The first time I stepped into the fire, so to speak, of my inner world was like deciding to stop and allow a drunk driver to run me over. I had just learned of the terrible gossip my friends had been sharing about me. 

I chose this moment to face my pain. I thought I could transmute it. Could I follow it to completion? Whatever that is?

Another friend, Lauren, kindly offered that the gossip had been…

“What’s the point in doing this?”

The voice rings out in the car on the drive from Dallas to Lubbock. My Raleigh show is in 4 days and I’m standing in a dust storm agitated over bones in the salmon and preservatives in the food my mom’s husband bought to feed my kids.  

My dad comes in. He’s got an ….

The unique tone of my voice comes from the countryside — the West Texas plains, the harshness, the wind. It is the same southern cheery dialect of my aunts. Their voices are buoyant and animated and refined by decades of singing a capella harmonies in country churches.

But the sadness in my sound is a special inheritance of mistakes, world weariness and an unsatisfied longing to be wanted more than endured…

I can feel my stomach as I pull into Post. The car is beginning to smell of stale french fries and cold coffee. Up ahead there's a small haboob. The windmills are turning fast. The sun is hot and it shines through, foggy with sand but the wind is chilled. Orange dust scratches against the white hood of my truck.

Today, I am driving in…

I am standing under the windmills in Hermleigh, wind in my hair. I’m longing to get back to Dallas but dreading it just the same. 

Yesterday my mother said my singing voice sounds like maybe I have sadness inside. “I’ve always had sadness inside.” I told her. 

The windmills are magnificent. They…