making rather merry, sir

What a funny Christmas.

I had no Christmas Eve service to plan.

I did not decorate my house.

I did not buy a turkey, mash potatoes, make stuffing, plan a meal, fuss over details.

Gifts among our immediate family were all opened by the 17th.

There's not even a chance of snow here.

In some ways, all is so foreign, yet... here I sit, as the girls play in their silly camaraderie among cousins and uncles and aunts, old jokes being dredged up and laughed at yet again, and new jokes being forged as we laugh our way through the holidays. And it's right.

Some of the laughter is because of the jokes, much is just because it's so easy to laugh when we're all together.

More people than ever, yet not quite all. Tonight on the way home the iPod kicked into "All is Well". About one verse in, I switched tracks. "I like that one," said D. "It reminds too much," said I. "Enough said," he replied. What an amazing guy.

What an amazing family.

I am, in so many senses of the word, ridiculously blessed.

Merry Christmas. And God bless us, every one.

nature, sort of

Sometimes we learn things here in odd ways. For example, I found out last week that we have ermine living here on the farm. They're cute little weasels, and in winter their otherwise brown camouflaging fur turns pure white except for a little tuft of black at the tip of their tail (question: why the tuft? answer: I have no idea.) in preparation for the snow that will come.

The odd way we found out? Found one drowned in our pool. Oops. Sorry, little guy.

fog

I like fog. It's like a big grey blanket (a cool, wet blanket, I admit) that wraps the world in a bit of mystery. Maybe it's my Maritime upbringing, so when I see it here inland, it's a tiny bit of childhood familiarity that makes me like it. There's something about looking across hazy fields at the shadows of the trees, indistinct and just suggesting the land beyond.

Last night was thick fog for our area. Of course nothing like the fog that sweeps in from the ocean, "pea soup fog" we always called it. The girls, with their Ontario upbringing, haven't seen it as much and they were amazed when I told them about driving with the window down so that you could see the line beside the car to follow the road, since you couldn't make out the road just ahead of the car. Out we ventured to take a friend home who'd been here for the evening.

No problems with the drive until we were almost home and the headlights picked up something on our lane just ahead. Road kill, I thought. Nope. A seagull. At 9:00 at night. Huh? Standing there. Well, until I hit it.

Strange, that.

ouch

"Being an artist is painfully hard." (Seren)

I read a quote once that talked about how artists tend to be more sensitive by nature. That's how we see things that we then express to others. We must feel deeply so that we can take others there. It's how pictures and phrases appear in art that a lot of people might not have thought of themselves, yet when they see it or hear it they see a piece of them and their life in it. The "aah" moment happens and we connect. It can be good, and as Seren says, it can also hurt.

As I wrote and put this project together, I started to see myself as a bit of an artist. I could relate to the investment of body, spirit, emotion that exhausts and exhilarates. The desire to find a way to put to words thoughts that always seem to flit about, just out of reach. The excitement of hearing audibly what had only existed in the imagination.

There's a lot of me in The View From Here. It sounds cliche, but I did put heart and soul into it. And I'm really, really happy with it. I grew as a musician and as a person through the process. The little dream got nurtured and I felt what it was to soar. I wanted to make something that would make God smile at His little girl's efforts, and I truly think I did.

So when the local radio station said they won't be playing it, it hurt. A lot. Not to say they weren't very nice about it, the email was very friendly. And I know not everyone will like my sound or my style, or maybe the mix. I don't like every song I hear on the radio. And of course it's their decision.

But, ouch.

It's humbling. And being humble is good, I know. I will learn, I will keep on.

There are other stations. Maybe some of them will like it. I'm gun-shy now, though, and the little voice that says "you really aren't good enough" that I thought had finally shut up is fairly screaming now. It's a little conflicting, my mind running the gamut from dejected, to annoyed, to wanting to learn, to depressed, to apathetic, to frustrated, to trying to see some good from it, to trying to understand, to hopeful for other options, and back to dejected.

But I need to remember why I made this CD, why I wrote the songs. Is my Father smiling?

Head down, keep trudging. I'll get to the view from the top of the mountain yet.

normal again

Friday night was, in a word (and yes, I'm biased here), beyond.

Friends and family came out to celebrate and they had a great time.

The band, after all their hard work, played an amazing set

and kept saying how happy they were to be a part of it when I kept thanking them for everything they'd done.

I expected nerves and never really got them. This was a

huge surprise because of all the evening meant to me and the fact that for a good number of the songs I was out front, mic in hand. Now typically this is not where I like to sing. I like to be behind my piano. Being out from has a level of exposure that brings on the jitters. And talking? that just doubles it. So I expected to be battling all of this while trying to remember all the vocal coaching from Maria, all the styling notes from Tim, all I had put into the CD, all that was behind it. In short, I expected a major struggle.

It didn't happen. I was comfortable, at ease. I talked without going in circles and said what I wanted to say without my voice getting that trembly sound that I hate because it screams "nervous!!". I didn't mind being out front at all. I hit the notes with the right sound. I played vocally at the end of 'Imagine' and loved it. The one tech glitch (monitor feed disappearing courtesy of a cord turning the volume way down) didn't negatively affect what I was putting out and was fixed after one song.

After the show people were everywhere, I got bouquets of flowers and was signing CDs while getting to celebrate with everyone (and thanks to Seren, I even had my beef carpaccio at the end of the evening!) and enjoy the mounds of amazing food that B and S had put together.

Wow.

It was more, it was better than I imagined it would be.

It was beyond.

So now I'm back to normal, right?

Oh, wait. CDs to Salem Storehouse today, revamping website, figuring out ordering online and iTunes, planning further contacts ... maybe not.