2018: Year In Review

I stared writing this blog entry just before Christmas 2018, and now I'm into day 2 of 2019, and back home in Vancouver after 2 months away. 

I'm in Saskatoon, into the home stretch of a two-month-long contract of Fiddler on the Roof, looking forward to being home with my love (and back in my cosy basement den), but sad to leave such a beautiful production behind. On Instagram I wrote that this show has given me the gift of helping me become more of who and what I am, and I think that's actually true of this whole year, now I think about it. In 2017 I started realizing that I could never step away from performing, and that teaching would always take a backseat to my being a musician and theatre artist. This year, I was able to realize those dreams; in large part due to a lucky, lucky fact: just as I'm stretching my wings as a performer, it is truly becoming the era of the Musician/Actor. More and more productions are abandoning expensive pit bands for shows where the actors also play all the instruments. As far as I'm concerned, long may this trend continue. Of course, going (mostly) back to contract work had its downsides too: I endured a nasty stretch of being super-broke this fall, and had to battle Imposter Syndrome with every contract. Being a performer also meant going where the work was, and this has meant around 4 months of being away from Vancouver in the last 12 months. Being away for a good third of the year has meant that my future as a teacher is less certain, and that I can't always be there for my friends, or my band. I am supremely lucky to have friends who understand, and a partner who is unfailingly not only supportive, but generously excited about every thing I do. It's been so wonderful to watch him stretching his wings this year too, taking on exciting new challenges as his marketing and design ventures begin to ramp up. We may not be the youngest power couple ever, but by god, we're going to be movers and shakers some day!
Here's how 2018 unfurled for me:

January: Halfway through the month I packed my bags and sailed for Vancouver Island to perform in a production of Once at Chemainus Theatre. It was strange and beautiful to be back in a place where I'd lived and performed multiple times over a decade before. Chemainus was in the thick of its quiet season when we began rehearsals, and the constant rain and shuttered businesses made me feel as if I was living in a ghost town. On the plus side, I was living in a house with a fireplace! Rehearsals were packed full of music, and soon, so were our brains.

February: Once opened, and Jay was able to come over from the mainland to take in opening night and explore the Cowichan Valley with me for a couple of nights.  The show was joyous, and in my down time I developed a passion for antiquing (especially for little silver items). My roomie and I enjoyed many nights of post-show fires and wine, but unfortunately the weeks of heavy rain took their toll, and quite a few people in the cast battled viruses. I battled insecurity: sometimes I'd feel on top of it all, and sometimes I'd feel as if I had no business being in a play at all.

Not the most flattering shot ever of me, but I've got a nice crew. 

March: Once closed fairly early in the month and I headed back to the mainland, and back to teaching. My calendar says that I taught some Spring Break classes at Arts Umbrella, but I have very little memory of this. I also celebrated one year of living in my delightful apartment. It took a good long while to lose the cough I got in Chemainus, and my memory is that I still had it in the spring.

April: This was a busy month. I started teaching at SoM again. I also began a theatre workshop called the Greek Play Project, which was a whirlwind of devising, Suzuki exercises, Viewpoints work, and songwriting on the fly. I went to a little event called BC Distilled- which was fun, by the way- got a little (ok, a lot) drunk, and quit drinking for 3 months. Started recording songs with the Rogue Crows, at wonderful Monarch Studios, an ongoing project that spanned the spring and summer months.

May: Another busy one, with lots of changes. The Greek Play Project continued and concluded. I finished teaching at SoM. Jay and I snatched a short but beautiful holiday on Saltspring at a converted aerial gym shaped like a church, with 40-foot ceilings and gorgeous acoustics. We ate, we drove, we jogged, we swam, and we recorded music together. It was a dream. And then we came home and I dove into rehearsals for my second production of Once. At the Arts Club. Another dream come true. A cast with some old friends, some new ones, and more laughs than I'd ever imagined. Still, I fought with shyness and imposter syndrome, but mostly I just had fun.

June: I settled into the pleasant routine of rehearsing, and then performing, a show. There are many reasons I love doing plays, but one of the big ones is having a stable schedule. Of course, the downside is that your evenings are all taken up for weeks at a time.

July: was more of the same. One of my great pleasures in doing this contract was my constant biking to and from Granville Island. A leisurely 30 minute trip either way, and mostly along the seawall. Between the biking and the fairly active show, I lost a bit of weight and felt healthier.

August: Once extended to the 5th, then closed. I immediately bought a new bike to counter the post-show blues, and enjoyed going on expeditions with "Livy" all over town.

True love.

Unfortunately, heavy smoke from BC forest fires meant that some longer excursions- like a trip to the Island- were curtailed. Jay and I saw Nathaniel Rateliff at the Burnaby Roots & Blues Festival. At the end of the month I took a short but super-fun trip to Toronto to see my friend Theresa and to run a 5k race with her on the lovely Toronto Islands.

I ran a (tiny) race!

Having fun with my new phone's camera in False Creek.

September: As I had decided to accept an offer to do a musical in Saskatoon in November/December, I was not able to return to Sarah M school to teach, as they didn't want me making a brief appearance and then having to leave again. So it was back to the world of freelancing, with all of its excitement and uncertainty. One of the gigs that got me through (and was really fun to do) was Secret City: Robson Square, for which I interviewed a dancer and turned the true story of how he met his now-wife into a song.

October: As I wasn't teaching, I went back to my favourite seasonal job: the Pumpkin Patch.

Typical Pumpkin Patch scene.

Sunny, dry weather made for fun shifts there, but the downside was that in my second month of freelancing, I was BROKE. It was sobering to have a bank account that was sometimes in single digits again, but luckily, money started to come in by the end of the month. I also got to be a part of a workshop of a new musical that told the true story of a labour dispute here in Vancouver. It was exciting to be part of something that was still early in its development phase. A quick drink with my love on Halloween Night, and it was off I went to the prairies in...

November: I flew to Saskatoon November 1st, and began rehearsals the next day for Persephone Theatre's production of Fiddler on the Roof. Our brains full from cramming sheet music into our memories, our bodies sore from holding instruments and from choreography, we struggled- as every production does- with getting it all done in time for opening. And we did. Jay was even able to fly out to cheer me on at opening night (and eat some Saskatoon Berry pie!).

What Saskatoon looked like for much of my stay.

December: Fiddler extended four times, taking our run almost to the end of the month. Having been scared that the cold would keep me inside and inactive, I was relieved to find it invigorating. It didn't hurt that it was relatively "warm" there too- never got colder than minus 21. I walked miles, I hung out with other cast mates, I read a lot of books and ate at many fine cafes. Christmas Eve and Christmas Day were surprisingly magical, even though I was far away from loved ones. My mother joined me on Boxing Day, saw my show, and hung out with me for a final couple of days before we flew home together on December 30th.

No fun whatsoever.

This show made my heart grow at least 3 sizes. 

2018 felt like a year in which I got to spread my wings, with all the dangers and thrills that accompany flight. See you in 2019!

Eternal Nightcap

I come across The Whitlams' Eternal Nightcap and it reminds me of being in the car on one of our road trips to the Central Coast where the four of us would sing the whole way. Our favourite song was 'You Sound Like Louis Burdett' and we'd sing it at the top of our voices. My mum would even let us sing the line "All our friends are fuck ups,' and Luca would sing it the loudest because it was the only time we were allowed to swear.

This line, from a young adult novel called Saving Francesca, was something I noted every time I read the book. 

Do you have 'comfort reads'? Books that you dip back into when nothing else seems quite right. Books that hail you like an old, well-loved friend from the shelves on a lazy night? Saving Francesca is one of those for me. I came across it years ago while I was pricing books at the used bookstore where I used to work. A perk of working at a store with no computerized inventory is that there was no record... Reader, I liberated this book (and a few others over the years, I'll admit). And I read it many times, and I still go back to it a couple times a year. I don't know exactly why, except that the author, Melina Marchetta, manages to capture the essence of teenagers: moody, unfinished, loyal, loving, fierce, yearning, angry, funny... 

Here's my book-jacket blurb: 

Francesca, whose larger-than-life mum is suddenly stricken with debilitating depression, suddenly has to figure out the tough stuff by herself: she's in Year (grade) Eleven at a new school, and the crowd she used to run with isn't around to tell her how she should act anymore. After five years of being largely subdued and colourless- just to fit in better- Francesca may just rediscover her real personality and save herself, with the help of some new friends, her large Italian family, and a certain Will Trombal... 

The characters are well-drawn (Marchetta is a teacher) and wonderfully three-dimensional: Francesca often clashes with her uncompromising mother, but also loves her more than anyone else; her two closest male friends are two frequently oafish and crude teenaged boys, but they also show moments of true kindness as Francesca negotiates her difficult year. And although it's a story that could take place anywhere in the world, it also has little touches that set it firmly in Sydney, Australia, which makes it slightly exotic. 

So anyway, I really like this book. And I'd always wondered about The Whitlams, but then I'd finish the book and totally forget to look them up on the internet to see if they were real.

Well... last July, Jay and I took a little road trip on Vancouver Island, and we stopped in at Ladysmith to look at my favourite antique store, and we also checked out a store that was most definitely second-hand as opposed to antique, and they had a tray of used CDs so we pawed through them, and lo and behold- 

There it was. So I paid my 50 cents or whatever it was, went back to the car, and put the CD in the slot...

The lush strings of "No Aphrodisiac" came on, and 3 tracks later, there was "You Sound Like Louis Burdett", with its slightly deranged honky-tonk piano, and bizarre lyrics:

I'm chewing ice and grinning/I'm spewing up and spinning/It's biliousness as usual in my corner of the kitchen/Hey you, lose that friend before we go anywhere/

And of course, the refrain:

All my friends are fuck-ups/but they're fun to have around/Banana chairs out on the concrete/Telling stories to the stars...

There was '90s piano rock, there were more guitar-based tunes, there were songs that owed a lot to The Beatles, there was a song that wouldn't have sounded out-of-place in an Irish bar; there was even a Bob Dylan cover! And I was hooked. 

We played The Whitlams quite a few times over that weekend road trip. Then I took it home and forgot about it, and just pulled it out two nights ago as I was sorting through receipts and papers to get stuff ready to do my taxes. And got pulled in again, the lush arrangements and loopy lyrics providing a cool counterpoint to a boring chore. 

And that's the story of how a novel lead me, after many years, to an album I love. I'm glad I never remembered to look up The Whitlams while I was reading Saving Francesca. It made finding Eternal Nightcap in that grotty second-hand store all the more exciting. 

Here's the song that Francesca and her brother Luca liked to sing at the tops of their voices. Enjoy. 

Spring A-waitening

Spring is springing but it can't even be 5 degrees outside. I went for a run yesterday and the early spring wind made me gasp with its cruelty. Cruel too: chocolatey eggs and sugary candies everywhere and I *CAN"T* eat them because I'm wearing a bigger bra size than ever and I must, I must, I MUST decrease this bust. And tummy. And bum. I try to walk a moderate line but it's too hard, so it's back to low-carb this and lots of water and no desserts and less booze and yeah, running. All the fun stuff. Actually I like to run, but it's hard when you're carrying a few extra pounds. Maybe more than a few.



I think on all those wasted days in Chemainus where I sat around between shows and didn't work out. Yeah, that was smart.

It's the last day of my "break" between a show that's ended and the start of school-and other projects. My brain is filled up with ancient Greek plays and preschool rhymes. It's an interesting contrast. Preschoolers rending their garments and groaning oi-moi, oi-moi, while Electra and Medea grasp brightly-painted hand drums and sing Somebody's Knockin' at my Door.
My hours and days are going to be so, so full, and I've left a lot of my prep until the last minute.

I think on all those wasted days in Chemainus where I sat around between shows and didn't work. Yeah, that was smart.

My email dings and it's Equity, announcing another audition. The part I auditioned for, they mention, has been cast. That means... well, it means that I'll be teaching music this fall, not performing in a musical. But it also means I can start looking for cheap tickets to Toronto, so I can run a 5k race with my friend Theresa. That's awesome! I think of my sweetie, doggedly sending in applications and expressions of interest to public art projects and corporate art projects and galleries and who-knows what else, casting his net far and wide. He simply carries on if he gets a rejection or doesn't hear back. And you know, it works. He's starting to get stuff. So that's what I'll do, just carry on and not let rejection stop me from trying.

I spend my last day of relative freedom flitting from one project to the next: printing out a plan for teaching my preschoolers tomorrow; recording a smattering of ancient-Greek-inspired lament; sketching out the idea for a new song. Feels like a day of waiting: the mail won't come, the emails don't arrive, love is at work, phone don't ring.

Sometimes the hardest part of Spring is waiting for all that promise to burst into bloom.

The Air That I Breathe

I never smell very good after a seniors home gig; I'm sorry, but that's the truth of it. They keep the heat cranked up- and rightly so- for the feeble and the slow-moving, and neither of those words describes me when I'm performing. By the time my hour is up, I'm rather...damp, to put it politely. 

Today I had to spend a good while putting together a new book of songs for the gig, as my usual binder is packed in a box somewhere. I've been getting a jump on my move by boxing up everything I think I can do without for a few weeks... and a few things, obviously, that should not have gone into boxes just yet. After reluctantly slitting open a few boxes with no success, I decide to just print out new lyric sheets; after all, most of them are saved onto my laptop anyway. This leads to some new song choices, which is refreshing. I decide to bring my ukulele as well as my accordion, since I'm playing more uke than squeezebox these days anyway. As I stagger down the street with my accordion in a knapsack on my back and my uke and purse in my hands, the good angel on my shoulder urges me to check my pack... good thing, because I've left the binder with all my freshly-printed lyric sheets in my bedroom. Stagger back (luckily not far). Surprise the cats with my re-entry. Grab binder, depart again. Two buses later and I'm there. 

Up on Three West I begin with a new one: Singing In The Rain. Right away I know it's a good choice as a chorus of voices immediately joins in. I keep 'em coming: Big Rock Candy Mountain into Bei Mir Bist Du Schoen into Blue Days Black Nights... Today's seniors grew up in the '40s and '50s, so I mix country blues, folk, Canadiana, Irish and good old rock 'n roll, with the occasional Big Band-era blaster like Minnie the Moocher or Won't You Come Home Bill Bailey. 

Right away I notice a bubble in the air, an energy coming up to me and getting bounced back to the audience through my music. Maybe it's the slightly younger crowd: I see more than a few residents who look to be in their early seventies, even one woman with punky green streaks at the front of her bleached or grey hair. I've always had fun playing at this home, but sometimes I've seen people wheeling or shuffling away before my hour was up. Not this time. Their voices join me on everything from Harvest Moon to Blue Suede Shoes. Maybe it's me. I'm feeling rested and my voice is in fine form. Whatever the reason, today we're cookin'. 

Imagine you spent most of your time breathing something that was like oxygen, but wasn't. You'd do fine, but something would be lacking. And then some days, you got to breathe the real deal- your lungs would fill and your eyes would sparkle and you'd feel extra zest and energy you didn't know you were missing- That's what singing and performing feels like to me. Oxygen. Even when I'm sick it lifts me up. When I'm not sick... Pow. 

I say this a lot, and I really mean it: I have the incredible good fortune to do what I love for a living. I never thought I'd be a good music teacher, but I love it. I never used to think I'd be a good musical director, but they keep hiring me so I guess I've got the skills. And I DO love my jobs: I love showing kids (or actors) how to put a song together; I like arranging; I like getting to pass on my rag-tag collection of Things I Know. I even like the herding-cats exercise that is teaching preschool music. But here's why I'll never be the best teacher or musical director there is: because there's always going to be this little diva inside of me that is silently yelling Just step aside and let me do it instead, Jesus CHRIST let me because I can do it better than that, because it's all I want to do and I can't, they won't let me they keep hiring me to teach you instead-
Which isn't to say I'm silently hating on you when I work with you or your kids, far from it. (Unless you're really terrible at your job and they hired you instead of me. Then yeah.) It's just... I have this friend who has a doctorate in music education. He's never in his life played in a band, or been in a play, and he's Never. Wanted. To. His passion is teaching music. (He also helped me get my teaching job, for which I'll be eternally grateful.) Mine is performing music. 

I lack the killer instinct, which is why I'm not recording an album or touring Canada, or, you know, famous. Instead, I'm a (mostly) very happy teacher of music/music director who plays in a band with three good friends and has moments of passion and inspiration at all of her jobs, and really really comes alive when she gets to step into the studio for a session, or play onstage, or even when she lugs two instruments on two buses to play for thirty or so seniors, some of whom may even not be sleeping. 

Today, we make some magic at Royal Arch Masonic Home. Who knows why? I make my way through 21 songs and the seniors are with me every step of the way. Someone (dear god, probably only my parents' age) asks for Leonard Cohen's "Hallelujah", so I do it, scrolling through the lyrics on my phone with one hand as I stumble through the bass notes on my accordion with the other hand. I am surprised how many voices sing the haunting chorus with me. 
I launch into Stan Rogers' "Forty-Five Years" and feel my eyes water a little as I take in the pink and crepe Valentine's Day decorations strung up around the room. The song is Rogers' beautiful tribute to his much-loved wife; how many of the seniors in the room still have their loved ones with them? Too few, I'm thinking. I finish with "Goodnight Irene", which I often close with because I love to hear the old ones sing it with me. 


They've handed my money to one of the residents: Ms. Green-Hair. She wheels toward me slowly, a challenge in her eyes. First, she thanks me for bringing some sunshine, because "it can get kind of dreary in here." I bet. Then she says, "But we're not going to give this to you that easily. If you want this, you'll have to do another song for us." 
Challenge accepted. It's the first time I've been asked for an encore here. I rifle quickly through my pages: what would be the perfect finisher...
Ah, yes. I put on my accordion and launch into "Folsom Prison Blues", the perfect song for people who are trapped in a seniors home, no matter how nice it is. As I sing, I hear their voices joining me one last time. 
I'm stuck in Folsom Prison/And time keeps rolling on/But that train just keeps on moving/On down to San Antoine.

And then I leave, back to the rest of my unfettered life. Breathing that sweet, pure oxygen until my lungs are as full as they can get. 

A Day In The Life: 3/12/16

I sleep long enough, but wake up tired and headache-y. One of those days when my body feels...off. There have been too many of those this fall. My body is getting slammed with one malaise after another; a disadvantage of working with children. 
I've set myself a goal this month: run 30 minutes a day, every day. Even Christmas. It's Day Three, and I want to bury myself in blankets and pretend it's still dark, but my back is too sore to stay in bed anyway, so up I get. At least it's not raining, for a change. 
I decide to run south, which means that the outward-bound part will be hard (all uphill), but the return will be easy. I decide to sweeten the pill by ending the run at my favourite coffee bar/breakfast joint, Matchstick, where the poached-eggs-on-toast are just perfect. 
I simply cannot get up any speed this morning; my legs feel leaden but I keep running anyway, and at least I am warm. Up to 28th, across to Fraser, back down to Kingsway, with a little detour to add time. Finally my timer pings and I gratefully slow to a walk. 
Eggs, toast, black tea. Expensive, and I don't care. 
Walk to work, because I need to use their computers to write the music for a documentary I am scoring for a friend.  A detour to the mall because he needs a bit more time to edit the film. Buy some fuzzy pants at Ardene because they have foxes on them. Buy some slippers because everyone needs more warm slippers this time of year. Get to work- can't get in because the front door is locked. Seethe with frustration because my damn cel phone can't get a signal within a 2-block radius of work, for some reason. Finally manage to contact my angel boss, who is in the neighbourhood and lets me in, bless her. 
Wait some more. Fiddle with the music. Put on the new slippers. Get the new cut. Talk to the filmmaker; suggest changes. Wait for another cut. Make tea, raid the cupboard in the office for the cookies we serve to the ukulele students. 
Edit music, slide around tracks until they time up with the new cut (the actual composing was done last Tuesday). Talk it over with the filmmaker; change some stuff, send it off again. Suggest changes to the grammar in the subtitles, because I am as passionate about good english as I am about good music. 

Still life with fox mug and Garageband. Yes, I scored a film on Garageband. Suck it, music tech snobs. 

Five hours after I arrive at work, I am done. 
Stop in at a local clothing shop and spend more money. Leggings, big sweater. Basically the same clothes I was wearing in 1993. Everything old is new again. Hungry again- the local pizza joint is calling my name so I give in. Cocktail, delicious thin-crust pizza with leftovers for tomorrow. 

Get in my mouth, pizza with arugula & gorgonzola. I ran today- I can eat whatever I want. 

Home to my room. Saturday night, and I'm wearing the fuzzy fox pants and folding laundry. Love is out of town and the Christmas parties don't start until next weekend, that's my excuse. Put off prepping for work tomorrow teaching the preschoolers from hell. Put off prepping. Put off- Dammit. Time to prep. 

And yet, I'm still not prepping. Fox pants, BTW- are you sensing a theme here? 

Body still feels tired and- wrong, somehow. Like it did all day. Anger, frustration, just a little too close to the surface. Some days are just like that. Be thankful that there was no one around to unleash that frustration on. Be grateful that you got to make some art in a quiet room wearing new slippers. Some days, that's the absolute best thing you can do.

Wild and Precious

Too bad I'm not drinking these days...

So Tuesday happened...

And then Leonard Cohen died today, just to ice our cake of despair nicely for us.

If my Facebook and Twitter feeds are accurate (and when is social media EVER NOT totally unbiased and accurate, she said with heavy sarcasm), the world is teetering on the brink of destruction, and apocalypse is nigh.

It may very well be true, though. I was reading a book when the U.S. election hit (Emily St. John Mandel's excellent Station Eleven), which is set in a not-so-distant future where a virulent flu has wiped out 99% of the world's population and survivors live in a word without electricity, internet, gas. It paired all-too-well with actual events, to the point where I looked down at the cat, rolling plumply on my bed, and promised mournfully, "I will never eat you, Molly." (I might have to though. People have been forced to do so much worse; unimaginable actions. You don't know the half of what you are capable of, good or bad. You have no idea what's coming down the pipe.)

Enough. Mourn, if you want to. I cannot take my emotional temperature from the same ten or twenty people I always turn to for wisdom on Facebook without feeling frustrated.

What are you going to do with your one wild and precious life?

What am I going to do with mine?

Am I going to rail at the shittiness of the world on Facebook or am I going to DO something about it?   I am sickened by how much time I have wasted staring at that damn feed, watching the same people say the same things, agreeing with each other, "liking" each other's comments; an endless snake eating its own tail.

I am going to try and spend less time online and more time actually connecting with my friends and family in a way that is meaningful to me.

I am going to keep teaching preschoolers and underfunded and at-risk kids how to make music, how to channel all that crazy energy and those wild impulses into something beautiful. I will keep being simultaneously exhausted and renewed by their daffy, impulsive, annoying, beautiful selves.

I am going to try harder to be part of change. To support people who feel threatened and marginalized. I will not apologize for being lucky,  but I will try to acknowledge my privilege.

(I will also stop using the word privilege. Or the word creative, when used as a noun: I'm a creative. What the actual fuck does that even mean? Hell, if we're making early resolutions, I will stop making the thumbs-up sign, which looks dopey as hell but I can't seem to break the habit. And saying "like", as in "I'm like...")

A wise person said to me yesterday that social media allows everyone to feel as if they need to editorialize everything, all the time. I will say this: that if I, or anyone else, watches this shit go down and thinks that writing about it is enough, then we are part of the problem.

Enough. I will post this (and yeah, link to it from my social media platforms) and then I will get off the damn internet and enjoy my two days off. Because I don't know how much time I have left, but I won't live as though I have a sword hanging over my head. We all have that, all the time. Nothing changed except maybe it got a little sharper this week.

That's what I'm going to do.

What will you do?

Six Things

• Yesterday, I was racked with self-doubt in the morning. So easy to see the causes in retrospect- and even at the time I knew why- even as tears rolled down my face in frustration. I was exhausted: I'd run a 10k race the day before (more on that later); I hadn't slept well, and I'd found out late in the evening that I had to substitute-teach a class that I had almost no preparation for. And yet?  Somehow all was a resounding success. My assistant and I gathered a bunch of theatre games (I knew more than I'd thought) and had a rousingly good time with the class. Even better? My own preschool class of 4 to 6 year-olds finally just... clicked. I found the right balance between fun and discipline; even the class troublemakers behaved swimmingly. It was the first time I'd enjoyed that class in the 6 weeks I've been teaching it, and I can see a glimmer of more good times to come. As I venture further into the world of music teaching I have so many moments of self-doubt, but flashes of fun are starting to appear more frequently as well (not to mention alliteration, apparently). Some things are all the more precious because you've had to work hard for them, and teaching is like that for me. 

• This guy. 

While I sobbed tears of tiredness and insecurity in his bathroom yesterday, this one got up, found a Car2Go close by, and drove me to work so I wouldn't have to haul my heavy bags around in the rain. Then he picked me up at the end of the day and delighted in my teaching triumphs with me. It's been two years since I met this motorbiking dude in a coffee shop and fell madly in love. Days like this remind me why. Petty much every day reminds me why, actually. I am very, very lucky. 

• I continue to be really busy, which is alternately fun and frustrating. I'm not working all that many hours, but by the time I factor in my psychology class (which I love), studying, prepping for my classes, especially the preschool music classes which are brand new to me this year, and traveling between all the different jobs and rehearsals and band practices... It's a lot. In case I'd forgotten, all this is reminding me that I really, REALLY prefer to be working hard at one thing (ie. rehearsing for a play) than trying to do a lot of things. However, there is a stubborn, masochistic part of me that finds it very hard to say "no" to things, because it knows that nine times out of ten I'll be really, REALLY glad I said "yes" to them. These parts of me are always battling it out. I'm learning to roll with it better. Except for the days when I end up sobbing in the bathroom. But they are few and far between. 

• I ran another race! That's two in just over a month now. Sept 11th was a 14km run, my longest distance ever. I'd been training pretty regularly for that one though. Saturday was a 10k, but I've been pretty inactive since work and school got going, and I also have a cold, so I wasn't feeling all that great about my chances of being fast. 

  

  Some of the colourful crowd about to run the Rock 'n Roll 10k

  However... The Rock 'n Roll Marathon Series was coming to Vancouver with a 1/2 marathon and a 10k. I didn't fancy my chances quite yet in a half, but I thought I could still manage a 10k. On a chilly, grey morning, I took my place with over 3000 other runners and took off around Stanley Park. Thankfully, my competitive spirit kicked in, even though I was congested, thanks in large part to the 55-minute pace bunny who I grimly followed, determined to come in under 60 minutes. And I did, finishing at exactly 58 minutes, or 782nd out of 3080 runners. I am very proud. And also motivated to run again, which was exactly why I signed up for the damn thing in the first place. 

  

  Medal! 

• Although the weather outside is frightful currently making a liar out of me by raining,  this has been quite a gorgeous season so far, which makes me even sadder that this is the first October in recent (and distant) memory that I haven't been singin' it up at the Pumpkin Patch. But unfortunately, I don't actually have ANY totally free days during my week. Even Saturdays (my one true day off) have been filled with random things. I miss my yearly outdoor gig very much, but it would have been crazy to try and shoehorn it in this year. 
  

It does seem a pity to be indoors so much though, when the weather has been amazing and the leaves have been more beautiful than I can ever remember them being. Next month will be about finding more time for yoga and exercise, to balance out all the sitting I am doing. 

• I bought a new instrument! Since I am playing a lot of ukulele this year (one of my new teaching gigs this year is assisting with 3 adult ukulele classes), and also playing a lot of bass (both in these classes and in a new band), I decided to combine these things and buy... a Uke Bass! It's small, can be played both acoustically and electrically, and its small frets are friendly to my inexperienced fingers. One of the best parts about teaching is that it's gotten me playing, listening to, and experiencing all kinds of music again. 

In about a month and a half I will get to come up for air for a few weeks in time for Christmas. See you back here again before that (I hope). 

Strange Monsters

I am explaining the difference between Lucky's Donuts and Cartems Donuts.
Cartems aren't as sweet as Lucky's... but they are greasier.

I should know. I had two: the apricot almond one and the salted caramel one. Artisan donuts might be a sign of the imminent apocalypse but they are also irresistible some nights.

He writes back. Mmmm, greazy.

And just like that, a character is born: Greazy, the carnival barker. I tippity-tap at the keys instead of prepping for my piano class. Greazy, born of eccentric spelling and procrastination.

Greazy the carnival barker

is tilting on his feet

Greazy the carnival barker

Never has quite enough to eat

He’s been looking for you with his snaggletoothed grin

and his tattered old hat that lets all the rain in

Wearing a carnival coat

with his eyes on your tender young throat

I don’t know what he’ll do when he finds you

but it probably won’t be nice.

I think you should take my advice

and run, run for your life

More words, spilling onto the screen.

Tonight, I get this text:

This is what happens when you are lucky enough to find someone to bounce ideas off. He sends me a picture, a scrap, a word, and I turn it into words and music. Or I send him a phrase and he breathes life into it. Doesn't that look just like Greazy, with his bony fingers and skeleton keys? He's lurching up the road towards your house, and you'd better be hiding under the bed when he lets himself in...

Last weekend we biked to the beach and took pictures of a battered old submersible. We are turning a 15-year-old idea of his into a story. I don't know what will happen to Greazy and Max, and all the other strange beings we've woken into half-life. They want to be free, they want colour and action and sound and I hope we can do them justice. 

We dream up strange monsters and brave little boys together. I will take that any day over joint bank accounts and runny-nosed toddlers. 

4:30 am

4:30 am, and I wake from the clutches of a bad dream that is slow to let go. I seldom have nightmares, and they aren't often really bad ones, but they do tend to leave an unsettling feeling in me long after I wake up. 
Thank goodness for Christmas lights, strung around my blinds, and for cats; the fluffy cat curled in her special shallow cardboard box, which I have moved into the bedroom so she doesn't have to sleep alone, and the baby cat (now a robust 2 year-old) curled tightly against my legs. It may have been their shifting that woke me. Their owners, my roomies, are away on a month-long vacation, and we are all getting used to the big empty house. The first night they were gone, the hi-tech smoke alarm shrilled in the middle of the night, its calm disembodied robot-lady voice stating Emergency. There is smoke upstairs. Emergency. Beep, Beep, Beeeep. I leapt out of bed, heart knocking against my ribs, and dashed upstairs, examining every room, sniffing the air... Nothing. A total false alarm, but I lay awake twitchily for hours afterwards. 
Tonight it is my own brain that keeps me awake in the small hours of the morning; unusual for me not to sleep through the night, and unusual for me to have bad dreams. As with most dreams this one was mishmash of events and emotions: a concert, applause, a hug from a friend and then... an old hotel, like in the Wild West. A shooting, bodies lying bloody in their beds, mostly unseen, just a glimpse of the horrors within. 
I know where this comes from, of course.
 I am not, in my waking hours, someone who spends a lot of time agonizing over the news. I can hear about terrible events and still go about my day; I find I am unable to immerse myself emotionally in bad things that are not part of my world. It's not that I don't care, but it's removed from my everyday experience. I refuse to buy into the doomsday, we're-all-going-to-hell pessimism- not that it's not necessarily true, but... We have one life. I refuse to spend it in constant dread. 
This string of senseless, brutal shootings, though. How can it not seep into my consciousness, even as I have my cozy days at home with Christmas music and cats, and the deep everyday happinesses that are part of my lucky and fortunate life. 
There it is, made bogeyman in my brain: the horror of the random gunman spraying bullets, mixed with some el-cheapo wine drunk too late at night (more of gravy than of grave, as Scrooge would say), and some late-night reading about the musical "Hamilton" (Hamilton was killed in a duel) and...voila. I can't sleep. I listen to the cat turning in her box, and try to toss and turn as considerately as I can, so as not to disturb the other cat, the one against my legs. I think about the other thing that came out of my dream, along with the unshakeable dread-feeling. 
There it was, like a gift in the midst of the nightmare: 2 lines of song, with ethereal bluegrass-y harmonies and everything. When I realize I won't sleep for a while, I jot the lines into my phone so I won't forget them. 
When it's after 6, and I'm still not sleeping, I take the unusual (for me) step of deciding to get up. For once I am up before the garbageman, and the sun. I do half an hour of yoga. I shower. I decide to treat myself (at 9, when they open) to a cheap breakfast at a local cafe. 
I lie on the couch feeling exhaustion lurking behind my tired eyelids and type this, thinking If I'm lucky, I'll turn those lines into a song. That something pretty could come out of horror... well, that's just about the best we can do with what we're given, isn't it? 

Old Workhorses and Fierce Joy

Last night I had the very great pleasure of seeing Canadian hair-band of the '80s Platinum Blonde in concert at the PNE. 

One of the obligatory Rock God poses. 

Now, if you had asked me before I went out last night if I was excited to see PB, my answer would have been "Um, nooo. Not really." We went because my sweetheart has a free pass to the fair, and I'd already been once that day so I could re-enter at will. Summer made a half-hearted reappearance this weekend after days of cold and rain, and we were both itching to get outside again. So off we went for one more night of overpriced booze and heart-stopping deep-fried treats. 

We got to the beer garden just before Platinum Blonde started their second set of the night. 

And you know what? It was a ton of fun. And it was a ton of fun not because the music was tight and catchy, or because the lighting was killer, or because the sound was crisp. These were all true. But it was fun because the band was having a blast. This was the small stage at the PNE, there were probably less than a thousand people in attendance, and these guys were rocking out as if their lives depended on it. And I saw the same thing (with a mellower vibe) when Vancouver rocker Barney Bentall hit the same stage the first week of the fair, with a much smaller audience. And to a certain extent when Darryl Hall and John Oates played the much bigger amphitheatre at the PNE last Friday. These guys are not playing fairgrounds and wineries and casinos to pay for their alimony or their drug habits. They're up there because making music together is still sheer joy for them. You could see it in Barney Bentall's eyes as he said "My grandkids are in the audience today" (!), or in Mark Holmes' over-the-top leaping and posturing as he sang the hits that made Platinum Blonde famous. He was clearly relishing the fact that he still had the body and the pipes that made him a teen idol 30 years ago. Hall and Oates were a little more workmanlike in their show, although the band was super-tight. But hey, these guys are pushing seventy, for god's sake. I want to look half as good as they do when I hit their age. It was a revelation to me, because I'd always been deeply cynical about "nostalgia acts". 

Here's why: The summer I turned 30- the night I turned 30 in fact-  a band I was in at the time played a fun little gig at Panorama Resort in eastern BC. As we were a small and little-known band, we had a great time playing our Celtic-Folk-Pop for the assembled crowd, and we got an extra kick out of knowing that we were opening for Doug & The Slugs, who were a favourite of mine and who I was pretty stoked to see. 

Unfortunately, "stoked" would clearly be the opposite of what Doug Bennett was feeling about playing that night. I think "tired", "embittered" and "couldn't give a rat's ass" would all be better descriptors. He told off-colour jokes, made bitter little wisecracks, and had to sit on a stool for much of the Slugs' set. I was saddened but not at all surprised when he died, only 2 months later. His let-down appearance in my life seemed like a cautionary tale: he was the only original "slug" in the band at that point; he seemed to be performing only because he had to, and he was only playing old stuff. There was no joy there. Was this what it was like to become famous early on and spend the rest of your life never measuring up to that? 

When he died, I read that Bennett had a wife and children. I hope he found a lot of happiness in his post-famous years, and that the performance I saw was simply an ill man having a rough night. But after that show I always thought that nostalgia bands doing the fairground or casino circuit must be just phoning it in, just doing it for the money. Why else would you continue to do the same thing year after year?

I've been wrestling lately with the whole concept of being a musician. I don't feel inspired to write songs right now and I don't feel inspired to practice my instruments. When I have gigs at seniors homes or street festivals I have a great time, but I don't seem able to find the drive to dig deep and practice, to play when there's nobody listening. 

Am I being lazy? Uncreative? I am driven to practice yoga every day. I write all the time. I've crocheted hats and shawls and granny squares. I've brainstormed story ideas with my guy. I take photographs, but then who doesn't these days? There is something happening, creatively speaking, most of the time. It just isn't music right now. 

Lately I talked to a dear friend whose drive to master her instrument has always both daunted and inspired me. She talked about how geography (she lives in the remote north) and circumstance (she has a young child) and happiness (she is finally with a really decent guy who treats her well) have blunted the ambitions she once held. She is no less wonderful a musician, but touring for little money, playing gigs with toxic bandmates, and steering projects towards exposure and success are no longer how she wants to spend her life. We're in our forties; our priorities have changed. 

I can't ever visualize a life without music. I am lucky to have natural talent as a singer and performer, and unlucky too, because it means I've never had to work very hard at it. But I will always identify as a musician, even if I don't always deserve to, even if life takes me in other directions. Now, when I see bands playing 30 year-old hits with such joy to crowds that may be smaller but are no less enthusiastic, I see people whose lives took them in many directions: father, doctor, drug addict, businessman, bluegrass player... and then, if they were lucky, they got to stand onstage and let their old songs pour out and feel so fortunate that this music has lasted to sustain them once again. 

My guy takes the time every day to practice his guitar for 15 minutes because it helps him to unwind from the work he does all day at home on his computer. In his daily routine, as he learns the simplest chords and strumming patterns,  I see the same fierce joy that I saw on the faces of those retro rockers at the PNE and I remember that there are as many ways for your creative work to sustain and nourish you as there are people doing it. 

Never assume that old workhorses are just phoning it in. I learned a lot from watching them the past few weeks. Amid all my struggles with music, and finding the drive to continue, I saw joy where I expected to find grim struggle and it was inspiring. 

Making Art That Matters

I made a mini audio documentary. It's about making theatre in a small town, and trying to be subversive even though I'm basically playing piano for a bunch of people pretending to be chickens. Let me know what you think.

 

The Postman

I am thinking about the Postman on the way home today.

See, years ago I worked at a used bookstore. And once a week, I'd venture further west than usual, to do my Wednesday shift at the Kitsilano branch. I'd play lots of cds to help get me through the long shifts there: Elvis (the early years of course), the "Amelie" soundtrack, jazz,  and mix cds (remember those?).
One Wednesday morning I was playing "I Like Trains" as the Postman walked in. "Fred Eaglesmith fan?" he inquired, and a friendship was born. I started looking forward to 11am on Wednesday mornings, when he'd come by with our mail. Even though we'd only talk for a moment, there was a nice connection there. We'd talk music: mostly Fred Eaglesmith and Blackie and the Rodeo Kings.
It didn't hurt that the Postman was very handsome in a rugged way, handsome enough to make my heart beat a little faster when he came by the bookstore. There was nothing untoward; just that spark between people that sometimes happens, an unexplainable chemistry. A connection.

I had a bit of a crush on the Postman.

Once I left the bookstore to pursue music we bumped into each other maybe 3 times: I saw him (fittingly) at a Fred Eaglesmith concert with his beautiful wife, and on the street once when I was in Kits one morning and he was on his route. I 'friended' him on Facebook just for fun, and because we'd had that connection. The little I gleaned from his Facebook feed: that he was a proud family man; that he liked to travel, liked roots-y music, took a good photograph.

Two months ago I was in the middle of recording a song of mine when I decided it needed some bass and ran down the road to Long & McQuade to rent one. To my surprise, the Postman was there, talking to a friend. He grinned wide when he saw me. "It's my birthday today!" he said, so I gave him a congratulatory hug and we stood there chatting until I remembered why I was there and took my leave. It felt like a good omen, seeing him on a day when I was already so happy, able to tell him that I was making music and loving life. Later that day I posted the finished song on Facebook, and wished him a happy birthday. I got a sweet message from him thanking me and saying how nice it had been to run into me.

So I am thinking about the Postman today, as I walk home from rehearsal. I am in Saskatoon and I know he's from Saskatchewan; I wonder if he's seen my recent posts and knows I'm in his home province. I decide to check out his Facebook page when I get home, see what he's up to.

Something about him being honoured as a baseball coach, that's nice. Wait a minute, though: "What an incredibly fitting way to be remembered?"I scroll down the page, and disbelief turns to shock.

Six days after his 61st birthday, six days after I gave him a hug and he made my heart beat a little bit faster one more time, the Postman died of a sudden heart attack and I didn't know until I thought to look him up 2 months later.

This is not, obviously, meant to be the story of my grief. I hardly knew the Postman. His family and friends must still be reeling and my heart goes out to them. I shed a few tears tonight and then I went for a run in the soupy Saskatoon heat and thought about a few things.
About how we never know when our time is going to be up.
About how we can have a special connection with people, even when we don't know them well.
About the hard-driving, twangy, tender music of Fred Eaglesmith.

Here's to you, Postman Pat. I'm sad that you're gone.

Little Show on the Prairie.

Saskatoon.
Oak trees and old houses, flat wide streets and hot dry air, even after the rain.
The day I landed here I walked and walked, trying to take it all in. I've been walking ever since. (Mostly because it's sunny and why wouldn't I, but also because I haven't bothered to figure out the bus system yet.) Yesterday the stage manager and I walked to work together and a street vendor was giving away (!) waffles with bacon cooked right into them as a promotion and we agreed that that was pretty much the best walk ever.

The North Saskatchewan River.

This city has a sturdy devotion to baked goods- in particular ones filled with Saskatoon Berries- and like most of Canada except BC, they are masters of the mighty Butter Tart. It's a good thing I'm walking lots.
There's a lot about Saskatoon that reminds me of Toronto, or maybe it's just that it's more like Toronto than Vancouver. Less fir trees. Older houses. No mountains. Obviously Saskatoon doesn't have the mega-city thing going on though. It's actually pretty small; way smaller than Vancouver.
Work is rewarding and fun; sometimes I feel wise, sometimes I feel like a fool. Often on the same day. The thing is, it doesn't bother me anymore. I've accepted that there are things that I'm good at and things that I could improve upon but I don't question why I'm here, or think that I can't do the work. I am comfortable in my own skin, and this makes me happy. It's been a long time coming, this confidence, and I am all the more grateful for it because of that.

Plus I get to live with this guy. Life is good. 

The Sturdy Stone Centre. WTF? Don't look at the giant circle too long or it will hypnotize you. 

I love old building ads.

Cherry Blossoms vs. Wine: a (semi-serious) study in branding

Consider, for a minute, the humble cherry blossom. No, not the flowering tree. This:

In all its retro glory. 

I noticed them tonight at the corner store, where I was buying cherry Coke to go with my take-out pizza and mini Haagen Das ice cream. (Yes, it was a banner night for healthy eating in my world.) The packaging hasn't changed in forever: it's an unappetizing yellow. The picture looks like some kind of alien ooze escaping from a cave of... poo? (Let's not even get started on the taste, which takes 3 of my favourite things- cherries, peanuts and chocolate- and turns them into something utterly vile.) Does ANYBODY buy these things? I've never seen anyone consume one, or admit to buying one, or heard anyone say anything nice about them. And yet they exist, year after year, mocking us all with their permanently uncool retro box and disgusting taste. How, in a world where cult hits like "Arrested Development", "Carnivale" and "Ryan the A&W Trainee" are canned, can this little freak keep existing? 

My sweetie and I have been known to enjoy a drink or two, so I am fairly familiar with the inside of the local liquor store. In the last ten, maybe? years, wineries and craft breweries have gone crazy with re-branding, turning stodgy labels into tongue-in-cheek works of art. (Wine o'Clock or Pink Freud, anyone?) Now, I would imagine that liquor is a competitive business to be in... but so is candy. And yet, while wineries and craft beer-makers are tripping over themselves to be cool, the stolid little Cherry Blossom just keeps on truckin', and somewhere, someone must be buying 'em by the truckload. Like the Honey Badger, Cherry Blossom don't give a shit. 

I'm thinking a lot about all this stuff these days because I'm in two bands that are trying, in their modest ways, to build a following (not to mention my own solo career/accordion teaching empire/freelance writing sideline) and I'm negotiating the ins and outs of publicity/social media daily. I learned about writing press releases last week (it's fun!). I revived my band's Twitter account from the dead. I tweaked a website and tried to make it more SEO-friendly. It's all interesting, but is this stuff keeping me from the important stuff, like songwriting and practicing? (Two things, I'll admit, that I have a love-hate relationship with.) Is my bandmate Amelia on the right track by keeping a wary distance from social media? How can my friend Jimmy- a sought-after playwright and director- exist in today's world without a cel phone, a Facebook account, or even email? In the context of this piece, Jimmy and Amelia are the Cherry Blossom: they have something people want, and they are old-fashioned- some might say stubborn- in their approach to marketing themselves. And I am like the wineries: how can I make this product (me) eye-catching enough so that as many people as possible will see it?

I type this piece fresh from a band practice where we discussed various strategies: practice makes perfect vs. regular gigs for experience? Keep building the songlist vs. focus on 20 songs for a razor-sharp set? I type this piece fresh from a week of rehearsing and recording some delightful, energetic and challenging music that I truly believe people will love... if only we can find ways to reach them. But there are so many ways to reach people these days... and many of them are a huge waste of time. I belong to Reverbnation, a website that is supposed to help musicians build a following and gives you info on your "chart position", "fans", etc... make that used to belong to Reverbnation, because I just quit. I found it to be a timesuck and a scam, a so-called "free" site that wants to charge you for pretty much everything, with stats that don't have any real meaning whatsoever. I'll keep Tweeting and updating my websites, but when it comes to winning new fans I'll keep doing it the old-fashioned way: by playing live gigs and making sure as many people as possible not hear my music but pay to hear it as well. 

The humble Cherry Blossom sits on a low shelf, bypassed for flashier, larger chocolates. But somewhere out there are people who believe in it, and so it hunkers down and endures, knowing that some of those big candy bars have an awfully short shelf life.

Muggy and Musical

Yesterday was impossibly hot and muggy, and I walked around with a large accordion on my back for a large part of it, and felt that I should have a retinue, who would match my pace, fanning me all the way with palm leaves, and offering me sips of cold lemonade. This did not happen.

What DID happen was that my accordion and I spent much of the day inside Blue Light Studio, which is a pretty magical place to be. It's where I recently recorded my own song, "In The End", and I've done session work there for other musicians and I love spending time there.

Recording sessions are some of my favourite things. And this one was special, because it was for a friend, someone who doesn't think highly enough of his skills as a musician, but who is evolving into a really amazing songwriter. So it was fun to watch some of his songs take shape, coming off the pages and into our ears. I played accordion and piano and sang a bit. Andy the recording engineer put some mandolin down on a song. When I arrived in the morning there was delicious coffee and when I came back in the afternoon there was Maudite beer in a Mason jar .

In between, I trekked out to South Vancouver to play at a seniors home. My luck is holding, because I've still never had a bad show at one of those places, and yesterday's was my all-time favourite so far. I played my accordion in the lounge/lobby of the building, and by some lucky fluke the acoustics were heavenly. I didn't need a mic, and my voice cut through the room perfectly. By the second song there were little, high, perfect old-lady voices joining in with me, and by the end of the hour I had quite a chorus of backup singers. 

Then it was back to the studio, along Industrial Avenue, which is a perfectly interesting little dead-end street. There are railcars and tracks on either side, which makes it practically inaccessible. There are food trucks everywhere (I think they come here to clean, or to re-stock, or something.) There is garbage, and crows, and climbing gyms, and the odd piece of greenery: 

All in all, it was a delightful day, even with all the accordion-carrying.