Q & A Plain Old Vanilla You
Q: You have just released a poetry collection, with the strange title, Plain Old Vanilla You. What gave you the idea to come up with a title like that?
A: To give you the whole answer, I have to go back about four years to the Blue Ridge Mountains of Western North Carolina, and a tiny river and a small town called Spruce Pine.
Q: Do tell.
A: Church this particular Sunday was “flat”… or maybe I was the flat one. It had nothing to do with the fact that we met in the side room of a library. It had nothing to do with the inspiration or lack thereof in the worship or message that morning. For sure it had nothing to do with the fact that I felt torn between this tiny group of “charismatic Mennonites” and the Assemblies of God church (AKA the Bridge Church) across the Toe River from the library.
Or maybe it did. Or not. I did not have the clarity of mind to know.
Q: What does that have to do with Plain Old Vanilla You?
A: You asked about the story behind the title, and I am telling you the story behind it.
Q: Please continue.
A: I left the meeting after church, and as was my habit at the time, I crossed the bridge across the river and hung out in the park down by the river.
Q: And wrote a poem?
A: Yes. The poem that became the title poem of this new poetry collection.
Q: What is the poem?
A: Here it the poem:
Sometimes you need people.
Sometimes you need space.
Sometimes you need noise.
Sometimes you need silence.
Sometimes you need
What no one but God has for you.
Sometimes you need
Not even be understood.
Sometimes you need to just be
By yourself.
Alone.
No props.
No performance.
No anything.
And maybe gradually
It will soak in
That someone
Might be okay with you…
Just plain ol’ Vanilla
You.
