The first blog post! It is so incredibly exciting to have this site up and running, to have the chance to have my own creative home. It’s inspiring me to keep branching out creatively which is a tremendous relief after years of feeling blocked and stuck. More on that over time.

Right now I am in a van with Jennys Heather, Ruth and Richard driving to Port Angeles, Washington to take a ferry over to Victoria. We performed to a sold out crowd at the Benaroya in Seattle last night and it was once again an utterly amazing experience - an energetic, warm audience, a precise and resonant room, and great people at the venue. Magical. In a way, a bit tricky to start off a tour like that because a show of that variety is hard to beat. But the West Coast has always been good to us, so the coming shows in Victoria, Olympia, WA and Portland, OR will no doubt be a ton of fun. 

This kind of touring is pretty unbeatable. Away long enough to get into a groove but not so long that I feel like an absentee mother. As most parents will attest, some time away from one’s kids can be really rejuvenating, parenting being the hardest job around. But after too long it is... too long. It’s a sometimes difficult adjustment to move back and forth between these two worlds. But right now, it is mostly invigorating.

I hope to keep this blog up for the long run and not let it become dormant, like every journal I’ve attempted to fill. If you are reading this, and want to hear from me, give me a nudge. It is fulfilling to write for its own sake but it wouldn’t be a blog if I didn’t expect people to read it!

Signing off now. 5.5 hours of sleep last night has turned my brain to mush.

Oh, but before I go, I want to mention what I’ve been reading, listening to, and watching. It’s been a looong time since I’ve been able to do any of these and I am LOVING it. Truthfully I mostly haven’t listened to much music for years which is a strange thing for me given that I’ve always been such a huge music fan. But there’s something about being a musician and immersing oneself in music in one’s off time - to me it can be too much. And there are other reasons for this. More on that, too, later.

But for now, I will mention that I am listening to Day Wave, an indie rock band from California consisting of one artist (Jackson Phillips) in the studio. Emotional, haunting, lush.

Just finished reading Rohinton Mistry’s Such A Long Journey. I love Mistry, his rendering of characters is unparalleled. Like losing good friends at the end of the book.

Just watched The Handmaid’s Tale and Big Little Lies. Loved them both for their strong, complex, flawed and heroic women. The Handmaid’s Tale is visually stunning and I’m proud to say my good friend in Toronto, Chris Donaldson, is an editor on the series. It is a real work of art.

More soon! Thanks for reading.