Mackey Musings: 2010

In October 2000, I celebrated my 50th birthday with a concert in Washington DC, my home of 20 years. I was joined onstage by friends I had sung and played with since the 70s, in church assembly halls, picket lines, rallies on the Capitol steps, union halls, gay bars, living rooms, and coffeehouses. My brother Dave played drums. My partner Pattie, resplendent in a red cummerbund and tails, served as MC and had the crowd guffawing with her stand-up comedy routine on life with Jeanne Mackey. She even dressed up in a homemade dog suit to accompany me on Jane Siberry’s “Everything Reminds Me of My Dog.” The theme of the show was “Living Out Loud,” from a quote by Emile Zola. We made magic that night, performers and audience together, as we had done on numerous occasions over the years. Back in our zealous leftwing politico days, we called it “creating a liberated zone” where, for one evening, we got to taste the world we dreamed of --a world infused with shared meaning, truth, heartful compassion, and inspired silliness, in service to life in all its astounding contradictions.

All of us are riddled with contradictions, of course, but I like to think mine are more extreme than most. On one hand, I am a lifelong student, educating myself about things like power, justice, the human shadow, the relational nature of reality--explored through Marxism, feminism, Taoism, earth-based spirituality. My daily life is informed and guided by what I have learned. Much of the time, I do my best to be the change I want to see in the world, as Gandhi said. AND I spend a ridiculous amount of time and energy worrying about MYSELF, how am I doing, do people like me, am I a bad person, a hopeless failure, and when is somebody or something going to rescue me once and for all from my own pervasive sense of unworthiness?

Over the years, I’ve found that making something and sharing it publicly--a concert, workshop, song, or essay--helps me take the next step on the road to wholeness. There’s that sweet spot--can’t always get there but I know it when I hit it--where my yearning to expose my inner workings, trips to the underworld, discoveries, hopes and fears result in nourishment for others. Self-revelation can be an offering, a gift. Or, guided by a shadowy intention, it can be a dump, a covert demand, a vampirish manipulation. Like Ariadne’s silver thread, the process of creating a performance helps me find my way through the labyrinthine darkness.

So I’m turning 60 in august. I’m creating a show to mark this passage. What makes this different from all the others I’ve done is that it will be almost entirely original material. I’ve been playing music since I was six, but until a couple of years ago, I’d only sung other peoples’ songs. didn’t know how to make my own, couldn’t find the way in, but I‘m learning now. And I’m stirring the cauldron, noticing what bubbles up, what’s real, what’s tasty, what needs to be skimmed off or boiled down to its essence. For sure, it’s not going to go well if the show consists of an bitter bowl of regrets, resentments, and broken dreams. And the flow of inspiration dries up whenever I start to believe that this performance itself can justify my existence, prove my worth once and for all.

So like the chickpea in the poem “Chickpea to Cook” by Rumi, I’m in the stew, need to boil some more, probably get whacked with the ladle a few more times, so that the Friend (Rumi‘s name for God) and my audience will have something good to eat.

Chickpea to Cook
~Jalaluddin Rumi
(translated by Coleman Barks)

A chickpea leaps almost over the rim of the pot
where it's being boiled.

"Why are you doing this to me?"

The cook knocks him down with the ladle.

"Don't you try to jump out.
You think I'm torturing you.
I'm giving you flavor,
so you can mix with spices and rice
and be the lovely vitality of a human being.

"Remember when you drank rain in the garden.
That was for this."

Grace first. Sexual pleasure,
then a boiling new life begins,
and the Friend has something good to eat.

Eventually the chickpea
will say to the cook,
"Boil me some more.
Hit me with the skimming spoon.
I can't do this by myself.

"I'm like an elephant that dreams of gardens
back in Hindustan and doesn't pay attention
to his driver. You're my cook, my driver,
my way into existence. I love your cooking."

The cook says,
"I was once like you,
fresh from the ground. Then I boiled in time,
and boiled in the body, two fierce boilings.

"My animal soul grew powerful.
I controlled it with practices,
and boiled some more, and boiled
once beyond that,
and became your teacher."