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Dispatches From The World of Singer/Songwriter Heather Pierson

Dispatches From The World of Singer/Songwriter Heather Pierson

Tag Archives: life

The puzzle of calculating risk.

23 Monday Jan 2023

Posted by heatherpierson in Uncategorized

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life, risk

On a recent walk to the pond, Shawn and I noted the appearance of the first bob house of the season.

‘Geez,’ I said reflexively to Shawn, ‘that seems risky to me.’ We had both just turned a moment before to look down the stretch of the pond and notice the large gaping mouth of dark frigid open water just yards from where the ice fisherman was set up.

‘I’m sure they measured the ice, ‘ Shawn said quietly, ‘otherwise they wouldn’t be out there.’

Of course, I thought. Not everyone is as risk averse about this sort of thing as I am.

‘I really want to walk across the pond this winter once the ice is more fully formed,’ Shawn added, another idea that shivers my limbs.

It’s so fascinating how our feelings and needs lead us all on such a variety of paths – the ice fisherman wants to catch fish, and maybe seeks the peace and solitude of the bob house; Shawn wants to walk across a frozen body of water, seeking that same peace and solitude, and also fun and beauty; I want to simply stand on the beach, where there is plenty of peace, solitude, and beauty for my risk-averse bones.

That calculation of risk never ceases. If all goes to plan, this afternoon I will drive an hour to a gathering of folks who are hoping to learn from me in a music workshop offering. It’s still snowing as I type these words, and so the calculations are being run. When will the snow stop? Will the roads be clear enough?

A week from now, Shawn and I will be driving to Kansas City to the Folk Alliance International conference, where we have an official showcase this year. There’s always a risk in that long of a road trip – or any time spent in a car, really – and yet I feel as confident in all of those calculations as the ice fisherman does in their own.

The travels of both body and mind are plenty enough to keep us all curious, that’s for sure! So whatever you’re up to today and every day, I wish you safe and happy travels, both internally and externally.

So many ways to celebrate in so few days.

16 Monday Jan 2023

Posted by heatherpierson in Uncategorized

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birthday, celebrate, celebration, life

I turned 47 this weekend, and to mark the occasion, I posted this photo on my social media, remarking that it had been forty years since it was taken. Though I don’t really remember the moment from the inside, there are so many memories that were conjured by the photo: the excitement of being a kid; the taste of cheap chocolate frosting; Seamus, our Irish wolfhound, hoping desperately for a taste; being nervous about sitting next to a cute boy; the unbelievably loud wallpaper on the dining room wall; the hiss of the radiators throughout that old house; my dad’s old Minolta that he kept in the dining room closet and brought out for these kinds of occasions; remembering how much I loved that shirt I was wearing, the one with the hearts all over it.

Just like that – forty years come and gone, like the birthday candles I blew out with a wide-eyed, Dizzy Gillespie expression on my face.

Forty years later to the day of the snapping of that photo, I found myself sitting in a beautiful barn in western Maine, witnessing the marriage of two people I’m just getting to know. The groom is a friend of Shawn’s, and now becoming a friend of mine. The ceremony was simple, sweet, and heartfelt. I sat with Shawn and two dear friends. I ate food. I met new people. I reconnected with old friends and acquaintances. I blew bubbles. I danced to whatever the DJ spun. I played some blues on an old Acrosonic in a quiet corner by request of the groom. I drank tea and spilled some on my dress. New deposits in the memory bank. It was an awesome way to celebrate life!

I hope that forty years from now, the newly married couple will look back at their wedding photos and savor the memories conjured by them – the warmth and presence of their friends and family; the promises they made to one another; the sparkle in each other’s eyes. And I also hope they realize how quickly – and hopefully, how beautifully – the previous decades have flown by.

There are so many ways to celebrate the fact that we’re alive, and we only have so many days in which to do the celebrating. So, get out on that dance floor before the music stops!

Hark! These tired angels sing…

19 Monday Dec 2022

Posted by heatherpierson in Uncategorized

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Tags

Christmas, gratitude, life, touring

‘Is my life today what I pictured a year ago?’

I had thought to write about something entirely different this morning – Christmas caroling, actually – and that built-in WordPress prompt got me thinking…

So, is it?

Sitting here at this table, looking at this laptop?

Looking past the screen at several inches of new snow through which the birds and red squirrels are now digging for their sunflower seed breakfast?

Watching the sunlight come up over the hills behind the house and light up those pines and birches just so?

Sipping the coffee that Shawn just made moments ago?

Listening to a Benny Green/Christian McBride/Gregory Hutchinson live-stream recording from earlier this year?

Feeling joyfully fatigued from another weekend on the road creating and sharing music and memories?

DAMN, this is nice.

But is it what I pictured a year ago?

Honestly, I don’t think I pictured anything too specific a year ago. I knew I was planning to be touring New England with Shawn and Craig with the Charlie Brown Christmas show. What I didn’t know for certain is that we would all have our health, our wits, and our skills intact, that we would shoulder through all the storms, literal and figurative, that we would be here at all to do any of it, and continue to deepen our connection to and love for and trust in one another. There is, of course, never any guarantee of any of that, for any one of us.

But yeah, this current moment, this frame in time, here and now? I’ll take more of this, please and thank you.

And thank you, dear reader! And Merry Christmas, Charlie Brown! And happy holidays to one and all. Whatever you celebrate – if you celebrate – I hope it brings you joy.

Up a not-so-lazy river.

17 Monday Oct 2022

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life, Memphis, rivers, water

Rivers have loomed large this past week in my awareness. As Shawn and I made our way down to Texas from our last gig with Davy in the D.C. area, we made a brief stop in Memphis to pay homage to the history of that city. We walked up and down Beale Street, taking in the sights and sounds (such as they were on a Wednesday afternoon); the names of the many legends on the Brass Notes Walk of Fame; the starkness of W.C. Handy’s little shotgun house; the overt influence that New Orleans had (and surely still has) on that place.

When we arrived in Memphis, it was a hot and sunny afternoon. After we’d been exploring for a while, the sky in the west grew very dark with a coming storm. We got back to our car in the nick of time and drove ourselves and our lunch in a downpour to a park that overlooks the Mississippi, where I took this week’s photo.

As we sat in the car and ate and looked out through the storm, I imagined the many folks in another time who made their way up that mighty river, landing and settling and filling the city with their music and their customs and whatever else they could carry with them on those riverboats.

This past week, there’s been a lot of rain back home in NH and ME, and the lazy rivers of home have been raging and swelling beyond their banks and boundaries, tumbling over the very rocks that have shaped them, and that will continue to be shaped in return.

I’ve also been thinking of the many folks in Fort Myers along and at the mouth of the Caloosahatchee, who will be cleaning up from the devastation there for a very long time to come.

Drop by drop, everything will eventually be carried to the sea, to the place from which all life on our beautiful Earth home originated. Isn’t it awesome to be able to experience any sliver of it in the meantime?

Laziness continued

19 Monday Sep 2022

Posted by heatherpierson in Uncategorized

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Tags

equanimity, laziness, life, mindfulness, pandemic

After practicing medicinal laziness the week before, I had to practice something a little different this past week—something I’m calling ‘medically induced laziness’.

I thought for sure I had COVID.  I arrived home on the evening of September 11 from a weekend gathering—the same one I had been resting up for—and woke up Monday morning with all the symptoms.  

Here we go again, I thought.  I looked at what was coming up—a lesson with a student, a community sing, a live-stream, a studio session, a Friday night show, an upcoming road trip with Shawn and his mom and uncle we’ve been planning for ages—and I fell into despair.  So many endeavors that, by design, are for cultivating joy and community—you know, the good stuff!—would need to be cancelled and rescheduled.  

I got into a blame game:  If everyone could have pulled in the same damned direction early on in this pandemic, this wouldn’t be happening.  

And I pointed the blame at myself: If I wasn’t such an overachiever, I wouldn’t be feeling so disappointed.  

Round and round my mind went, and with a suddenly much emptier schedule, I had nothing to do but ruminate.  

This past week, daily rapid tests and one PCR test all announced that I was negative.  My voice was still in no condition to create anything for prime time or posterity, and I was feeling run down.  

The online community sing still happened—with so many songs already programmed into my looper, I was able to rely heavily on technology as I sipped tea and Bernice and I shared songs with folks from around the world, including our first participant from Australia!  This really lifted my spirits. If not for the pandemic and the precise way it unfolded, I likely wouldn’t be connecting with so many awesome folks all over the world.

At some point, I did find equanimity with the whole situation.  This is how things are right now, I remembered.  Simple, yes—but not always the easiest point of view to take!  I noticed my aversion and disappointment, and I attended to those feelings.  I napped.  I cried.  I stared at the bird feeder.  I read a good book.  I wrote some poetry.  I was taking care of my health, and that of others, with this medically induced laziness.  Things would be, and have been, rescheduled, and those experiences will perhaps be all the richer for everyone once they do unfold.

The road trip we’d been planning for months was in question until the last minute—and as Shawn and I continued to test negative, the answer was clear.  

As of this writing, the four of us are happy and healthy and in Cleveland, Ohio, making our first time pilgrimage on Monday morning to the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame.  I slept well after connecting with folks at ‘Sharing The Journey’ on Zoom last night. The train rumbles by with a soothing regularity. There was a wild and kinda wonderful thunderstorm this morning. This is how things are right now.

I am excited and grateful to be on an adventure with Shawn and his mom and uncle!  We’re getting to know each other, and ourselves, a little better with each mile.

Ask your inner critic if laziness is right for you!

12 Monday Sep 2022

Posted by heatherpierson in Uncategorized

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laziness, life, meditation, mental health, mindfulness, self criticism

I experience such a deep sorrow when I can’t get to everything on my to-do list in the time in which a much less exhausted version of me drew it up. I hate to cancel or postpone anything, especially creative projects. I figure I’m gonna be dead a long time, so why not fill up every hour of every day on my calendar now with all those things I want to do?

Sounds… not so great, doesn’t it?

Oh, if only we could come up with a way to not need so much sleep…

I had to cancel a studio session last week, and I really hated to. I am always up for everything – until I burn myself out and I’m not. My mind was and is always eager, and my body was saying, ‘You’ve got a hell of a busy weekend coming up – you need to be fully rested for it.’

So, instead of going to the studio last Thursday, I sat in the front yard for a while, staring at the bird feeder. Nuthatches, chickadees, titmice, and goldfinches, all in near constant motion preparing for the coming cold. I was really enjoying the peace and ease and calm, feeling gravity settle me into the chair, noticing the regeneration of stamina moving through my mind and body – and of course, I started thinking, Hmm, I’m feeling better. I could’ve gone to the studio today after all…

Shawn came out to chat at one point, and I told him what I was thinking.

He smiled at me and said, ‘Everyone needs medicinal laziness from time to time.’

Medicinal laziness! I love that.

And there’s that word I use to criticize my need for stillness and rest – ‘lazy’. Why do I so often, in my own case, frame the act of taking time out as ‘laziness’? Even in my daily meditation practice, I view it in part as working on something, working on the project of being more present and aware. I’m very often creating more work for myself, even when I’m sitting still and literally doing nothing!!

I do enjoy staying busy.

How many times have I supported the choice of others to take that same time out, but then criticize my own need for that same restoration? I gotta keep a little bit of that care and compassion for myself.

(More work on self to do, haha)

The birds are busy as hell these days, and I have been too. And it’s okay, like them, to rest on a branch for a bit, taking stock of what’s happening and what’s to come, and show up as fully to this body and mind as I always hope to for anyone else’s.

My Meat Loaf story.

23 Sunday Jan 2022

Posted by heatherpierson in Uncategorized

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Tags

Johnny B Goode, life, Maine, Meat Loaf, Meatloaf, Portland, rock n roll, State Theatre

(I’ll resume my posts about the retreat tomorrow. Today, I want to share my Meat Loaf story.)

November 5, 1999. I was store manager at a record store, playing a little music on the side, living in a lousy second floor apartment in Lewiston, Maine. It hadn’t been quite a year since Dad died, so my relationship with Mom hadn’t completely deteriorated yet. Things were still strange and tender. As ever, I was still looking for ways to connect with her and draw her out of her grief.

One of the perks of working at a record store, in addition to all those free CDs, is the near-constant flow of free concert tickets. This was the late 90s, before the ubiquity of cell phones and the proliferation of social media. Hype for artists, tours, recordings, and music in general was created one pair of eyes and ears at a time.

That morning at work, I found out there was a free pair of tickets available to see Meat Loaf that night at the State Theatre in Portland. When there were no takers amongst our crew, the first thing I thought was, I wonder if Mom would like to go. So I called her.

‘Hey, Mom. Do you wanna go see Meat Loaf tonight? For free?’

I seem to remember a long pause. ‘Ah, sure, why not?’ Exactly what I thought.

I left work early that day, and in my excitement I even locked my keys in my car at the 7-11 near my apartment when I was getting gas. Luckily, there was a kind stranger there with a pickup truck who had the tool required to get me on my way (just a quick shim on my ’96 Ford Escort wagon – a car that had nearly 300k on it when I junked it in 2004).

I went up to Hebron and picked up Mom in time to drive us to Portland and to the Indian place down the street from the venue to enjoy a nice dinner. I even remember getting a little bit of curry on my shirt, leaving a small turmeric stain that would never come clean for the duration of that shirt’s life.

The conversation during the meal was, as it always was in those grief-laden days, stilted and awkward. I think we were both eager to get to the concert, and to lose ourselves in the live music experience.

Our bellies full, we walked down the street and filed into the venue and took our reserved seats near the back. As soon as the music started, Mom and I were both more at ease. We paradoxically relaxed into the excitement of the show. Live concerts were something that my parents and I enjoyed so often in my youth. I saw so many shows with them of so many styles – Allman Brothers, Moody Blues, ZZ Top, Black Crowes, Grateful Dead, Jethro Tull, Phish, Rod Stewart, Michael Bolton, Tom Jones (my first concert, when I was nine!!), Jane’s Addiction, Motley Crue, Judas Priest, etc. etc. The list is a mile long. During my tenure at the record store, I went to countless shows at venues large and small around New England, seeing some legends and legends in the making – Ozzy, Motorhead, Moby, Fishbone, Faith No More, Mr. Bungle, Tool, Dick Dale, etc. etc.

Anyway, back to the Meat Loaf show –

There was a pattern forming in the band’s set list. They would perform a song or two, and then Meat Loaf would sit on a stool at the front of the stage and take questions from the audience. Black-clad roadies with boom mics would pace around the room to folks whose hands were raised.

‘Who are your favorites?’ and ‘How did you get your start?’ kind of questions poured in, and Meat Loaf kindly and entertainingly answered each one.

During the first round of questions, my mom leaned over to me at one point and joked, ‘You should ask him if you can play with him’, and we both chuckled.

The band started up again, and suddenly, I couldn’t let go of Mom’s idea. I couldn’t even hear the band anymore. My heart started pounding and my hands were sweating.

She sensed what was happening to my attention. The next round of questions began. ‘Go on, ask ‘im’, she goaded. I sat on my hands. I was too nervous.

The band started up again, and then something came over me. I started rehearsing my question over and over in my mind, thinking, What’s the worst that could happen? That he’ll say no and everyone will get a laugh? Which, of course, is what I absolutely knew would happen.

The third round of questions began and, as if it had a mind of its own, my arm shot into the air, and my mom smiled. Meat Loaf pointed and said, ‘The girl in the back with the blue shirt.’ When he said that, I remembered the stain from dinner. Then my mouth went dry as the boom mic approached, and against the thundering of my heart, then I heard myself say:

‘My name is Heather, I’m 23 years old, I play piano, and I’d love to play some rock ‘n’ roll with you.’

And without missing a beat, Meat Loaf said, ‘You’re on.’

And my heart almost stopped.

A cheer came up from the crowd as another black-clad roadie came down the aisle to accompany me to the stage. I made my approach, up the little wooden stairs, and then there I was, suddenly shaking Meat Loaf’s hand, and I turned around to see a sold-out crowd of over a thousand people who were cheering. Cheering for this moment!

I nearly shat myself.

The keyboard player stood up from the bench of the electric baby grand with flames painted on the side. Badass, I thought. He watched me take his seat, smiling and curious.

Meat Loaf turned to me and said, ‘We’re gonna play Johnny B. Goode in the key of A, how does that sound?’ And I said, ‘Sure!’ I played a few licks on the piano in the key of A, just to try and warm up my nerve-wracked, ice cold hands, and Meat Loaf’s head was on a swivel. The crowd went crazy!

Suddenly, I wasn’t nervous anymore. I was friggin’ PSYCHED. Let’s do this!

Someone – probably Meat Loaf himself – counted the band in, and we played ‘Johnny B. Goode’, and I took at least one solo, maybe two. I didn’t hold back. I let ’em have it.

It was one of the wildest and most fun moments of my life.

When the song was over, the crowd was on their feet, screaming. A standing ovation halfway through the show! For little ol’ me. I’ll never forget the smile Meat Loaf gave me as I was leaving the stage. It was certainly not what either one of us was expecting.

For the rest of the show, I sat in my seat, completely stunned, unable to stop smiling. People in the row in front of us kept turning around to look at me, and they were smiling too.

Towards the end of the set, another black-clad person tapped on my shoulder and said, ‘We would like your contact info.’ He handed me a small pad and a pencil, and in perfect penmanship, I wrote my name, address, and phone number.

When the show was over and we were all filing out onto Congress Street, I got all kinds of ‘Woo!’ and high fives. Then, several different people approached me with a question: they all wanted to know how far in advance this had been planned. They really thought it had been set up!

And each time I laughed and said, ‘I didn’t even know I was coming to this concert until this morning!’

They talked about it on WBLM, the big classic rock station in Portland. It might have been mentioned in the local news, and the Portland Press Herald, too. ‘Some girl got up and played with Meat Loaf…’

And of course, if something like that had happened now, there’d be grainy cell phone videos of the thing all over social media.

This may sound weird, but I kinda loved the anonymity of it. I loved that the news and radio never found out or mentioned my name, like it was just this crazy fluke thing that happened – because it WAS this crazy fluke thing that happened. This wild, beautiful, random, awesome thing that a roomful of 1000+ people got to share one wild, beautiful, random, awesome night.

To be completely honest – at the time, I did it for Mom. And then once I was up on that stage and sat at that piano, I did it for me.

23 years later, it almost feels like a strange dream I once had.

‘Yir faither would’a been s’proud,’ my mom kept saying later that night on the quiet, surreal drive home. We both missed him so much.

And you know, I never did hear from Meat Loaf’s people. It’s okay.

Rest in peace, Meat Loaf. And may many more wild, beautiful, random, awesome things wait in store for all of us.

Stage plot

13 Monday Dec 2021

Posted by heatherpierson in Uncategorized

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Tags

life, live music, touring

(just before doors on December 12 at One Longfellow Square, Portland, ME)

Stage left:
1 acoustic piano with 88 keys
1 bench
2 piano mics
1 vocal mic

Stage center:
1 XLR
1 wooden stool

Stage right:
1 XLR

Personnel:
1 pianist/vocalist
1 bassist
1 drummer

Equipment:
1 upright bass
1 bass amp
1 kick
1 snare
1 rack tom
1 floor tom
1 hi hat
2 cymbals
assorted sticks, brushes, aux. percussion
12 limbs
6 hands
24 fingers
6 thumbs
3 hearts
1 Charlie Brown Christmas tree
decades of practice
an infinite amount of gratitude, joy, and love

Doors at 3p/6p
Show at 4p/7p

Searching for the sweet spot.

15 Monday Nov 2021

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Tags

chipmunks, life, resilience, suffering

Recently, the chipmunk who lives just outside the kitchen windows has been, like all creatures around here (including us humans), busying himself preparing for winter. One of his preferred activities has been to perch on the back of one of our patio chairs and plot his moves into our two bird feeders; one is a hanging tube feeder, and the other is a teardrop-shaped window feeder.

We have figured out ways to deter him from the tube feeder, but there seems to be no shortage of energy that he’ll expend trying to reach the window feeder. He doesn’t seem aware of the sunk-cost fallacy. Several times every morning, I listen and watch as he climbs up between the two French doors, braces himself for the jump, and then goes whizzing past it, overshooting just about every time, and falling to the stones below. The first time I saw him do this, I gasped in horror, thinking he must have badly injured himself in the process. But nope – like the song says, he picks himself, dusts himself off, and starts all over again. And again and again.

scrape scratch scrape scratch

a couple beats of silence

then

WHEEEEEEEEE *thud*

I’ve not yet seen him reach the coveted cache of black oil sunflower seeds.

I’ve been pondering something Paul Bloom writes about in his new book about the human relationship to pain and suffering. He says that there is a sweet spot between experiencing too much suffering and too little. Too much or too little can debilitate in different ways; just the right amount cultivates compassion and resilience. Suffering can be voluntary (quitting or forming new habits, exercise regimens, medical procedures, etc.) and involuntary (abuse, accidents, trauma, etc.), and all of it informs our search for this Goldilocks zone, this path towards equanimity.

That chipmunk seems to have found a sweet spot in his pursuit of what he’s hoping for. I wonder if I have, too, or if I’m whizzing past it while reaching for something else?

‘Just look at the photograph.’

08 Monday Nov 2021

Posted by heatherpierson in Uncategorized

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Tags

grief, life, photography

While looking for something else in my storage unit the other day, I found two packs of pharmacy-developed photographs from last century. I grabbed the envelopes without opening them until that night after dinner. One of the gems was this one:

I gasped.

I never thought I’d see this image again outside of my own memory, due to the loss of most of my family photos years ago.

And then there I was, sitting in silence with Shawn, staring into the faces of my deceased parents.

My mind took off:

They look older here than I remembered them looking in this photo. I can tell that it was taken at the Hebron Community Baptist Church, and, judging by their clothes and the fact that my mom is actually wearing makeup (a very rare occurrence!) I’m guessing it was either for a wedding or a funeral. Or it could have been for an Easter Sunday. The colors make sense. But that guest book in the foreground…

After trying to assign a timestamp, I then tried to assign mood:

Wow, they both look so unhappy, or at the very least uncomfortable. I wonder how soon after this he was diagnosed? Hell, I wonder if he already had cancer when this was taken…and who took the photo? And how did it end up in this pack with others that are not related?

Then, some time later, I was remembering my old friend Tom Foley, and the occasion of us taking in a gallery showing of some local photographers’ work. He – a deeply gifted photographer, and framer too – was growing impatient with all of the chatter from other attendees and what he thought of as an overanalysis of the photos. He turned to me and said, a bit under his breath, ‘Forget all that and just look at the goddamned photograph. Do you like it? Does it move you? Yes or no?’

Yes, I love this photo. And it moves me. Very much.

So, I took Tom’s advice. I let go of all the need-to-knows and the questions and the attempts to make sense and assign meaning, and simply looked at the photo, which had been buried for years in the bottom of a cardboard box, now in my hands at my kitchen table, and I finally let the waves of memory and grief wash over me.

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