This past weekend I had the chance to get out of the concrete jungle in favor of a little breathing space. NYC-dwellers, take note: a short trip on the Metro North is enough to transport you to a place so still and quiet that even taking that breath risks breaking the silence. But I took it anyway, lots of them, and the silence held up just fine.

It is just becoming spring, the ice is still present — and how dramatically present it is, farther north in the Hudson Valley! Great chunks of it, piled up in jagged drifts on the riverbanks. (“Glaciers,” my traveling partner called them.) But the ice is cracking underfoot, the paths in the woods are muddy, the deep freeze is behind us as the sun stays around a little longer every day.

In the past spring has seemed absolutely improbable to me. The fact that light returns, buds grow again, grass and flowers peek out after so much cold and darkness… How can you possibly be sure? I ask the trees. How can you stand there so silently and know that the light and the warmth will return? And yet they do, and it does, without fail.

In our Type-A lives full of instant gratification, of striving to be and do the next great thing, of making it work and making it happen and making it big… it is good to take time, and notice the black river flowing all the time underneath the ice. To be reminded that the earth is turning and things are moving and changing within us, even when we don’t notice and can’t tell.

I remember a similar spring thaw day two years ago at this time, when I wrote in my journal:

(Not) coincidentally today is a thaw. I am having a walk home through the melty park, and it is again as though I too am melting, I see and know each drop of ice becoming water and flowing, dripping bit by bit into whatever it will be next. Evaporation? Perhaps, but we know that matter is neither created nor destroyed, simply mutating, affecting and reacting, becoming.
And waiting.
The trees are not ready yet, the buds are still within the branches. It’s only February 1st, after all. But — it is a start.
The (homeless) man smiles, calls me goddess, likes my hair and thanks me for the blessings.
The little ones are screaming down the hill on tiny bikes
We are all thawing
bit by bit
by bit.

I love the thaw, and the quiet, and the taking time. After the flurry of New Years resolutions and goal-setting, before the light and the Coronas and the playtime energy of summer, comes the balance of the equinox and the step-by-step unfolding of spring. Instead of planning out our accomplishments or thinking up where we’d like to be next and what we’ll get done this year, we can reflect and notice what is making its way to the surface of our lives without our help.

What is thawing out in you?

This morning I did my yoga and proceeded into the kitchen, as usual, to have breakfast, listen to NPR news (yoga… NPR… apparently I’m a walking stereotype), and get ready for the day. Last week’s Time Out magazine was sitting on the counter, opened to the Theater page and David Cote’s review of Spider-Man Turn Off the Dark. As I’ve written before, I’ve been watching the whole thing go down with a strange fascination, and I’d left the review out last night with plans to read it over today’s coffee.

But I just couldn’t.

Everyone is entitled to their opinion, and here you are reading mine, but I just couldn’t spend this morning reading more of people dissecting and criticizing other people’s artistic expression. (I am reminded of this version of the lightbulb joke: Q. How many actors does it take to change a lightbulb? A. Five — one to do it, and four to watch and say how they could have done it better. Pick any number you want for A.)

Today, I’d rather focus on art like this:
or this:

(check out street art utopia for more.)

No, I still haven’t seen it. Yes, I want to, and yes, it’s entirely possible that after I do I might think it’s crap too. But I will still be glad it was put up. Do I think $65 million is necessary to produce good theater or art? Obviously not. But I’m glad to live in a world (and a country) where someone with an imagination and a vision as big as Julie Taymor’s is can get the resources she needs to try what she wants to try, employ a whole bunch of artists in the process, and see what happens.

Well, my blogging absence has at least been productive: fly woman genius has been released and I threw a big party to celebrate! If you missed it, don’t worry. Videos are making their way here, and the album is still available to buy and stream. You can even buy one for a friend! /end shameless sales pitch

Anyway, after the concert last week I was eating bonbons in bed, catching up on my Words with Friends games, and I got an email from a friend and supporter who had attended the night before. It was full of kind remarks, but responded specifically to Vince Peterson’s song “Everyday Thing,” a musical gift to me about my ongoing discovery of true, deeply seated autonomy over the past year. [If you haven't heard it, you may want to enlighten yourself, using the Tunecore widget at the right side of the screen, before reading further.]

The email contained a piece of this friend’s forthcoming book (from which I’ve been given permission to quote, on condition of anonymity as it is as yet unpublished) about how we have to think for ourselves, how we don’t necessarily have a moral duty to obey the law, or follow precedent, or the Supreme Court’s decisions. I’ll confess: I added “necessarily” to that last sentence just now. Holy crap, I thought, licking chocolate from my non-smartphone-using fingers. Was I singing about anarchy last night?

You decide:

Self-respect and self-governance require we follow what we think is right, rather than what someone else thinks (which is what the law is, in final analysis). We may never have to exercise this residual right of self-government; we may live in an enlightened nation, or resolve conflicts in ways consistent with law, or deem systemic reasons for obedience sufficient, or live away from society enough that the demands of law are infrequently felt. But knowing we will do what we must to preserve what we believe to be right allows self-respect and self-governance. (Would you not [do you not?] protect what is dearest to you, your child or spouse or, perhaps, work of art or piece of land, or, maybe, your mind, or physical integrity, against the felt oppression of even a purportedly [or mostly?] just regime?)

What do you think? Would you not? Do you not?

I love this for two reasons. On the topical level, I appreciate the discussion because I see both of these works (my song, and this friend’s writing) as explorations of a great shift in consciousness toward individualism and away from oppressive control of others. There are more books than ever before about the power of now and the power of positive thinking, more people meditating and using the power of the mind to develop their own self-respect and self-governance (as my friend puts it), in healthy ways. I do believe at heart that if everyone were connected to their own true sense of Self-respect, we wouldn’t need law. Widespread Self-government would result not in anarchy but in a great and beautiful abundance and interdependence. I can do much better by you if I have done well by myself first. I don’t believe we are yet to that point, as this morning’s news reminded me. But we can each do our part for our own Selves. For me this shift is a very powerful way to, as Gandhi said, be the change we wish to see in the world.

Taking a step back, however — away from the topic of the discussion and looking at the email itself objectively — I found it reassuring that such a personal song, written for me, at this time, by a dear friend, can and does resonate in the room not because the listener may know me but because of its universality. That getting up to sing “this time is for ME, it’s not for anyone else” doesn’t make the audience head for the doors but perhaps makes them think of their own selfish boundaries. That telling my story is actually telling our story.

Of course, this shouldn’t have been that surprising to me. In the theater, it is usually only when the story gets to an irrefutable specificity that it can truly resonate with the audience. “I love you” is nice, and most of us have uttered those three little words at some point in our lives, but “The way you wear your hat, the way you sing off-key” tells us volumes more about the specific relationship between the singer and the object of her affection. [For more about my love affair with the specificity of lyrics, read on here.]

So while it seems like a great paradox to get up and sing about a “real, true, personal, everyday thing” and be met with constitutional law… perhaps it’s just the way it should be. The theater is full of universal ideas that ring true throughout our society in myriad manifestations. And weren’t the founders of this “great experiment” doing their best to preserve the individual’s life, liberty, and pursuit of happiness… which is pretty much what Vince is writing about?