Mint tea and chocolate
The caravan started with a conversation over mint tea and chocolate in the salon-library-bazaar-book-store-tea-space of an old French farmhouse turned into an ashram.
For four days, a dozen of us in our twenties had been coming face-to-face with the depths and chaos of our humanness, our creativity, our shadows, and our souls, through workshops on writing, drawing, chanting and moving, with meals together, meditation in the morning, and music and poetry throughout. Intense, difficult, uncomfortable — life-affirming.
It was after midnight on the last night, and handful of us remained awake, building dreams.
The central idea: a traveling caravan, where we could live what we love while offering it to the world — playing music, reading poetry, performing theatre, dancing, selling books, cooking, sharing skills and knowledge, drinking tea and eating chocolate.
Create, create, commit
One of the speakers for the seminar, M., had shared with us the instruction her spiritual teacher gave her:
“Create, create, create! Show, show, show!”
Which is what she was doing: painting, writing, traveling, and continuously finding new ways to share what she was creating.
We were all engaging various degrees of creative work, but (at least for me) it was easier to “just create,” without the demand and friction of needing to show my work. Easier to stay hidden and stay comfortable.
As we talked, M. was working in the office next to us, listening. Then she stepped into the room with a question: what were we actually going to do? What concrete steps were we willing to take? Tonight, before we all left and the energy dissipated?
In our ecstatic dream building, visions walked before reality, and our own feet were barely on the ground. If someone had suggested we learn to fly, we would have believed it possible (and maybe it would have been). The energy and excitement had been building through hours of talking and chocolate. We could have left that space high on ideas, laid in our beds too excited to sleep.
Then we’d wake up the next morning and go back to our lives. The dream might still dwell in our minds, but the energy we’d collected would dissipate. It would go elsewhere, feed other projects. The dream would remain a dream, like most do.
So: what were we willing to do, that night, to bring our magnificent ideas down from the sky, to the earth, where we could get a foothold? (A woman sitting with us, an experienced and successful painter, sculptor and artist, joked, “After this, you can go outside and stare at the stars, just to come down a little bit.”)
On scraps of paper, we each wrote a sentence describing our dream project together. The vision was there, defined. The passion was there. But to become a project, not just an idea, it needed clear, physical, committed sustenance — that is, action.
So we decided to get together for a weekend and start creating. Play music, read poetry, perform theatre; cook, eat, talk, meditate, drink tea and break chocolate together. Enshrine time and space — three days, one house — fill it with six individuals with shared intention — and see what would happen. The vision of the caravan, in a house. I would be in France for another month and a half before returning to the United States. We narrowed it down to one weekend and agreed: “I’ll be there.”
Street stage
Three weeks later — by train, bus, car, subway, hitchhiking — the six of us gathered at a house at the edge of Paris. We had three days together: create, create, create.
But what about “show, show, show”? Creating together was fun, but the vision would be actualized through offering to an audience. On Friday, our first day together, we made another commitment: on Sunday, we would take whatever we could pull together and perform it on the trains in Paris. We had a day and a half to prepare.
By Sunday morning, between covers, improvised compositions, and poetry we’d written, we had a working “set list,” and plenty of extra works-in-progress.
Around noon we got on the RER train to Paris, and with no introduction, I stood up and started reading poetry. It was a poem I’d written on solitude and longing, read in English by me and French by L. Then, the five of them sang a beautiful a cappella hymn, “I Pray for Your Help.” Then we jumped into Elvis’ “Heartbreak Hotel,” with an acoustic guitar, five voices, and lead electric guitar, coming out of a portable Pignose amp slung over my shoulder, which for some reason I’d decided to carry in my backpack all the way from Boston.
We had more songs — “House of the Rising Sun,” or a poem over electric guitar, or another a cappella arrangement — but that was how we opened our show. Bare poetry and bare voices, vulnerable, honest, heartbroken — right into rock and roll.
After a few songs, we’d leave the train car at the station, run to the next one, and start over.
Not everyone paid attention. But I was impressed by the quality of attention from the people who did. I stood up and started baring my heart, no introduction, and people listened. People watched. People cared. Even one person, fully connecting, was enough.
Some would clap. Many would smile. One woman started singing along with us. In a metro station, we invited a young man watching us to join and he sang a song with us. Others would walk detours to avoid us. At a main station, an SNCF security guard told us to put our instruments away.
For our final show, on the RER leaving Paris, sitting near us were two old men, silent, still, elegant, reserved. One looked out the window; the other looked forward at nothing in particular. They weren’t looking at us. But throughout our performance, the man by the window was steadily tapping his foot. I could see on both their faces a deep appreciation, which didn’t need to be spoken or exaggerated. They were simply listening, which was all we could ask for. I was touched by their attention. When they got up to leave, one smiled and said “thank you.”
We didn’t ask for money or put out a hat. For our first set of performances, we wanted only to make an offering.
It was beautiful to see that we could show up, offer our art and who we are, and have people we’d never met listen, pay attention, and feel what we were feeling. It was worth it, too, for the act of offering itself.
A friend had told me how once he and a friend went to a public square in Paris and recited Baudelaire at the top of their lungs. “How did people react?” I had asked.
“Well, plenty of people didn’t care, or thought we were crazy. But what happened is, we became ecstatic.”
“We became ecstatic.” It didn’t matter how anyone else reacted. The act of offering poetry was enough.
So it was that we returned to the house, ecstatic. Ready, before we all went our separate ways, to plan another weekend before I returned to the States.
From these two weekends came the next step: to spend a month together the following summer, traveling and performing a show.
Fire and butterflies
A year later. Four of us committed. Two and a half weeks set aside in our busy summer schedules. A years’ worth of ideas, plenty of passion, a shared commitment, and not much else.
I was anxious about leaving a life in Boston that made sense (and money) for a month that hadn’t started making sense yet; trading stable, familiar ground for uncertain possibility.
But I also trusted that the same thing that had made those first two weekends would make this longer trip: our intentions, our commitment, our practice, and our willingness to come together and make something of nothing. We didn’t have a show or a plan; we had time, instruments, poetry, passion, and a car that could fit us all. We had a whole country as our stage.
Preparation isn’t only the logistics, the set list, the planned performance — it’s who we are. It’s what we bring from the work we never stop doing inside ourselves and the work we do in the world; together, the work of becoming able and ready to offer whatever is needed, when and how it’s needed.
I hadn’t planned a show, but I’d been preparing all year: writing poetry, performing at poetry open mics (including a feature, prepared with less than a week’s notice), practicing guitar, reading, listening to music, working hard.
That first weekend in Paris a year earlier, we had no idea what we were doing or what we wanted to offer. We gathered, started creating, and our intention and commitment showed us the way — enough of a way to keep going, arrive somewhere, and realize it was a pretty great place to be.
So in July 2016 I got on a plane to France, with not much idea why I was flying across the world when I had plenty to do in Boston, with no idea what we would create or how it would come together, with nothing but clothes and guitar pedals in my backpack, notebooks and paper in my bag, and fire in my belly — with butterflies fluttering around the flames. I was totally unprepared, but I was ready.
Show, show, show
The plan: drive around France in A.’s weathered green car, camping wherever we could plant our tents, performing wherever we could make some noise. We had a microphone, an electric guitar, an acoustic guitar, a clarinet, a flute, a hand drum, two battery-powered amps, and after stopping at a music store, a tambourine and a set of drumsticks. We had four voices, four hearts, and enough passion and madness to fill any street where we started singing.
The intention was to offer: joy, beauty, the honesty of longing and heartbreak, love, music, poetry; an expression of who we are; an invitation to connect, dance and celebrate life.
We spent the first three days in a house in the mountains working as many songs, poems and skits as we could — covers, originals, poetry compositions, theatre scenes, jams, improvisations, general madness. Then we hit the road.
Our first destination was an ashram in Ardèche, where we helped wash and chop eggplants to feed some hundred people, including us, there to participate in remembering and honoring the founding saint, his kind wisdom still radiant and abundant five years after his death. On the way, we stopped in Aurillac for an hour, singing with the acoustic guitar as we wandered through the quiet streets.
We slept in our tents in a friend’s backyard for our two days in Ardèche. Preparing to leave, we realized we hadn’t shared our work with our hosts, and we played an impromptu song in the living room. Playing for friends has a special potency; deep attending pulls corresponding depth from us. We sang my father’s lyrics, before he died a good friend of our hosts and of the sage we were there to honor. “Please… All I want’s a little change now, just a little peace… I’m asking anyone for help… Please… I’ve traveled the world over, worked and kept on track… All I want’s this little thing, please don’t turn your back.” Tender heartbreak hung in the silence when we finished, eyes soft and glistening, mutual gratitude flowing freely.
In Valence that afternoon, we set up our stage under a stone grotto with a gorgeous mountain view. Barely anyone stopped or cared — except for kids, who were always ready to smile and dance, no matter where we played. Still we gave all we had, to the quiet air and the distant mountains.
A picnic in the park with a friend, and we drove on, toward Saint-Julien-Chapteuil. We’d seen signs for a night market, so we planned to arrive for the market, perform, and find a place outside the town to camp.
We drove into St. Julien as it was beginning to get dark. The town seemed quiet, as if already tucked in for the night. “Are we in the right place?” we wondered.
As we rounded the fourth or fifth roundabout pointing toward Centre Ville, we found stalls surrounding a square, with smoke and chatter rising into the night. The town wasn’t sleeping — it was gathered at the market, the communal fire of French villages.
We grabbed the acoustic guitar, the tambourine, and the clarinet and walked toward the market. Curious eyes greeted us with a mood of welcoming and celebration.
This was a stark contrast to our first day on the road, when we’d approached a busy café in a tiny town in the mountains to stares of mistrust and apprehension, like, “Oh great, what do these artist bums wants?” (When we asked the café owner if we could play for his customers, he said no.)
In Saint-Julien-Chapteuil, there was only warmth. With clarinet melodies over acoustic guitar, we walked to the center of the square, by the fountain, surrounded by stalls selling cheese, vegetables, meat and wine, with people eating and talking, kids running and playing. Immediately, we knew we didn’t want to put down a hat; we’d joined a mood of community, togetherness and joy, and wanted simply to make our offering. People watched and cheered, while children danced. We were glad to be there, and the community seemed glad to have us.
After half an hour or so, getting hungry, we stopped to buy our dinner from the market. Beets, zucchini, carrots, squash. The farmer running the stand told us we could take as many squash and zucchini as we wanted for free, because they had piles in their barn. Goat cheese, bread and saucisson from other stands. And a sausage in baguette for each of us, from the man sending up smoke on the grill.
When we asked “how much do we owe you?” he waved his hand. “You don’t have to pay.” Surprised and grateful, we thanked him. He smiled and thanked us back.
That night we camped in a field in the mountains, after a second-dinner of raw farm veggies, bread and cheese, on our carpet in the grass. (We had brought a large decorative carpet with us, which took up most of the foot space in the backseats, realizing too late that it smelled and was totally unnecessary. But on this night and others, we were grateful to have a carpet — for dinner, for tea, for stargazing.)
A day and a half later, we set up in the midst of a crowded Saturday market in Le Puy-en-Velay, in front of a church, in a space left open between stalls by a vendor who wasn’t there that day. Hundreds of people bustled by, many stopping to watch, clapping, and throwing money in our hat (particularly when we played the blues). One woman tried coaching one of our singers, gesturing for her to give more, to sing up, to sing out. Another stopped to sing Hallelujah with us (while I tried to keep up with a chord progression I’d just learned). One man was taking photos of us with a well-used point-and-shoot, and when I asked he filmed with my camera.
After playing for two hours, we collected the money and bought fresh bread, cheese, fruits, and vegetables from the market.
We spent that night in a campground alongside pilgrims walking the Camino de Santiago trail. Another night we camped by a river, where we could swim. (We parked the car over the only evidence of this perhaps being used as a roadside toilet, because it was worth the compromise to stop driving and jump in the river.)
Wherever we found and put ourselves, as we moved and acted, the caravan moved. Car tires screeching around mountain curves, a chorus leading into a clarinet solo, our hearts softly coming closer together.
Gypsy-Bard-Bauls
Our intention to offer music and beauty was held within a larger intention: to live these days together with purpose, care, openness and integrity. This deep commitment to live deliberate lives, together, was what allowed the whole beast to breathe. The street performances were a way to meet the world from this place: to celebrate with song and dance upon the hard earth, from an invisible depth.
The Bauls, intense spiritual practitioners in India who share their practice and wisdom through song and dance, approach their performances from the perspective that they can only offer what they are actively cultivating and practicing themselves, in their own bodies. The deepest truths of their devotion, practice, and way of life, invoked and conveyed through words, melodies and movement, are backed up by knowledge and experience held in the body. A performing Baul is not simply sharing songs; she is sharing the truth toward which they point, carried in her own body, mind, heart and spirit. Her public performance is grounded in her personal practice and the all-encompassing way of life this entails.
This was our ideal: to offer from a place of depth, informed by our own practice, our own experience, our own knowledge (and ignorance), our own vulnerability, our own truth. As expressed by Basho (interpreted by Richard Powell), “Real poetry is to live a beautiful life. To live poetry is better than to write it.” We could offer beauty by living beautiful lives — beautiful in their fullness, their honesty, their depth of both joy and pain.
By stepping on stage and baring ourselves, being vulnerable and honest, holding nothing back, celebrating life, who we are and the lives we’re living could not help but come through, whether the stage was an empty street, a busy market, or a friend’s living room. We showed up as ourselves, and people saw what they saw — sometimes our beauty, sometimes our mess; always our honesty.
That meant being vulnerable with each other. It meant there were times when one of us needed to cry, and the rest of us would be there, listening and offering support. It meant there were times when one of us didn’t want to be there, and was angry, and would say so. It meant accepting this. It meant sometimes one of us (or all of us) needed a hug, or a smile. It meant we were being carried not only by our own strength, but the strength of the group, and we knew we could count on this.
When we needed a little help — for laughing or crying, for making dinner or being angry, for singing a song or a moment of silence — we were there for each other. When we needed to be alone, there was space for that, too. One woman left for a day in the middle to celebrate her boyfriend’s birthday. She left not wanting to return (she chose to participate in the project as much from stubbornness as enthusiasm), but returned glad to be with us again, eager and appreciative. This shift to deeper engagement needed space to happen.
It meant caring for each other and the random people we met, doing our best to live with kindness, generosity and compassion.
It meant randomness, spontaneity, and openness to whatever arose, like singing French songs with an accordion man and his drunk companions at a brasserie where we stopped for coffee and Cokes in the afternoon.
It meant when one of us started dancing, chances are we’d all start dancing; when one of us started singing, chances are we’d all start singing.
It meant meals together, which we’d cook on a camping stove on our carpet, usually with food from a local market. It meant setting up camp together and packing the car in the morning.
It meant respecting our “kitchen” — three baskets of fresh and packaged food, spices, pots, pans, utensils, water bottles, and two stoves, kept wherever in the car there was space. It meant respecting our “home” — a car filled to every corner with bags, clothes, books, supplies, instruments, amps, tents, mats, sleeping bags, shoes, and that damn carpet, with just enough room left for us to squeeze in.
We weren’t perfect — far from it. We made a mess; we made mistakes; we hurt and annoyed each other; we said sorry, and were stronger for it. We are works-in-progress. The piece that allowed us to keep functioning as a group was that when we realized something wasn’t working, we knew we had to do something about it. Whether practical, personal, or emotional, if it wasn’t working, we were all implicated, because that’s how we chose to operate.
For this, the “kitchen” was the perfect pot to boil us in. As the trip went along, our kitchen baskets got more and more messy and disordered. Crushed vegetables, utensils everywhere, general chaos. One night, unpacking our campsite in the mountains, we finally got the message, bluntly delivered:
Olive oil had spilled in one basket, drenching half the “kitchen.” Dish soap had spilled in another, coating food and utensils. We could no longer ignore the problem.
That night we took everything food-related out, re-arranged it all, and committed to treating our kitchen with more respect and care (we had to wait until the next day for enough water to wash everything).
The kitchen wasn’t the only area we’d allowed to become a mess. The trunk was no better. The next morning, we emptied the car and repacked the trunk, organizing it for easy-access to instruments and equipment.
From then on, we kept the trunk organized. Mostly. And we paid more attention to taking care of our food.
Our last show was in the mountains where we started, on the same stone patio where we’d worked for three days, this time for the whole neighborhood. An. set the intention: “to offer everything beautiful within us.”
We had everything we’d been working — on the streets, in city squares, in the car, together — to help us aim for this.
Tension and disagreement arose before the show over where to place the stage. But when it was time to start, we dropped frustration. We dropped everything but our commitment to offering ourselves and our art. We began playing and let our work together carry us. We were instruments of the caravan, and when we let go of our importance and gave, beauty played us.
And then, after almost two weeks in the caravan chamber of intensity and togetherness, it was time to return to our “regular” lives. But the caravan continues: each of us taking what we lived together and living it into the world.
So, I write. Practice guitar. Eat good food. Seek good company. Keep walking, even when I’m not sure of my destination. Learn my mind and body. Try my best to love. Do my best to care. Commit, one step at a time.
“Create, create, create! Show, show, show!”
This is me, showing my work.
Thanks for reading.