On the last Sunday Service, we played you a song that may very well be the oldest on Hymns For My Atheist Sister & Her Friends to Sing Along To. Written in 2020, it's possible this song was the start of the record as a concept, that lyrically sits squarely in the center of belief and disbelief-- some might call that faith. While the song speaks directly to a Higher Being "Lord, make me an example of what not to do-- add a page to your Good Book and say that I was wrong to choose," it is decidedly humanizing the story I'd been raised on, making an all-powerful God into a gatekeeper, someone to bargain with. Bargaining being a stage of grief. Grief being where I (Mallory) was when I wrote this song.
We were living in a cabin in the woods of Long Creek, SC thanks to our friends Steve & Annie, who offered us a place to be while we waited out the pandemic. There was no internet, no cell phone service. We had to hike out a mile to the waterfall to get our incoming messages, and drive down to the local post office parking lot to perform our livestreams, where chickens roamed about knocking on our truck doors while we sang into our phone. As the temperature dropped that fall, our source of heat was a wood stove, which we rose up early to feed and stayed up late to stoke before bed. The only connection to the outside world was a radio that caught the local Georgia NPR station on most days, which is how we learned about the election results and the spread of the virus. That's to say, it was a total dream. I learned how to do bookbinding, and Scott learned how to carve stamps, and every day at 4PM we'd call it quits by pouring ourselves a glass of Scotch, wherein I would head upstairs to write a series of short stories I was working on, and Scott would go to the porch to write short guitar instrumentals until we got hungry or tipsy enough to meet in the kitchen for dinner.
It would've been perfect, excepting one long week in November. I'd taken the opportunity of stillness to make an appointment up in Asheville, only a couple hour drive from where we were staying, for a check up. Being a traveling musician, self employed, and a technical resident of Tennessee-- which at the time blocked possible affordable healthcare for low income residents like us-- getting healthcare in my adult life was simply not a possibility. Strangely enough, becoming unemployed that year suddenly offered me opportunities I hadn't had since my parents kicked me off of their healthcare plan the day I graduated. It was the strangeness that is always offered at peak life-- the worst and the best at once. I was stranded without a job, and suddenly had an opportunity to see if my body was still functioning as it should.
But after a routine check-up, I found out it was not functioning as it should. In fact, this led to further immediate tests that indicated that something could be profoundly very wrong.
Which then took me to a week in an isolated cabin in South Carolina wherein I waited with Scott to find out if I had cancer. Lab results were slower. Medical staff were overworked. I had no choice but to wait.
In that week, Scott and I didn't talk much, as when we would talk, it would lead to a circular conversation of what-ifs while we didn't-know. I found myself waking up much earlier, stepping out onto the porch and feeling the mix of warm and cold air coming in-- a seasonal transition that I could smell in the decay and see in the changing light as the leaves fell. We took quieter walks to the waterfall to check our messages. Scott spent his time worrying and asking me how I was feeling until I banished him somewhere else in the house so that I could have a rest from his worry. Because, frankly, I was becoming... content.
Two days prior to the results coming in, I left Scott in bed and stepped out on to the porch. I had woken up with a song-- something Scott both loves and hates. A lot of our songs have been born this way, that I go to sleep at night with a thought, and somewhere in my dreams I work out a melody and a few lines that meld together and then, when percolated, wake me up in a start and demand that I go write them down. That's to say, I write songs in my dreams a lot. And this song was nudging me out of bed long before the alarm. I took my baritone ukulele and began singing in 6/8 time into the trees-- Isn't it so beautiful? The leaves on the trees? Isn't is graceful the way they take their leave? Wouldn't it be perfect if I'd take their cue? Instead of kicking and screaming-- I wanna stay with you.
And this was the reality of my situation: that I was so grateful to be here. That I couldn't believe that I had been given this gift of life, right here with this person on this timeline. I should be angry, I could take it for granted. But I couldn't. The following verse is the bargaining, written above. It's the unpacking of the religion I was brought up on in a small way-- that I was told that there was a world beyond this one that was even better, shinier. It had pearly gates and streets of gold and white robes and silver harps. And the idea made me... sad. I didn't want different. I wanted more of this. It isn't amazing to imagine a world so tidy, so sterile that we all look the same. It was far more amazing to imagine that the dirt under my fingernails from falling into the stream on our walk the day before was full of microcosms of life, and that I would someday become part of it as I already am as I stood there. You can't better your offer by adding pearls to the gates-- because there's no place like this place on a November morning with a smile on his face.
If I get what I get, and I don't get anymore-- well, then, it doesn't hurt to ask for more, anyway. Ask the Universe, ask God, ask the doctors, whomever. Because when it is this good, I'd be a fool not to ask.
The third verse arrived later in the form of a bird hitting the glass door of our temporary little cabin. The event is told just as it is in the song-- that she was stunned and shivering when we ran out to get her. We made a shoebox sanctuary for her while she recovered. When we opened the box and set it on the porch, we waited, until she hopped up. Then, we laid the box down in the grass again and watched her flutter along and leave. We felt hopeful about her, but upon a trip to the post office later to find the internet, we learned that even if they recover temporarily, most birds that hit the glass don't make it. They get a temporary stay before brain damage or unknown wing damage take over, and are ultimately caught by predators or fall apart on their own shortly thereafter. It was bleak. And it felt familiar. We are all here just to comfort each other, from birth to death-- and even more so from glass to grass again. And in my case, from diagnosis til...
Isn't it so damn beautiful she didn't want to stay with us?
Of course I'd wanted to keep the bird forever. But that's not how it works. You get what you get, you don't get anymore, and it was her time to go. I felt grateful to comfort her for a short stead.
When we were recording this record, I was sending the half finished tracks to our friend, John, back up in New Hampshire. John is one of the most damn positive people we've ever met, and is an absolute light to his friends. He's a great listener, a great drummer, and is also in Stage IV cancer. He's maintained on his treatment for the last couple of years, and still runs each week and plays almost as many gigs as we do in a month. Somehow, this project felt important to share with him. He's been dedicated to our work for years-- he shows up for us in all the ways that matter. When I sent him this song, at first, I felt completely foolish. The end of this story is that my test results had come in-- I was cancer free. There was no need for follow ups, no need for any further action. The relief that quaked through me was visceral, eternal. Something that a lot of people don't get to experience-- including my friend John.
I presented it honestly, vulnerably, acknowledging to him over text that I couldn't possibly know what he's going through, but that this small taste of that fear was the source of this song. And then I wondered-- "Is this what it is like for you?"
"You nailed it," he responded. "Yes, yes, and yes. This sounds bizarre, but I've never been so thankful in my life. You hear me say it all the time. And at the same time with the thought of waiting for that 'other shoe to drop.' ...Time will tell. I'm so thankful for the time I've been given."
You get what you get, you don't get any more. I don't know nothing worth having not worth asking for.
So we keep asking for more. We get the chemo. We make little shoeboxes of soft brush to lay down in. We make more time to sit in bed with coffee with the person and the dog we love. We take in one glorious breath at a time and try to remain thankful for it, until the other shoe comes.
"You Get What You Get"
Written by Mallory Graham & Scott Tyler (C)2020
Isn't it so beautiful, the leaves on the trees?
Isn't it graceful how they take their leave?
Wouldn't it be perfect if I'd take their cue
Instead of kicking and screaming--
Oh, I wanna stay with you.
You get what you get, you don't get anymore.
I don't know nothing worth having not worth asking for.
Lord, make me an example of what not to do.
Add a page to your good book, to say that I was wrong to choose.
You can't better your offer by adding pearls to the gates,
'Cause there's no place like this place on a November morning
with a smile on his face.
You get what you get, you don't get anymore.
I don't know nothing worth having not worth asking for.
I didn't see it happen, I found a bird in the grass,
Eyes closed and quaking from hitting the glass.
We built her a box full of leaves and soft brush.
Isn't it so damn beautiful that she didn't want to stay with us?
You get what you get, you don't get anymore.
You get what you get, you don't get anymore.
You get what you get, you don't get anymore.
I don't know nothing worth having not worth asking for.