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Wednesday, August 26, 2009 - Visions of Nebraska Danced in Her Head

Maybe it's because I've just begun advertising my decision to stay off the road next year to focus on wrapping up Dave's legacy. Maybe it's because my friend Dianne said she thought crossing the country alone was a brave thing for a woman to do. Or maybe it was just the way the sun reflected off the back of my van yesterday and made me think, for some unknown reason, of the ribbons of highway we've chased into tangerine sunsets and foggy dawns, ever under the watch of the too-bright sun and the ever-faithful moon. Whatever it was, it got me dreaming of the road. And I woke up weeping, missing Nebraska.

In my dream, it’s Wyoming first. When you're driving through the wide wasteland of Wyoming along highway 80 in the summer, you look at the map a lot. There just isn’t much else to do unless you’re a geologist trained to decipher the history in the mountains of striated rock, or a songwriter like Dave Carter, tracking the ghosts of long-lost buffalo along the dusty plains of your own imagining. Wyoming is beautiful in its own way: dry, brown, wide open, asking nothing. It is a relief for the eyes, it is the long view, it is a place to daydream. But it’s bigger than you think. You can’t believe how big. You’ve daydreamed yourself to death and you snap out of it only to find you’re still in Wyoming. You reach for the map. Blink your eyes and focus again. Salt Lake City is a distant memory, and Cheyenne – can it be? – is still hours away.

Billboards for the Little America Travel Center are coming fast and furious now and they hold some promise, especially the part about ice cream, because if anything, I-80 through Wyoming is a hot road, and when it’s hot, nothing sounds better than a scoop. We used to joke about those billboards, which dot the highway at regular intervals some 150 miles in either direction. They feature a dad we nicknamed the Argyled Little American for the vest he wore, some kids who are salivating in advance over their frozen treats, and a mother who is planning to log some quiet time in the state’s most pristine loo. (On a drive that long, wouldn’t you?)

You are tempted to pass it up because it looks touristy and maybe you don’t like feeling suckered in, but the gas gauge is advancing toward the big E and you gotta admit, ice cream sounds pretty good for lunch. You fill up and clean up and take another look at the map. Three hundred miles to Cheyenne, and beyond that, Nebraska. Nebraska makes no promises. Another rectangle, few towns along the route. You’re already tired thinking it'll be more of the same, but you push on. Six or seven hours of daylight left; what else are you going to do? Up and over Laramie – the wrong place to be in winter, I can assure you – you push on.

What you fail to notice on the map are the rivers – the North Platte and the Platte, and how I-80 runs alongside one or both of them for almost the entire span of Nebraska. And with those rivers come some things you didn’t realize you had grown so thirsty for in the last 5 ½ hours: color, motion, signs of life. But suddenly, there it is, Nebraska’s promise: the deep, delicious green grass shines in the late afternoon sun; tall reeds wave gently along the giant pools of blue on either side of the road; and birds – herons, eagles, ducks, cormorants, hawks, plovers, sparrows and so much more – dance in the pink-tinged sky and wait on long fences and swoop in and out of the arms of tall, leafy trees, alive, alive, alive.

THIS is what I miss, my friends: the surprise. I know it’s coming every time and yet every time, it’s greener than I remember, the road is smoother and the river’s higher, and invariably there’s a bird I haven’t seen before. There is nothing lovelier than this. This is what I miss.

The dream gets me thinking. Thinking about the changes, the future, the bigger picture. Feels like I’ve been in a personal Wyoming for a long time now. The weight of unfinished business, an unfulfilled dream of having children, a frustrating dance with the ever-elusive muse. One wonders how much longer this can last. Waking up to Nebraska gives me a little hope. Tears and hope. And reminds me the road ahead is always changing. Nothing stays the same. Life is flux and the pendulum keeps on swinging. I will see Nebraska again, literally or figuratively. It will be ok.

"How good can you stand it?" asks my self-help text, "because that's how good it can be." In any other aspect of my life, I don't necessarily buy it, but I'm thinking with dream-travel ... well ... maybe.

So I'm hitting the hay, bound this time for Utah. Have you ever driven through beautiful Utah in the summer?

If I think of it, I'll send you a postcard.

Tuesday, May 15, 2007 - Mother's Day at Club Passim

I was dedicating the second song to the moms in the audience at Club Passim last Sunday when I realized, to my horror, that I had not called my own mother for Mother's Day.

It's not that mom and I hadn't talked and already celebrated Mother's Day -- in a way. Just 24 hours earlier we were exchanging expletives and planning our attack on FTD, who had the nerve to deliver to My Mom a designer birdhouse arrangement full of moldy roses, wilted daisies, and other filler flowers that fell off their stems when the boxed arrangement was opened.

Poor mom. She takes it all in stride. Thankfully, she can see the intention behind the, ahem, "gift," and she is grateful for gestures, even when they fall short. I'm busy self-flagellating. Why didn't I just look up a local florist? It's easy enough to do on the internet...

Mom is in Knoxville, Tenn. I am in Shutesbury, Mass. She sends me digital pics of the so-called arrangement so we can be shocked and amused and appalled together. I apologize again and again, I feel so badly. She said the birdhouse part is really cute; she plans to keep it. I say I expect a full refund. She says don't hold your breath. I say, "Freshness guarantee!" She laughs, "Go for it."

So the realization that I had not made the follow-up call on The Day hits me just before I'm going to sing "Crocodile Man." I tell the audience about it, and without hesitation, they yell out, "Call her now! Call her now!" Even Jim Henry's getting in on the enthusiasm. I want to cry. Isn't that silly? But it's such a big-hearted gesture, so generous, and I am so clumsy in these circumstances. A gentleman in the front row hands Jim Henry a cell phone. He flips it open and passes it to me, and there are two dogs on the screen saver, which is perfect. I love this. I dial Mom and while everyone listens and cheers, I wish her a happy day and tell her I'm on stage (!). We are both stilted and stunned by this funny circumstance. Later I find out she was blushing crimson, just like me.

There are cheers, someone yells, "Tell her you love her!" and then everyone gets quiet while we have mom say something to the audience as I hold the phone to the microphone, but it doesn't come through. I suggest we play "Crocodile Man" for her if she'd like to listen; she says she's heard it one or two times before (so sarcastic!) and suddenly I become mindful of minutes and we begin goodbyes.

"Tell her you love her!" someone says again, and I do, and for the first time ever she is calling me "honey" -- a sure sign that she is completely outdone by this, feeling awkward but loving, and smiling ear to ear.

"Crocodile Man" starts, "Mama she raised me on riddles and trances, fat-back channel-cat lily-white lies..." and even though I'm singing the words, I'm wondering about all the things Mom could possibly be doing now that the cell phone dogs have gone back to their owner, now that the audience has all wished her a Happy Mother's Day... is she telling the story to Jack, her husband, or can he piece it together from her side of the conversation, and the rosy glow on her face?

As for me, I am tickled by this scene at various points during the show ~ during slow sensitive songs and upbeat fiddle tunes. I keep hearing her initial confusion on the phone, and get to imagining what kind of email will be waiting for me when I get home.

Mostly, I am grateful. Grateful for an unforgettable moment, and the generosity of heart and good-natured encouragement of friends and fans in the audience that night, and of course, grateful for a Mom who is so good at playing along.

Blessings on Moms everywhere!

/t

Wednesday, March 14, 2007 - Shooting Barbie From the Cannon, and Other Considerations from An Occasional Folksinger

I will be frank with you: JH and I are touring less these days because we just haven't been as excited about playing the songs. it's not that we don't love to see you: we do. In fact, we are especially missing some of the audiences we haven't seen in a long time -- our friends in Minnesota, Florida, Texas, and the whole darned midwest. But this ambivalence thing, well -- it's inevitable after 10 years on the road; inevitable, after playing the same songs night after night. I still love Dave Carter's songs the best, and I pledge to continue to do whatever I can to help further his cause -- but not at the risk of my own sanity! Everybody needs a break. And if you have noticed us touring less, then you already know we're taking our break right now.

I had high hopes that JH and I would have lots of new material, and that I would be the source for it. But I have tried altogether too hard to find a true voice in songwriting. Woefully, I have come up short. I have no trouble hearing musical ideas, and I certainly have plenty of words, but marrying the two has proven unsatisfying. Binding music to words I love seems to cheapen them. Attaching words to a flowing melody causes it to halt unnaturally. And I really, really want to tell the truth in my songs. Nothing less will do.

So maybe it's just not time. Since my motto is, "Go through the open door," and since this work isn't coming as easily as I'd like, I put my energy elsewhere now, and that's fine. There are songbooks to work on (oy!), and I'm considering writing a memoir about my days with Dave. No shortage of ideas.

ALL THAT said, music is the foundation of my friendship with Jim Henry, and even when the songs are too-well-known to us, we still love being on stage together. So we tour weekend by weekend rather than for long stretches at a time, and this has helped keep the songs and performances fresh. And fun. Really fun. Maybe a little too fun, actually.

Maybe I should pay closer attention to Jim Henry before the shows, find out what kind of funny pill he's taking because lately, I've seen him share sides of himself with the audience that I didn't know existed. That's saying a lot -- I've been working with him for over three years now. And he is one wickedly funny man.

"You set 'em up, I knock 'em down," is all he says to me after the show when I am STILL laughing about something he said in the first set. We have a free-flowing, stream-of-consciousness banter between songs that has people rolling in the aisles, and is keeping it very real for us on stage.

For example: I asked the audience whether they believed the little plastic war toys we're protesting with "Hey Ho" really do psychic damage to the kids who play with them. Answers were mixed. I admitted that I hadn't seen the research and honestly did not know. JH piped in and changed a rather dead-end musing into something we could all laugh about. "You know what I think," he starts, and we all wait to find out, because he has a wicked smile and we know he's up to something. "I think Barbie's more harmful than a plastic gun, or any toy cannon! She's the one we need to worry about!" and there were cheers and nods of approval, it felt like an anti-Barbie rally for a second there, and we started the song as the cheering died down. It was perfect.

After the show, many people came up to tell us that in the absence of combat toys, kids will create them anyway -- branches for guns or arrows, etc. The problem is deeper than the plastic pieces lining toy store shelves. It's a deep, deep paradigm flaw. How do we fix this?

---------

Later in the show, I was setting up a fiddle tune with a story. JH interrupted me. On a roll.

"Fiddle tunes are funny," he mused, "because the same tune can have several different names. For instance, the tune we're about to play is called 'The 28th of January,' but I've also heard it called, 'Feed Your Baby Onions So You Can Find Him in the Dark."

Everyone laughs, but he's not done yet. I see it in his twinkling eyes. He's got one.

"I think for tonight, and I don't know how Tracy feels about this, but maybe we should call this one," and he looks at me, pausing: "'I Shot Barbie from a Cannon!'"

The audience erupts with the loudest laughter of the night, and I am holding my sides at how well he has tied the war toys, the Barbie, and the fiddle tune all together. He's a master of this kind of comedic synthesis. Like he says, I set 'em up ...

So we find a way. Right now, the way is Humor. The touring is hard, and burnout his hard, but even a burned out forest shows life again soon enough, in tender shoots and saplings, arms raised toward the sun. We'll get there again and it'll be the right time; I believe life always changes - and flows - and stops - at the right time.

For now, maybe we'll keep our eye on Barbie, see just how far she can fly.

See you down the road. /t ------------------------------------------

Monday, December 5, 2005 - Hello from Eindhoven!

Hello from Eindhoven!

Just letting you know we made it safely and are adjusting well. Thank God all the Dutch people speak English! That makes everything easier (except ordering off the menu, which involves a lot of Q&A)... The record company has loaned us a Ford Transit (look it up, it's crazy) with a TomTom navigation system that tells you exactly where to turn and how far until you arrive (distance and time). It's great. No fumbling with maps this trip! We just punch in where we want to go, and there we are.

So we stayed in Utrecht three nights and wow -- what a great way to enter Europe. Utrecht was beautiful -- we stayed on the square and spent our ädjustment day strolling around in the street market, walking through the fancy shops and along the canal, sampling the pannenkoelken (dutch pancakes - mmmm!)"and the cappucinos, and of course, playing our first gig in the lovely Muziekcentrum Vredenburg, which I think went well (we sold a bunch of CDs, and opened for the wonderful Fred Eaglesmith, known as Fred Eaglesman over here :)...

Bummers: smoking EVERYWHERE. Cold and rainy. Danger of hitting a cyclist is pretty high (everyone -- old and young, big and small -- rides bicycles here; we think that's why we haven't seen any obesity). Cappuccinos are plentiful but a bit weak (and they're served in bars, where there is smoking, of course). And, most critically, limited access to the internet.

We've moved on to Eindhoven and the only reason we can write is that we're using the computer of our host. The place we're staying is a miserable, gamey crash pad - such a disappointment after the lovely Best Western Amrath, right on the square in Utrecht! - but access to email is its one saving grace... Oh, the shower is a hose taped to the wall, propped up by a hanger! Surely they don't think that packing tape will hold once the room fills with steam and water?? Eegads. But I'm grateful for the email.

Well, it's the equivalent of Christmas Eve here -- tonight Sinta Klaas (our Santa, but with a tall red Bishop's hat) and his band of Black Petes (knavish Black jester-types) come across the channel from Spain to put presents in the shoes of all the Dutch kids. We are playing a bar gig down the street in a dark neighborhood that is, of course, full of kids. The prospect for any audience at all is pretty slim. We play an hour, starting at 10:30. Not the glamorous modern full-house theater gig of yesterday, but this is how it's going to be. I keep asking Jim Henry, doesn't anybody over here know who I think I am? (hee hee!)

We're taking pictures and trying to jot down notes when interesting things happen. We are thinking of everyone. Wishing you could be here for the best parts (pannenkoelken -- Dutch pancakes -- to die for!) but not necessarily the worst parts (I wouldn't let you set foot where we're staying tonight).

Sunday, July 17, 2005 - Montague MA - Woody Guthrie Folk Festival

Jim Henry and I flew out to Okemah, Oklahoma -- Woody Guthrie's birthplace -- to play a set at the annual Woody Guthrie Folk Festival last Thursday. I have been to this festival several times, but for some reason was surprised at how green Oklahoma is right now. The heat is always incredible but thanks to some high clouds, Jim and I were able to manage a couple of walks from the OK Motor Lodge into town, about a mile away, to take in the neighborhoods and catch some of our troubador pals playing at the Crystal Theater and the Brick Street Cafe.

The nighttime festival sets take place on a big stage in a big field called Pastures of Plenty. We followed Oklahoma's favorite band, The Red Dirt Rangers, and Nashville's Kevin Welch (with son Dustin) followed us to close the evening.

Jim and I have been covering Kevin's "One Way Rider" for the better part of a year, and not only did we get to meet him, but we also had the honor of playing with him on "One Way Rider." Kevin fingerpicked, I strummed; Dustin played a slide guitar and Jim added sparkle with the mandolin. Kevin and I split verses and choruses and harmonized and it was just lovely.

We didn't get a chance to join the after-midnight jam in the parking lot since we were due on the shuttle at 7:30 the next morning. Maybe next time.

I'll write about the Green River Festival in Greenfield, Mass. soon...

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