Kickstarter Has Launched!!!

Hi y'all!!!

I'm going into the studio in a few weeks to begin recording "How To Sleep In A Stormy Boat" with Neilson Hubbard producing and to celebrate that in necessary indie fashion, I'm launching as of RIGHT NOW a KICKSTARTER campaign to raise the funds so that I can a) pay for the record and thus b) own it myself. Would you consider helping me? I would so appreciate it. Just give what you can (cool pledge packages galore) and also share the campaign/video with everyone you meet.

Thank you so much,

Amy

A Very Long Day

Tonight I went to see "Long Day's Journey Into Night" starring David Suchet and Laurie Metcalf. Had cheap tix but I got to the Box Office and they said 'we can move you to the 2nd row, orchestra. Would you like that?' Um. Yeah. Duh. So I sat close enough to see the wig lines around Laurie Metcalf's temple. Close enough to get spat upon. Close enough to be weeping like a baby. This was undeniably one of the best pieces of theater I have ever seen in my life. And afterwards, I was walking around the neighborhood looking for something to eat and ran smack into Laurie Metcalf on the street and babbled at her "you were...I mean...I'm so sorry to bother you, but you were...devastating, amazing...thank you for your performance" and she was so nice and smiled under her knit hat, tiny as a slip of paper she was, and I felt like a gurmy drama student. But my soul was stirred and I was wandering alone in London, just wanting to grab onto someone's arm and stop them and say "did you SEE that?" Do you know the play? It's devastating. Long. And bleak. And there are these moments in it that just brought me to almost choking. The moments of each character confessing or realizing that they are all reaching, or were reaching, for some big awesome truth something larger than what is there in reality, some DREAM, that failed them. Each of them were wrecked by the realization of the failure. To me: that is communion. WE all have that. The thing we want that we lose or we never reach. Perfection. Andrea Del Sarto, wasn't that the poem by Robert Browning? "Ah, but a man's reach should exceed his grasp or what's a heaven for?" (sounds like a graduation speech). But that's the tragedy of life and it just tore through me tonight. IN a way that was both completely depressing and completely uplifting.

And then, I had to eat and drink some wine. Quickly.

York to Bristol and Grey Skies

York to Bristol...


We didn't spend enough time in York. What a beautiful town and everywhere I turned in the small winding cobblestone streets lines from Richard III echoed through my head.  I brought with me (on the IPad, I'm not lugging my Riverside Collected Works nor my most prized possession of a First Folio) the Collected Works of Shakespeare and confess to re-reading Richard III and Richard II on the drive out of York.  


One thing that saddens me is to see in these old parts of the city the same stores: Boots, TK Maxx, Banana Republic, The Gap.  Strip mall culture has hit. And it's sad to see TopShop right next to a thousand year old Church. Homogenization of the world is a sad sad thing.  Nothing to fight. It's inevitable. But I prefer the old Parfumaries and the 2 chair barber shops and the tea shops. I don't need to buy anything while I'm here. I'm trying to downsize my life, get rid of the extraneous. I take pictures and write. And buy a sweatshirt because I'm freezing.  Other than that, you can have your tat.


I read and slept on the drive back up to Bristol.  I've discovered a podcast out of Marfa, TX radio by Tift Merrit, called The Spark. I listened to her interview (full of giggling) with Patty Griffin, a serious one with Mary Gauthier, and a really in depth one with Emmylou Harris.  I love this podcast. I'm looking forward to getting to the rest of them.  


Billy White, Alejandro's guitar player, is this interesting guy that once played with Dokken (hope I'm spelling that right, not having much knowledge of hair band music), gave it all up to go live in San Miguel de Allende to raise a child and has come back. He's very deliberate in conversation and spiritual and the conversations are always interesting.  Bobby the bass player is the voice of reason. Been there, done it, and still has a wide-eyed fascination with life and is wise wise wise with a sharp and dry sense of humor. A vegan and a long distance runner, he's inspiring.  Chris is the drummer.  Young spirit. LIke this is his first time on the planet. He's funny, chatty, welcoming and warm, and reminds me a lot of my brother Matt.  The Sprinter is filled with fruit and hummus and soft bread and rice cakes and organic peanut butter and water.  Town to town....


A restless night in a taco that was disguised as a bed in a Bristol Travelodge that seems nice, except for being stuck in the elevator yesterday during a power outage and the car I was in dropped 1/2 a floor. Might not seem like much, but I had an electric moment of thinking this would be a horrible way to go (me=quick to jump to the worst possible conclusion).  Trapped there for probably only 2 minutes, claustrophobia setting in, gripping my throat and I tried to remain calm.  Pressed all the buttons, but there was no Emergency Button nor no way to contact anyone.  When I was released, I spent the next few times up and down to my room on the stairs.  I was ready for a drink. And to get out of this hotel for a moment, so I wandered into the center of Bristol with Mike our tour manager to the canals and we found a lovely old pub named, of course, Shakespeare's Tavern. And had a nice meal. Not that I'm a heavy drinker or someone that eats a ton of meat, but I had a few glasses of wine last night after really not drinking much on this trip and I had steak and ale pie and I did not sleep well. It's quite revealing to give something up and then add it back and see the havoc it can wreck on your body, sleep and psyche. I woke up completely depressed and sluggish.  Didn't feel right. Thought I was coming down with something. But I wasn't. And I wasn't even hung over. Just the effects of adding toxins back in after detoxing.  I love wine, don't get me wrong, and I like to eat meat once in a while, but after 12 days of not really drinking and sticking as much as I can to a clean diet, it really did a number on me.  


Bristol is nice, so far that I can see, but I think, after I get my head back together after a good strong cup of tea and some yogurt and fruit for breakfast, I'm going to take a run and then take a train to Bath. Get out. Explore something new. It is bound to change something in my psyche. Letting go of anything is such an effort and takes way longer than any of us ever would expect. And it creeps up in odd places and in odd ways. Like a ghost bird, limping along beside...I think what this fog in my heart calls for is some solitude in a new town with a new journal. Then to get back to Bristol for dinner and play guitar tonight, finish a song, start a new one. Just stay in the moment, grey as it may be, but full of possibility....

UK Tour 2012

 Back in the UK again, it's been three years. Last time I was over here was a follow up to my supporting Ian Hunter's Acoustic Tour, where I came back over with James Mastro and did a handful of dates on my own. That was May 2009. It's now July 2012. I've been wanting to come back since 2009, but had to wait on a new record, had to wait till my label found a fiscally sound reason to release it over here. If it were up to me I'd have just come over, album in hand, and sold off the stage. But this being a whole different country, I took others' advice and waited till I was told the timing was right. The timing, this time, being an invitation to support Alejandro Escovedo's UK Release tour for "Big Station", his wonderful new album.   Part of this tour was a leap of faith. As 'support', you really don't make much money. You hope for good CD sales from the stage to offset the cost of traveling, and since I'm coming over during Wimbledon and right before the Olympics, my travel costs were sky high this time. As well as some stupid glitches I made (um, customs tax on shipping CDs because nobody advised me how to do this...).  But Alejandro's gang have made it easy on me, by inviting me to travel with them in the band van. Which helps me to not have to rent a car, and it's been great, because the guys in the band are all really kind, very interesting guys with war scars and open hearts and they welcomed me in from the start without any hazing or attitude.  Mike Allen, the tour manager, is a big Glaswegian with a heart of gold.  And Alejandro is one of the classiest and humblest people I've met in any walk of life. A huge huge talent who is revered in many circles and is one of those artists that many people feel should be way more famous (to me, he's pretty famous) and who, once in his presence, the fame thing falls away -- YOUR response to him, not his response to you. He seems to treat everyone with dignity and respect and meets people at their levels. He is such a decent guy that I feel like I'm remembering why I started doing this in the first place. And the kind of artist I aspire to be.

Sometimes when I travel, I'm tempted to blog about the things I see, what I eat, all the unusual happenings, but not this time. I've seen rolling fields of green dotted with sheep with sheets of rain from the window of the Sprinter. I've seen red brick buildings stained grey from old soot. I've seen castles from the highway, distant.  Our days are running together.  Wake at about 8am. Make tea from the room (good thing I gave up coffee this year for tea). Take a 1/2 hour run if we're in a safe area. Or do a bit of yoga in the room. I've taken to doing an excruciating (for me) sit up routine, as I'm frustrated by my body seeming to take some age on in the middle. Eat fruit and yogurt that I've snagged from the dressing room the night before. Meet at the van at noon. Drive 3 or so hours. Read in the van. Get to the next hotel. Check in. Nap for a minute. Load in at 5. Check emails while the band sound checks. I soundcheck for 10 minutes. We all eat dinner somewhere. I play my 45 minutes. They play for 2 1/2 hours. I join them on a few songs. We pack up, take all the food and waters from the rider for the van. Get to the hotel, check a few emails. Sleep.  

It's not glamourous. This is where it is a job. No real time to sightsee. We get a taste. Then we're off to the next place. But for 45 minutes I get to play some songs and do what I love the most and it's all worth it. I don't make much money. Never have. I wonder if I ever will. I know that I need to. Leading a creative life since I was in my 20's, I never really had the luxury of making more than I needed and setting myself up any kind of cushion. It's always been a month to month existence. I've chosen this. I know it and I don't complain but it is unsettling.  And I wonder if there will come a time where I'll need to surrender to the realities of the economics of this ever-shrinking/ever-growing music business -- a lot of people out there making it, and not a lot of people buying it. I've heard way too many times "there's too many girls with acoustic guitars out there" -- especially here in the UK. Bullshit. I hate that phrase. Are there too many boys with electric guitars? Are there too many banjos? Yes. There are a lot of girls playing folk/americana/roots music. A lot. But each is different. Just because Mary Gauthier and Diana Jones and Carrie Rodriguez and Anais Mitchell and Tift Merrit are out here touring (I see their posters and their names on the bills of the places I'm playing) does it mean there's not room for another? Can you really compare any of those women I just named and say that they are the same thing? Don't they offer something different? Something unique and maybe even essential? Don't they touch hearts in different ways?

Maybe I'm just the eternal optimist. I struggle every day with the monkey-mind of comparison.   The voice in my head that tells me I'm not good enough and someone else is... better, prettier, thinner, younger, older, whateverer.  That voice is exhausting and I wish it weren't there, but it is, always there. In all of us, right? I remember the first producer who wanted to sign me to a ridiculous 7 term deal, just to make demo's for me. 7 terms and ownership of all of my music just to make a few demo's. It was the most ridiculous contract and I thanked him and declined. He said, "you'll never get anywhere in this business".  It was a line out of a 1950's movie. And he said it with venom.  That was 1998. 

Hanging around with Alejandro and Bobby and Chris and Billy and hearing their stories, I feel like, again, I'm in a club -- a club of people who have heard these things and slapped them away. Told those voices to piss off. While we followed instinct, sometimes down dark paths that led us to our knees, and sometimes to these small moments where one really great show, one amazing sound person, one kind club owner, one small club full of 100 fans who love every song we're doing makes a magical night and we all realize that THIS is what we're after, despite the voices, the doubts, the struggles, the poverty, the lack of sleep, the loneliness, all of it. 

A string of moments. 

The Sky Is Falling...

I barely remember the second semester, freshman year, of college.  It was as if I'd been struck in the head and most of that time period is gone in an amnesia haze. There's a few things that are clear, but I slept-walked through much of those months and somehow I managed to go to class and not fail out. My friend Sarah slipped a card underneath my dorm door one day. I think have that card somewhere still. It said something about how life can sometimes make you feel like a few elephants sat on your head.  It was warm and compassionate, but also very funny, and it lightened an otherwise dark time for me and it was not the first time Sarah would be an angel to me.


When I lost my voice in November this past year, I felt like the sky was falling. I wrote about that before, but while I was in a dark place, someone told me about a Vipassana Meditation course. 10 days of silence to learn this technique. And because I'd been rendered silent, somehow this struck me as not only a good idea, but a necessary one, and I decided to sign up for the next available course, and give it to myself as a birthday present.  


At the tail end of February, I found myself driving 9 hours to Jessup, Georgia to the Southeast Vipassana Center for a 10 day course. I had been excited, but as the days grew closer, I became anxious and then afraid. White-knuckled driving, not knowing what an entire day would feel like without sound, not to mention more than a week. No reading. No writing (no writing?), no talking? Terrifying.  


I played Darrell Scott's song "Colorado" over and over and over again as I drove the windy backroads to the Center. "Colorado I need healing from this sorrow I've been feeling..." Felt like it was the appropriate last piece of music to hear before I turned the sound off.


I arrived to this lovely place, clean and very well-kept, a small pond lined with benches and willow trees, walking trails through woods, dorms and a cozy dining room. The registration hours were not silent, but I felt hesitant to talk to anyone, warming myself up to go inward. The place is run on volunteer efforts. It does not cost to do this course. You donate after you complete or you offer service of your own.  It's incredible and it's worldwide.  I found my dorm room, which I was to share with 2 other women, connected to other rooms and other women. Clean and sparse. I set my bed up with my linens and pillow, unpacked my suitcase and joined the other women at dinner, our last chance to talk before the course began. There was buzzing of conversation, introductions, a few women who had done this course before who were giving glimpses of what was to come, a bit of advice.  I can't remember talking to many. I told a few people who had asked where I was from or what I did that I was a 'writer from Nashville'. Otherwise, I was quiet, trying to concentrate on breathing and not give into a last-minute panicked ditching of this crazy idea. The only thing that kept me there was that my fear of being deemed a quitter is greater than my fear of actually doing something terrifying. Leap...


As we passed through the meditation hall for the first time that night, being shown to our assigned mat/seat, I knew the Noble Silence had begun and a grief welled up inside of me. Like so much of what I experienced that week, it completely took me by surprise, my fear, my sorrow, my anxiety.  My breath became shallow and I checked around at the others' faces to see if anyone else was feeling my anxiety.  Everyone looked so calm and I felt more alone than I've ever felt.  Passing through that door we were asked to accept the five precepts of the dhamma:


Abstain from telling lies
Abstain from stealing from others
Abstain from killing
Abstain from sexual misconduct
Abstain from taking intoxicants.


Part of this was Noble Silence (meant to help us with the first precept).  So much more than not talking to anyone, it encompasses not being in communication with anyone at all -- no gestures, side looks, etc. To stay completely within yourself for 9.5 days (we broke Silence halfway through the last day).  I was more anxious about the No Writing rule (they ask you to not bring anything to write with -- writing and/or reading takes away from the practice of really going deeply within and investigating a new kind of silence).  But I didn't really miss not writing or reading.  Never even thought about it after the first day.  However, I have never felt so lonely and alone as I did on that first day. I can honestly say that Day 1 of this course was one of the longest days of my life. I did not think I could make it.  I kept in my head that I'd run 2 marathons and survived a pretty harrowing trip to Cambodia years ago. I kept saying to myself "If I can do THAT, I can do THIS."  But I will admit that the first 7 days were like mile 18 of the marathon -- never ending, painful, and very very tough.  I thought to myself many times "why the HELL am I here? I am never going to make it." But on the other side of it, it was one of the most important experiences of my life so far and very very worth the challenge. The world would be a better place is everyone did one of these courses. 


This is what a day in Vipassana looks like. The morning gong rings at 4am. By 4:30 we start our meditation in the hall until 6:30. The gong rings, and we'd walk silently to breakfast. 8am -9am is a mandatory group one hour sit in the hall. 9-11am is a meditation either in the hall or in our rooms. 11am is lunch (the last meal of the day). 12pm-1pm we can interview with our assistant teacher for 5 minutes if we wish to request clarification of any of the points of the technique (I was there everyday). 1-5pm: more meditation. 5pm is a tea break with fruit. 6-7pm meditation. 7-8:30 is the evening discourse given by the guru Goenke (via videotape). And the last sit of the day ends at 9pm and then we are in bed.  11 days of this.   Basically, there are 3 mandatory one-hour sits in the hall. The other meditations you could choose to sit in the hall or do your practice in your room. I chose to always stay in the hall as the one time I tried to meditate in my dorm room, I just fell asleep. Before this course, I was unable to sit for even a 15 minute meditation on my own.  Now an hour flies by....


So what happens? Men and women are segregated so we had no contact with the men the whole time. There were about 25 women. All different ages and ethnicities.  I got to know the backs of their heads from meditation. Or the rhythm of their walks from our walking path. I made up stories about them, some of which ended up being very accurate. One woman, Jenny, I felt very bonded to, even though we didn't speak nor look at each other for 10 days. There was something about her presence that calmed me and I felt like we were friends. I'd see her in her army jacket over her patchwork skirt and I felt like I was going to be ok.  I felt deeply compassionate for my roommate, a young punkish girl of about 20 who reminded me of Oliver Twist.  Our job in the course is to learn Vipassana: a technique taught by Goenka in the ancient tradition of the Buddha, to meditate by observing your breath and 'scanning' for sensations as they arise on various parts of the body. This is a technique to develop a physical understanding of the present moment, of the truth of Impermanence (everything changes) and to bring a balanced mind to this understanding (Equanimity). And that it would eradicate suffering and bring about liberation.  It's not just a kind of 'om shanti'ing' your way to calm and peace and enlightenment. It's an extremely concentrated process, demanding the most exacting of attention and awareness.  It is hard work, I won't lie.  I fought it for 7 days. My mind does not slow down. My mind chatter does not shut up. I went there to try something completely foreign, to try something different. I'm always up for an adventure and this would be another one. I'm not very religious, and have been searching to find some relationship to spirit that was far away from the Catholic God I had to fire a few years ago. I was not lost. I was not bereft. I didn't feel broken. I went there to add more to my life, in essence, by paring down.  


I brought with me years and years of 'monkey mind' -- the spinning chatter of that voice in my head. I brought with me people I had wronged. People who had wronged me. Heartbreak and sorrow. I brought people who I didn't want to come with me. Does this make sense? I fought these people in my mind like demons as I tried so hard to stay with my breath and the sensations in my body. And then my mind would drift to anguish or anger, sometimes joy, to lists of what I would do when I returned home, to conversations I should have had, that I would have. And I would try to bring a friendly and gentle touch to bringing my mind back to my breath.  I fought this every minute of every sit for those 7 days. My back ached. My legs fell asleep. I thought "what the hell am I doing here?" I was bored. I was restless. I was in physical pain. I was angry at my own restless self, then I'd try to give myself a break and try again. And I'd get frustrated again. I would get up off my mat and go for a walk in the woods and find myself crying uncontrollably there. A cardinal would appear (of course...). And I'd feel somehow graced by something other than myself. I began talking to my grandmother (gone years ago...). I talked out loud a few times just to hear the sound of my voice. It cracked.  I heard my own lyrics come back to me, in phrases that seemed like messages from my younger self or a future self. I lost my appetite. I barely slept. 


Then on day 7 my tooth cracked and fell out. And without any drama, I was able to walk through the next few hours of figuring out if I had to leave or not (I was able to speak to our course manager, a volunteer who was extraordinarily calming and helpful).  If I left to see a dentist, I wouldn't be able to return to the course. I'd have to start over. And believe me, this was not a time I wanted to leave. So, after she had a conversation with a dentist friend of mine on my behalf, it was determined I could stay and deal with it when I got home (I wasn't in pain, the root wasn't exposed). As my teacher told me, "this is a storm and this is part of the practice."  And something else broke that day. As the panic rose both from a real fear of pain and also from a fear of failing, I used the technique and it did change. Impermanence. I watched as things changed. And I was able to get balance. And blissfully and gratefully I thought "It worked!" I almost danced...


From then on, something else happened. The practice opened up a deep reservoir of strength in me. A calming balance. I was able to see my past choices and mistakes as part of this great river of being that was necessary for my own path, so far. I saw where I had a part in the wrongs I perceived others' did TO me. And I clearly saw where I had wronged. And why. My music came to me, the new songs, and a vision of the next record followed me on the walking path one afternoon.  I thought "I wish I could write this down" but then I also felt this deep sense of letting go -- I'd remember if it was important and if it wasn't, then it wasn't... Not having the ability to record every thought on paper or guitar was actually a blessing. I slowed down. I felt grief over things I'd been grieving but instead of get choked up in it, tangled in a knot, I let the tears fall and thought "this, too, will change" and then watched the grief make space for a calm.  By Day 9, I can honestly say I have never felt so at peace, so ok with my world, my body, my life as I did those last days.  The last few meditation sits were the most profound experiences I have ever had. Deeply profound. In and out of my body at the same time.  


The last day is a day of Metta -- love, and we broke Noble Silence and are taught another kind of meditation, "loving kindness" and it was a magical day. I found Jenny and we both had the same feeling about each other, like we were sisters. We laughed and told each other about our lives.  Feeling so alone and so much like everyone else was having these amazing enlightened experiences, I found it incredible that everyone was grieving and crying and hurting and freaking out just like I was. And that we all got to the place where we were able to let it go. Had we been talking to each other through the whole week, I doubt I would have found the reservoir of self-reliance I found. Now I see why Noble Silence was absolutely essential to the course. The 10th day was such a day of light and healing and deep, deep bonds with these women who I had not spoken with at all. Turns out, a few of them were curious during the whole experience "what was the writer going through?"  One woman, who sat behind me in the meditation hall told me that I was her angel. She said that I seemed so strong and calm, my back was such a presence of grace and strength. I admitted to her that I was falling apart and how the hell could she have gotten grace and strength out of that and she just smiled with tears in her eyes and said, "You and your back got me through this."  I felt the same way about Jenny. And my Oliver Twist-like roommate, who was there each and every sit, straight and determined, coughing from a bronchial infection, but never complaining.  The night of the 10th day, we stayed up till 2am talking and sharing our lives. It was deep.  


I was looking forward to the 9 hour drive home alone, where I could call friends and babble about the experience, but a 23 year old boy needed a ride to Nashville and he joined me. Turns out it was a blessing. He had done 3 Vipassana courses in his young life and his insight into the after-effects of this course were really necessary. I asked him a thousand questions before dropping him off in East Nashville. 


I have been meaning to write this blog now for over a month, but my need to write has shifted a bit since then.  I turned on my computer that first night and the Facebook home page came up and I felt bombarded with reality and had a bit of a freak out. Life. Reality. Gossip. Professional envy. The world spun too fast around me and I had to turn the computer off. That first week home I was up every morning at 6am to meditate for an hour. I felt changed. I came back to my same life, but I felt I had changed. That was my goal: to not change the circumstances surrounding me that were challenging, but to be able to change myself within them.  I was able to do that as long as I stuck with my morning sit. The continuing practice is to do a one-hour sit twice a day (morning and evening). I have not yet been able to do the evening sits. And I haven't been able to keep up the practice every day, especially on the road, but when I miss a sit, I can feel how much I wish I had done one.  It is a magical centering for me.  I utilize Vipassana when I feel conflict or anxiety, or just when I'm driving these long drives. The meals there were vegan and without coffee or alcohol, two of my 'vices'. On the long drive home back to Nashville I stopped by a coffeeshop, eager to get a cup, as it had been 11 days. I took a few sips and felt it course through me like a poison. I threw the cup out. A few weeks later, I tried coffee again and again, felt it through me like molasses. I just felt off. Since then, I have not had a cup of coffee. I've become a tea drinker, something I never thought I'd be. I have gone back to eating meat, but I definitely feel it disrupt my digestion.  And wine, I've gone back to, but again, I'm more aware of it's effects and I'm cautious.  The course made me very aware of my body, my soul, and how I walk through this world. It wasn't like a magic cult where everything changes and all of a sudden you reach enlightenment. I'm not walking around in a white robe with a pacifist smile on my face.  I just feel like I gained some new tools when life throws an elephant or two on my head.


A few nights ago, here in New Jersey, visiting my brother and his family, I was walking back to his house after we were having dinner with his neighbors. I had my guitar on my back and my niece and nephew, 3 year old twins, were in front of me, when I heard a crack from the sky. A branch had broken off a tree, about 50 feet above my head, and I felt a sharp pain and then heard a loud crash. It fell on my head then bounced to the garbage cans, crashing and breaking. I was stunned, my knees buckled a bit, and I sunk to the driveway for a moment, before realizing what had happened. My sister-in-law came running to find out if I was ok. I was, but I was stunned and a bit shaken. I was ok. No real damage. But I thought how fortuitous that the branch struck me rather than the 3 year olds, who were literally inches in front of me. 


I don't believe that there's a cosmic reason for everything. I believe in some amount of chaos and planetary indifference to our little journeys.  But I like to indulge sometimes in symbolic games.  To attach meaning to chaos. It makes for a more interesting, poetic narrative to the random.  More agnostic than atheist.  Someone said to me, "Religion is for people who are afraid of hell. Spirituality is for people who have been there." I like that.  It has been a hard year for me. Those who are close to me know this. I've been walking through a year of elephants right and left, trying to hold onto the path, accept the elephants, sometimes bring understanding and compassion to them.  But I'm also trying to step out of the way and allow the elephants to splat on the ground and then step over them sometimes. It is so hard to know when to take the punch and when to turn your back.  I'm learning. Slowly, it seems, but I'm accepting that this is my journey. Others may take it a different way.  This is, I guess, why I write. To make sense of the senseless. To make admission of the confusion and the failings so that others may reach out their own flaws and we can all see that in the end, through the joy and the sorrows, we really are all made of the same stuff.  To accept the What Is rather than crave the What We Wish It Really Would Be. That's the hard stuff for me. Because I live in the "I Wish It Were...."  That's where suffering comes from.  Goenka lectured that the Buddha taught that suffering comes from craving and aversion.  Enlightenment comes from acceptance. Funny how therapy and recovery and meditation and conversations swirling around me all say the same thing. Acceptance of the What Is. I craved an outcome that clearly isn't mine to have. In many things. Don't we all? I am greatly blessed to have a way of making a living (meager though it may be) through doing and creating something I am passionate about.  But there are sacrifices to every choice and it can be a dark place to sit in the "What I Don't Have" for too long. We all do that. I wish things were different. I wish to stand on a tall mountain and defend myself, to demand what I want, to get what I want, to rail against the unfair. Also wish to sit quietly, for an hour or two every day, and listen to the nothingness tell me that what it is right now is exactly what it should be.  Maybe sometimes we need a knock on the head from some elephants to remind us of that....

Best Grief is Tongueless

I have never been a quiet girl, but I have been forced into such a space. I have acute laryngitis. I am healing, I've been to the best doctors, there is nothing damaged, but 13 days ago I woke up and nothing came out. My singing voice is definitely healing and I've done a few shows successfully, I'm just lowering keys and being very gentle on my voice as I sing myself back to health. Its the talking voice that's ragged, so I'm just not doing much of it. I'm not a quiet girl. I'm also not a patient girl. And the healing involves patience. Because my vocal chords are swollen and, along with a few things I can do and some medicine and avoiding certain foods and drinking a lot of water, really, the one thing I need right now is patience. Because it will come back. I just need to let go. Letting go is not easy. Let go of results, let go of timing, let go of all expectations and allow that as long as I do the things I'm supposed to do, my voice will come back. When it is ready.

I've been toying with this as metaphor. Like Saul/Paul the apostle struck blind. I once was blind but now I see? Maybe in the quiet hours I will find my voice, a truer voice? And I'm not talking about singing here. I feel like I've been on the path of truth-seeking for a while. "Who isn't?", you might add, but I've been like a warrior on this quest. Stumbling and tripping over myself and others, doing my best to stay directed like a flashlight at the hope for clarity. Or something in the near vicinity.

The throat chakra is Vishudda and when it is opened it is said to transform negative experience into wisdom and creativity. When it is closed, it is grief and death.

I've been writing a lot lately. Songs, stories, letters I won't send. Grieving things I'm letting go, grieving the road not taken. I remember loving that Frost poem. My grandmother would read Frost to me and I'd think of myself as a warrior child: that I'd be the one to take the road less travelled by. I knew I would. My grandmother lived long enough to see me not only take it but to earn enough success on it so that she could rest easy, knowing that I would eat and pay rent by it. I never thought that the other road, the road of stability and family and children and a mortgage and routine, might also live in the 'less travelled' by stanza. Mostly, I can with confidence say that I wouldn't change a thing. And yet, there are times when the grass might seem greener and I regret things, missed turns, lost friends. I spend my life driving and flying to shows, mostly alone, sometimes with others. And I am passionate about what I do and I am blessed to earn a living from my 'bliss'. But, there are days when it is too quiet and after the gig and the silence in my hotel room is hard to take and, at least for right now in my self-imposed solace, that there's not someone calling to check in and say goodnight is my reminder of my aloneness: the shadow of loss like a bedtime prayer. When I sometimes long for weekends of playing with children in leaves, shopping for a family dinner...I can even mythologize the water cooler conversations at office jobs. The grass isn't really greener over there. It's just a different plot of grass.

In the midst of this silence and solace, and an admitted financial crisis that kicked my knees out from under me for about a week, came the death of an old friend, Michal Friedman. A sudden, shocking, completely tragic death. Which, just as my legs were getting a bit stable and I was healing the voice, kicked it all out again.

I say old friend. My friend died in childbirth, leaving twins (healthy) and a husband I never met, didn't know existed. You see, this was a woman who was a friend of mine in a particular time of my life. Her sister was my better friend, but when she moved to NYC, she was also a musician, we were the same age, we played the same clubs, we temped, we'd go out and I seem to recall drink wine and talk about boys and music and clothes and Buddhism and she was sharp and smart and intimidating and tiny and stunningly beautiful like a cartoon character and seemed stronger than I. My then-husband was smitten by her and loved her music and we were all part of this loose gang. My best friends at the time were my fellow Expanded Arts Theater Company actors and her sister was a fellow actress. I was just beginning my journey into music and was starting out in the clubs in NYC. So was Michal. We were broke and idealistic and loud and competitive and she was single and I was married (but not rooted and clearly unhappy) and we spent time together. Not a lot. She wasn't a 'good' friend, nor a 'close' friend, but she was a friend and she was most certainly an integral part of that time for me. I realized, upon hearing of her death, that I hadn't talked to her or seen her play in over 6 years. I started touring full time in 2005 and once that happened, I saw my theater friends once in a while. My day-to-day friends became my band, the fellow troubadours on this winding road. My theater friends kept at it, plugging away, some kept with it, some left to do other things. And eventually, they got married too and most had babies and I lost track of if they were even acting anymore. Michal kept at music and though I didn't talk to her or keep up with her, I'd see her on Facebook or I'd hear about her show from my now Ex husband, who loved her music. Or I'd get curious as to what she was doing and I'd go searching. I knew she was acting and doing voiceovers. I didn't know she was married. I didn't know that she was pregnant.

This happens. Life moves forward. One path goes one way, the other the other. Just different shades of green. At some point, I looked around at with whom and by what I was surrounding myself, felt increasingly like I was on a train bound for a brick wall, and, growing weary and feeling older, I lit a match and burned it all down. Moved out. Got a divorce. Left a band. Left a label. Left management. Meditated. Started yoga. Felt the right thing come into my life on many levels and followed those winds. Moved south. Started over at 41. Lost track. Let go. Grieving the old. Wrote an album about all of it. Was proud and happy of that birth-giving, and have watched its stuttering journey through the world as it lingers, well received but not necessarily changing anything. I have watched that halting movement with pride and grief. Questioning...

And then, silenced by a swollen throat, still channeling the warrior, this time gently singing myself back, I hear of this untimely death of a girl who should not have died. A girl who was part of my world for a brief but very very important part of my life. I feel like I should not even be writing this, as it is her husband, her sister, her family, her real friends that remained, that grew with her, that ate Sunday dinners together and struggled to make ends meet 10 years later -- those are the real grievers. Maybe my grieving isn't for a loss that's mine, but for their loss. For the loss of this water sprite with a big howler of a voice who laughed easily.

But its also the loss of time and choices and I recognized with a deep kick of a growing pain that life is short and as I'd say, "Oh, I'll see them all next time I'm in town" there is sometimes not a next time. I'm reminded of my father and his twin, my beloved uncle, their 70th birthday dinner a few years back. I was offered a very important show during the Sundance Film Festival and instead of joining my entire family at the birthday dinner celebration, I took the show. Which ended up being far from important. It yielded nothing but a dent in my credit card. I said, though, "Oh, I'll make the 75th dinner. THAT will be something." My uncle passed away a year later, suddenly, of a heart attack.

One of my deepest regrets in life is that I missed that dinner.

And I do my best to not miss important dinners anymore. I learned the hard way that No Gig is that important.

So to the quiet. And the solace. It gives me the opportunity to see the connections. To accept and acknowledge the connections from my uncle to my friend to my financial woes to my voice to what I love and what I put time and energy into and this long road I keep running up and down, rock heavy up the mountain each time, falling back upon me, still lifting it wearier yet fighting the negative to the light and hope. I'm not getting off the wheel. That's not what this is. But perhaps the mute is like a flag waving: pay attention.

So I will. I will pay attention to whatever this is supposed to mean if anything. And I will make some very long overdue phone calls to people I love. And I will not regret that I stood on a high peak and spoke of a true love, regardless of the outcome. And I will meditate on all of this and let it sift through grieving and doubt and fear and lonely and pride and anger and loss and love.

And I will wish Michal a safe journey to wherever she is going and hope that her husband and her twins and her entire family and current community will grieve and mourn and then grow and find light and love again and have a beautiful life.

Excuse me, I'm going to go call some people, voice or no voice.

A Time To Talk

Robert Frost

When a friend calls to me from the road

And slows his horse to a meaning walk,

I don't stand still and look around

On all the hills I haven't hoed,

And shout from where I am, What is it?

No, not as there is a time to talk.

I thrust my hoe in the mellow ground,

Blade-end up and five feet tall,

And plod: I go up to the stone wall

For a friendly visit.