Swimming Juno on the Pac River, she is in her happy place. This river runs along the eastern boarder of my parents property. It’s always been a serene walk on the back 40 to the peninsula among a beautiful cedar grove.
Hello Sweet Friends!
April closes it’s door and here we all are in May. Don’t blink, it will be Fall in a few breaths! As venues are opening up again to music and we are shedding masks ever so slowly there is a newness in the air. There is a bit more restoration of a thing we call HOPE and Hallelujah for that!
I am in the midst of reading Brandi Carliles memoirs, “Broken Horses” (thank you Fran!). So many things I find myself identifying with in her story! I am grateful she had this quarantine time to write and now published this book. I would have loved to do that as well but my creative juices became very stagnate during Covid. It was a time, an internal “simmer” if you will. I am an emotional writer for sure, but with so much static in the world, I found that my empathic antenna set the frequency dial to “brace yourself” mode and to create from that mode I found it, pretty impossible. I pressed hard against the current, created a couple of songs and I wrote many poems, but I have not generated what I felt deep down possible. I am just “watering many seeds” at this point in my writing process!
Part of this process is clearing out and upgrading. I know this sounds silly but the set backs to our shop (of which we want to turn into a studio) is cluttered and disheveled and it’s in a holding pattern to some degree until we can get it upgraded. I have a touch of ADD and can and have been completely dyslexic! Yes, I somehow forget this about myself until I do something stupid like yesterday. I wrote out a check for the materials and I wrote one thing in the box and another thing on the line, reversing the numbers…ugh! I also read a text and dropped an important word that reversed itself so we have another band member joining a gig we thought we would do on our own! LOL! Wow! “How did I ever get this far?”, I ask myself. And with my hearing loss…how in the HELL do I do what I do?
I think reading about Brandi’s trials and tribulations has been a way for me to step back and look at what we have achieved and what we have yet to attain. Brandi also struggles with dyslexia and makes it a point to say so…where as in my mind and my generation, I have never really labeled myself so. I have normalized it and I’m fine with that. It hasn’t set me back due to my ignorance of how much it can (and has) gotten in my way! Ha!
I am about 12 years older than Brandi and my generation did not label much. The positive is that, like a placebo, you just do the best you can not knowing you have a real handi-cap and not knowing this allows you to press forward and not make excuses. However, there have been moments that I have been hard on myself for either not being able to learn a new song, or not being able to play something a certain way with band members. Like my mind just doesn’t compute. So, I’ve certainly spent much of my precious youth shaming myself as to why I am not better!
Now I look at that with a neutral energy. Sure I can get my “stupid buttons” pushed but I also come back with “meeting myself where I am” and continue the best I can. All we can do is “build a better boat” and round off our edges by accepting the perfect flawed being that we are!
Speaking of building a better boat…that will be your download this month! I am so in love with this song. It made me cry tears of gratitude as life marches forward and we all try to be the best we can be. It says everything that I love! My only disappointment is that I didn’t write it myself (Travis Meadows & Liz Rose did)…but, ya can’t “write’m all!” :-)
Being a musician-songwriter, we traverse a fine line of being in the pocket of acceptance and pressing higher. It is a tumultuous journey. One not easy for the ego yet one I have found to be true to this heart. Much joy is brought through singing a note that somehow pierces the heart of the listeners and ourselves and opens something un-explainable inside. Where language can’t…music can! I am utterly humbled and grateful, this is my life. Full of many sacrifices, mistakes, utter vulnerability and a bit of genuine struggle, yet so rich in rewards of community, and graced now and then with the ability that slips out after so much practice! Happy this journey includes carving a new story into song, travel, adventure, unpredictability (which keeps us on our toes), Spirit singing it’s song through me…it’s all worth it.
We have not made it to that stardom like Brandi, but I sing her songs with pride and remember her -when…When she was unrecognized and KNOWING the record labels were stupid not picking her up earlier! I knew she would be discovered. As for myself and being discovered…the journey is still on. Possibilities are still there and our story isn’t over yet.
We are currently in the midst of planning our studio (the shop) and how we wish to set it up to be a very creative space. A place I can drop myself into to practice and write and thanks to Covid, the awareness to CREATE TIME to be CREATIVE! Ha! We are also in the midst of a Van conversion and making major decisions about the floor plan and fine details. I also went up to my Father’s home this last month and witnessed his 90th birthday roll on by without him.
Papa in his happy place with a good size bass! This really wasn’t that long ago. “My how the last few months have changed!”
You can say my plate is pretty full. “Now and then I let it go, I ride the waves I can’t control. I’m learning how to build a better boat!” I hope you love this song as much as I do! This take is when I FIRST learned it and I kinda love the imperfection of this take. Mo is just learning it too and is a quite little harmonizer in the back. It’s still very vulnerable and right on the edge of our tears. This was recorded from my PHONE (which always amazes me). I am actually singing it a whole step lower in this take than I decide on. I kinda like the low “Johnny Cash” of my voice here ha ha! It’s just a different voicing.
Enjoy and thank you so much for all your love and support!!!
Be well!
Niccole , Mo and Juno!
Sparky is a perfect cargo van for moving some things as Juno protects our new “small home”! Squirrel? :-)
I like it here mama, but something is indeed missing! Yes, I know Juno…half my heart is someplace else…but you make my life better!
Goofy Elvis always brings the levity to most any situation! LOL!!! A wonderful time spent with friends and music!
