Flying Folk Army Reunion BBQ!

There were chips. And dips. And kids- the tiny offspring of my band mates. (Maybe one day they'll have their own bands!)
And jammin' to the old tunes, just to prove we can still rock! (That's me on the squeezebox)
Some of us have moved on to other areas of music. Some of us don't play much anymore. But there's always this band, the one that never officially broke up, the one with a 2nd CD in the works for the last 5 years...
Hey, we're all still speaking; we all still like each other. That's more than many bands can say.

It's Almost Bedtime

I'm going to savor my sleep tonight, unless my tricksy body has other plans. My upper back is twingeing, the kind of twinge that happens after a bit of commuter-biking and hunching over a computer for too long. School, production meeting, homework... but there was gorgeous weather, dinner with my sweetheart, and time to play a little clarinet as well. If this keeps up I shall have to stop calling myself Accordionista, because the poor old squeezebox isn't making it out of its case these days! My pal Russel recently invited me to join the North Shore Community Band, so off I went last night, to play my clarinet in a North Shore high school...just like the old days at my alma mater...except that my high school band sucked. This one is really fun, and the music is challenging enough that I'll actually have to practice, which will be fun. The inside of my lower lip stings today, though.
The sound of a band (as opposed to an orchestra, which sounds very different) took me back to my days at the National Music Camp of Canada, back in Ontario. Almost all the school bands I've ever been in have been terrible, but NMC made up for it. In one week, you'd learn more about your instrument than you would in an entire year of school band. These amazing jazz & classical musicians would come up there to teach, and they had a blast. They'd put on concerts for us, in the humid evenings in the main hall; I still sometimes hear their names on CBC. We'd play in bands, and have sectionals with experts who'd teach us everything we ever needed to know about our instruments, in my case the clarinet. I can still remember the pleasure I felt when I learned that the clarinet has 2 registers: the Clarion and the Chalemeau.
The camp itself was...spartan, to say the least. The rest of the summer it was a camp for Jewish kids- Camp Wahanawin. There were wild 3-D papier mache "posters" of all the musicals these kids had put on, all over the dining hall. If the musicals were half as entertaining as the posters...
The camp was run by this older guy and his sons, who all looked exactly the same- dark and saturnine. I remember that one of them was called Bruce, and that in the morning we were roused from our saggy bunks by one of them mournfully intoning over a loudhailer: "Flagpole, everybody. Everybody to...the flagpole." Glory days.
Anyway, I'm still feeling a bit nervous about biting off more than I can chew this fall. But with my trusty clarinet in hand and a view like this from my balcony, how can life be all bad?

sweet music. (or, Chord Scale Theory, my ass)

I know, I know. Two posts in one day- tres nerdy, n'est pas? But... I was so tired, and my head was stuffed full of Jazz Theory, and all I wanted to do was lie down and sleeeep for 2 days. But like the good clarinet player I am, I got on my bike and pedalled off to a Reptiles rehearsal 2 hours ago, and it was like a dip in a sweet, cold pool. This learning about the cold hard rules of music is all very well, and it will be very useful to me, I have no doubt. Just playing for 2 hours with honeyed tea, good friends and wild Turkish songs however...
That's what music is all about. That's why I do it.

water, water!

It's so unseasonably hot right now. Part of me wants revel in this latelate summer (especially since we didn't get much of one from June-August), but you can't really, these days, can you? I mean, there's always that sad little voice in your head saying "well it's not supposed to be like this, is it? Probably some Global Warming-related disaster, that's all. We'll pay for this heavenly weather, mark my words."
Actually, unless I guzzle water from morning 'til night, days like this can be difficult. I'm really trying to keep up with the old physical fitness routine as well as stretching my poor brain in new directions, so between running and working out I always need water or I get headaches that last all day. I hope I can keep fitting the exercise in as life gets busier- Rev from the Pumpkin Patch called yesterday and signed me up for 12 days of Pumpkin Patch work next month, sandwiched between school, homework, stage managing and whatever else comes up!
Finally, a note of joy... I took the advice of our building manager Robert (whose stories of vigilante justice meted out to junkies and car-window-smashers working our 'hood are both amusing and horrifying) and took our poor window-lacking car to an auto-wrecker in Surrey. Well, my Mom took the car and I rode shotgun, as I still don't drive. Unfortunately I didn't take a camera, because I would have gotten some wonderful B&W shots of the auto-wrecker wasteland that exists under the Patullo Bridge. A true man-land; I think mom & I were the only females to be seen. I admit I'd dressed a little sexy, thinking that it might help in the discount department, but some of the stares I got made me feel like I'd walked into the sticks: "Yer not from around here, are ya?"
Anyway, the guy who actually fixed our windows was fantastic. Friendly, helpful, stayed 2 hours after the wreckers closed to install the windows, and the whole thing only cost $150 as opposed to the $650 we would've paid at Speedy Auto Glass!!! Made me feel better about human nature again. So Gateway Autowrecking gets the great big Seal of Approval from me. Take your car there and experience the love for yourself. Our car is no longer a flappy horror, thanks to them.

hard/wonderful

Wow. That was a hard week. But, like all things, it has passed. And looking back, there were just as many wonderful things in there are there were hard things- in fact, most things were a hard/wonderful combination! As you can see above, this was my office for most of the last 6 days. Hard: the fresh air knocks you out! I mean seriously: zombie drool mode after a few hours in all that sun & wind. But also Wonderful: could I even believe I get paid to stroll around Jericho Beach at the tailend of summer and discuss which areas would make potential performance sites? Pretty awesome.
Here's my poor boyfriend getting kicked by "Lithuanian soldiers" for being a Jew. This show, "Letters From Lithuania", is pretty intense. Lots of violence and death, juxtaposed in one of Vancouver's most stunningly beautiful parks. If it ever gets performed (which it's supposed to, this summer), it will be very interesting to see how people react to its themes and content. There'll be a lot of stilts, masks, site-specific sets... along with the aforementioned violence & death. I stage managed this workshop, which for me is hard. I don't like SM-ing. But also wonderful: I needed money! And SMs get paid more than actors!
Also hard: school. It's kicking my ass. My instructor told me to wait as long as possible before paying for the 2 courses I'm taking, so I don't waste my money if I'm too overwhelmed. Thanks, Rob MacKenzie. But I know he's only saying that to be kind, and honestly, there's so much I don't know, so much I should know before taking these 2 classes (jazz theory & arranging). But how wonderful- to sit at a chair in a classroom and soak up information. I love learning! (And I'm determined to prove my instructor wrong and pass these 2 courses.)
The hardest thing this week: to wake up on Friday, tired already but determined to get through my 1st Jazz Theory class and then head straight to the LFL workshop...
and I get outside our apartment and some goof has smashed 2 of our car's windows! Nothing taken, just sheer vandalism, to the tune of $650. It was impossible to find anything wonderful about that. But Jon and I got through the day, a dark cloud hanging over both our heads, and slept for 10 hours Friday night and got up yesterday in much better moods.
Now the workshop is over and I have only school this week before my next SM job starts next Monday. One week. Better get working on that music homework! I went to the VCC bookstore and bought my textbooks and a comfy new knapsack on Friday. I'm a student now, even if the courses aren't paid for yet. And I'm in this for the long haul, dammit.

school's in

Waking up early. Learning. Organizing. Keeping track of things. Being a good communicator. Listening. Focusing.
Ah god, where are the carefree days of summer? How did they fly away so fast?
I am alternately ready and not ready. To be challenged, to be learning new things, to have responsibilities again. There was a sweetness to being static, but there will be fire and fierceness this fall as I take these new steps: stage managing, school, school- I can't believe I'm going to school after so many years! Everything's crazy this week but I'll know soon what classes I have and how I'll weather part-time school and part-time stage managing. And the North Shore Community Band I'll be joining to improve my trumpet skills. Oh, and somewhere in there I need to revive my stagnant music career. And keep practicing the clarinet and accordion. And love & cherish my wonderful boyfriend. Help.

Family

I am a passionate believer in creating your own family, your own group of folks who sustain and nurture you even if your blood kin has disowned you for whatever reason; or even if you are not dramatically disowned but just can't be your real self around your relatives. I always think of a great quote from "Microserfs", a book I love, where the female heroine says to her new boyfriend "I'm the silent frog with my parents, but I'm the singing dancing frog around you." Meaning that she was the silent, obedient but dull frog around her uncomprehending family, but with her partner, she came alive.
I think about that this weekend as I'm in Kelowna visiting Dad & June, and also June's visiting daughter and son-in-law and their 2 kids, age 5 & 3. Jade & Brenden are not tied to me by blood, but their shrill little voices called me "Auntie Alison" all day yesterday, and it was unexpected, and sweet. Their grandma June's late marriage to my dad has made me a relative. And they call my dad, who visits them in Ottawa when he's there on business, "Grandpa David", which made my heart clench a bit. Not from jealousy, but from sadness- they may be the only kids who ever call my dad "Grandpa". Malcolm & Naomi claim not to want kids at all, and J & I are on the fence. So the only children who think of my dad as a grandpa are, again, not related to him by blood at all.
And my blood relative, Dad, has this really annoying habit of not listening to a thing I say- I have never known if it's disinterest, or poor listening skills, or what, but I can be telling him the best thing and he'll interrupt it with a random, unrelated story or interjection; while June, who often drives me crazy even though I know she's battling a life-threatening disease, can suddenly ask me what my plans are for the Fall and listen, REALLY listen to my answers in a way my dad never will.
Meanwhile, J went to a funeral today for his dad's cousin, a man he barely knew. But this cousin's daughter told him a funny story of meeting J as a 5-year-old: "you'd bury your clothes in the sand at the beach and run off, buck-naked." A great family story, from a virtual stranger.
Jon and I are both products of families who are largely disjointed from grandparents, aunts, uncles, cousins and the like because our parents emmigrated to Canada from other countries. In a way this is liberating- we can live our lives without the judgements of this great lumpish Family hanging over our heads. But this also leaves us dangling- lonely and disjointed in our lives without the built-in safety net of Family to cushion our blows. We are fascinated and repelled by large extended family groups and the pressure they can exert. And while I feel 90% more myself around my manufactured "family" of people like Gord, Darryl, Sean and the like, I still crave the approval or at least the recognition of people like my dad, my grandparents and cousins in the UK. "It's so nice to read about your way of life," wrote my grandma in her last letter to me, and although I find her a repellant woman in most ways, I was absurdly pleased.
At the end of this slightly intoxicated blurt (I shared 2 bottles of wine with my dad as a courtesy- June can't drink because of her cancer so really it only seemed fair to glug back some wine with him- 'hic') I guess I'm no nearer a neat summary- I still believe that the people you are truly close to are your real family but I can't reject the hold that "kin" has on me because I'm so fascinated and unfamiliar with it.
At the end of the day I can only say that I had a great time getting to know Jade & Brenden; that I passionately hope I will continue to be a part of their young lives even as I doubt that this can be so (they live across the country for one thing); that this is all probably tied in to my confusion & ambivalence about having kids; that even though I've had a great time here I'll be thrilled to get home to my Jonny tomorrow night where I can sing & dance & croak to my heart's content and still be loved just because I am Me.