Leaping Beyond Drama and Nonsense this Divali...

Like the ever aware frog, I pledged to be more present throughout my next tour—both onstage and off.

I am midway through this tour, and I’d give myself about a B-/C+. I’m still getting worked up about little details (when to check in, how to stay current with emails, where to eat…). But I’m quicker at noticing unwelcome drama and nonsense and am able to reset fairly quickly.

By setting an intention to enjoy what’s going on around me I believe I have invited some truly exceptional experiences. Like our Indian Buffet in Indiana:

A few highlights:

Lawrence, KS: great coffee and thrift stores (Matt got a distortion pedal and I got two dresses). And the show was absolutely awesome, which was a very auspicious way to kick off this BEYOND DRAMA & NONSENSE tour.

Fairfield, IA: had to go straight to the gig (not ideal), but we rolled with it and had a GREAT SHOW!! Our friend Carol bought Matt three kinds of throat lozenges for his sore throat. And our new friend Dave agreed to set up a show in elephant-rich Kanchanaburi this January.

Chicago, IL: We arose SUPER early on this day off and drove to Chicago, excitement mounting all the way. Marathon fever was coursing through our veins as we hopped on the train to see our neighbor from back home cross the finish line. He qualified for Boston with a minute to spare, we went out for fish and chips, and then collapsed at Clare and Dan’s place with beer and Wes Anderson’s classic film “Rushmore.”

Ann Arbor, MI: This night kicked off a series of five collaborative shows for the Celtic Roots Revue (with stellar Lissa Schneckenburger, Bethany Waickman, and guests Nic Gareiss, Liz Carroll, San and Laz Slomovits, and others). A dose of traffic, an unexpected long commute to meet our co-bill pals, and a bevy of special guests to accommodate meant that I never took time to warm up and get centered. As soon as I recognized that I was getting in my own way, I was able to just let go and enjoy all the amazing musicians/dancers on the bill. High highs, low lows on this day.

Evanston, IL: Driving to Chicagoland with two more people changed things up. We shared snacks and ipod hits. Pre-show felt a bit like the previous night (giving other people time and taking care of special guests when what I really needed was time to tuck in). But my friend Clare perked me up by bringing tall white boots and a yellow paisley 60s-style dress in JUST MY SIZE!!! I felt like a super hero onstage.

Lansing, MI: Our pal Rachael invited us over for Indian food on our way to the show. I was coming down with a cold (worry and fret about other people takes its toll). I assumed Rach would order take out… but when we arrived she had four pots on the stove and was cutting and dicing. The house smelled like being taken care of, and she put me to sleep while everybody else chilled out. One long nap, some olive leaf extract, and a home-cooked Indian meal later, it wasn’t too tough to float into the venue and just enjoy the nice venue and night of music.

Bellville, OH: Not knowing what to expect at all from this venue/presenters, we arrived with a heart for any fate… what a deep treat that the home, food, company, and gig were truly wonderful! Our host Melanie shared a paw paw with me—I had only ever heard of this fruit (in a folk song, actually), but it turns out the fruit is native to Ohio. With a mango texture, and a floral coconut-meets-banana flavor, the paw paw was my takeaway for this night… that and the COMPLETE WORKS of FROG & TOAD that Matt found for me!!

Bloomington, IN: What kind of food could we expect to find on the way from Cleveland to Indiana? With signs on sticks galore, we thought the best we could do would be a Subway attached to a gas station. So when I saw a sign for “Truck Wash and Indian Buffet” in Spiceland, IN (no joke), I took it for a desert mirage. Fortunately there was a follow up sign, and fortunately we followed it. Happy Divali! Happy saag paneer! With bellies full of dal, we hit Bloomington. The show was HILARIOUS—a great cap off to our co-bill shows with Lissa. I served paw paw in the middle of the show, and I learned that Indiana also lays claim to the paw paw. They call it the Indiana Banana.

St. Louis: Back to the duo show format, today’s highlights included Honeycrisp apples from a farm stand, reuniting with our music pals Brian and Eileen and Shannon’s Aunt MaryAnne, and seeing Matt’s family friends from childhood. It feels good and easy to be a duo again.

I've got five more shows to go on. Glad to have checked in, since I have another week to put my new perspective in play.

Presence is a clean slate and a lighter travel bag

When frogs sing together, I don't imagine they spend much energy judging the performance. They probably just notice how things feel-- how it feels to sing in the warm night air and how it feels to sing together.

Certainly we all process and relate to sounds differently. And certainly I'm not the only one who turns a critical ear to my own sound output. On a good day, I'm in the business of paying attention to what I'm doing, noticing what's working and what isn't.

I wrote about practicing music with awareness in my recent article The Inner Game of Irish music, suggesting that when we listen attentively to ourselves, and when we trust ourselves to hear and feel what is working and what needs to be adjusted, we enjoy playing... and we offer ourselves the opportunity to make lasting, meaningful improvement.

Being aware of the process has led me to rethink my stage shows, too--not just the playing, but all the bits in between when I get to connect to my listeners. I've been REALLY trying to savor this time. Every night is different, and there's always something different to comment on. That's such a great part of my job!

So now I'm trying to take the awareness game to the next level. Before our last show and onstage, I pledged to try and extend this practice of presence and appreciation to my day to day travels: sometimes I can get overwhelmed with details on the road and I miss some of the cool stuff along the way. (Or I transform what could be a chill day into a more stressful one...)

I think the first step is to lay back and just prepare to leave (and not WORRY about preparing to leave). If I can do prep work for a tour with presence and joy, I can certainly do the tour... and all the traveling, checking into lodgings, finding meals, checking email on the road... with a certain amount of ease and humor.

Last week I cleared out my studio. This symbolized a clearing of old nonsense and baggage. Why not clear out my tired old I'm-so-overwhelmed story... and just pack what I need and prepare to enjoy the trip? And then once I'm on the road, why not just be on the road and do what I need to do in each moment? What's the big deal?

The frog gets the idea of just singing, without worrying about how it's all going and how it all fits together. Teach me to leap, little frog, one step at a time.

In Pursuit of a Cleaner Work Pad

I did it. I cleared out the mess. I now have one current To Do list of music to write, learn, or practice. The piles of paper have been thinned. Thanks to my friend Christopher for inspiring me with these photos of nine famous people work spaces. Note Al Gore's Frog on Wall...

Here are my modest BEFORE and AFTER shots:

Good Company and a Place to Hide

Frogs are super social. In a terrarium of say, five frogs, two or three of them will be pasted on top of one another. Frogs like company.

In addition to enjoying companionship, frogs also love and need furniture. They need places to climb, hop, and crawl. And just like us, they need their privacy.

After a week of trying to juggle a weird and overwhelming variety of office and home tasks, it is refreshing to reconnect with the basics: I, too, need a bit of good company *and* a clean, safe place to retreat and hide out. Take care of the basics and the rest will get done (or it won't, but I won't be as worried about it).

So today I am going to the Inman Oasis with some friends (social needs & water!). And them I'm going to tuck into my studio. I'll clear out some of the old papers and organize my current material... make things clean and enticing, and make a little corner where I can hide out and write or read.

Like my frog brothers, I will always face a mountain of daily tasks in order to survive and thrive. And I can best accomplish the work of living when I am balancing my deep social connections with nourishing solo retreats.

The Sinister Side of Stupidity

"Get a car!"

Um, huh? Why did this 30-something baseball cap-wearing dude, seated in the passenger seat of his friend's SUV, feel the need to yell this imperative at me on my bicycle as he whizzed by?

1) I was slowing down progress in some way (as I rode on the far right of the road), so he thought to urge me to rock a faster mode of transport so this sort of delay wouldn't happen in the future?

2) He felt affection for me and thought I'd look good behind the wheel of a snazzy car--just trying to help in that What Not To Wear sort of way?

3) He liked the look of me and thought to reach out... and that's the first thing that popped into his head to say. You never know what might spark a fulfilling relationship?

4) He thought himself superior to me, sitting in that passenger seat... and he wanted to proclaim to the world that the ONLY way to roll is to "Get a Car!"??

5) He noticed that he was going faster than I was. He thought I looked like the sporting type and might be fun to drag race with, but he thought I'd need a car in order to race?

If you're reading this blog, you're probably interested in frogs, wellness, wholeness, or me (thanks for your good taste and judgment!)... so you probably would find this scene as distasteful and humorous as I did.

But it turns out there are actually people MY AGE who have not caught on to the idea that cars are not so great. Sure, they are convenient. Sure, I use MY car way more often than my bike. But I'm certainly not going to honk at the low carbon footprint guy with groceries in his panniers who is strengthening his heart, lungs, legs and appetite... even if he WERE slowing my crappy car progress.

Duuuuude: what about the frogs? They are good barometers for the health of our own habitats. Frogs are wicked sensitive. Many species are dying out, in large part because habitats are getting gunked up with air and water contaminants.

WE are sensitive, too. And we are getting asthma, allergies, cancer, in part because of the gunk we're putting in our air, water, food: Save the frogs, save ourselves. (Forget the cheerleader.)

Next time some dude yells something at me from a car window, I'm going to slap him upside the head with my long frog tongue.

Building A New Tower: Frogs and Free Associations

Like the frog living in an abandoned pool rich with algae, I created a home and routine in environs that seemed to suit me. But the owners of my proverbial pool recently picked up some chlorine, and suddenly my current systems no longer fit in this summer of my discontent.

When I drew a card from my friend Molly's tarot deck yesterday, I chose the Tower. She explained the significance of this powerful card thoroughly and elegantly. My takeaway: I am not structuring my daily life in a way that is harmonious with my deepest beliefs and values. My sense of self/purpose is a little shaky at the moment. To live a rich, fertile life, I need to dissolve my current systems and thoughts of who I am and rebuild with a firm base and an open heart.

My wish when placing the card back in the deck was to imagine a new routine and mindset for myself WITHOUT resorting to analytical methods. I didn't want to make lists of pros/cons, stuff I value, longterm goals.

Like the sensitive frog I really took this into my skin. And then I forgot all about it. By the time I was dropping my dear friends (Molly and other childhood girlfriend Jen) at the airport, my sights were set on the music lessons I had that evening.

But in the 70 minutes I had before teaching, I was drawn to the stack of dot matrix printer paper I had brought home with me from my husband's childhood home. Ripping 2+3+2+3 sheets off at a time, I made a large square of paper on the floor and sat in the middle.

I began thinking of various thoughts, beliefs, aspects of my life I treasure, routines or habits I wish to change. I would reflect on each tangible idea for just a few seconds and then scribble it on the paper, wherever my gut told me to write it.

After getting all of these ideas, frustrations, questions out I felt calm. I taught my lessons, made a cup of tea, and then went back to look at my SFA (Square of Free Associations). Though my handwriting was uneven and there were blocks of text going in many different directions, there was an eerily clear order to it all.

Where my head had faced, I had written about the things that I value most

To my left, I had written about matters concerning work.

To my right, I had chronicled all the things that are NOT working

At my feet were three blank sheets of paper.

This was not what I set out to do. It happened naturally, magically, strangely. But in just over an hour I had magically drawn a new blueprint for living, from my feet clockwise around the circle. Reflecting, tweaking and implementing it is a much more involved process, but the basics seem sound:

1) Build an honest, uncluttered base. From still, rooted silence comes clarity, intuition, strength.

2) Move and breathe through the work I need to do to make a living. Momentum is everything.

3) Set my sights on and open my heart for the people/activities that I cherish.

4) Polish or purge the broken systems that are distracting me from the good stuff.

Create a home... Adapt... Move.... Create a new home.
If it's good enough for our frog brothers, it's good enough for me.

When the Frog Jumps it is Day

Yesterday was the first clear day in weeks. It was muggy but blessedly rain-free... sunny enough for my big green sunglasses, suitable for even the most fragile of post-cataract surgery patients.

The Mystic River was thick with lily pads, a frog's paradise. It looked like I'd be able to walk on top of this green carpet.

I threw a small stone out to the middle of the lily mass and was surprised to see it sink immediately!

OK, so only the smallest frogs could leap from pad to pad; while maybe the rest aim for a leaf, and surf it as it submerges and swishes around before regaining balance. Once again, even the smallest classic frog pastime is filled with play and sport...

As I sit inside on another overcast afternoon, typing this review of the lily pads, my lavender candle and Thai pop playlist elevate my small administrative tasks to frog status.