in cement forts, hair jacked to Jesus, listening eagerly to Joel Osteen spewing prosperity theology.
It's stunning news, requiring time to absorb. It's taken me about 2 1/2 months.
About a week ago, my housemate asked if I wanted to attend a jazz pick-up jam session. I'm really glad I said yes.
Truth be told, I have serious issues with jazz. It wrestles me more than any other type of music and leaves me in an awkward, serene mindspace where I can only dwell with the experience. Especially bothersome? Jazz doesn't tell me a story. It's not blues, sharing burdens and anger. Anything I feel with jazz is all me, my head. It's far more intimate than music should be.
Jazz is life; unnerving, audacious, glorious. It doesn't resolve; instead opening doors into the grittier, rougher parts of the soul we rarely have the nerve to admit exist during our brighter hours.
But much like other facets of truth, jazz tends not to leave any soul the way it finds it. Mine almost always feels murkier, too-new afterwards.
Houston, far from Mom and my soul's home-nest, feels more like seeping into mire than crafting a new life. But as someone said tonight in one of those kitchen-honest conversations, just because I can't easily see life in the unfamiliar doesn't mean it's not present. It may be lounging, jazzily.
