Marriage may often be a stormy lake, but celibacy is almost always a muddy horse pond.

In English, my name means hope. In Spanish, it means too many letters. It means sadness. It means waiting. It is like the number nine, a muddy color.

After years of touring you experience music festivals that are mostly the same - where you copy and paste the same experience into a muddy field in California or a muddy field in England.

Everyone gets few chances in their lifetime to mess up their life. Sorted heads cruise through those muddy patches unaffected.

It was him, it was always him, they only needed to stand there with their feet buried into the muddy moss and look at each other; to feel each other. Time stopped, movement disappeared and it was both the beginning of everything and the end of everything else. They had each other and there was no name, no title to it other than they just had each other. There was no necessity to be practical, what they had and what they were, was of their own and in their own and I think nothing in the world could have made Lucy happier than to have what they had, to be what they were.

Even when muddy your wings sparkle bright wonders that heal broken worlds.

"The sound of thunder awake me, and when I got up, my feet sank into muddy water up to my ankles. Mother took Buster and Helen to high ground to pray, but I stayed behind with Apache and Lupe. We barricaded the door with the rug and started bailing water out the window. Mother came back and begged us to go pray with her on the hilltop.

I've been a Christian since I was a little girl. But my Christianity is a muddy mess of thoughts and opinions and making God into what works for me-like going shopping at the mall and picking out whatever I want, putting together faith like I would an outfit. Somehow I don't think the Creator, the I AM, the savior of the world is something we can mix and match to out liking.

I found my God in music and the arts, with writers like Hermann Hesse, and musicians like Muddy Waters, Howlin' Wolf, and Little Walter. In some way, in some form, my God was always there, but now I have learned to talk to him.

To have regret is to be disappointed with yourself and your choices. Those who are wise, see their life like stepping stones across a great river. Everyone misses a stone from time to time. No one can cross the river without getting wet. Success is measured by your arrival on the other side, not on how muddy your shoes are. Regrets are only felt by those who do not understand life's purpose. They become so disillusioned that they stand still in the river and do not take the next leap.

Marriage may often be a stormy lake but celibacy is almost always a muddy horse pond.

So I went out and bought Hard Again by Muddy Waters. That was a big learning curve. I listened to that album again and again and again. James Cotton was the harmonica player on that album.