Personal Stuff ...

If you'r'e still with me, dear Readers, thank you for hanging in there.  It's been a while since I've posted.  Things have been on the difficult side, emotionally and physically, with my being sort of a "multiple care-giver" (spouse, aging dog, and house) and having more than 99% of all responsibility -- from the mundane to the complex.  Dixie Lee is still with me, doing her best to stay with me and life ... and is still a beautiful spirit; she requires a lot of patience and extra care now. Jerry's conditions are hard to describe and I wouldn't attempt it out of consideration for his privacy, but I can say that he is almost completely immobilized and socially out of the loop.  For me, sometimes it's hard to be here in this house in which I put two years of major repairs and a huge emotional, physical, and financial investment. The times, too, are added to the mix.  My piano student roster, once vital and overloaded, has dissipated and my Healing the Earth Family (free) program has not had any takers ...  which indicates to me a widespread mix of apathy, fear, and perhaps lack of time and energy in the population. Too, many people have their faces buried in their social media and that has largely taken the place of interacting in person with groups and individuals. There is no substitute, though (well, no genuine substitute), for the real deal -- a special person, and the natural world.  I talk to people in the grocery store and everywhere ... for conversation and my head's idea rolodex ... and I turn to the natural world for comfort, encouragement, and healing :)  I like to keep things vital and positive.  And I've got a meditation room here that I love; it is filled with things that I treasure.

I've been writing and arranging my newest song, getting in some practice on it!  Will be bringing it to my dear friend's studio to record soon.  Am jamming a couple of times a month (on average) with my former guitarist bandmate, and that is rejuvenating and enjoyable -- lately we've been adding some really old songs ... I mean from the 1920s or so.  I remember them from when my mother used to sing or whistle them many years ago, so it's fun to hear them in my head, figure out the chord progressions, and put a contemporary style on them.  Life needs music!  And it really is the universal language.

My At-Home Music Performance --

This concept flew into my head about five or six weeks ago. Precipitated by the emotional and practical adjustments one needs to make when a working musical relationship ends, combined with a rather long-standing question in my mind as to how long is long enough for me to be soliciting gigs via the rounds of venues (which, in Knoxville, can be a tough row to hoe due to cliques and gatekeepers). Well, I had/have so many conflicting thoughts and feelings about it all. I love to play and sing music; I particularly love to do my own songs; additionally, I have been unable to turn off the creative processes that cause me to write new songs. I’ve tried. When is a person too "old" to remain an "active" songwriter and musical performer? Maybe more to the point, when is a woman too far past the blossom of youth to sing about romance, passion, love, and all the mundane and ethereal offshoots of those things? Well, since I still feel those things, I still write and sing about them!

The at-home performance idea evolved through several spasms as it morphed, finally, into a simple invitation to a few friends and students to come over to my home studio to catch my performance with my own beloved grand piano, Buddy, here in my own "digs" ! Also on the scene, of course, would be my fine keyboard friend, Yamaha, and my old, dependable Shure mic and Roland amps. The mic and amps have made a gazillion trips along bumpy roads and in and out of venues and have never once complained. But that is an aside ... and I’m often guilty of asides.

The days went on and I had a few flashbacks to my childhood and our household that was as busy as a train station, full of visitors – visitors who would always ask or insist that I play the piano and sing for them (and I would always be required to comply); I remember it was partly annoying and partly titillating and sometimes I would hide in my closet. No matter, though – someone would march into my room, retrieve me and escort me to the piano in the living room.

Well, fast-forward to June 2008. As the performance date grew nearer, I began to wonder if the whole idea was hokey and if people could enjoy it. With the price of gasoline over the $4 mark, we need to get choosy about what event is worth the drive. So was it fair to expect people to come? I couldn’t decide. Then the date rolled around. When several of my friends and students showed up, I was very happy and got the performance into gear. They enjoyed it, as did I! In addition to many of the blues songs people are accustomed to hearing me do, I took the opportunity to play and sing some of my most intricate torch ballads and jazz renderings, and ended the evening with one of my very seldom performed classical originals.

Now the question is sort of whether I will perform anywhere again. Yes, if I’m asked to (but no more calls to venues). But there is probably no question that I will continue to color outside the lines (I think that’s more extreme than thinking outside the box). And next, who knows?