walking with the poor

we've been having these structured talks these past few weeks at community group per red mtn's request. normally our motley crew gathers in one house or another, imbibes, and tries their damnedest to get in the best "that's what she said" joke. but not these past few weeks. the past few weeks its been: how do we know the poor, love the poor, become the poor?

i have a lot of thoughts about this and i'm not sure where to start, but i'll try and be concise.

i've said this before, but clint really does have this gift of being able to get to the heart of an issue with unmatched precision. as we were having the discussion tonight, i think he said it well: there's freedom to have an existential crisis about being a middle class white person when it comes to helping the poor, but there's also freedom to fucking help the poor. for those of us who believe, say what you want, but jesus talks about helping the poor more than anything else. there's no getting around itnow i don't think it looks like (as josh had said earlier) "the travelling whitey show" but it's also not NOT doing anything at all.

he really is so beautiful. sigh.

back to liz world though. so in between all this is talk about doing stuff with kids, teaching them to cook, putting together a music festival, volunteering at certain events... i'm honestly just getting more and more uncomfortable the longer i sit there and apparently my face was showing my distress. hunter looks over at me and says, "well what do you think liz?"

all eyes on me, and in true liz fashion, i just let it rip.

i am really not interested in going somewhere and doing volunteer work with my community group once, twice, however many times a month. i work an 8-5 job. factor in 30 mins there and back and i'm spending 10 hours 5 days a week doing work or in my car getting to work. i come home and tuesday nights and all day saturday are devoted to doing hair. wednesday night i have community group. clint plays, on average twice a week which takes him away from the house until sometimes 4 in the morning. i spend most of my life working to scrape the minutes together that i actually get to do what i really want to do: just fucking hang out with my husband.

and i don't like kids either. never have. not interested in spending my free time with them. if i did, i would have some of my own.

and the thing is: i don't have to go very far to find people who are struggling. my dad got laid off of his job right after we got married and is still struggling to this day to foot a mortgage he took on when he made twice as much money because NO ONE WILL BUY THEIR HOUSE. my mom busts her ass and makes almost half what i make and saturday, i'm going to help them work a garage sale where they're getting rid of half the contents in their house to try and cut their losses and make ends meet. another friend of mine has just recently been able to rejoin the work force after almost a year off from a horrific motorcycle accident. he's trying, really trying, but he doesn't have insurance and he needs medicine for some seriously intense (almost crippling) social anxiety he lives with on a daily basis. my girlfriend who has two kids and is in school full time trying to get her degree is trying desperately to get healthy and take care of her body is having to wait for her stimulus check to get some sneakers so she can run without her knee killing her. THOSE are the things that are on my radar. those are the things i care about.

maybe one day it'll be really important to me to go out and find people that need my help/time/ears/support, but for right now, they're all around me and i feel their need with everything i got. i don't know if its wrong or right, but i feel free at this point to not really give a fuck about it either way.

Thoughts Rattling Round This Head

It's been another good day here in Liz Land. Abby and Josh just left after spending the whole afternoon here, Abby getting her hair done and Josh playing musical chairs between lounging on my salon sofa and my front porch swing. I'm not sure what it is but something about seeing a good friend, sprawled out on my sofa with a book and a beer just relaxing like they're in their own house makes me so happy. As I put foil after foil in Abby's hair, Josh would read aloud to us from my Avondale History coffee table book. Who knew that Avondale had such a rich and intriguing history? And whoever did the forward did a lovely job. Thanks again to my community group for a great gift :)

Like I have written, I've been reading Atlas Shrugged lately. Mostly at night right before I go to bed and usually not too many pages at a time. I was reading two nights ago and got really hung up on this quote:

"People don't want to think. And the deeper they get into trouble, the less they want to think. But by some sort of instinct, they feel that they ought to and it makes them feel guilty. So they'll bless and follow anyone who gives them a justification for not thinking. Anyone who makes a virtue - a highly intellectual virtue - out of what they know to be their sin, their weakness and their guilt."

I've started working out again. Feels good. I'll always be keen on the gym. Really feeds my introverted perfectionist quirk. Plus I get an uninterrupted dose of music for at least an hour which is a great perk. I've been on a Tool kick lately. Mostly 10,000 days which is their latest album, although I threw Aenima in there the other day. If you don't know much about Tool, the lead singer, Maynard James Keenan is also the front man for A Perfect Circle. One of APC's most widely known song is called Judith which he wrote for his mother Judith Marie, a devoutly religious woman who suffered a brain aneurysm and was left wheelchair-bound when he was 11.

You're such an inspiration
for the ways that I will
never ever choose to be
Oh so many ways
for me to show you
how you savior has abandoned you.

Fuck your God, your Lord, your Christ
He did this, took all you had and
Left you this way, still you pray, never stray, never
Taste of the fruit, never thought to question "why?"

It's not like you killed someone
It's not like you drove a hateful spear into his side
Praise the one who left you broken down and paralyzed
He did it all for you...


After 27 years (or about 10,000 days) his mother died which he writes about in both the title track 10,000 days and Wings for Marie. I have found these last few workouts I keep listening to these lyrics about her death and getting chills all over,


High is the way but our eyes are upon the ground
You are the light and the way that they will only read about
I only pray, heaven knows when to lift you out
Ten thousand days in the fire is long enough
You're going home

You're the only one who can hold your head up high
Shake your fist at the gates saying:
I've come home now
Fetch me the spirit
The son, and the father
Tell them their pillar of faith has ascended
It's time now, my time now
Give me my, give me my wings


Say what you may, but I really think this is so beautiful. And so.fucking.intense. I mean, who emotes like that? Damn.

I heard one of the saddest things last week. And no, it wasn't one of my hair clients telling me about the poor, sexually abused kids she counsels on a daily basis (although listening to that really brings out the advocate for the death penalty in me). It was a girl, a woman (God I don't know why it feels so weird to call my peers women) who recently had a baby. She had gone into the hospital with fairly mild contractions, but within an hour her contractions had intensified to an unbearable pain (for those of you who can comprehend: she dilated 7 centimeters in an hour). And then she said, "I was praying harder than I ever had before between the contractions, but as soon as they hit I was cursing God and I felt so bad because I knew he wouldn't hear me because I was cursing him."

This is going to sound really pretentious, but I am so relieved I don't think about God like that anymore. That however unsure I may be about things involving faith, that I have some surety that the road to redemption is not paved by my good works. That I can just be honest with myself and with God about how shitty I am on a pretty regular basis, even when I'm not enduring insufferable amounts of pain and spewing venom out of my mouth like its only my feelings that matter. That God is totally able to see through all my bullshit "good" intentions enough for us to kind of say to each other, "Yeah, if you really believe anything about sovereignty, this whole song and dance is pretty ridiculous. Just stop now. While you're not ahead."

And the last but not least random thought from this crazy, fucked up mind: I'm so tired of hearing people I love apologize to me for things that NO ONE should ever apologize for, while waiting on the world's biggest asshole decide it's more worth it to say he's sorry than not have a relationship with me. So many people so dear so me are so tender hearted, so wonderfully feeling and compassionate that they weep at the the seemingly smallest things. I think it's so beautiful to feel like that, and yet they feel like they have to apologize for feeling so much. I don't want anyone to ever apologize to me for being heavy. Those are the moments that matter, when all the facades have come down, when the true fears and sorrows and discontents are felt and I wouldn't trade them for the world. I just hate it that sometimes being a woman in this world means apologizing for being anything less than a stone cold bitch. If I prayed, and sometimes I think the longings deep in my heart are prayers, it would be that God would continually, every day, would not only break my heart of stone but show me how to create safety for those around me to be broken.

Good Wine and Dark Chocolate

Right now I'm in my bed writing on my laptop listening to Brian T. Murphy bang out some lovely tunes on our upright Winter piano which he actually gave us last year. Coincidentally the mere sight of BTM wheeling in the piano sent our then dog, Allie, into a state of panic causing her to poop right in the middle of our bed. Not exactly awesome, but then Allie was special. Precisely why she went night-night and we acquired the awesome, the fabulous: Wilco Dog.

I digress.

It's been a really fun night. Paul Scodova, who mixes the Red Mtn records, drove in from Nashville to do some recording tonight and tomorrow night. I fixed some spaghetti and BTM brought some tasty wine and we had a great time being loud and silly as hell talking about everything from the Marilyn Monroe sex tape, Alabama peaches, to the effect of illegal immigrants on the American Health Care system. Two of the most amicable drunks I know: Clint Wells and Brian T. Murphy. They kept me laughing the whole night. Love it.

Who is John Galt?

I've been reading Atlas Shrugged lately. Beautiful book, punctuated by Rand's philosophy on objectivism, rational egoism, and the moral repugnance of altruism.



She is one of the most talented writers I've read, one of my favorites and yet reading her books brings with it an ache to which there is no remedy.




Just a sad, angry ache fading out into seemingly irreparable nothingness.

April Showers Bring May Flowers

I have spent almost every evening and every Saturday and Sunday in the front yard for the past month. It has been so therapeutic for me... to put on a pair of dirty old jeans, sneakers, and pull my hair back out of my face and work - to push my muscles to the limit with a mattock, a shovel, and a stack of paver stones. It's usually such an intensely introverted thing for me, but almost every day I've been out I've had the company of my next door neighbors Kristin and Joshua, and their two kids. We've taken trips to Home Depot together, traded azaleas, given advice, and enjoyed some cold beers together. It's been wonderful to feel so connected while doing something I love so much. Even Clint has been out helping me lay stones and spread out mulch.

Last weekend I got to do something wonderful: I played plant consultant for Josh and Abby! We went to the Birmingham Botanical Gardens plant sale and where they picked out a camelia and crape myrtle, and then to home depot where I advised them to buy some blue rug juniper, japanese holly, and helleri holly. God I swear if I ever had a third career it would be in landscaping. Something about it gives me such a feeling of accomplishment and joy.

If we ever get our camera back I'll post some pics, but until then, feel free to stop by and have a beer and check out the progress. I'll most likely be outside.