I Make My Way Imperfectly

A walk through "Four Walls, Four Songs"

I just realized I had this document of Four Songs, Four Walls that I could share with you rather than keep under a bucket in the dark. Thank you very much to Adam Alphin and all my friends at the Cameron Art Museum for making this taping happen. The lyrics to the closing of the piece are below; Jean likes them, it’s my first dance with a loop pedal, and making a song in collaboration with space and a visual landscape opens a very different kind of writing.

Jean has heard me write and rehearse this piece over and over, and whenever she hears me sing “I make my way imperfectly, I don’t leave anybody behind,” she starts singing along. This morning, she sang it while brushing her teeth, putting on her socks, and in the backseat on the way to school. It nearly makes me cry to think that the ethos of the lyrics might make a little imprint on her heart — that she might gracefully embrace her own imperfections and center kindness for others.

Of course, when I wrote this song, I wasn’t thinking about being a mom, I was trying to very humbly describe democracy — the imperfect pursuit of trying to leave no one behind.

I’m just back from a trip overseas for both work and pleasure, and today is the first day of not waking at 4 in the morning with jet lag. I thought to sing you Iris Dement’s I Got No Time To Cry or Anne Murray’s Sure Could Use A Little Good News, but hearing Jean sing along with me put me on this for now.

May light get into everything.

Love, tift

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PS If you like this, we’ve added a second performance on February 15.

“Yes, but would I want to be in a band with that person” is a phrase with which I’ve measured out a lot of my life. Four Walls, Four Songs was born from sitting on the floor of Thomas Sayre’s studio thinking about how to join a band with his work and vision, and the joyful, kind, and extremely specific conversations that Thomas and I have sitting on the floor of his studio discovering our very dear friendship. I really love being in a band with Thomas and all the great friends at Cameron Art Museum who have made this collaboration so meaningful. There are a few tickets left to the show’s closing performance on February 15. This first iteration has grown, and Thomas and I will talk about just that, with Georgann Eubanks to follow.

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FLAG.

I make my way imperfectly. I don’t leave anybody behind.

The light gets into everything.

A choice to make among ourselves,

Our dreams making a mark somewhere,

The mark keeping us all human,

The apple set us in motion,

A sacred something now somewhere,

May light get into everything.

May light get into everything.

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