Just a closer walk with thee

I have worked on plays with Bart (director), Caitlin (costumes), Peter (sound), Chris (sets & lights), and Kristin (actress, Bart's wife) for almost five years. I'm not part of the creative team, but yet I have grown to have a place. Sometimes I help. Sometimes I just write in my notebook. My therapist would say, our immune systems have accepted each other.

Sitting in the green room with Kristin, discussing Prada shoes and 1901 kitchen stoves, we yak while one of the child actors belly-leaps like a fish around the floor, showing us how to break-dance. "I can do it BACKWARDS!" he announces cheerfully, vanishing behind the sofa to end triumphantly with one black-sneakered foot waving in the air. Sometimes plays don't seem so important.

I want to sing hymns. We had some hymn-humming during the read-through today, which, indeed, restoreth my soul. I am craving hours of four-part harmony. Just a closer walk with thee. When Elvis was stressed... or relaxed... or happy... he'd go off to the piano and sing spirituals. It was like the musician's musician's jam, just the studio guys, singing to god because they liked singing to god.

That's me. Bless god from whom all blessings flow. Holy holy holy. Swing low sweet chariot. Love lifted me. Shall we gather at the river.

Sometimes in therapy when it gets hard, or I'm stuck or unhappy, my spirit has nowhere to go but into song. I'll start singing, or ask for a song and then make up harmony. My therapist is a musician, he's always happy to sing. That's the feeling I have right now -- I don't want to type back and forth with you, I want to stand in the same room and sing. Sing anything. You sing and I'll improvise a harmony. And then let's have a midnight snack and sit around the fire and sing some more.

O brother let's go down, down to the river to pray...