you are the morning…i am the night
many friends who travel for work have asked me how i do it. they’re exhausted and they wonder if i end up exhausted. i’ve come to learn that touring actually doesn’t exhaust me. there usually are a few first days of adjusting and then once you are in the rhythm of it, it just flows. i know this aspect of touring is easier for me than for mama and papasquared. they have so much more stuff to unpack and repack every day. and, they have whole other layers of sleeplessness with which to contend. i find that the exhaustion really only hits me once i stop moving – usually about day three or four of being in one place. and then it becomes incredibly difficult to move. i also know that traveling has been easier for me over the last two months because i haven’t really had a home base. in total, i think i have spent about 36 hours in winnipeg over the last two months. so a lack of sense of home actually helps make every place feel a little bit like home.
i’m fortunate to have generous friends here in d.c. who routinely open their homes to me. and my most recent visit has coincided with some of these friends traveling themselves – which means that for two weeks i’ve had a place to myself that feels homey and nice. the picture below was taking from one of these homes.
sand and foam
i am for ever walking upon these shores,
betwixt the sand and the foam.
the high tide will erase my foot-prints,
and the wind will blow away the foam.
but the sea and the shore will remain
for ever. ~ kahlil gibran
from the summer
the one thing that i am certain that i learned from this year is that i love to travel. even in my time off this summer, i have traveled. i’m reluctant to let it go and spend some portion of my day, however brief, trying to figure out how to fill my days and years with travel. that, and how can i acquire an ocean front home. important questions.
What the last evening will be like
Night is endless here, silence infinite.
wow. i guess you could say that i’ve been away for a while. so, i’ve decided to come back. and this time mostly just a photo blog. and we’ll see what else. hope you’ve been well.
highway run into the midnight sun
wow, sorry about that big gap in posting. after about a month at home, we are now back on the road. we arrived in portland, oregon today for four shows on the west coast. after we finish here, we fly across the country to north carolina where we will go as far south as georgia and then make our way all the way up to vermont.
we learned a lot on our first tour – everything from what to pack, how to plan drives, how to most efficiently check-in at the airport, calling hotels a few hours before we check-in to make sure they have our specific requests met. this last one has been particularly frustrating – no matter how many times i explain our requests to someone, it is never correct when we arrive. i don’t think it has been right once. not once. how hard is: 5 rooms, 2 connecting or next to each other, the other 3 spread apart from one another – king beds, non-smoking. that’s it. not hard, right?
we run into the same problems with airline reservations and car rentals. i book our flights on-line, enter all the frequent flyer numbers, assign seats, and then call the airline to add the babies to the reservation and pay the taxes associated with flying with babies. you arrive at the airport, no frequent flyer numbers, two babies yes – but one is named sinn and assigned to a non-parent, and you can’t sit in the seats you picked because there aren’t enough oxygen masks for the babies on this type of aircraft. and i can’t even start to describe what is like for us to go through security (p.s. winnipeg has the most intense security of any place i have ever traveled. winnipeg, yes.) the security experience is a separate blog post altogether. then you finally arrive at your destination and go to pick up your car rental and they don’t have your corporate i.d. number and they’re not sure that they have the minivans you reserved.
all of this relates to a question i posed mama and papasquared on our way to the airport this morning – why is airplane travel so stressful? i don’t get it – when i look at the big picture, it seems so simple and easy if all is planned correctly, but then when you are in the thick of it, it can be maddening. as mamasquared listed all the details of what can go wrong – you miss a flight, your bags get lost, and therefore miss a show, you have an evil airline personnel exchange, you get stuck in the immigration office for hours – i had to ask her to stop, i could feel my anxiety rising. in the end, it is just so hard because so much is out of your control. no matter how much you prepare, it’s like throwing yourself into this huge improvised sh$t show. of course, most of this is manageable if you travel alone, with one piece of luggage. but if you travel with 8 pieces of luggage (3 of which are special handling), 1 car seat bag, 1 stroller, 2 car seats, 2 roller bag carry-ons, a ukulele, and a diaper bag…life is a different story. i marvel at parents (usually moms) who i see in airports traveling alone with their kid – sometimes more than one kid. how do they even go to the bathroom on the plane?!? that being said, there are many kind strangers out there – about 1/2 dozen people offered to help me today as i boarded planes holding a baby. we’ve had people help collapse and then assemble the stroller, put our luggage in the overhead, offer to go get us food, etc. woohoo for the kindness of strangers!
i’ve saved the best tidbit for the end of this post – after experiencing touring with the babies during the last tour, everyone decided it was time to give a tour bus a try. so, when we reach north carolina, bus driver fred will be picking us up. all you need to know about fred right now is that he drove a tour bus for journey last year. this little factoid has sent us on a week long journey-singing binge. we can’t stop ourselves. we attempt to memorize lyrics, we watch youtube videos, we imagine what our journey music video would look like. we even got some amused looks today and we strolled through the airport singing, “they say that the road ain’t no place to start a family.”
i’m forever yours….faithfully.
Things lost on this trip
We travel with so much stuff, it is inevitable that we will leave some stuff behind. Here is a list of items lost along the way (some are in the process of making their way back to us):
– pc power cord
– corkscrew/bottle opener (possibly the most devastating loss)
– head band
– ceramic orange picnic knife purchased while on this trip. Probably for the best since mamasquared cut her finger while cutting cheese with it. No, it wasn’t sharp cheddar.
– incense matches used to mask the cigar odour in my hotel room
– baby bath thermometer
– baby toy
– green hat, returned two days later by two dedicated Luther College students who drove across state
– camera attachment for laptop video chatting
– moments of sanity
seaside room
we are two weeks in to touring now and i think we are getting a better hang of it. people kept telling me that we have to get our “touring legs” back. and i feel like i am getting there. and not to be a total band wagon rider, but i bought an iphone when we were in madison and i loooove it. it is amazingly helpful for the road – checking and responding to e-mails, routing drives, finding restaurants, posting to the band’s facebook and twitter pages. it is amazing. i heart it big time.
we are in north-eastern california. we had a beautiful drive yesterday from chico (home of the sierra nevada brewery where the band played – yum!). we were running a little behind leaving the hotel in chico, so mamasquared was able to give the boys an extra nap and feeding in the hotel room. this worked out well as we were able to drive directly to grass valley without stopping (ah-hm, except for the burrito truck for the adults). this was smart for many reasons, not the least of which was that we arrived with time to spare at our hotel in grass valley. we needed that extra time because our first hotel was frightening. we all displayed an initial amusement with its kitchiness. i, for example, was given the seaside room complete with a full wall photographic mural of a seaside landscape and a fake port hole window. however, after a more thorough assessment, we realized that the motel simply wouldn’t do. it was cold (had baseboard and space heaters), uncomfortable beds, and thin thin walls. the doors that connected our two rooms were basically made of styrofoam. we were concerned that the babies would freeze their little butts off. and quite frankly, it felt a little too Bates Motel for the rest of us. so, alas, i called the presenter who very graciously moved us to much better hotel. papa, mama, and i did a little dance and hug of joy when we walked into our rooms. nightmares would have been had in the seaside room. i kicked myself for not taking pictures, but realized that it would be bad form to ask to get back into the room to take pictures after having canceled five reservations. thankfully, the internet provides the below:
what you can’t quite see in this photo is that there was a giant piece of plexiglass as a pseudo headboard – to protect the mural i believe.
now for some more picturesque views of california.
bat in the bellfry
it is over a week in and i think it is more than fair to say that this is exhausting. there just doesn’t seem to be enough time in the day for everything. not enough time to get from one place to the next, not enough time to load-in all the gear, not enough time for sound check, not enough time to feed the babies, and obviously, not enough time to sleep. we make the best of the 24 hour days that are given to us, but it is a struggle indeed.
for the most part, our show days involve some working from hotel rooms in the mornings and then i take papasquared to the venue in early afternoon. i then go back to the hotel and get mama and take her and the babies to the venue. we unpack all our baby gear, settle in backstage for some play time, maybe a nap if we are lucky, while mama goes to sound check. mama comes back and we all eat dinner and she feeds the babes. then we pack up the babes and i take them back to the hotel and change them into their pjs and put them to sleep. it works for the most part. and the babies are usually dead asleep by the time i get them back to the hotel so that makes for easy nannying. there have been a couple of shows where i have stayed at the venue for the show with the babies asleep in their tents. usually this is because the distance from the hotel to the venue is too far (thus causing mama to get back to the hotel too late after the show) or because it is a long travel day and we can’t get to the hotel ahead of the show to unpack all the baby gear.
the whole exercise involves a delicate balance of planning a lot of details (driving distances, stops, baby feedings, hotel rooms, van reservations, load-in times, sound check times, dinner times) and trying to live in the moment at the same time. if you allow yourself to think too far ahead, you soon start to feel overwhelmed by the enormity of each day. i felt this especially on the day we drove 3 or 4 hours from winona, mn to minneapolis, mn to take a flight to san francisco and then another flight to san luis obispo and then rent our vans and drive 20 minutes to our hotel. it was one of those days where you really had to keep your focus on the immediate task.
on the humourous front, we spent one really odd day in wisconsin which included overhearing not one, but two discussions about cysts and drainage while at a roadside restaurant breakfast buffet. as well as a Jennys show that involved a bat flying through the theatre during the middle of their set and a fire alarm siren. it was truly bizarre.
we also have met some lovely, enthusiastic, and warm people who are so excited to have the Jennys playing in their little corner of the world. they’ve had several sold out shows and there are more to come. it is really amazing to see the genuine connection people have to their music.
by the way, please submit any tips you might have for traveling (by car and/or plane) with babies in the comments section. we’ll take all the suggestions we can get.
hit the road
it’s official. we’re on the road. first city – st. paul, mn. the band plays it’s biggest show of the tour tomorrow night. how’s that a way to start? 1351 tickets sold last time i checked. they are doing two radio shows this morning for the local npr station. then quickly back to the hotel and then off to the venue for sound check. our plan, whenever possible, is to have me go to venues with the babies and spend a couple of hours there. that way they get more time with mama and papa and an additional late afternoon/early evening feed with mamasquared. then i’ll come back to the hotel, feed them some solids, wrestle through a bath, and tuck them into their tents. did i mention that they are sleeping in tents? well, let’s hope they do some sleeping in there. overall, the babies did really well today. they were troopers and were as happy as could be when i checked in on them last tonight as they got ready for bed.
traveling was hard yesterday. we left home at 10 in morning and didn’t get into our hotel until 8pm. not a big deal normally, but we only went as far as st. paul. check-in was complicated, then we had to deal with u.s. immigration, security searched every fiber of our beings, and did i mention that we travel with about 101 pieces of luggage? see picture below.
jeremy (fiddle/mando side man for the Jennys) sat next to a musician on his flight out of winnipeg. the guy was a guitarist for Air Supply! how amazing is that? i happened to overhear part of their conversation – the part where the guy said, “humans aren’t meant for touring.” hmmm. not really the words i want to hear as i take off on my first tour.
wish us luck!
oh canada!
my friends m and m and I joke about what if canada’s national anthem was spelled “oh canada!” instead of “o canada.” as in, “oh canada, i didn’t see you there, when did you get here.” “oh canada, i didn’t see you pass me on your snow board.” or “oh canada, how nice of your to host the olympics.” i watched the opening ceremonies last night and felt a twinge of national pride. let me be clear, i didn’t feel national pride during the nelly furtado bryan adams duet. that was a hot mess. especially the horrible lip-syncing. but i did feel proud when k.d. lang stepped up and killed that leonard cohen song (although what was up with the david byrne suit?).
i’ve had some other nice reuniting feelings about canada lately. i was driving around winnipeg today, listening to CBC, and something felt so right about spending this year getting to know this place again. and it is really nice that part of that involves getting to know the music and arts of this country again. try as i did to not let that stuff drift away when i moved to the states, it inevitably did. mamasquared and r did a little gig in winnipeg this week. a haiti relief show. and besides mama and r being lovely on stage, i got to see a couple of other awesome native winnipeg musicians (check them out – john k samson of the weakenthans and daniel ROA). seeing live music is just one of the best things.
i’ve been taking a class on music management. canada has some great government funding for the arts (even despite having a conservative government right now.) thanks to some of this funding, there is an awesome local non-profit called Manitoba Music that supports and nurtures musicians. they have a new program to support artist managers. it’s just five classes, but i am learning a ton. i am particularly excited about the marketing aspect of the work and can’t wait to experiment with the band. all this is to say that canada is pretty awesome in many ways. don’t get me wrong, we still got issues (like bryan adams and nelly furtado duets), but there are some things that we do pretty well.
i’ve been booking flights, hotels, van rentals, pricing tour buses, talking to venues, and folding band t-shirts. only six days until we hit the road and so much to do still. i can hear the band in the basement practicing – some bass, a little tambourine, accordion, harmonica, and some sweet-sounding voices. oh canada, i could drink a case of you.
lazy + stupid no more
i made one pseudo new year’s resolution this year. it is a little difficult to explain, but see if you can follow me. i often do stupid things out of laziness and then quickly come to regret it. for example, the old use a knife in the toaster to retrieve toast without unplugging the toaster. or, stick your finger in the emulsion blender before unplugging said blender (hi M! did this one myself this week and quickly wised up and unplugged). in the past, i’ve done plenty of stupid things out of shear laziness. i usually have a moment before these acts where i know i should do something differently, but i try to cut corners, cut time, cut energy, and do it quickly and usually make a mess. i do it in cooking. i do it in knitting. i probably do it a dozen times a day and something inevitably goes wrong. the knitting project looks all wonky. a recipe tastes horrible, or perhaps i get a cut finger. hopefully, you understand where i am coming from and i imagine some of you operate this way as well.
anyway, my new year’s resolution is to try to break this habit. i’ve had some relapses (like thinking i could make banana bread with the emulsion blender…although truth be told, in the end it tasted great), but for the most part have been really successful. it has meant fewer injuries, some well-executed recipes, and it one circumstance it meant having a mattress to sleep on rather than the floor. these are all good things.
on the job front – we are in full swing getting ready for the tour. i’m advancing – which i have learned means communicating with presenters to make sure everything is set for the show, making and confirming all travel arrangements, and dotting i’s and crossing t’s. mamasquared is practicing and planning for the babes – travel highchairs, travel placements, ordering baby food and shipping to hotels, and trying to make sure those babies know how to sleep. who knew learning how to sleep could be so hard!
two final notes. thanks to all of you who are reading! i really didn’t think anyone would. so thanks. i’ve really appreciated all your encouraging words. keep it up and i will too. also, it seems to have been one of those weeks in the universe that was hard for many friends – deaths, illnesses, and other stressors. life can be so difficult and relentless sometimes. had me thinking about a mary oliver poem that came to me when i decided to make this journey back to canada….here it is:
Wild Geese
You do not have to be good.
You do not have to walk on your knees
for a hundred miles through the desert, repenting.
You only have to let the soft animal of your body
love what it loves.
Tell me about despair, yours, and I will tell you mine.
Meanwhile the world goes on.
Meanwhile the sun and the clear pebbles of the rain
are moving across the landscapes,
over the prairies and the deep trees,
the mountains and the rivers.
Meanwhile the wild geese, high in the clean blue air,
are heading home again.
Whoever you are, no matter how lonely,
the world offers itself to your imagination,
calls to you like the wild geese, harsh and exciting–
over and over announcing your place
in the family of things.
hard times come again no more
i opened yahoo this morning and saw a news story about the earthquake in Haiti. i thought something must be wrong with yahoo’s site because the headline made it seem like the earthquake just happened today. alas, i read on only to discover that they had a horrible aftershock today and i thought, ‘can’t these people catch a break?’ i’ve been hesitant to write anything about Haiti. truth be told, i’ve been hesitant to think that much about Haiti. so much sadness is difficult to comprehend and feel. i keep searching for some pearl of wisdom, some insight that will help it make sense or at least provide some clarity. i come up with nothing. it is just horribly horribly sad.
another Canadian singer-songwriter passed away this week – kate mcgarrigle. she was best know for the music she created with her sister, anna mcgarrigle. she was also the mother to the awesome rufus and martha wainwright. i saw the mcgarrigle sisters perform once in 1996 or 1997 at the Southgate House in Newport, Kentucky. i went with my dear friend Julie. hi jules! i had been living in the States for about two years and was struggling to find ways to stay connected to Canada. i remember that it was pouring rain that night and all throughout the show, you could hear the rain hitting the roof. that evening, the mcgarrigle sisters helped me feel a little more connected to Canada and home.
i was on youtube this morning watching clips of the mcgarrigle-wainwright family and found the following clip. it seemed like an appropriate way to tie together the two topics of this post. i hope that everyone who is reading this is safe, appreciating the comforts of their surroundings, and holding their loved ones close. be well.
corner of my mind
above is the picture of the first house i lived in. we lived here until i was about five years old. i don’t remember anything about this house except for the floors creaked. i have other memories that i think are based in having seen photographs of the house and heard stories. like the story about how my brother threw an aerosol can in the fireplace one day. you can imagine how that turned out.
i also remember sitting on the roof of our blue station wagon and watching the activity of the street. my parents have pictures of me running up the windshield of the station wagon. they must have had a lot of confidence in my agility.
it is amazing how a physical place can trigger so many memories that have otherwise been lost. i saw the park to which my friends and i would ride our bikes and hang out. the old outdoor skating rinks (really? outdoors? whose idea was that?). the bowling alley that my mom would go to and i would hang out in the daycare in the bowling alley. the place where my brothers would get their hair cut and i would get a lollipop. it has been years since i thought of these things. it’s nice to be reliving them. finding those memories is helping this place feel less foreign and more like home.
back in the tundra
i’m back in winnipeg. this place is cold. seriously. friends who live south of the border…you don’t know cold. ok, maybe you milwaukee peeps and maybe you chicago peeps, but those of you in d.c. or even new york, you really don’t know cold. it is minus 11 right now as i write this. and the interwebs tell me that “it feels like” minus 37. and that’s farenheit people. the other night papasquared and i discussed how people must have settled here in the spring or summer. thinking it was nice, lots of space, moderate climate, rivers, farming land, they stayed. and then winter came. and there was no escaping. it was too cold to go anywhere and nothing close enough to escape to. thus, came winnipeg. yet, people have stayed. miraculously. and the population slowly continues to grow.
the job part of this adventure has kicked into overdrive. lots to do and learn before the touring starts next month. the babies seem to be doing really well. napping, eating, playing all like regular happy babies. it will be interesting to see how they adjust to life on the road. i’ve gained a new appreciation for all the detail involved in the band work. i’ve already started about three different checklists/spreadsheets in an effort to organize everything that feels so new to my brain.
sadly, an awesome mexican-american-canadian singer passed away last week. lhasa de sela. i first heard her at the winnipeg folk festival sometime around 1998. i was mesmerized and made sure to catch all her performances that weekend. i even remember being backstage with mamasquared and catching a glimpse of lhasa and swooning. we were the same age and she died of breast cancer. such a talent. such a loss. check out the clip above.
the most wonderful time of the year
a dear friend dropped me at the airport for my flight to go visit my family for the holidays. on our way, we both told stories of some recent difficult moments for us. we commented on how the holidays seem to draw out some difficult moments. she sang, “it’s the most wonderful time of the year.” we both laughed, thinking, yah right. i walked into the airport and there it was again, “it’s the most wonderful time of the year” playing over the airport intercom system. and wondered to myself if the person who wrote that lyric actually believed it and what kind of charmed life they must have had. man, i am a cynic. ouch.
as i sat at my gate, i thought a lot about the holidays and what they represent – the expectations, both fake and real. how we crave for connection, intimacy, family, and yet so often fall short. we stay stuck in our roles, walled off. so often those moments of connection and intimacy arise organically. i wondered about how to create the spaces for those moments. and i realized how my decision to change my life this year is so much about this – about creating the opportunity for connection, for happiness. and i wondered how to do that in my own family. and how that might be different for each of us. and then i saw a small boy, about four years old, run across the gate area to give his mom a kiss and then run away again. she paused, watched him run away, and smiled at his unexpected show of affection.
Since there is no place large enough
to contain so much happiness,
you shrug, you raise your hands, and it flows out of you
into everything you touch. You are not responsible.
You take no credit, as the night sky takes no credit
for the moon, but continues to hold it, and share it,
and in that way, be known.
– naomi shihab nye
i’m back in my apartment now. for the last night. surrounded by boxes. thinking about the ending of this year and what i hope for next year.
happy new year. i hope this next year brings so much happiness that you cannot contain it.
beloved
i am in d.c. right now. we just experienced a snow storm that brought about 18 inches of snow. the city looks so peaceful and at night, there is this wonderful white glow from the light reflecting off the snow. during the storm, i have stayed confined to my apartment, (hopefully) nearing the end of packing up all my possessions.
i have moved 12 times in 13 years. i should be a professional at this packing business by now. yet, it still causes me anxiety. the worst is that last push – the final five or so boxes that you fill with random oddly-sized objects – hangers, a desk lamp, that huge wooden bowl, that magnetic knife bar that i never hung up in this apartment. i am reminded of all the things i wanted to do in this apartment and never got around to doing them. then i am sent on a thought process about how i never settle into any apartment – the combination of immigrant status, unstable employment, and changing relationships has caused me to feel like everything is temporary. i felt like i might have to pick up and leave at any moment. i am finally learning how my worrying creates the sense of impermanence in my life. that if i can just be in the moment, i can find all the permanence and stability that i might need.
and then i realize that 30 minutes have passed and i haven’t made any progress with those last five boxes.
And did you get what
you wanted from this life, even so?
I did.
And what did you want?
To call myself beloved, to feel myself
beloved on the earth.~ raymond carver, last fragment.
tight in the bud
anais nin, “there came a time when the risk to remain tight in the bud was more painful than the risk it took to blossom” (via a.l.).
the first 23 years of my life were relatively stable – same city, same neighborhoods, same home, same family. the last 14 years of my life have felt like an almost constant move – city to city, apartment to apartment, boxes upon boxes. recently, i’ve been feeling a little too old for such shenanigans. time to settle down, pick a place to live, maybe even buy a home. there is some part of me that felt, and perhaps still feels, like a bit of a failure for not doing this.
only recently have i come to accept that this is how i live my life. that such fluctuations do not have to represent failure – they represent my path and all that i have been fortunate to experience. there are moments when i feel untethered – when i don’t know where to call home. and then there are amazing moments when i feel roots binding me to so many places that i feel truly lucky. making the decision to move again, pack everything up again, this time live with even less of my stuff, live with an even greater sense of transience – this decision was really about taking the risk to find that place again where i can be in my own skin and be happy and feel at home wherever i am. although moving and leaving again are hard, staying where i was would have been more difficult. 
Transitions
hi there,
about two months ago, i decided to take a sabbatical from my career as a non-profit lawyer. serendipity would have it that just as i thought i was getting laid off, a friend’s band was making the decision to go the self-management route. they needed to hire someone to help and the friend also needed someone to nanny her twin baby boys on the road and during other busy days. i needed a break. i couldn’t deny it. as much as i loved my job, eight years of grant-cuts, lay-offs, poor non-profit management, and overall job insecurity had gotten to me. spending a year with babies, dear friends, and music seemed like the answer. i know it will have stressful moments and challenges, but i am ready for this change.
this transition also involves my moving back home to the city and country where i grew up. this aspect of my decision was the most difficult. after living in the united states for 14 years, my motherland doesn’t feel much like home anymore. i am looking forward to getting to know my country again, seeing what memories it opens up for me, what new memories i create, and how i might redefine home.
please visit often and leave a note or two.
~ tjd.
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banjos and babies 