Hallelujah

Earlier this year, I found myself in the Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum in downtown Nashville, Tennessee. On the first level of the building there is a fountain that people toss coins into. 

Back in June, I sat on the edge of that fountain and I looked at all the coins that had been tossed into the water. I people watched for a while, appreciating the audacity of women who wear shorts and cowboy boots, and then I wondered whether I should throw a coin in and make a wish. 

So that's what I did. I reached into my purse, pulled out a penny, made a wish and then watched my penny sink to the bottom, surrounded by other people's wishes. I even took a picture after I threw my penny in.

(Afterwards, a woman came up to me and offered me a free concert ticket for later that morning. Why? Because Nashville is Nashville.)

I'm not sure if you're supposed to disclose what you wish for in this kind of situation. I can say that at that point, early in the summer, I wasn't in the greatest spot in life. It wasn't the worst spot, either, but I was unhappy and I was wanting some things to change. I went on that Nashville trip specifically to get out of town, think about the future, and think about where to go and what would make me happy.

I'm glad to report that today, the second to last day of 2023, the wish that I wished for that day in Nashville came true. In fact, it came true later in the summer.

I've been very quiet on this here blog for the past six months. I didn't blog at all about that Nashville trip and I kept quiet about moving a couple of hours away to the largest city in my state. (Not Kansas City, silly. That's in Missouri.) 

On the plane to Nashville that day in June, the flight attendant made an announcement that I wrote into my phone: "Welcome to Nashville, where all of your wildest dreams can come true."

Also written down in my phone: "There are tons of airlines to choose from, and we're grateful you can't afford any of them."

Anyway, I tried to blog about that trip over the summer, but I literally couldn't do it. I sat down several times and tried to force something, but the words just didn't come out.

How can I go to Nashville and not write about it? How can I go to such a beautiful city and just ignore it on my blog?

I understand now why I couldn't write about it six months ago. I asked life for a change, and then I needed to be patient while life changed.

Back to that whole moving thing: I now live in a city. I love cities! I went to a Pentatonix concert last week and they sang my favorite song of theirs, Thank You, right in front of me and in front of 15,000 of my closest friends.

Watch the snow fall down like me sometimes
But you pick me up and then pick me up again
Like the winter leaves I can't survive
Without your light

Thank you for your smile
It's warmer than the fire
Your gentle laughter
Is sweeter than a choir
I'll never know
The right words to choose
So all I can say
Is thank you

I cried. The woman beside me hugged me. 

The encore, of course, was Hallelujah. I put my phone in my pocket, sang along to every word and didn't even try to stop the tears from running down my face. Any day you hear that song live is a pretty good day in my book.

So that's what 2023 was for me — it was a cold and broken Hallelujah. 

It was also a wish, a dream and a prayer, all of which came true. 

(Monica's note: I live in Kansas, not Nashville. I'm writing about Nashville now because sometimes stories come out months later, after they make sense.)

(Also, I met Eric Church this year. I could only say 'hi' and 'thank you' to him, but I'm pretty sure it was a mesmerizing 'hi' and 'thank you' for him. So there's that.)

It's all related, folks. All of it.

The second thing I'm going to write about on my New Orleans trip is a session on photography that I attended.

I'm going to preface this by saying that I'm a pretty decent photographer, but I'm not great at it. I'm not even the best photographer in my family, because my brother and my Dad are both pretty stellar at it.

I went to this photography session at the last minute when I decided to change my schedule up.

That was a wise decision.

Writing will always be my first love in life, but photography is in second place. 

The conference speaker was a local New Orleans photographer who mainly shoots landscapes. His introduction was down to earth and humble. 

What the heck is he going to talk to a bunch of school district public relations people about? After all, he didn't even know that this profession existed until he got the phone call to speak at the conference. 

I can describe the happiest moments of my personal and professional life. In my professional life, the time spent in that session has to be on the top five list. 

The session started like this: By the presenter saying that to be a photographer, you have to be comfortable and confident with your body.

Let that sink in for a minute, folks.

After I thought about that, the session just kept getting better and better. Suddenly, in a room states away from my home, in a room full of strangers, I started to tear up.

The talk shifted from photography to music to mental health, to anxiety and depression, and then amazingly shifted back to photography after each of those topics was discussed. 

In fact, the topic of photography was never really left behind.

Like I said on social media after the session: That moment when you’re at a professional conference, attend a session on photography, and end up discussing mental health, art and music. 😍 It’s all related, folks. All of it. (Insert corny ‘Do I actually get paid to do this?!?’ joke here.)

I wish I could describe the magic in the air during this session. There are times in my life where words fail and I'm rendered speechless, and this was definitely one of those times.

A room full of artistic, creative people discussing art, mental health and music?

Sigh.

It was perfect.

If my cards fall where I want them to, I'm going to Uber to the photographer's art gallery before I leave town. 

There's just no way this can wait until my next trip to New Orleans. 

No way.

---

The cool thing about attending a session on photography is that there were exactly zero tips on what to do with the camera and its settings.

People who aren't photographers are intimidated by large cameras (and by large, I mean cameras that aren't iPhones.) So many times in my life, people have told me that I take good photos because I have a good camera.

Yeah, that's not how it works. Placing a photographer's talent on the brand of their camera is like comparing an NFL kicker's talent to the brand of socks and shoes that he wears.

Yeah, the brand is there, but that's literally not the reason why something turns out good. 

So, there's perspective. There's creativity. There's getting down to a child's level, and looking through the lens to see from their perspective.

It's an art.

---

I was in 4-H when I was little, and I always took part in the photography portion of the county fair.

When you look at the photos at the fair, you see photos of cool vacations that kids took with their families. There's the ocean pictures, Walt Disney World photos, some pictures of overseas (Eiffel Tower). Things like that.

The thing is, growing up, I did not go on those vacations. 

And to be honest, I kind of.hated the kids who did.

I remember being frustrated with life when I was little, because in my little brain, I didn't think could complete in photography with kids who went to cool, exotic places.

I remember my parents teaching me to look through the lens of my camera to find beauty. I remember them telling me that you don't have to travel to find it. They told me that if I looked close enough around me, I'd find the beauty that I wanted so badly to photograph for the county fair.

And then one. year, the universe aligned. After my Dad grew some impressive morning glories in our backyard, my childhood dog, Patches, a Collie and German Shepard mix, sat down in the middle of the morning glories and looked off to the side.

I don't remember telling her to sit in that spot. (Although, she was totally a kid dog. She would have juggled standing on her back paws if my brother and I asked her to do it.)

And boom, because I was in the right spot at the right time, literally in my backyard, that picture won Grand Champion at the county fair that year. 

I still have it in a frame at my house. When I get home, I'll snap a photo of it and include it on thishereblog.

I was so damn proud of that trophy I got for that picture, that I probably still have it somewhere.

I remember thinking when I was little, ha! Take that, you losers who get beach vacations and Disney World every summer.

There's beauty in your backyard if you just stop and look for it. 

---

I'm just going to throw some quotes out there that I wrote down on my iThing during this session.

• "If you have permission to take a photo, you have permission to cross the line."

• "You cross the line. You insert yourself."

• "I"m so glad I have this moment. It means something to me."

• "It was an image that says you're struggling and your hurt is real."

• "I never read the lyrics, even though I recited them thousands of times."

• "I have days when I'm really happy, and I have days when I'm struggling."

---

I waited to write this blog post until midnight the day of this photography session. I'm kicking myself for waiting to write about it, because I don't think I accurately caught how magical this moment was.

It's always wrong to wait to write. 

You'd think I'd know that my now. 

Oops.

---

I wrote this post before I went to that art gallery.

I Ubered my way there one night. In that Uber, the driver and I had an excellent discussion of real estate, and how much it sucks when the sellers back out at the last minute.

(You mean that happens to other people, too?)

This might have been my favorite part of the trip.

Wow.

I don't know if it's socially acceptable to take photos in an art gallery, so I did not. I did, however, take a photo of the quote that was written on a blackboard.

I loved this place. 

In case you're wondering, the photographer is Frank Relle, and here is his website.

And no, I did not get paid to write this post. It was just that amazing that I felt like I had to write about it.

:)

Crescent City breeze

I've wanted to visit this city for a very, very long time.

Actually, in a former job, my publisher always told me that William Allen White would not want the word "very" used in his newspaper. Instead, he told me (somewhat jokingly), to use the word "damn" instead.

So, I've wanted to visit this city for a damn long time.

I was supposed to come to go to a journalism conference in New Orleans in September 2005. But as we all remember, a little hurricane named Katrina changed those plans, along with a lot of other people's plans, too. 

New Orleans has been on my bucket list for 16 years. 

I got the opportunity to visit this amazing city this week. (And am still here, currently. Very very happy face. I mean, damn happy place.)

Before I delve into the past few days of my life, I want to paint you a picture of what the last 12-24 months of my life have been like.

I lost my job.

I lost my mind.

I recovered from that.

I moved cities.

I got a job in my profession again.

And then I became homeless. 

So, the past 12-18 months of my life have not been the greatest thing ever. In fact, those months sucked. They sucked so bad, I can't even explain how much they sucked.

The suck never stopped. It just kept coming and coming and coming.

But the weird thing about life is that the universe has a weird way of balancing things out when things get out of whack.

Hi New Orleans!

So I found myself in New Orleans right now, attending a conference for public relations employees who work in school districts. It's a national conference, so there are a lot of folks from all over. 

So far, I've talked with other Kansas folks, Utah people, Nebraska, Texas, Pennsylvania, Virginia, Louisiana, etc. 

I saw this with all of my travel blog posts that I do, but I'm going to say it here again. I have no idea how many parts thishereblog will be. I'm just going to go with the flow here and see what happens. 

My first impression of this city? 

Wow. 

That's all I have right now, literally.

Just wow.

---

Lake Pontchartrain

I will say that there's an Eric Church song to perfectly describe my situation.  

In fact, EFC opened his first song on his Double Down tour with a song called Knives of New Orleans. 

It's never been my favorite EFC song, but I've been listening to it since I landed here and it's definitely growing on me. 

Knives of New Orleans

Yeah, I'd give this last wrinkled dollar

In my pocket that I earned

With a hammer and vice

If I could undo some things

And grow me some wings

Fly out of this quarter tonight

Yeah, tonight, every man with a TV

Is seeing a man with my clothes and my face

In the last thirty minutes

I've gone from a person of interest

To a full-blown manhunt underway

I did what I did

I have no regrets

When you cross the line

You get what you get

Tonight, a bleeding memory

Is tomorrow's guilty vein

Your auburn hair on a faraway sea wall

Screams across the Pontchartrain

I'm haunted by headlights

And a crescent city breeze

One wrong turn on Bourbon

Cuts like the knives of New Orleans

I'm a ghost dodging bullets

In all of these alleys

Just looking for my getaway keys

Wrapped up in the night

Hiding out in plain sight

But this grip's getting tight around me

Ain't no getting out

That I can see

They'll take me dead

If they ever take me

Tonight, a bleeding memory

Is tomorrow's guilty vein

Your auburn hair on a faraway sea wall

Screams across the Pontchartrain

I'm haunted by headlights

And a crescent city breeze

One wrong turn on Bourbon

Cuts like the knives of New Orleans

Of New Orleans

What I wouldn't do

For just one more kiss

I'm all out of time

Honey, it's come down to this

I'm haunted by your hazel eyes

And this crescent city breeze

One wrong turn on Bourbon

Cuts like the knives of New Orleans

I did what I did

I did what I did

I did what I did

I did what I did

10 years

 My Dad and I were in my house a while back. The conversation we had made me laugh.

What year were you in Emporia, he asked.

I thought for a minute. I moved back in 2011.  I moved there in 2010.

Then I asked him where I was 10 years ago.

Not Wichita, he said. That was 14 years ago. You were probably in Winfield, he said.

No. Not the school year 10 years ago. I mean the summer of that year 10 years ago.

Oh, he said. You were in Oklahoma City!

I never imagined myself playing a game of “I don’t remember what city I was in a number of years ago” with my family.

But life is life, and sometimes you just have to go with the flow and go wherever life takes you.

Ten years ago, I moved to Oklahoma City for a summer internship. I was determined to do it myself. I was 22, which is older than your average intern. In my mind, I was an adult, which meant that I could move myself to a city in a neighboring state without help from anyone else.

I couldn’t find my apartment. I drove around forever. It was raining, and I was crying. All the buildings looked the same to me, and all I wanted to do was curl up in bed and cry.

When I finally did find my apartment, I was really, really hungry, but I was too nervous to drive to get food and because I was afraid of getting lost again.

I should note that this was before the invention of iPhones, Siri and map apps. This was the dark ages, guys. This was 2007.

For the first night, I cried in my brand spankin’ new apartment because I was lost and hungry.

But at least I was an adult about it!

I cried many times that summer, mostly because of my own self-doubt. I never had to worry if anyone would catch the tears rolling down my face, because that summer it rained every single day, and you honestly couldn’t tell the difference between my tears and rain drops.

That makes me laugh now.

I talked about that summer with someone from work a while back. It turns out that many people experience the same thing that I did that summer.

It was the first time that I got paid for doing what I wanted to do. It was the first time I was surrounded by people who had the same passion that I did in life.

It was addicting. It was life-changing.

It turns out, if you’re really lucky in life, you get to experience what I did that summer.

The only thing that I really remember is that I had crippling self-doubt the entire time, both professionally and personally. On the way back from lunch one day, I caught the heel of my shoe in an elevator and tripped in front of a lot of people.

I was horrified at that incident. Actually, I was terrified and horrified the entire summer.

(Looking back now, I’m proud of myself that I was once young enough to wear heels. Now, they would probably kill me.)

Last summer, I tripped and fell in the middle of a street as my town’s annual parade was starting. Hundreds of people were there, and I fell flat on my face.

Some things never change.

One day, word got out that the floor above me had ordered donuts. I was too scared to get any. I shared that concern with another intern, and he told me he was too scared to get any, too.

It makes me laugh now, because donuts no longer scare me.

When I see summer interns now, I can spot them a mile away. I can smell their fear and I recognize their fresh baby faces. I wonder how some of them are even old enough to drive, because they look so young.

Oh, interns.

It makes me laugh, because I remember being that person.

There are several things I remember about that summer. At the time, I was self-conscious because I had spent five years in college. (That happens when you go to three different schools.)

Most of the interns were younger than me. Some weren’t even 21 yet. And here I was, old balls, at 22, and I had been drinking legally for more than a year.

Obviously, I was already well-seasoned at life. A veteran among babies, if you will.

I was talking about being on the 5-year plan to a full-time employee that summer. Her response was amazing.

“You’re more of a loser if you don’t finish,” she told me. “It doesn’t matter how you get there. You just have to finish.”

That summer, no one gave a crap about my age, or about how many years I spent in school. It didn’t matter then, and it turns out, that employee I was talking to was right.

It doesn’t matter now.

I think I’ll remember that advice forever.

It turns out that that particular city was not in the cards for me. I love it with all my heart, and I would probably go back in a heartbeat if money and life circumstances allowed me to (if I was married and made $200,000 a year…haha).

For now, I’m happy where I am in life. I’m thankful that God, or an alumnus at my alma mater, or whoever, gave me that experience of being totally lost, unsure of myself, but mostly just drunk a good amount of the time that summer.

I loved that experience. It was the first time that I realized that I could maybe do this thing for the rest of my life. It was the first time that I realized that I was in college for a reason, and the reason was going to eventually pay off one day.

I think Oklahoma City was my first love.

And just like your first real love, you never really forget it.

You move on and move away, but that first love is always a part of you.

And that’s okay.

"Be thankful for what you have. You could have a lot less."

Goodbyes are a part of life, but that doesn't always mean they're easy.

Somebody at work left for greener pastures recently.

At his going away party, he said something that I'll remember for the rest of my life.

He said: "Be thankful for what you have. You could have a lot less."

It's short, simple, and to the point.

It's wonderful advice. I hope that message reached everyone who was in the room at the time.

Why was hearing those words so important to me?

I don't have a lot of material possessions at this point in my life. That has bothered me in the past, but right now I'm okay with it.

I'm going to take Pete's advice and give thanks for the many blessings I do have in my life.

The greatest thing I ever did for myself was finish my degree. I struggled to get there. Who, besides me, goes to three different schools in five years?

Finishing that degree led to every professional job I've had, and it's why I'm in the job I currently have.

I've been influenced by some really great leaders. I can't even describe how thankful I am to be surrounded by smart, talented people who care about the communities and the world they live in.

Yeah, when you finish college and get a 'real' job, you get a paycheck, contribute to a retirement account and get health insurance. Those are important things to have in life.

But it's more important to have people in your corner who believe in you and want you to succeed.

I've gone to Pete many times for advice, not only for work, but for life in general. He was always in my corner.

When life didn't work out or go as expected, he offered words of encouragement. Something better will happen to you, he said.

I believe him.

When my nieces were born early and in the hospital, he told me stories about his kids and the hospital visits when they were young. Those were nice stories to hear during a really stressful time. To his adult kids: He loves you and talks about you all the time.

I could say a lot more, but I think I'll stop there.

I may also need to find a tissue.

Ahem.

-----

There's something to be said about people who encourage you through tough times verses those people who criticize you through hard times.

I've learned a lot over the past year about how to treat people. I learned by example, by being fortunate enough to be around wonderful people.

Thank you, both to Pete and to others I've learned from.

My life is better because I met you.