nancymthurston

May 11, 2013

A Legacy of Art

Mothers Day this year falls on the day my mother, Sue Mathys, gave birth to me fifty-nine years ago. Though Mom died when she was a year older than I am now, her presence surrounds me.

Her wooden and fiber ostriches reside in the living room. Huge cloth books lean against boxes of Big Topics at Midnight. “Houston is Green” in fabric and embroidery hangs above my couch, reminding me that Portland is also green. Her genealogy work enabled me to dive deeply into my ancestors in my writing.

I am my mother’s daughter.

I grew up not only with art hanging on the walls but also silk-screened Christmas cards drying on the dining room floor, sketches on bits of paper around the house and half-finished stitcheries folded up beside Mom’s living room chair. Now my collages, line drawings and the art of friends surround me in my writing studio. Friends like Khara Scott-Bey, whose art fills my book, and friends like Brenda Wills.

Last week in Newport, Oregon as I read an excerpt from the chapter “Forgiveness by Grace,”* Brenda listened and sketched. Her painting included the ocean at my back, the cathedral of the pines from my reading and me in the room.

How fitting that the artist was Brenda. She is an old friend from my early twenties, and she is one of the few people in my life today who knew my mother. Both of our mothers were artists.

Brenda and I honor our mothers and grandmothers and their art, in whatever form it flowed, on this day honoring all mothers.

*Big Topics at Midnight: A Texas Girl Wakes Up to Race, Class, Gender and Herself page 274

May 6, 2013

What Cannot be Found at Home

When we surround ourselves with people just like ourselves, our world shrinks. Our options narrow.

Though life felt manageable when the world was tucked into my hands, too much was left out. I wanted a more spacious home, a world that stretched around the globe and across the generations.

On that expansive journey, I stepped outside of the confines of my white-skinned neighborhood and the American Dream of climbing the traditional ladder of success. I heard stories from perspectives I’d never considered. I saw injustice and compassion that had always been present outside of my field of vision. I discovered that wealth didn’t have to be soulless, that diversity enriched my life and that abundance could take on many forms.

This is the topic I explored in my latest YouTube video, posted on my website.

How big would you like your world to be?

April 30, 2013

A Wild Ride

I looked at the photograph, put my pen to paper and wrote without stopping for ten minutes. The photograph is long gone, but the words remained tucked in an old journal:

What a contrast! A woman, dressed to the hilt in a long dress and pantaloons, hair done up in the latest fashion, shoes pointed for fashion over comfort, with her groomed little doggie in tow, sitting delicately on a wild horse.

The horse is bucking for all she’s worth trying to tear down some of the women’s pretenses. To make her hair-do fall, shoes drop off, lace tear.

But the amazing thing is that the woman is not only allowing it, she’s enjoying it!

What freedom—to take the best from both worlds. To be willing to let loose and risk letting go of the image you’ve work so hard to develop.

That freedom is beyond me now.

The dog seems concerned that his mistress is off on a wild escapade. Does he fear she’s lost her mind? Does he fear that she will desert him? There often seem to be people nipping at our heels when we want to break loose.

Am I like the little dog? Am I pulling others back from experiencing all sides of life?

Or am I like the horse, playfully bucking the system? Maybe sometimes the bucking is not so playful…

Or like the woman willing to play dress-up but also eager to let loose, even if that’s only on the inside of me now?

The ride of their lives.

What is the ride of my life?¹

Over the years, timed writings have opened amazing doors of creativity for me. Things have emerged that I’d never considered before or from perspectives that shed new light on some aspect of my life. Sometimes I write from a written prompt, such as “When the horse started bucking.” Sometimes from a photograph. When I’ve been stuck with my writing or just want to play, putting pen to paper and writing for 3 or 10 minutes without stopping has been one of the most fascinating tools I’ve used to reach intuitive knowing that is hidden somewhere deep within.

Pick up your pen and give it a whirl.

¹ From my book Big Topics at Midnight: A Texas Girl Wakes Up to Race, Class, Gender and Herself page 105-106.

Illustration by Khara Scott-Bey from Big Topics at Midnight

April 23, 2013

Please, Not Another War

“I hope we don’t go to war because of this.”

After the horror of the Boston marathon bombing, this fear of national retaliation hovered in many conversations last week.

It is hard enough to sort through the feelings about the death and injuries, but to simultaneously juggle the fear of war is too much.

It was a violent week. Boston. West, Texas with the Fertilizer Plant fire. Corinth, Mississippi with the poison tainted letters mailed to President Obama and Senator Roger Wicker. The defeat of the gun control laws. Fifty killed on the streets of Baghdad last Monday. Nuclear plans afoot in North Korea. Violent deaths in Darfur, Nigeria and Iraq.

Many people rushed in to help in all of these situations. Lives were saved even as others were lost. Miracles and gifts amid the horror.

It is hard for a person or nation to hold so much grief and shock. It is easier to turn to scapegoating or retaliation, dividing the world into “us” and “them,” “good guys” and “bad guys.” Another option is to stay with the painful feelings that tragedies stir up in us, sinking into the reality that life is never really safe.

Unfortunately, being with our raging fears and vulnerability as they move through and out of our minds and bodies is a skill that we in the West have been slow to practice.

On the other side of our fear of the inevitability of death and the possibility of terror, is the possibility of cherishing each new day and our relationships with others. In the midst of joy and woe, transformation is possible.

I pray, along with my daughter, Laura, and many others: I hope we don’t go to war because of this.

April 15, 2013

It All Depends on My Perspective

It’s easy to feel overwhelmed. This morning, the remainder of nine book-related events before the end of June set off my internal alarm system, waking me before dawn.

Sitting in the Mercy Retreat Center chapel a few hours later, my perception shifted.

How many people have the privilege of returning to places, people and organizations that have been the source of a lifetime of wake-up calls and gentle support?

I walked that trip in my head and on paper during the writing of Big Topics at Midnight. Pouring over diaries, journals and little tidbits tucked into dark corners of my memory gave me a new perspective on my life and Life in general. Now I am physically returning to the places and relationships where these moments occurred.

Yesterday I was with twenty-two others here at Mercy Center as we explored wake-up calls that have filled our bones and flowed from the Spirit. Most came because they’d heard about my event through Mercy Center—much as I was drawn to some of the events I’d attended here for the last twenty-nine years. But some were important people in my life; Pam, my first spiritual director; Bill and Peter, pastor and priest; Kate, an old friend; Ann and Paul, part of a now-ended Harvest Time circle; Holly and Bill, newer friends.

This morning I got an email from Andrea at the Presentation Prayer Center in Fargo, North Dakota where I will be doing a couple of events in October. In the late 1980s and early 1990s I traveled across town almost every week for the seven years we lived in Fargo to gather there for my covenant group’s meeting, a class or spiritual direction.

Following unexpected guidance while writing my book, I discovered the power of returning to the land where important things had happened—both ancestral and personal. I now realize that my book travels are the next step of that pilgrimage.

What had felt overwhelming is also a grace-filled gift. An “overly full calendar” holds the opportunity to be in places and with people who have been part of my formation while also meeting new acquaintances and having the transformative conversations I long for.

My heart overflows with gratitude. I feel like the luckiest person on the planet.

April 7, 2013

I am Not That Girl Anymore, Except that I Am

She loves me, she loves me not. Or, in this case, I love me, I love me not and I love you, I love you not.

Pulling petals off a flower in an attempt to answer such big questions may have been fine for me as a child, but once I became an adult I needed something more nuanced. I wanted to learn the fine art of seeing clearly with double vision—peering inside my own skin while simultaneously stepping outside of my experience and looking around.

Compassion was needed. Penetrating vision was required. Looking back. Looking inside. Looking around.

I couldn’t avoid the past, my culture’s or mine, no matter how far I tried to run form it. When I stopped, I discovered that it was not only possible to own where I’d been personally and where we’d been as culture and then go somewhere new—it was also essential.

This exploration of seeing near and seeing far away at the same time is the subject of my second YouTube posted on my website. What has been your experience with “double vision”?

April 1, 2013

Story as Wake-Up Call

Outside, the stars twinkled. Inside, the sanctuary was dark. In the back aisle near the church doors, we heard the quick striking of flint and steel and flame burst forth as the charcoal fire was lit. Incense and smoke billowed. Words I’ve heard every Easter Vigil, were spoken, “On this most holy night, in which our Lord Jesus passed over from death to life, the Church invites her members, dispersed throughout the world, to gather in vigil and prayer.” The large Pascal candle was lit, and soon the flame was shared from person to person until the whole sanctuary was aglow.

This was part of the big story, a central spiritual story of my faith tradition, held within the Episcopal liturgy. These sacred stories are shared over and over again until they work themselves into our bones.

Easter morning I slipped on the stairs and jammed my right knee, flaring up a forty-five year old injury from my short stint in a junior high school ballet class. Hobbling around on a day of resurrection seemed like a strange way to participate in the celebration, but it was the best I could muster.

Life is a weaving of stories. Mine. Yours. Sacred stories. Daily stories. From past to future, cosmic to global to intimate. From the mouths of strangers to enemies to beloved partners. Stories keep our edges supple and remind us who we are and whose we are.

I’ve been playing with technology and stories that emerged from my book, Big Topics at Midnight: A Texas Girl Wakes Up to Race, Class, Gender and Herself. Today, on Easter Monday, I am announcing the addition of my first YouTube video on the home page of my website. It is the first of five. The words are excerpted from an audio interview, with the images by book illustrator Khara Scott-Bey and a variety of photographs.

Enjoy. And continue to tell your stories. Our future depends on it.

March 26, 2013

I Couldn’t Do It

I couldn’t follow their advice.

Yet the question kept coming, “Who is the target audience for your book and for your book events and workshops?” I was told it would be primarily middle-aged women like me. Probably white like me too.

Something inside me yelled, “NO.” That narrowness of audience would perpetuate the very problem I was working so hard to address.

If story is to have the power to change the world, it needs to be shared across the lines that have divided us—gender, skin color, class, religion and age, to name a few. How else are we going to know about a diversity of experiences in the reality of our world today if we don’t share our story, and listen to others’ stories, as broadly as possible?

It might be true that women would be more comfortable reading my book or engaging in conversations about it. Rather than an intellectual and at-a-distance analysis, I dove into creativity, play, other voices and deeply personal sharing. I had no interest in throwing out intellect and logic—that is found in my work also—but I was passionate about the need for us all to use a wide variety of tools and ways of knowing. Our off-balance world was built on the foundation of white patriarchy, and it needs diversity if we are to survive, much less thrive.

My intended audience for Big Topics at Midnight is human beings on the planet today. Likewise, I want to read and listen and dance with a wide diversity of other people’s stories. We each hold a piece of the truth that is needed for the great turning.

Today I came back to what I always knew—this book was written for people. My lack of a narrow target audience may not help me to sell Big Topics at Midnight, but it is true to my heart and mind, and that is the only rulebook I want to follow.

March 18, 2013

Dancing Grandmother

Years before I was born into the Mathys family, my grandmother Ann Cahoon Mathys danced and taught dancing. She got her bachelor’s and master’s degrees in physical education. During her brief tenure at Kansas State University she convinced the Kansas State Legislature to allow women in physical education classes to wear bloomers. She fought for the right for women to vote. She also gave birth to my father, Ed Mathys.

Tucked into a memory box was her Dance Record Book, filled with page after page of dance instructions. On my website, I included a copy of a few pages from this book and a modern rendition of one of the dances she outlined — Little Man in a Fix. Step back in time and visit a small slice of her dance world here.

She is teaching me to dance now, across the generations.

March 13, 2013

Not at Memoir

I didn’t want to write a memoir! I tried every other form I could, yet each one fell short. Stubbornly, I kept searching for anything-but-memoir.

I knew that an academic exploration of the big topics couldn’t bring the level of transformation I was seeking. I also knew that some of my experiences would be needed to illustrate my point. But surely, I told myself, essays sprinkled with a few stories would be enough.

In the end, memoir was the only structure strong enough to carry all that is held in Big Topics at Midnight. Ironically, it wasn’t just one memoir—my ancestors showed up wanted their stories included too.

Memoir kept my exploration personal. No generalities or “people should” or finger pointing. I had to keep diving back into my own life to wake up again and again to what I saw and didn’t see, what belief I assumed was true that was, in fact, true and what wasn’t. Little details of memories gave huge information—for instance noticing that the fact we had called our black maid “Mary” and not “Mrs. Henderson” said volumes from the lips of a good little girl who ALWAYS called adults by Mr. or Mz. (Texas slang for Mrs. or Miss.)

The more I saw of my life and my assumptions, and the more feelings that got stirred up, the more I had to stop and do my own inner work to bring my actions in line with my heart and values. I had to change.

I had to learn new tools to do this demanding work. I am skilled in the methods affirmed by school and home—logic, rational thought and hard work. Those were helpful, but proved woefully inadequate for the task of waking up to the ways race, class and gender had become tangled and divisive in my own mind and in the world around me. And the old ways were definitely inadequate in helping me to access my intuitive wisdom, learning to listen to my body, the earth under my feet, creativity or Spirit. I had to re-remember the more feminine ways of knowing that I had long ago judged as weak and tried to shove to the side.

Sometimes the very things I fight are the most valuable. When will I ever learn?