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So many miles indeed....

Thursday, May 08, 2008

On either side, as far as the eye can see, Deerfoot trail is flanked by smoothly combed yellow grain fields and the vegetation just stubborn enough to flower.
After such arduous winters, it can only be called a valiant act.

Weather is king in these parts, and the sheer size of the sky reminds me of impermanence; how our plans and our structures are really always at the mercy of a continuous conversation between air water and fire.

Medicine Hat and Edmonton seem to be neighbours on the maps, but such a vast stretch of highway exists between them you'd think we were driving to Vegas...

What to tell you, now that I have these peaceful hours of nothing but the wind purring at the windows and the engine's low drone? Officially half way through the first leg of the tour we have just spotted a hazy, end-to-end rainbow. Methinks it is the universe smiling back at us. But then again, I could find omens in my breakfast cereal...

Thus far:

April 29
Ah Vancouver, together we are like an old French movie, umbrellas and parks and rainy nights that twinkle with streetlamps and candlelight! I want you, you want me, mais naturellement, c'est impossible! For Toronto and I have too much history, it will always be home... but let us have these trysts, this whirlwind romance! How sweetly painful it is to visit you - like taking a mouthful of the most beautiful wine, knowing it must be swallowed. Yes, we have to part, perhaps for a long time, but may the next mouthful be silkier still...

First show jitters float away as the welcoming warm theatre darkness swirls at our feet, all around the peppy Baldwin Grand, in between the mikes, the wires and the band, guiding us together like a school of fish.  I can't remember my fatigue, my sorrows. They've vanished.  A lovely girl brings us cupcakes at the end of the night. Another charming lad presents a sumptuous bottle of red.  We are speechless. Such wild bright hearts! So kind, open to life!

April 30
Injected by the energy of the first show we vow to top it with the next - and the audience, again, brings its own bristling fire.  My black vintage Audrey Hepburn dress does the trick (a garage sale find of my dear friend Kate. Yep. Two dollars). At the end I walk offstage into the audience, forgetting myself, while they sing the simple refrain of “Wake Up” out loud, together, as if it were not a miracle...

After the show a trembling woman in an orange dress unravels tearfully to me. I send her a prayer before I fall asleep that night. Each person, each person is a universe, galaxy upon galaxy of triumphs, tragedies, moments. We must recall this before we are tempted to categorize or dismiss.

May 1
I wake up and start a two hour marathon of phone interviews, but by some happy coincidence they are all intriguing, comic, insightful and clever. What a perfect good morning cup of joe! Ah but I feel the city around me lying to itself, trying to keep up appearances, dancing with the tourists, and something in me turns blue.

Victoria, Victoria, you old dame. No amount of the Queen's horse-drawn carriages or cucumber sandwiches can rid you of your junkies and lost souls. Where from, this bizarre attraction to monarchy? In the middle of a modern world, your Plasticine diorama re-casting of aristocratic scenes is, well, weird.

This is what perplexes and fascinates me about you - the strange and strident juxtapositions.  In some places it is more noticeable than others.
We pull up to Alix Goolden Hall and there are schizophrenics perched like maimed pigeons all over the front steps.

Inside, however, is a glowing sanctuary - not just the breathing, life-like building itself, but the soft-spoken gentle souls within it. A very tattoo-ed stage manager tells me he teaches music theory to children. I think, marveling at him, that eyes make summarizing stories so fast, and are more often than not, wrong.

On stage I can hear the audience breathing. I am wearing a purple dress that Pink Tartan has graciously loaned me. The piano is butter. My aunt and uncle have come. I want to conjure fire. The sound soars up into the ceiling and over the undulating balcony rim. But there is a gritty blue-ness in me that I am fighting to kill. Their listening, their eyes, ignite me, give me power. I catch glimpses of my band mates playing with the fullness of their being - and fire is born.

May 2
We play a short private show in Banff and spend the next two days sleeping deeply and climbing mountains.
Is this for real?  Elk are grazing nearby. Clean, tree-filtered air startles our downtown lungs. A real meal makes me feel as though several internal organs have just woken up.

May 5
Calgary. I have a deep crush on you. You are that concierge who is respectful and yet oh-so flirtatious.

You are the maitre d' who perfectly balances loose charm and dignified formality. Every time I come here it seems something, someone, gives me a very sly wink.

I am awe-struck upon arriving at the venue. Knox United Church positively buzzes with that good peace, the clear ringing bell that is compassion. I can smell it.  Tonight - a white dress - to signify the arrow aimed at goodness, at light - and green shoes to keep one's feet firmly planted in the earth whilst reaching for such heights.

We have re-made “Lucky Me” and “When Another Midnight”.

These songs itch me, they want to get born a thousand ways, and it's a thrill to obey their commands.  We are almost out of the new book The Baroness.  I shall have to make more, bless you, readers.

May 6
Medicine Hat - we didn't know you cared!

On the drive in, I am sound asleep in someone's lap until I open my eyes and see giant fluffy white clouds in the window. Brilliant sunshine blankets an abandoned downtown core... where is everyone?

"Working for a living!" our promoter jokes. (Not downtown I presume?)  Vietnamese veggies and vermicelli recharge my lagging battery.

The theatre is ridiculously top-notch and a giant beast of a grand waits on stage, snickering to itself:
"Better stretch your fingers little lady..." I ignore its taunts and head downstairs to tackle some laundry.
Socks and undies, the whole lot of us. P-U.

In the dressing room, warm clothes freshly folded, I play relentless scales on a rickety upright. Can't let that cocky Yamaha win.

Never having been to this city, I assume we'll be playing to an empty hall, but the bright eyes of Medicine Hat come to take us in, to shake our hands and clap after our songs.  Faces I have never seen, sparkle up at us.  Their fervent, silent attention unnerves me a little, and I become slightly stage-shy.

Sigh - I am wearing shocking pink. (Will life ever stop making these subtle jokes? Ah, I hope not.)  But all that slips away when they ask for an encore. A small voice in the magical theatre darkness peeps "We are cultured!" Every time I think of that it warms my heart 2 degrees and makes me laugh out loud. I'll be back. Just try to stop me.

S

Untitled

Thursday, March 06, 2008

Dear heart, furious mind!

 

I feel a tornado inside of me.  I wake sometimes in the middle of the night to the sound of my rib cage rattling... like the bones of an old house sensing the coming storm - like steel quivering at the threat of a faraway train. You know I only write when the the pen is on fire. I worship this dignified understanding in you.

 

In February, Winnipeg violinists caressed their glorious instruments behind me and flooded my soul with unutterable wonder. The Art of Time Ensemble let me drive their magical chariot through an enchanted forest of songs.  Cognitive Science dug its way into my cerebral cortex and the Symphonies of Beethoven cozied up next to it. Such strange bedfellows, what paintings will that marriage spawn?

 

My parents had birthdays, my sister was reliably hilarious and my brother taught his son how to slam dunk. His 2-year old son. Friends came and friends left. I kissed and got kissed.  Ah life, life, you feast!

 

I've posted a whole universe of new vitamins because art has been whipping me into a frenzy of late ... it is a sure sign that the hard learning has occurred, the desert has been crossed, and now it is time to strengthen and prepare for the telling - the showing - the shining forth.  

 

During the desert stage, I shrivel and allow my mind to almost consume me.  It is like a  fast of sorts.  My limits are tested.  This is when all the raw pearls are forming - the living, trembling songs. At the edge and the end of the cycle, something draws me back to life. Something tells me to turn around.  In 2003 when I lived in the cabin it was the mice coming indoors for the winter.  "Get outta here!" they whispered "You've finished your task! "

In Paris, it was the mysteriously perfect timing of unexpected places becoming available and leases running out... but also the very strong sensation that the city was no longer hostile toward me, that the giant riverside trees were actually nodding respectfully to me as I walked by.

 

Then there is the slow delicate process of extraction.  Younger Sarah tried to yank the pearls out as fast as possible.  But impatient hands do damage.  I learn this with each year and each album.  The scratches on the pearls are those unnecessary structural changes, instrument choices, production goo, vocal edits, etc. etc. And they take you further away from the white hot glow....

The gentler you are, the more original truth that little thing retains. I find it so very hard to patient.

 

At the "shining forth" stage - the butterfly moment - what was shriveled then expands and stretches back into its fullest from.  I am reminded of the Incredible Hulk exploding out of his clothes, but that's perhaps a tad extreme. How about a dried up plant soaking up the rain and becoming green and supple again?...   Eat up, get strong! the world urges. And there is "food" everywhere I turn - brilliant young painters, transcendent performances, music that can dissolve even the most stubborn apathy.

Hence my overflowing "Vitamins" entry, and after such a drought...

 

My precious listener, this journal is not for the every whim of my flitting neurons.

It is not to tell you what I ate for breakfast or what cool people I hung out with. There will be no photos of anyone with sunglasses on indoors. Like you, I live in books, in weather, in the burning, crackling force field between us and the street folk who slipped off the edge and into the abyss of madness. I live in the yearning for 'god', or more so, the need to dismantle the distinction between It and You and Me and Everything. I live in the ironic ache of love.  "Try to love the questions themselves" Rilke wrote to the young poet.  When I first heard them, I tucked these words inside of me, right between the lungs. They are an inexhaustible treasure.

 

So this journal aims an arrow. It aims at a wider, deeper truth. The tip is aflame and the archer might be bleeding, but I am certain the act is noble. May it never degrade into dull reporting. May it always dance dance dance its way into your teeming, open meadow-ed heart.

 

 

Ever yours,

 

SS