36 degrees, keeping the hands and toes warm with warmers from our good friend Trudy! Thank you Trudy! You keep our hearts warm too with all your love!!!
Hello Friends,
Well, I am making an effort to get back to my first of the month entries with you all. The last few weeks we’ve had the RARE opportunity to play in the freezing cold! Ha! It is amazing how clever we all have become during this time of Covid.
The Riverside Hotel asked if we would be interested in playing OUTSIDE at their “Sandbar” venue that overlooks the Boise River. We normally play once or twice in the spring/summer season. But last weekend between 5-8 pm it was 34 degrees when we started and dropped a few more degrees to freezing by the time we finished! Holy cow! The Sun set within the first half hour of our first set and we had frost on our CD’s when we wrapped up but it was EXHILARATING!!!
Honestly, it was such a unique show! They brought out the heat lamps and had almost one heater for every table, then as it got cold (and dark) they pulled the drapes to keep the heat more “localized”. So we were all spacial distanced, outside (roof off) but walls up…as they unfolded like a curtain. The feeling was like we were all in our teens again, making forts and sitting by the fire. Being able to be “naughty” by being outside together when no one really does that now. It was super fun!
It put the pep back in my step for sure. I know I have mentioned during this time of grief, I just have not been able to get my “mo-jo” going. But there are little advancements here and there. I have restarted the practice of writing down 3 gratitude’s each day. In fact, now they have an AP for that! Do you believe it?! It’s called “The 5 minute journal”. Check it out at the AP store if you would like. You can take a picture to remember the day and list 3 gratitude’s and some other things. It’s a great way to track your days.
Also, we are going to turn our attention back to LIVE STREAMING this Saturday. Yes, it will be the first Face Book live stream since Oct. before my world got rocked. I am hopeful to “see” many of you and as we hunker down and go further into “lock-down hibernation mode”…I think it will be helpful for all of us to “sit around a comfy campfire” of music. Music is good for the soul indeed!
Music restores so much, gives me a sense of hope and community, I think we can all use that right now. I have been writing too. I’ve attempted songs but none that have flourished into anything special. And that is ok, you have to make many attempts before you get a “jewel”…keep digging keep digging, and there are days when picking up the “shovel” is an accomplishment. I haven’t moved much “gravel”.
Here is a little excerpt I wrote during a zoom class called “The Write Path”. I have been taking this class for the past 4 weeks and I am so glad to just be open to the writing process regardless of whether it lends itself to music or not. It’s important to just keep expressing in times like this. Here’s the excerpt…we only had 5 minutes to do it:
“Try as best you can, not to let the wire brush of doubt scrape from your heart, all sense of yourself” (This is a line I chose from a poem by Irish poet John O’Donohue. Ironically, we stood at his grave site when we went to Ireland and took a picture of his tombstone.)
Doolin Ireland 2019 - Clare Co.
My free write:
I roll off the hamster wheel of my busy life into the saw dust, looking onward through the glass of my cage…to a life outside this “box of pain”. But I know it’s mine to do. To sift through these wooden chips of memories and pull myself back together again - in time.
I remain “off the wheel” for a while and hopefully never to get back on! Slowing my pace to a moderate clip for which I can feel joy yet once again. “It is time to go slow”, to think of holding his hand and remembering who he was as we watched the golden clouds roll by 3 days before his passing.
He knows I loved him, he still does. And it will be mine to do when the time comes, to move beyond this glass box on to the “fresh pastures of promise”.
Green Pastures where O’Donahue’s tombstone lies.
I hope you know how super special you are and how grateful we are to have you in our world. I hope you also allow yourself “time to go slow” through all this change we’ve seen this past year. I hope we can sing you back to “fresh pastures of promise”. Thank you so much! We selected Mo’s version of “Kind & Generous” for your mp3 download this months. We hope you like it.
You can’t “rush art” I’ve always been told, and have known this. I am not a song factory. Sometimes they come, and most times they are fleeting. I try to catch them when they come and share what I do catch. I hope this beautiful cover satisfies your thirsty heart and reminds you how much appreciation and gratitude we hold for each of you! And how grateful we can be on this journey together, through this time! One day we will celebrate in person, but meanwhile…stay safe, stay healthy and “go slow”.
Much love!
Niccole, Mo and Juno
