Back in the Saddle
Tupelo Honey, studio dog extraordinaire!
OK, I’ll admit it, my first few days back in Austin I was pretty mopey. I missed my husband. I missed my friends and family. I missed having a car. I missed my kitchen. Plus it was dark and rainy and cold. And there were some scary attacks over New Year’s that made me a little nervous to go out much.
On Monday I had my first group band night of the season and we actually didn’t play one note. We talked about music, making space for it in our lives and how that might look different than we think it “should”, how we all of us to some degree or another really strive and aspire to be better and more, and yet we brush off our musical achievements or don’t even notice or acknowledge how far we have come. It helps to be there with other people going through the same things because I can see that if X is true for both or all of us, then if Y is happening to someone else, then maybe Y is happening to me too.
So it was really good. Helped me at least partly see how little credit and celebration I allowed myself for my Cafe Paradiso concert in December. Because that was a really big deal for me! HUGE! And it went awesome and I’m totally allowed to ride that high for as long as I want. :-)
Tuesday (yesterday) was my first one-on-one with Dan and we started it with me playing through my 5 EP songs. A little 5 song concert. I had fun, it went smoothly, the songs are sounding stronger than ever and I still have till March to keep polishing. To think that when we started our first session last May, I couldn’t even play Dan one song, I was so shy!
Last night I got out to two open mics, OPA’S and Waterloo Icehouse on 38th. Played 3 songs at OPA and got asked to be a feature there (as in, open the night with a 30 minute set) on January 31st! It was the first night of the Waterloo open mic in that location, so with a light list we all got to do 5 songs, so I played my EP songs. At both places I met new people and made new connections. Kind of amazing that with 106 performances now, I am still meeting awesome folks and hearing so much new great music.
So yeah, a little bit of a creaky start, but I climbed back in the saddle. I’m excited for the ride of this final session of my first Rubicon Year!
