monday in austin

Tonight jamie jams invited me to go with her to a friend's house for some food and music-making. Naturally i said, sure!, and we headed over to find a truly rad group of families and friends, young and old, playing blues tunes and good ole texan ones and bright eyes and we even rapped about getting lost in the forest. And something about wood and boy scouts.

We talked some about writing, and about moving to different parts of the country and how messed up light changes can be. I'm glad I'm not the only one who's experienced that. Coming from New England to Austin was super at first, I was a beetle soaking up all that hot rich sunshine and bursting forth into a million splendid colors. But it wore off...I had a grey day, in my head and heart, and it was abrasive to go out into that brilliant sunny day. It felt like I was doing it wrong, and I started piling guilt on myself on the days I couldn't muster my own sunshine. My rest was disturbed and my schedule went wonky, I became the most nocturnal I've ever been, only calming down and feeling focused and safe to work and write once the sun went down.

When I wrote that last song, "sunny blue", I was feeling perhaps the worst I've ever felt in response to a shit storm of life hitting the fan of that particular week. For some reason, my bad days are always Thursdays. I've almost managed to limp through the whole week, and then Thursday night it all comes crashing down. I was terribly sad and heartbroken and also pretty sick with a cold when I wrote this song. Thinking about it now, I'm amazed I was singing at all that night, but it was exactly what I needed, and this is a song I love to sing. It is melancholy and emotional but also simple and true. I could canonize the characteristics of a person I cared about, but also, be able to walk away from it knowing I had been me through the whole thing. Sometimes I get so involved with a human that myself gets lost a bit in the shuffle.

Eventually, I figured out that I would call it "sunny blue". It makes me feel okay about walking outside in the glittering sunshine when I feel a bit doom and gloom inside. The song lightens me, makes me feel hopeful, and also glad, that I got to care about a person in a real and honest way for a little while. That kind of love, or whatever you call it, is big and scary and sacred.

I hope I get to touch the edges of more of it, that big, wild love thing.

I dunno, this whole holiday season, with trees and lights and children singing, it makes me feel like there is so much love out there to grab hold of, and swing around with, laughing and laughing.