K.C. Clifford
Grief is an Equalizer

#TruthBooking: Grief is an equalizer on the human playing field. No one is immune to it. Grief has no respect for our timelines, our plans, or our need to appear put together. Most of us operate on the surface of life’s ocean with little regard for grief’s impact until suddenly one day we find it’s our turn to be churned around in the undertow. Grief leaves us wondering if we will ever get to come up for air.

I was on stage with a friend recently. She looked out at the large crowd and remarked that if every person in the audience were to reach out to our left and right, in front of us or behind, chances are we would all connect with another human who has experienced deep loss. It’s an image that hasn’t left me, especially since we’re in the throes of the holiday season. During a time that is hyped as merry and bright, the grieving walk among us. In my own life, I can think of those grieving the loss of a spouse, a father, a child, a grandmother, a dear friend, a partner, a mentor, and a pregnancy. Traditions can never be the same, and the search for the so-called “new normal” leaves us navigating the season which brings not tidings of joy, but waves of sadness. There is an empty chair at the table, a stocking missing from the mantle. The holidays can serve as a magnifying glass making loneliness and loss loom large.

Every single one of us experiences grief in our lives. For some of us in 2019, the weeks between Thanksgiving and New Year’s will be a painful exercise in merely surviving the next thing.

Grief is an Equalizer

Part 1: Meet the Teachers

Part 1: Meet the Teachers

A year ago this week, we were preparing for Beatrice to start school for the first time. A big rite of passage, we bought books for her to read, included her in school supply shopping, and she had a new blue backpack with her name on it. You know the drill. It was also my first time to be a mom with a school-aged kid. I sincerely hoped Bea would have a smooth start, and that she would enjoy school.

The day before “Meet the Teachers,” David had emergency surgery for a detached retina. It was one in a too long series of medical traumas we endured in 2015, a year that spared no one in our little family. The suddenness of David’s surgery visibly rattled Bea. She treats change like an intruder. Surprises of this nature are not welcome for her. Let's be real though, no one gets super jazzed to wake up and find their retina has taken to peeling off like old wallpaper. 

Just in Case- Stories Behind the Song

Just in Case- Stories Behind the Song

The world is crazy-town right now y'all. Crazy. Town. And whatever side of the fence you stand on, all indications say you are convinced yours is the right way. So many people are hurting. So many people are hurting people. The heaviness is palpable. The sorrows are all but tangible at this point. 

I don't know about you, but I think it's time to tear down the fences. I think it's time for gratitude. To SEE each other. To not only listen, but hear. A laying down of judgments. Radical kindness. Revolutionary generosity of spirit and resources. Time is precious, friends. And so easily wasted.

Plinky Child's Piano

My Grandma Clifford was a rare bird. In my childhood, she lived in Oklahoma City in a historic home near downtown, a home which my great-grandfather built on land gifted to him from some family friends, the Nichols. Her father died young, as did her husband Harry, my grandfather. In the early 70's she moved back into her childhood home to help care for her aging mother, Minnie. Growing up I would visit Grandma there, for holidays, dinners, and special sleepovers. Wonderful memories...

Bear Witness

Regret. We’ve all felt it at one point or another. Missed opportunities, actions we wish we could take back, or have the chance for a redo. When I was in the 6th grade, I did something I immediately regretted, but didn’t have the character or maturity at the time to make right. I don’t even remember the circumstances surrounding it, but I recall feeling picked on or teased. This was not an unusual feeling for me as kid who was mercilessly teased most of my childhood. We were in the girls locker room. Out of my hurt, out of my fear, out of my need to feel superior to anyone, and out of my sheer blind ignorance, I spewed a racial slur at a girl.

Red Dirt Roads

On my first songwriting retreat to Tag Hollow, I was stumped. Weary from years of touring and being bogged down in administrating an indie music career, I felt disconnected from my creativity. I spent a couple days at Gleneyrie sitting with a guitar, staring at a blank screen. Panic began to set in. I feared I was a dried up well, the best songs I had were already written, and there were no more songs in me. Most writers feel this way at some point, or if we're being honest, every hour or so. I texted David "Well, it's been a great run. Four records, hundreds of songs. But apparently I don't write songs anymore." He replied: "You always say that. Keep trying." UNHELPFUL, I thought. Humph, rude.

I decided a change of scenery might help. I loaded up my guitar and dulcimer, and headed down to the swimming hole below the dam. It was almost dusk. Perched on top of a picnic table, I started to strum. The cicadas sang a tune. "Write what you know," I recalled the writers' adage. As I sat there thinking about my story, I marveled at the orchestration of events that had led me to that place in time. Never in a million years did I think I would end up living back in Oklahoma. You never know where whole-hearted living will lead you. Sometimes it even takes you back to where you started from and gives you the chance to see it with new eyes. As I strummed, the Oklahoma sunset started showing off in a way that words can't do justice, and I started humming this tune. Apparently I had more songs to write after all. Here's Red Dirt Roads.

http://kcclifford.bandcamp.com/track/red-dirt-roads

Gleneyrie

In 1933, my great-grandparents built a lakeside cabin in the hills of Northeastern Oklahoma in a place called Tag Hollow. I grew up going there in the summers with my grandmother Glennes, after whom the cabin, Gleneyrie, was named. On a Wednesday morning thirteen years ago, I sang "Great Is Thy Faithfulness" by her hospital bedside as she slipped from this earthly place into the next. It was the most sacred moment of my life to date...

Love What Matters

Sisters, I needed to read this post on Facebook today. Maybe you do too. It is a deeply saddening reality to see the level of fat-shaming that is still an accepted norm in our society. This year I was horribly fat-shamed by a surgeon I went to for a consult. I wish I could tell you that I stood up, fought back and put him in his place. But truth is, I froze. Afraid that the way he saw me, as disgusting and vile, was really who I am. Afraid that a set of numbers defines me, gets to be the story. I was buried in the shame of his misplaced view of me. Needless to say, he didn't get my business and I'll never set foot in his office again. But it took awhile for me to unpack the experience. Just yesterday I hid a post from a FB friend, a woman, who was telling fat jokes and touted them as hilarious. THIS IS NOT OKAY. We have got to WAKE UP and remember we are in this together. It's not me against you. It's not my wardrobe, or my parenting, or my dress size, or my salary, or my house, or my strengths against yours. STOP IT. We are better together. Put down your judgments, your insecurity formed weapons and CHOOSE LOVE. CHOOSE KINDNESS. There is a world of little girls looking at us to learn. LET US TEACH THEM A NEW WAY.

Sea Shanties

Today at lunch I sat and listened as my Dad told a story about playing a gig with Jimmy Buffett as his opener, decades ago before anybody knew who he was. Dad told Jimmy he didn't think he was going to get anywhere with those sea shanties. Years later when he and Jimmy spoke again, they laughed about it. I have never heard him tell this story before. I sat back and smiled, watching the gleam in his eye remembering the tale in detail, and enjoying the telling. Most people don't ever hear those stories from my Dad, and you'd never guess how many of them there are. So. Many. Stories. I imagine back in the "la-la days" (as my mom refers to them) when the oil and money flowed free in the late 70's and early 80's, he might have boasted about the who's who of his life. But that's not the guy I know. Cause here's the thing: Celebrities and big shots aside, I have never once doubted who the treasured people in his life are, and we know who he loves the most. He tells us in so many ways more than words, this gentle giant. He's the most generous man I know, and I'm still so proud to learn about life from him. I hope to inspire the people in my life the way he does, and someday maybe I'll be as good at spinning a yarn as he is. Happy Father's Day Daddy.

Kerrville

Kerrville

Fifteen years ago this week, in 2001, I drove through the gates of the Kerrville Folk Festival for the first time. An old hippie reached into my car window, gave me a sweaty hug and said "Welcome home!" I must have looked like a deer in the headlights cause someone pointed me toward a stage to go hear some music. I wandered in and sat down behind a gentle-faced, older man. He looked like he was in the know, we struck up a conversation about what was happening that afternoon- a performing songwriter competition called New Folk. I later learned that kind man's name was Bruce Rouse. I listened in the hot Texas sun as writer after writer took the stage and offered up well-crafted songs, some beautiful, some funny, all from the heart. It occurred to me that I had stumbled upon something magical. Intrigued, I wanted to know more...