All The Lonely People

"...wearing the face that she keeps in the jar by the door, who is it for?"

Sitting in a hotel lobby in LIverpool, in a lobby that reminds me of The Overlook Hotel, with large crystal chandeliers, a bit past its prime, big marble walls and floors, gas lamps and bad Merlot.  Having had the most wonderful day off, guided by locals Peter and Jackie who so kindly dedicated their day to driving James and myself around Beatlerama, hitting John Lennon's childhood home (a rather upscale home, surprising for an angry Teddy Boy, with a plaque, but just as surprisingly, no tat sellers hanging about), Paul McCartney's childhood home (no tat, no plaque), Ringo's street, the schools they went to, the first stage they played on for a school, the Quarry school, Penny Lane, Strawberry Fields, The Cavern, the new upscale cheesy Beatles hotel with the sculptures of the fab four jutting out like flags.  Tat everywhere but loving tat. The Art school. Stories of Peter and Jackie's life, going to the same school, concerts they'd seen, the most generous two people I've met in a long long time, who barely know me, but went farther out of their way to give me a show and tour me around their hometown than the people who supposedly are paid to do this. I'd give them gifts and money and my firstborn (if I had one) just to thank them. I'm blown away by people around the globe who are so moved by music that they take you in and change your day with their hospitality, thereby really affecting your life. More than money could. More than a HUGE audience at the "right" club. 

Liverpool is lovely. I thought it would be more industrial. Its funky and edgy and friendly. I've never chosen a Football League to follow, but then again, nobody has ever given me a football scarf, and today, I was bestowed a Liverpool scarf, so screw Chelsea and Arsenal and Man U. Call me a Liverpool girl.

The show in Leicester was really a wonderful surprise. The Musician. A great small club. Filled with people. Eric Brace from Last Train Home opened for us and did a fab job. We had Chinese food with he and his wife beforehand with our Ian Hunter friend Sue Mum, who always takes care of us. Saw T1 and some other Ian fans at the show, made some new friends, Chris the booker/owner/maitre d' took care of us in style and we had a great show. Back to the hotel, the Travelodge near the Casino, the world's skankiest hotel. Avoid avoid avoid. I woke to someone puking on my door (on the outside, mind you, but still....). We drove 5 hours to Glasgow without a GPS system. I played the part of "Tom Tom" in my best "go straight on" British voice while James Mastro expertly guided our "other side of the road, other side of the car stick shift".  Remember my last time in Glasgow (broken nose). This time was much better. We checked into our hotel, a nice small hotel, lovely really. No angry concierges ready to swing at me. We played at Bar Bliss, a nice crowd of very loud Glaswegians who I swear couldn't be bothered with listening to me, but maybe that was cultural. Maybe they were listening. John, the owner, was super kind and welcoming, so no complaints, but it was a bunch of loud, pint-drinking Scotsmen, so what can you do but play "Double Wide Trailer" until you've lost your voice while some woman in a thick accent screams "Do you know any Reba MacEntire?"  Oy vey.

We diverted the next day to Pullman Bridge for our continuation of the Ian Hunter tour "pub lunch" (our habit of stopping midday at some out of the way aesthetic pub in a tiny town to tuck in and eat well). Smack dab in the midst of The Lake District, and had fish and chips along the river on a glorious sunny day.  Then drove to Liverpool to meet Peter and Jackie at the Sudley Infant School in Liverpool, basically a kind of house concert, but in the Infant School auditorium, which they'd set up with a stage and a bar!!! It was amazing, really. The best show in a long time. Great people, beer in a school, so much fun. We went back to their house and talked and talked rock history for hours and then slept late till they picked us up for our Beatles Tour today. We interrupted long enough for Sunday Roast at the Philharmonic Pub and continued to the Cavern.  A show at the BBC to be aired later this week, and now back at the hotel to write and tub and sleep.

So now, we head to Bristol. Not too long. And a day off, so James and I plan to check out some museums in the morning, get to Bristol by dinnertime. Then on Tuesday we play with John Wesley Harding.  

I've got melodies and lines flying around in my draft addled brain. Hard not to stop for a 1/2 pint anywhere that looks lively. What I love is the intergenerationality here. The bars I'll go to in my neighborhood have a very limited age range. I'd like so much to drink a pint with my grandmother in a bar, talk to her friends, watch a football game with my grandfather and his friends, hear the old stories. We don't have that. I miss that. I miss not having someone to call. Can feel so connected to strangers and a stranger in my own life all at the same time. That's the life, I guess. I chose it. It chose me. Waste of time to parse that sentence. Rather just write a song.

Eavesdropping in Charlotte

Airport bars are a funny funny thing. At least this one doesn't have every TV turned into Fox News. You'd be suprised. Many do. I'd like a game, something diverting, but I'm getting CNN on the left and Fox on the right (I meant that geographically, not politically, but I wonder if there's some subversive design going on here...).  I have a 3 hour layover and the need to park myself to divert and check emails was coupled with the desire for a drink, so thank goodness for the fake Mexican restaurant next to my gate with plastic forks and knives, overpriced margaritas, and $7.99 wifi for the day. I just want to be home, but I'll hover for a few hours here, numb the crowd, meditate over tequila, and wind down before the longer flight home to Newark.   Everyone en route. The worried faces, anticipating, excited, tired, bedraggled, nervous, forgetting, remembering... Reading or staring into space. Frequent fliers with their organized business rollaways, backpacking 20 somethings, probably heading to Mexico, the furrowed brow of the 60 something woman, well-dressed, but travelling light, the couple heading to a wedding, the single man, not on business, looking around. Eyes darting and shaded all at the same time. Gestures are so interesting. Inadvertent gestures when someone doesn't realize they're being watched by a stranger on a laptop, digging for material, wondering who's watching her....

Intention

I went to a workshop on Buddhism, Intention and Meditation this morning in my neighborhood. I live in downtown Jersey City, a really cool little place. Jersey City is not a "little place". Its a huge city, spanning many miles, stretching along the Hudson River from about Chelsea in Manhattan, down to the end of the island and then winding around past Liberty and Staten Island and the factories and parking lots of the ass of Jersey. It goes back to Newark. Its huge. There's no THERE there. But there is a THERE in downtown Jersey City (and a shout out to "The Heights" which has these cool little enclaves of hipness and a lot of people who I adore who've made it their home, despite the vinyl siding). Downtown in the "historic" area is this resurgence of civic pride. I live on a block of brownstones, a tree lined street that abuts a mostly Dominican housing project on the one side and the more expensive $500K seriously renovated Brownstones on the other. There are two parks, Van Vorst, a lovely small park with a garden committee, roses, paths lined with gorgeous scented flowers and a fountain and a gazebo and a dog run and 2 playgrounds for kids. And Hamilton, a larger expanse with big cherry trees, a big gazebo, which is right now closed for renovation. I love my neighborhood. I really do. I wouldn't trade it for Williamsburg or Park Slope or the West Village at all. I know my dry cleaner Maria, a sexy older Greek woman who has dog treats on hand and who has become a kind of Mama confidant to me. I know the women who own the boutiques, Tia's and Aspasias. Aspasia is a friend of mine. I think I spend all my money in her shop, but regardless, I love her although I barely know her but know that I want to know her better. I love my neighborhood coffee shop. I recognize the people there and they put out a dog bowl of water for June.  My friend Abbie lives around the corner. My brother and his wife and my nephew and niece live about 5 blocks away. I recognize people. When the new bike shop opened, I went into introduce myself, just because I was so happy they were there. Its that kind of place. New and hip but still kind of an outsider so all of us outsiders are embracing her as our own. Happy to be Bridge and Tunnel. 

So today I went to the Barrow Mansion, a building that reminds me of the buildings of my college, an old Liberal Arts college designed by Meade McKim and White (I think, I'm pretty sure, but at least by name dropping landscape architechts I might seem astute). I went for a $10 workshop on Buddhism, Intention and Meditation.  I walked into this very lovely old building that made me want to find my old advisor's office, stacked with books and persian rugs and comfy chairs. Into a room with a large closed up fireplace on the mantle there were small asian teacups, a Buddha, some incense burning, folding chairs in the room, a side table of small bottles of water, bookshelves, everything painted white, very collegiate. A few women already seated. Two white haired women in the front row, obviously older, a woman in her maybe late 40s, maybe early 60s, great hair, sagging wrinkles but beautiful. I took a seat in the empty back row. In walked a few others, all ages, two women dark-skinned, could have been Indian or Pakistani or Middle Eastern or even Dominican or Puerto Rican. A good looking man probably my age in a worn Patagonia fleece. And I sat, a bit nervous yet expectant. And in walked this petite, young, bright woman, younger than I, pretty in a bright athletic way, and she took the seat in front of us all, crossed her legs on the chair and smiled and with her right hand, wiped her upper lip, as if to wipe sweat, and I thought, "No way." She smiled and even her smile smacked of young, lack of confidence. I'd come to hear a teaching from someone who was Buddhist, a Master, a Teacher. This was to take the place of Church [side note: haven't been to Church in years, don't know if I believe in God, pretty much have decided I don't, or I'm putting it on the back burner for now, so if I go its to smell the incense and to chill in the back, not deciding] or running, or sleeping late. And here it was, some young chick who I thought, no way is she old enough to impart wisdom. 

She led us in this lovely meditation. Asked us to visualize something that brings joy. To really breathe into that. All I could think of was the pink zinnia I'd planted yesterday, sitting on the wooden stairs in a clay pot. There's something clown-like about that zinnia and it makes me giggle. So I imagined the zinnia. Then we were to let it go and contain the joy without the image. The whole point was to realize or to breathe into the fact that happiness is within us, not without us. Later we were encouraged to visualize something (or for me someone) who we assumed might bring us happiness and then let that go, and honestly, I felt so released from that, to allow that my attachment to the supposed joy I thought this person might bring (and didn't) I could let go. Even for a moment. So there I was, enlightened by this 20 something woman who admitted to watching "Housewives of NYC" (ick). But she opened my heart and I left there feeling more expanded than I ever have on a Sunday morning in a Catholic Church.

I'm not saying one day holds the key. But it is nice to know where to put your feet down sometimes when you're not sure of the ground beneath.

The Beginnings

I was thinking today about how things start. 

Rehearsing with the new band today, I noticed my Time, which is usually pretty spot on, has been a bit fluid, so I asked Denny my drummer to count me in on a few songs I'm used to just starting on my own. He's got this really kinetic way of counting time. Its not your regular, "and a one...two...". He clicks his sticks, gathers his shoulders a bit in a hunch, throws his head, smiles and kind of dances his way through the 1, 2, 3, 4. He starts it with joy. Can't help but come in strong after a count-off like that.  And its nice to lean on someone else to help the start when I can't do it myself.

Some venues have an introduction, either someone who is onstage before the performer, speaking into a microphone some paragraph of background, providing a kind of curtain of opening before slowing down and saying clearly your name, just a bit louder, to encourage applause as you are then to walk strongly out on stage.  Or an offstage voice doing the same.  Its a strong beginning, you can allow the applause to build and then fade as you plug the cable into your guitar and start the first song without even having to say a word. Jump right in like a spotlight.

Some venues have nothing. You're onstage with your band, doing a line-check (last minute making noises, making sure all cables are tight, all pedals are working, the mics are at a good level, the monitors are working, etc.), and the sound person gives a thumbs up from the soundbooth and you have to make that transition from band fumblings to SHOW. It can feel awkward up there, because as you're checking sounds, the audience is usually quietly watching and you'd just sometimes wish there was background music that faded and the lights changed, signalling the end of the linecheck and the beginning of the show. That kind of no-transition transition is really awkward. You smile at the band and nod to the sound person that 'we're ready', and say "hello" on mic and it just never feels as punched as walking onstage and being able to manage the start. No spotlight. Just this amorphous beginning that feels like a wandering in.

I remember auditioning for acting parts. I hated auditions. I hated monologue auditions. Set me in the middle of the monologue and I'm fine. But that moment between saying hello to the folks behind the desk, eating their tuna sandwhiches and shuffling through headshots, barely interested in what you're about to emote, and the physical/psychic change from the actor hello to the character was just always the oddest moment. It would seem pretentious to turn around and turn back. I wanted to take my time, but you don't have time. You have to start. So you just have to do that. Start and catch up sometime in that first few sentences. Fake the first moment and then hope your body and mind catch up with truth.

In creating anything, whether writing a song or painting (or love), sometimes you just have to start without having any idea of where you're headed. Put the pen on the page and write and see where it gets you. Decide afterwards. Purge first. Edit second. Trust and jump in the deep end.

So it goes with life and transitions. Like performance, you just have to fake it until your body and mind catch up with the heist, kick out the actor and sink into a truth. The beginnings of things are always the most awkward, filled with uncertainty and miscommunications. Stumblings and fumblings. I think a measure of quiet watching the walls is allowed now and then. Pulling back and in and allowing the uncertainty to just walk side by side like a shadow. 

I figure its only a matter of time and patience before I can let go of the trickery.

Solace

I am newly living alone. This might be a surprise to some, no news to others, and to some who might say "who cares, really..." and its a conceit anyway to think that anyone reads anyone else's blog. I'm not changing the world here. Just threads of observations from someone who is more comfortable expressing in verse and chorus but this helps organize (sometimes) my thoughts that go onto have melody... So back to the status of my living arrangements. I'm living alone for the first time since, oh, 1994? 1993? I can't remember the when, but I remember the where. A studio on E. 11th between 1st and Avenue A in the East Village. I paid $575/month for it, which at the time I thought I couldn't afford, was a huge stretch. The apartment was off the street, was in the back building, so you'd have to buzz into the first building and get through the first 2 heavy locked doors, walk a long dark hallway, go outside to the "courtyard" and get buzzed in once more. In fact, my building's buzzers weren't working, as the street was a notorious block for drug dealers, so I'd developed a signal system. I asked visitors to call me collect from the payphone on the corner of 11th and 1st and I wouldn't accept the charges. This worked for about 6 months until the phone company figured me out (this was pre-cell phones, which, even writing it, seems like it might have been the dark ages, but was really only about 15 years ago).  I'd befriended the dealers on my block one day. There was a mosque on my block and it seemed like every cabbie would double park their cars for the praying hour. One actually backed into another legally parked car and attempted to flee the scene, but I was there and was yelling at him to stop. The owner came running out the door of his apartment and got the license plate number down in time. He took a look at me, nodded, asked me my name. "Amy". "Where you live?" I point to the door 2 down from his. He says, "Amy, you got protection, man." I had no idea he was a dealer. I just knew from then on, that entire year, when I'd get off work at 2am from my job as a paralegal at Cravath, Swaine & Moore and I walked the few blocks from the 1st Avenue L train, as I turned the corner, whomever was there whispering "hashish, sense..." would stop their whispering and wordlessly walk me to my door. 

 I had bars on my windows. I had linoleum tiles for a floor, black and white, roaches, the big ones. I had a tiny studio, enough room for a futon that folded up in the morning, my borrowed table and I'd hired a guy who lived down the block to build an entire wall of bookshelves, as the only thing at the time I owned was a Martin guitar, the futon couch/bed, and 10 boxes of books I wasn't willing to leave at my parents' house. So my little tiny East Village apartment was all books. Floor to ceiling. A tiny kitchen that was basically in my bedroom so if stir fried with too much garlic I was forced to sleep with it. The windows barely opened. The closet held about 1 coat and 3 dresses. The bathroom ... well... you had to enter sideways to fit in. It was tiny. But it was mine. And it was my first apartment without roommates for... well, forever. I had a party once, to celebrate the building of the bookshelves. I'd just completed my first movie, a small budget indie movie that was shot on Fire Island with a great cast and great crew and we'd bonded and I wanted to invite them all over to hang. My neighbors were friends from acting school and college, some poets and painters and dancers and actors who'd lived in the neighborhood, Dechen Thurman, Uma's brother, who worked at Cafe 9 on St. Marks' Place who was really young but sweet and had asked me out. I was crushed out on this guy from my cast who was a good actor, but was giving up acting to get his MFA at Columbia in poetry. He was one of the first people to ever encourage my music, as I'd just started singing and writing and playing guitar. I wrote one of my first songs about him, "Lovely." He baffled me. He'd call me late late at night to speak to me one of his new poems, which I loved. I thought he loved me. But he'd come over and read me poetry and wouldn't kiss me, wouldn't touch me, would talk to me of other women. I felt like we had this connection, and then I'd second guess myself. I just never quite understood it, the mixed signals, and I cut him off, cut off his calls. To be honest, for quite a while I'd categorized him as an arrogant ass. I don't even remember his name anymore. 

That apartment was my first oasis of independence, having graduated college to move in with a girlfriend, to leave that apartment to live with an entire band in the woods in order to share a room with a boy I deeply loved. To leave that boy to head to the City to share apartments while I went to acting school and worked 3 jobs. To move every lease to a new area of the City, including Brooklyn, to break up with the boy and give up the dream of that marriage that was never meant to be and find my own place on the edge of safety (this was pre-Starbucks/East Village). I loved it. Quite honestly, I should have stayed longer. But it was small and it grew claustrophobic and I was not happy alone and wanted to be in a relationship and grabbed at one that seemed right and moved across the Hudson and began a new life.

I don't regret those years. But they had to end and here I am, in my new alone space. We share the dog.  This leaving has a lease. This one feels real. This place is now home. Or at least, I'm doing what I can to make it home. I picked out paint colors. I bought furniture and knives. I've left things behind and I've bought new things. My partner was the cook, the one who took care of the home, as I was on the road so much, so moving to my own place was traumatic. Stuff like realizing I had no tupperware. Or hand towels. I didn't know how to use the outdoor charcoal grill.

Here's what they don't tell you in the textbooks of life. When you start over.  When you leave. Things you don't realize you're walking away from.

1. Buy good knives. Cheap knives just are not worth it. The wedding present divvying up sometimes isn't worth the argument. Leave some things behind, but spend money on replacing things you need with the good stuff. Calphalon. Wusthoff Knives. A good blender. A great mixer. 

2. Always have a bottle of good white wine in the fridge, chilling and keep at least 2 bottles of red around. And a 6 of imported beer in the fridge.

3. You can never have too much ziplock.

4. Medicine cabinet basic supplies are necessary. I had forgotten about band-aids until I needed them, after an accident involving a zucchini and a very sharp, newly bought, Wusthoff knife.

5. Silence is good. Make friends with it. Silence is different than loneliness. Make friends with Loneliness. She is just going to be your constant companion for a while and you'd better just embrace her now. Let her in. Give her a cookie. Then call a friend. Make a lot of plans with your friends, but let yourself have some silence to allow Lonely to come have a glass of wine. She needs attention and she won't bite. She'll hang for about an hour or so, then she gets bored and she'll go away.

6. Netflix.

So. Today I gardened. I wasn't the gardner in my family. He is. But he came over and helped me, which I love him for. And today I added a few flowers and plants and did it myself and that felt good. And tonight I don't need to go out and meet people to shove back the Lonely. I'm fine with her. I also wasn't a good cook. Now I am, or at least, I'm working on it. I have time to write, but I haven't yet written. I'm still getting used to the space, the silence, the not-knowing-what-tomorrow-will-bring kind of emptiness that can also be quite lovely. 

Timing is everything

Ask and ye shall receive.

My guitar arrived yesterday morning, packed to the hilt in a big box, by a very nice Fed Ex man my brother-in-law sent my way. Ahhhhhhh! Funny how the little things upend us. Not having the right guitar...Just in time, too, for the show tonight that makes me slightly nervous, I'll admit. I had dinner last night with Martin & Jude from the IMA's, good friends, wonderful supporters who always make me feel at home.  Richard Julian, a songwriter I greatly admire. Kristy Kruger, someone with whom I'm just getting acquainted, love her style, really like her music. And Anthony DeCurtis, the famed Rolling Stone writer, but much more than just a music critic-- a writer of music and culture and history. An Algonquin kind of setting with pasta and flowing red wine, talk of stories, songs, music, George Harrison, jail time, border crossings... Makes me wish I had songs that told those stories I've lived, like the time I barely got out of Cambodia alive, or the time I was detained in a Heathrow Custom's "jail" for 9 hours with a gypsy/flamenco band from Iraq by way of South Africa...But the time for those songs will happen, I trust. Maybe they won't be songs. Maybe they'll be something else. When I was in high school, with a crush on a boy who was a songwriter, THE songwriter in our high school, the best singer, a pretty genius kind of kid who I thought had the most beautiful soul and I wanted him to love me in the worst way, because I swooned at his art, his voice, I used to go home to my piano in the late afternoon, when my parents were at work, my brothers' at soccer practice, my sister at a friend's house, and I'd turn off the lights, light a candle, and hold my hands, hovering above the keys, waiting...just waiting for songwriting to happen to me. It didn't. So I surrounded myself by boys who wrote songs. First Jon. Then John.  Then Matt. I didn't really know many girls who wrote back then. I met them in college and they intimidated me. I didn't play guitar, I'd stopped playing piano, I was writing plays and singing jazz, having given up on that urge inside to write. I thought it was more about being boycrazy than an inner desire to write a song. I look back now and think, man, my SOUL was crying out to me and it had nothing to do with wanting to be kissed by Jon Goodman. It had to do with wanting to have what he had. Or wanting to find it in me, because it was there, just kind of percolating. I came to it very late, considering that one of my friends and favorite writing collaborators right now is now 18.  I bought my first guitar after I'd already gone through college. I don't know whether it was Cat Stevens' "The Wind" or Shawn Colvin's first album or Joni's "The Last Time I Saw Richard" that got me started. But something triggered it and I'm still trying to wrestle with that desire every time it comes up (lately, at about 2:30 every morning). Then again, Mary Gauthier was in her late 30's when songwriting came suddenly to her. So there's no right time for anything. It just happens and you let it in.

Which is why the eggshell walking I wrote about in the last post doesn't scare me and actually is welcome. I don't mind treading lightly these days. Feet will find their place when they will, just as guitars come back to you and angels show up when you least expect them but need them the most.

Fear and Leaping

Having just read my friend Byrd's blog, thought I'd weigh in on fear and just putting it all the (*$@ out there.  I'm gonna admit something. I've been off my game. At least in my own head and in my hands. I used to be a late person. I tried to change that a few years back after a friend told me being chronically late was a sign of selfishness, not thinking of how your tardiness affected other people. So I kept myself on bar time where the clocks are always 10 minutes ahead. I fixed myself and became an ontime person. But some things in my bloodstream have shifted in the past few months and they needed to shift and I welcome the shift but its made the ground under my feet feel a bit warped. I'm losing things, leaving things around. I can't find my capo's, which I know I left out somewhere nearby my writing desk for easy access. I left my guitar in Maryland and now I either have to pay stupid money to have it shipped to me or do an 8 hour roundtrip drive on week off to gather my beloved unnamed guitar and bring her back to Jersey.  I can't find books I packed or favorite sweaters. Jewelry. I'm finding other things though. A rusted birdcage buried in the dirt in my garden. A shovel handle that's perfect for propping up a window. A melody. Quiet. 

I was late to get to a show lately, stumbling in with an unfamiliar guitar that didn't wanna work and no time for the soundcheck with a cough rumbling inside threatening thunder and a second in the mirror of the bathroom before going on where my knees buckled and I wasn't sure of the ground below and did that scene in the movie where she splashes water on her face and sets herself straight. And then a concert in a home with folks who's knees were close enough to mine to lay their heads on my lap while I sang, most of whom had never been to a house concert and probably wondered who I was anyway. People who baked cookies for strangers and pans of cheese dip and brought brownies and wine. People who had no idea what they were in for but came anyway. I stood on the deck with this beautiful couple who seemed like they were my age, who seemed in love and seemed like this was their 2nd chance at it, and instead of acting the part of the girl who's got it all together I decided to spill some truth for a change and did and detached a bit from caring how it was received. And that was my splashing-water-in-the-mirror-moment for that night and I was able to sing and raise the roof.  No quiet there.

So here's all I know today, because really, its just about today. Today its raining and that's fine with me because I'm not going anywhere. I stayed up too late last night and wrote a song I think I'm in love with because of the complexity of the loving it and that loving anything is hard and is a journey with pits and shadows and spills and peaks and places where the ground falls out and you just float on sheer faith and sometimes a nest doesn't look like a nest but is just the softest place you can find to land for the moment of the falling.