Southward

I'm currently in Nashville, visiting one of my favorite people in the world:



For the first several years that I knew ABOUT Annie Parsons, I thought of her in my head as "Cool Annie Parsons." She used to help lead worship at our college church group, and was always SO stylish, SO poised, and so... effortlessly... COOL. She got to know me through our mutual friend Aaron, and apparently decided that she wanted to be my friend when I wore a pair of blue coveralls to church, with big dangly earrings.

(Note to the reading public: if anyone wants to help me bring back coveralls, I would be so down.)

The first time she invited me to hang out, I was starstruck. I remember a new boyfriend asking me to do something with him the same night, and I felt so torn. "But, Nick... I'm sorry, but COOL ANNIE PARSONS wants to hang out with me!" He understood. It was Cool Annie Parsons. You don't turn that down.

Of course you get over being starstruck, and as Annie and I have become better friends, the "celebrity" of her up-front-stylish-singer-persona has worn off. And thank God-- because that's been the best part. Today, Annie and I went on a long, hot, sunny walk through Nashville and we talked about family, and we talked about relationships, and we talked about insecurities, and failings, and God, and weaknesses, and the things that we hoped to one day-- eventually-- triumph over. We were neither chic, impressive women: we were sweating 20-somethings in workout clothes that were throwing up our hands in life-confusion. It was fantastic.

What a gift this friendship has been in my life-- to have someone who accepts all my imperfections, and will listen to my expression of them intently, and sensitively, and to return understanding words. Annie and I have both had weird, rough years-- and my friendship with her has been a life raft when the waves threatened submersion.

On Friday, my first day in Nashville, I walked to Annie's work, and got caught in a torrential downpour. It was supposed to be a lovely, perfect day-- instead, the sky emptied lakes, and lightening, and huge crashes of thunder. The rain lit through my clothes, my shoes, my backpack; it ravaged my hair. It was. The best. Most fun. Most fantastic. Most exhilerating. Most life-awakening walk I've had in I can't remember how long. It was sublime, and I couldn't stop laughing out loud. I got to Annie's immaculate office building, and dripped on the marble floors. So many wry grins and raised eyebrows from the well dressed employees. "Raining out there, is it?" I wanted to laugh again, and give them a rain sodden hug, and make them laugh at the ridiculousness of us both.

Last night, we went to an unbelievable live music show at the Bluebird Cafe. Four artists sat in a circle and shared songs about mistakes, and anger, and relief, and sex, and desire, and of giving up. One song was titled, "Cracked and Broken and Beautiful." Out of their hunger and past pain, these writers had created things that were exquisite and lovely. They were inspiring; they were redemptive.

Today, on our walk, Annie and I saw beautiful stately homes that consistently had messy, ungroomed lawns. In all their elegance, the owners must have chosen to just let the lawns: Go. I don't know why. But I liked the combination. I liked the the perfect houses having a messy, wild side, and of the owners having more important things to do than manicuring their lawns.

The point I'm getting at, I suppose, is that I love the messy imperfections. I love that Annie and I both have holes and gaps, because that's where we're able to meet each other in friendship. Imperfection requires help-- it requires hope, and GRACE, and saving-- from God, from one another. For one another. And I love that, I love the meeting between trenches. That's when life gets to LIVING. Praise the Lord that Annie is not just Cool Annie Parsons-- that she's messier than the poised singer up front of many impressed people. If she was only that, we would have never needed to become friends, and the kind of wisdom and songs and thoughts that she's shared with me and so many others would have never been aired. If Cool Annie Parsons was only that, I don't know that she would have had the patience to walk with me through MY confusion-- but as it is, she does. And thank God that she does.

Anyway. Suffice it to say. I'm really loving Nashville. And Annie Parsons is fos sure one of my most favorite people in the whole world.