My apologies that this blog is a) 1) long b) 2) double spaced. Apparently my windows 2000 is no longer compatible with Blogger. Sorry... but if you can get past these things you'll read the story of my tour across America...
And this is where our story ends … October 4th , 2011 (also known as St Francis of Assisi Day … St. Francis was known for choosing a life of poverty and setting about to spread the word of Jesus back in the twelve’s…After a year of being a wanderlusting traveler/preacher, out on his path, he had 11 followers…He did it one person at a time…telling the stories to any one who would listen…now he is one of the most quoted and cherished Saints in history… And here I am living on unemployment, playing no paying gigs, paying for things in spare change, just barely scraping by and singing my own ‘gospel’ in the o-elevens. While I don’t have the answers to anything, I do find myself to also be a wanderlusting traveler singing my truths just out there looking for my people.
I am sitting here with a piercing headache that has seemed to have built a 3 story 28,000 square feet home right behind my eyes and from the looks of it, it is a fortress meant to weather class three and above hurricanes. I finally looked at myself in the mirror after I threw up in my bathroom toilet in the cold basement and noticed the whites of my eyes had turned a shade of red, right below fluorescent ‘satan’ after saying good bye to my forever friend, Craig Story, on this cold, gray and rainy day. I am back home in Colorado after a 5,000 +/-mile trek across America singing my songs to anyone who cared to listen…I saved money all summer for these 2 ½ weeks on the road, fully knowing this tour would not be a money maker. While I spent more than I made, I sold CDs (which that money goes back to my executive producer who put up the money for the album), I saw old friends, family and made new friends, I fell in love with America and I spent 2 ½ weeks with one of my favorite people in my life which is priceless. How often do we really get the opportunity to do that? How often do we prioritize our lives like that? No Cats and The Cradle here…
We (Craig and I) set out 17 days ago for my solo/sojourn/nomad musical tour supporting my new album Big Black Birds…(turns out, they are still everywhere I go). My 2001 Subaru Outback with 199,000 miles wasn’t road worthy enough to make the epic journey, so I randomly sent Craig an email, written in sea foam green, while he was captaining a half a million dollar sail boat off of Bali, Indonesia, asking if he wanted to fly back to the states and drive me around America in his car in late September. He asked, ‘Are you serious? Because I am ready for a new adventure.’ My reply was ‘Yes, I am serious’. And that was that…he booked his flight back to Los Angeles… There was no other way. The plan was ready made. Craig, who according to his face book profile ‘works here and there occasionally’ in places like Oceanside, California, Raiatea, Tahiti and Bali, Indonesia, was intrigued by the idea of driving across America on my magical mystery tour, Instead of spending his time on the crystal clear waters off the coasts of a Heaven on Earth in the company of the young brown girls in some sort of Gauguin esque flashback…You know, The places where some of us go to seek out the exotic. The places that when your therapist says ‘Go to your happy place…’ That’s where he can usually be found. We discovered waking up in a cornfield surrounded by angry cows moo-ing hysterically in the middle of Lake Anita, Iowa, fascinating. That was exotic to us in the same way that skinny goats eating burning garbage on the dirt roads of Sumbawa, Indonesia are. We found the best, hands down, fried chicken that I’ve ever had in a very poor black Knoxville neighborhood…where they actually served red Kool-Aid and macaroni and cheese (that according to the engineer of the radio show that I did told us about) is ‘retarded’ (in the best kind of way). Afterwards I laid flat out on the sidewalk right in front and let my food digest…eyes shut, totally fine if I died right then. Sometimes, it seems we don’t really have to travel very far at all to get ‘IN.IT.’ Lost on the back roads of America…no passport required. The exotic can be found in the tattooed waitress at the truck stop diner, the 70 year old trucker checking into the No-Tell Motel on the highway, the illegal Mexicans at the Laundromat on Sunday or the black cafeteria ladies at the meat and threes… The exotic is right outside your own door if you go looking for it. For me, outside my door are the second home owners in their mom jeans, short hair cuts, white walking shoes, visors and a yippy skippy dog with the same hair cut/style as their own. It’s all how you look at it.
There were lots of live shows and live radio interviews to promote the album in many cites like Chicago, IL, Valparaiso, IN, Goshen, IN, Nashville,TN, Knoxville, TN, and Austin, TX but those moments were such a small part of the 6,000+ mile tour through middle America on a 2 ½ week tour. I’ve read from many a musician that being out on tour is a lot of waiting around. There are 24 hours in the day and maybe 90 minutes to play the music…So that being said the music took a back seat to the road trip with one of my best friends. And Friend seems too little of a word. Family indicates blood and paper... I have always questioned what he was to me in my life…how to describe our relationship… Forever Friend seems to sum it up… That was the term Peter Jenkins, the author of ‘Walk Across America’ gave to Cooper, his dog that accompanied him on his solo/sojourn. I could write an entire book on the meaning of the term Forever Friend and what it means to me in my life, but to summarize: he’s up there with the best dogs in my life. And some of my very favorite people on this earth are dogs. Guthrie Beauregard, Tupelo Honey, Aiko Rovich, Auggie Doggie, Juneau, Sampson, Gibson Lu Rider, Daisey Jane, Charlie Buckets and Jesse Maybelle. Come to think of it, He IS a lot like a dog …always happy to see me when we’ve been apart. Doesn’t complain or get upset at anything I do… and sits quietly and listens to all of my stories with his ears up…He doesn’t say much- but he always knows what I mean… (I hope you understand that this is the highest compliment I could give…) As the days have gone past now, just last night he sent me a text saying ‘The greatest religion is friendship…good night friend.’ That’s the kind of friend he is…
I never thought it was possible to fall in love with every single place we visited, but I did. I never thought I would suddenly come across a new neighborhood, in a new town and fall in love with a random side street café painted turquoise blue decorated with funky red leather sofas and mismatched chairs… but I did. There were so many places that I’d imagine myself moving in across the street and becoming part of the neighborhood…I’d run the whole scenario in my head, find a little apartment for a single and get a routine… Then I’d remember my man at home in Colorado and our dogs I’d left there waiting for my return and snap back into my reality. There are so many possibilities out there in America, though. We came across so many cool neighborhoods in Chicago, Nashville, Knoxville, Memphis, and Austin with the best coffee shops, record stores (the kind that sell vinyl records), guitar stores (the kind that sell $20,000 guitars and let you play them) and restaurants – it often broke our hearts to leave. Craig adopted every city saying ‘I’m from here… When someone asks me where I’m from I’m gonna tell them: I’m from Chicago’ (then it was Nashville, Knoxville and then Austin). We took the 2 lanes, the side streets and the alleys. We flipped bitches when we were going the wrong direction, made decisions on the fly as it all became more apparent the closer we got and lived second to second. If there was a more perfect trip, traveling companion or journey, I have never known it. This was a once in a lifetime trip and I am so thankful for the opportunity for this time with a person I care for so much while I was out playing the music I wrote to audiences in some of my very favorite cities in America. I feel kind of guilty that I had so much fun… and hope that the backlash/payback won’t hurt/cost me too much. I found the ‘me’ I’ve been searching for, for a long time… The wanderlusting… troubadour …vagabond… I drank the kool aid (literally…remember? at Chandlers meat and three in Knoxville, TN) and there’s no turning back now. I’ve drunk the poison: I am a solo/sojourner/nomad…It’s in my blood. I know now that I was built for it. I am now officially unemployable in any other way… So I suppose I’ll die trying or I’ll try dying to make this all work out…Girl singer with guitar… (Good thing my guy back home just wants to buy us a Dodge Sprinter so we can go out and live out on the road…together.)
I have never met anyone who sees the world quite through the same eyes as my own like Craig does…It’s just easy like Sunday Morning every day with me and him… But just to clarify: There has never been, nor never will there ever be any romance in our story… This is how I know he will be there forever… When I die it will be Craig who picks up a handful of my ashes and scatters them off the coast of Sumbawa and Lombok (Indonesia) … It’s his job to out live me so he can take me back to where I belong. He is not negotiable. He is real reliable. Never has wavered. I stopped waiting for the other shoe to drop with him… Most of the time, I don’t really believe he is real…I don’t take his picture because I don’t believe his image would show up on the screen further confirming my beliefs that he was put in my life like an angel to help me when I need a hand, a friend, a driver, a listener or the one to remind me that I got it. I like the spaces in between, the unknowing, the not confirming: Is he real? Are any of us? That’s a topic that comes up between Craig and me…but he comes with a mop and bucket every time I spill myself all over the floor… My chosen family. My forever friend. Rare bird that one…Rare. Bird.
One of our first stops was my old hometown of Chicago. I played a venue in my old neighborhood and had one of the most anxiety-ridden shows of my entire life. As I stood up on the stage of the cocktail lounge with friends from different parts of my past, an ex boyfriend and my mom who I hadn’t seen in 5 years, I could feel the sweat pouring down my face, my voice was tight and the nasty voices in my head were screaming at me as I was singing the songs I came to play… Trying to keep it all together on the stage was almost too much…but some how I kept it together enough to finish the show and be as graceful as I could to the people that actually came out to see me after so many years away. After we said our goodbyes and the car was loaded up, I vomited in the grass…I felt better. We drove back downtown to the hostel we were staying at and felt as though we could have been in Asia. We slept with the window open in the shadows of the tall buildings, next to raised El train tracks and were rocked to sleep with the rhythm of the wheels all night long.
The next day was an entire day off in Chicago… I went and practiced with Steve Dawson (who I hired to be my side guy/guitar player for my hometown show the next night). I had met Steve in Nashville years earlier at his band Dolly Varden’s show with Jay Bennet (of Wilco) and Ed Burch … I remembered Steve when I was looking for an amazing guitar player for my Chicago area shows and he agreed to play… So he gave me his address and it was in one of my favorite neighborhoods in Chicago: Wicker Park…I was already planning on spending the day there anyways… As soon as I entered his beautiful home, with thick, shiny, old wooden floors, the sun shining in through pale curtains on to a simple green plant, I knew I was in the right place. Now, I’ve played with many guitar players in my time and it’s always interesting to play with someone for the first time… You can tell with in 30 seconds if it’s going to work out or not. I had sent Steve my charts for the songs we’d be doing for the show and the album for him to listen to… Prior to me arriving in Chicago he had said he was looking forward to the show and that he had learned the songs… Awesome, I thought but we had never played together before. I am used to having amazing players (I am very lucky) but my expectations were almost non-existent… I was just hoping to have some one who would add a little something extra to my girl singer with guitar…With in the first 30 seconds I knew that not only was this good, we were going to be really good. As we sat there in his sunny living room playing my songs, I got goose bumps more times than I could count. Tears came silently and went unnoticed by him. Maybe it was the way the warm wooden floors absorbed our guitars or the natural reverb bouncing off the plastered walls but it sounded amazing in there…and it was a moment that I will never forget… During a radio interview the next day, the DJ asked me ‘So Jami, you are a recording artist and you play live shows…which to like the most?’ My immediate answer was something along these lines: Well, to tell you the truth, it’s the times that no one really sees…it’s in the spaces in between, the practices in living rooms or studios when the music is new…and I get goose bumps… When It’s just me and one other person or my band and we become one… Those are my favorite moments….’ That morning practicing with Steve will go into the file ‘Amazing Music Playing Moments That No One Sees.’ He totally got my songs and played beautifully. It’s really quite mind blowing to remember having written a song in some back yard, front porch or store front all alone and to see them come into their own, fully arranged with guitars, drums, bass and layer upon layer… And when someone gives their time and love of music to play the songs YOU wrote- it’s indescribable.
Craig and I spent the rest of the day in Chicago walking all over the city having my favorite kind of day (come to find we would have these kinds of days every day) …which included stopping in thrift stores, record stores, and guitar stores. We grabbed coffee at a super cool place we wished was in our own neighborhood back home. We found the skate park on the beach where Craig skated with the kids who were young enough to be his sons. We had lunch at one of the best and most authentic hot dog stands in the world and just watched the world go by. We had all the time in the world-or so it felt. We walked and talked and absorbed the Windy City… Later that night, we went to my favorite restaurant in Chicago, Club Lucky and splurged on a full on Italian dinner. The kind you never want to end… ‘Desert?’ ‘Of course…We’ll have the tiramisu, please’ …‘More coffee?’ ‘Please…’ Later that night when we got back to the hostel and into our bunk beds in our private room, I bounced on my lower double bed bunk with my hands on his twin bunk trying to coax the headphones out of his ears… ‘ Hay!!! What are ya’ll doin’? … I’m awake! I’ve had coffee and sugar!!!!’
We left Chicago by dawn’s early light and made our way to a radio show for an Indiana NPR affiliate and was totally surprised the DJ/interviewer had actually done is homework on me and I was glad I went out of my way to do a live on air with them. They actually found me and invited me to come by…so it was really nice to be wanted and listened to. Afterwards we made the journey up to the next venue in Northern Indiana, which meant I would be going through my old hometown of Valparaiso, Indiana… I hadn’t been there in over 8 years I think and wow…
The flood of memories was at times too much but I managed… I had Craig drive me all over past all the houses and apartments I lived in (we moved a lot) … I think I counted 7… Past my schools, friend’s houses and down through the downtown… It looked so pretty. The old Victorian houses were all very well kept and business seemed to be thriving… We didn’t stop as we were going up to find a place to camp for the night up along the Indiana Dunes National Lake Shore- where I spent the majority of my summers playing in the waves and searching for crinoids on the beach of Lake Michigan.
We set up our tents in a sandy, wooded campground and I made us tomato, basil, fresh mozzarella sandwiches and hot cups of noodles before we went down to the lake which Craig called the Ocean… It was very Oceany, the blue and the green. Quiet, windy and a little chilly…I rolled up my jeans, took off my shoes and walked along in the surprisingly warm water collecting rocks looking for crinoids…but not finding any.
With sand now everywhere, we headed towards the next venue located in a little town called Goshen… I played a small coffee house to a very warm, listening crowd of family and friends. I sold CDs and my mom brought us a feast of food beautifully packed in a large picnic basket. She had made me my favorite Italian Beefs complete with pepperccini peppers and Lays original potato chips on the side. Packed in the picnic basket were expensive chocolate bars, fresh pears, oranges, granola, salami, cheeses, crackers, pita chips, water, nuts, sea foam green utensils and napkins…These things were immensely appreciated and got us through many days and nights when we were hungry. I won’t write about my mom’s story here but let me just say: I am grateful to have her in my life and happy that she is in a place where she can do such wonderful things for me… I know she is very proud of me but it is me that is very proud of her.
We spent the night under a light rain in our tents at the sandy campground and woke to a beautiful fall day… The kind of day that makes me remember picking apples, raking leaves and wearing a big sweater and walking down the beach with my hair blowing in the wind… We packed up our tents and rolled down to a gas station for coffee on our way down to spend a little more time at on the lake/ocean… This time, I took Craig down to Johnson’s Beach where I spent most of my time as child…We walked down towards another place I lived when I was a little girl… a white little beach house just feet off the water… We were alone on the sandy shores walking until it was time to turn back and start heading for the 2 radio shows I had scheduled for the day before the show later that night…
Through Facebook, I have managed to stay in touch with friends I’ve known since I was a little girl who still live in our hometown of Valparaiso, Indiana. I had promised my friends that when the album came out I would come back and play a show. I kept my word and booked a show at Front Porch Music… I spent the late afternoon walking the streets by myself… noticing what an incredibly beautiful town I had grown up in… So many memories and stories flashed through my mind with each step in to a new sidewalk square… I was nervous to see everyone who said they were coming to the show and hoped that it would all go well. I’ve been known to say the wrong thing at the wrong time to the wrong person and ruin what should be a nice night… So I just kind of stayed away until show time…As I was walking up to the venue, I saw my friend, Tiffin, who I have known since I was 7 or 8 years old… The stories I could tell about the two of us would surprise you… We were mischievous to say the very least…somewhere along the line we both straightened ourselves out but not with out going down to some very strange,dark places… Seeing her again made me feel very easy… She told me how nervous she was about seeing me- but I tried to reassure her I was still the same girl she’s always known… She brought her new husband to the show and I congratulated them on the news that they were expecting a baby… Wow…I couldn’t even imagine having a baby- but good on them for being the types that can. Also at the show were two of my favorite guys/boys/now fathers/men Jeff Ray and Mark Mockler…who know me. I know they think they probably don’t, but I am here to say that these two know the me I am still today. I am still the same girl listening to my Agent Orange records, quoting Crispin Glover movies and hanging out with skateboarders. I still wear Chuck Taylor’s and still use Neutrogena Sesame Oil… I still feel like that girl sitting on the steps listening to them tell me stories about how hard life was being 19… Jeff was my first boyfriend and Mark was my first boy/best friend…and seeing them… words can not even explain how much it meant to me that they were there…Rocking their Vans and hoodies…Of course, after the show Craig and I had to get on the road as I was playing early the next night in Nashville. I didn’t have enough time to talk with Jeff as he was with his wife and son and had to go but it was really great to see my old crew…My old school crew. I could write a lot more about all the other friends of my mom’s who saw me as a child and grow up, who came to the show…but I will just leave it at: when did we all get so old?
After spending a night in some No Tell Motel somewhere off I 65, we made to Nashville in time for my slot at 3rd and Lindsley. It had changed quite a bit since I had been there seeing Tift Merrit during her Bramble Rose tour- back before she hit the gas with the whole tambourine thing. I was invited to play this showcase by friends of a friend- just something random… But a total joy to get to play at that venue…Just me and my big Gibson’s through my little Troubadour amp- made all the guys there come up to me after the show- all like ‘Gee, girl, you got a lot of sound just you and that guitar… What year are those? What kind of amp is that? What kind of pick are you using???’ I think I kind of baffled them…I guess I am not your normal girl with guitar… I got that a lot on this tour. After my slot playing a couple days later at the East Nashville bar, The 5 Spot, Derek, who booked me, who is also a great singer with a great band, said to me as I was unplugging my chords, ‘You just sold that amp to a bunch of guys who were watching…’ A couple of the side players of other bands gave me their card and said things like ‘Honey you ever need anything, you just call me.’ Their cards let me know they could handle any side player job it might need… Pedal Steel, Baritone, Accordion, Piano ect… Good to know.
It meant so much to me that the girls who put on the show at 3rd and Lindsley came to the 5 spot show and brought peeps with them, Nancy and Virgina, who I know I will work with again… Nancy later ended up writing a lovely blog about me and my show at 3rd and Lindsley … I think they really liked my music, which is always good to hear. We split Nashville in the middle of the night after hanging out at the 5 Spot till we were good and smoked…that bar is a place that I could get in a lot of trouble in, if I was still looking for trouble, which I am not…not anymore.
It’s hard to believe it was only 17 days…it feels like I’ve been gone for a year. We lived everyday in every way we could. We crammed so much in to the 24 hours that we lived nine lifetimes on this trip. Somewhere East of Iowa we picked up Southern accents simultaneously and 2 weeks later, as we crossed over into New Mexico they had vanished all on their own just as they had arrived…but they were hilarious, to us anyway…rolled right off our tongues. One day, we woke up in Tennessee and fell asleep in New Orleans… and New Orleans wasn’t even part of the original plan. We made the decision to stop off (only 8 hours out totally out of the way) in the big easy after driving a 2 lane from Nashville to Memphis past cotton fields for miles and miles… ‘I’ve never been to New Orleans before.’ I said… ‘Me neither’ was his response. And with out having to really think about it, we knew it was crawfish pie and file gumbo for supper. And that’s just how it always went. We arrived in New Orleans after dark and had no idea what we were getting ourselves into…It seemed like a good idea at the time… It was a little New Jack City /meets Cabrini Green/meets hell. I hate to say it like that but we found ourselves lost under those spider webs of bridges and one-way streets with the crack whores, schizos, and people that have no qualms shooting you dead for $20. And, We were looking for a campground! When we finally located the gated prison like cemented grounds of the campground, we found out that it was for RV owners only… and the spots where like condos: people owned them… So I got on my iPhone and found a KOA all the way across the cluster fuck we came in on … when we finally arrived, alive, we were actually quite surprised. Of course, in the morning things weren’t quite as bad as they appeared the night before. The manager at the KOA was like a character out of a David Lynch movie that would be played by a Tree’s Lounge era-Steve Buschemi. After getting a bag of ice for our cooler from this character at the little KOA store, I filed him under, ‘People I meet along the way that I have to write an entire book on’ and made a promise to myself get back to him later… We made it that morning to the famous/infamous French Quarter and took friend’s advice and went and had Café Au Laits and Beignets at Café Dumond. Then walked the French Quarter until we wound up down to the docks/ wharf where Craig hobo-ed a train and took off south down the Mississippi towards the Gulf of Mexico… He hopped back off before too long but still… Have you ever hobo-ed a train in New Orleans? Craig did… and I sat on the wharf dreaming of being a riverboat queen. We went swamping down on the Bayou (yes, THE BAYOU- like the one Bobby Bouche lives on) after leaving New Orleans… and ended up eating lunch next to some alligators down on some swamp ass river off a little two lane where the air was thick as molasses and hume-id. Sugar Cane lanes and split pea pond scum was the backdrop on our Louisiana adventure… Our shy, older lady, waitress said it was a hot one, even for her. She told us gator-matin’ stories and hid her nervous, embarrassed smile behind her little hands… like a little French schoolgirl. We loved it…her…the whole thing. She was another one to file in that file I mentioned before (telling us stories of being raised barefoot and only started wearing shoes when that restaurant went to a shoe wearing policy- she was older than both of us). We ate fried alligator, (turns out it does taste like chicken) shrimp po’ boys (light as a bed of feathers) and a black roux, shrimp & okra gumbo and found ourselves to be in a lost world down there… It was to be the best meal of the whole journey… and we were the only ones there… We were IN.IT. And we wanted to get even more IN.IT. So we found a campground that offered canoe rentals in the swamps… One of my biggest fears- canoeing in the cypress tree swamps out with the water moccasins and alligators… Check that off the list. I faced that one. (Side note: We didn’t see any snakes or alligators on the canoe trip through the murky waters, strangulation of lily pads and moss hanging from the water logged cypress trees, but they were there… I know it. ) I still remember the way the enormous lily pads had collected water drops in the early morning sunshine that were like magnifying glasses on the leaf tops floating on the swamp… and the lavender floating flowers …they were incredible… I must have taken 100 pictures just of those…
We came into Austin, the last official city of the musical portion of the tour in just barely enough time to get to the venue but man, it was good to be back in my favorite city in America… That’s right… Austin, Texas is my favorite city anywhere. It’d been entirely too long that I was in Austin, but it is where I feel like I am from…this is where my people are… It’s my home (or one of them anyway). Craig said I could come stay at his new place down off of South Congress after he moves there… Yes, that’s right, Captain Craig, surfer, spiller cleaner-upper is moving to Austin, Texas…(watch out for him, he’ll be shirt less, playing a hand drum down at a drum circle in the park…all Mathew McConaughey-ed out) (Although he might be wearing a cowboy hat considering the self portrait he sent me of him with his guitar, blue star strap and a George Straight era cowboy hat…Sort of a Max Perlich Drugstore Cowboy era character.)
I played two shows in Austin…I was so wrapped up in my solo sojourner bubble that I forgot until we were leaving that I do have friends in Austin or people I should have called…but I failed to think to invite them to the shows ahead of time…so I played girl singer with guitar to the people who’d listen and was thankful for the ones who clapped after the songs and the ones who bought my album… It’s funny…each person who is there counts so much… I don’t take any of it for granted or feel like it should be any other way. I know I am doing this the old fashioned way: making fans one person at a time… The people who were in the audiences generally gave me good feedback and liked what they heard.
My last show of the tour was on a Saturday night in Austin… I got to play the happy hour slot at a coffee shop down on Barton Springs Road… I played to 4 people, Craig included, and it was awesome. I sounded good and gave a great performance…I told all my old stories and found that I had many new ones that were coming out … I got all choked up and started crying during one song and reeled it back in before anyone could really notice. When my time was up, we packed it up like usual and began our ritual of burning out of town after the show for another new adventure…But Saturday night Austin was hard to leave…harder than all the rest. The air, warm and sweet, all the trees lit up against the dark sky strung with Christmas lights. The city skyline looked like a Hollywood backdrop as we drove over to Waterloo Records before we got back on the 35 and headed south… It was the magic hour…that time in the day when the light’s just right, the air is intoxicating and the music playing is the perfect soundtrack to what ever it is you’re feeling… We made a special stop at The Mother ship (aka: The Whole Foods) for a few groceries for the last leg of our trip and we were actually dancing in the aisles… And, We are not dancers! I got my usual dinner of sushi and mango juice and ate it in the car as we left…I managed to eat my celebration dinner while wiping the tears off my face…I felt my heart actually break in to many pieces as we left the Austin City Limits…I felt it was wrong to leave then…But we were heading out to the hill country to find the pretty water of the Medina River. As my heart broke leaving, I know without a crack there is no opening. My heart was and is broken open…I fell in love with America, the miss smarty pants girls in the coffee shops, the guys in the skinny jeans on singlies, the toothless methed out convenience store clerks and the ‘just put a bird on it’ tattooed café waitresses… But mostly, I fell in love with the girl singer with guitar that I’ve become…
This trip is now tattooed on my soul like my solo trip though Thailand, Bali, Lombok and Sumbawa…Some things were lost and some things were gained in the living every day… that’s right, Joni Mitchell, I’ve looked at clouds from both sides now… As I sit here and I am trying to put words to it all, I seem to still be at a loss. I am leaving a lot out…believe it or not, but I will always remember. Now, as I try to sort out my belongings thrown across my bed, I don’t want to throw anything away…not one bag, not one wrapper, not one card, brochure, memento or receipt. I am listening to all the new albums I bought on my turntable. Albums I’ve been looking for for along time: Lucinda Williams self titled and Double Nickles on the Dime, to name a couple. I’ve hung up my paint by numbers painting of pink roses on a black back ground that I bought at Uncommon Goods in Austin. The T Shirts I bought at Grimey’s in Nashville, Sun Studios in Memphis and Yee Haw in Knoxville are hanging on hangers drying in my bathroom as I write this. It’s all evidence that it in fact really did all take place. I didn’t want the trip to end…there is still more America to see and get to and in fact I cried the last 5 hours back home to my mountain man in my little mountain home…for a million reasons. When I got home, I’d never looked worse, snot dripping from my nose, old tears dried to my face and new ones washing them away… Huge sobs came from deep with in as we unloaded Craig’s car. I found the smoky t-shirt I wore at my show at the 5 spot in Nashville that I had to burry in the back so it wouldn’t stink up the whole car (they still allow smoking in bars in Nashville! So weird) I hid it behind my little amp that sounded great at every show and a flood of new tears came bursting out… Craig’s way of hugging me or comforting me is to hit me harder than I’d like on my shoulder, so I stayed away from him as he said ‘JAMI!!!!!’ trying to get me to clam down. I tried to take a breath as I sorted through our belongings. I was really sad to see him go. I have long since tried to stop looking cool in front of him…I am not cool.
Chicago seems like a dream to me now but …I know it all really happened… I am so thankful for this trip and this time… In a world where everything is wrong, this was the happiest I’ve been in such a long time. I laughed so hard my face hurt and my abs felt crunched… I found the me again… The me that’s been lost in the living in the real world that consists of hospitals, avalanches, evictions, unemployment lines, food stamps, drama, chaos and stress…And for a few weeks, I got off that dramarama-ride and found a parallel universe…and I liked it…probably a little too much. It became so intoxicating and drug like… repetitive, ritualistic … Arriving in the city where the show was, finding the coffee shop, the record store, the second hand bargain store… and slide into the venue at the last minute and suddenly remember why it was that we were on the trip in the first place. I’d set up and play mostly solo shows to sparse crowds of listeners or big crowds to chatty Kathy’s and then when it was over, we’d tear it all down, pack it all away and burn out of town on to the next big adventure waiting to unfold… I kept my connection alive with my mountain man/boyfriend/ who was back at home watching the dogs and working, throughout the day-. He was and is so supportive of me and my music (which is something that I am so grateful for) and I meant it when I said I missed him. I did miss his green eyes taking my breath away, running my fingers over his furry chest every night and sweeping my lips across his scruffy face to kiss his soft lips… But the road became a drug…and I realized how much I’ve been missing me. I knew that I needed this time to re connect with me- as I’d have plenty of time with him this winter being snow bunnies up here at 9,200 feet just west of the Continental Divide…I knew that In finding me, I’d find a better ‘us’, too…that’s the plan anyway.
Coming down off this one is going to take sometime… I was high…crazy, manic high…the best kind of high…and…what’s funny? I don’t drink or do any drugs anymore and this trip was better than any drug or night of drinking I’ve ever had when I used to do that sort of thing. So, In between night sweats, puking, kicking the sheets and teeth grinding, I will try and find my place back in my real life slowly, quietly and hopefully, gracefully. I went to the post office today, got the stacks of envelopes. The ones with the bad news and bills and just put them in the pile of shit to get to later… I find my self already falling back into my life here with my mountain man… I am a compulsive cleaner…So, I already had to start cleaning the house, doing the laundry, vacuuming, moping the floors, grocery shopping and organizing…before I could sit down and finish the rest of this story… Tonight, I will make a pot of soup as the snow is falling and wait for my man to come home from his work… I don’t think he quite knows how to handle this new girl that came home all broken open and in love with the world …I am showing him who I am one kiss at a time… My good friend told me the other night, she hadn’t heard me laugh like she heard me laugh when she called us somewhere in Mississippi, in a long time and I agree…I need to laugh more and love more… Life had/has gotten so serious…full of so many complications, disappointments and let down but I guess it’s all the way you look at it…So all I got on the agenda for now… Laugh and Love and get back on the road just as soon as I can…hopefully next time with more gigs that actually pay…
And Some Place tonight, someone is playing to the girl behind the counter or the cranky bartender… and thinking this is it…this is what I came here for.
‘ Rock n Roll is a lifestyle, and a way of thinking and it’s not about the money and popularity…although some money would be nice’… Jeff Bebe
