The truly important questions.

Tags

#Folk2023, Folk Alliance International, traveling

It’s corny, I know – and I can’t possibly be the only one – but for the last couple of days I’ve been singing:

I’m goin’ to Kansas City / Kansas City here I come

As I type this, Shawn and I are in our car somewhere between home and the Folk Alliance International conference, which starts on Wednesday. We’re goin’ to Kansas City to perform an official showcase there, several late night showcases, and to gather and connect with others around the warmth of community and music.

In recent days, I have oscillated quite reliably between ‘excited-for-Christmas’ and ‘nervous-for-the-big-test’. We both did a lot of woodshedding, packing and repacking, and worked on preparing ourselves fully for this opportunity. Each movement a step on the path.

Then the inevitable questions bubble up. Not ‘Should we do this song, or that song?’ or ‘How are the tires?’ or ‘Should we leave Sunday or Monday?’ Nah, those questions had come and gone.

I’m talking about the truly important questions, like: ‘Do I have enough clean underwear and socks?’

As a wise person once pointed out, the journey of fifteen hundred miles begins with a single load of last minute laundry. Or something like that.

Whatever is on your itinerary, may all your socks and undies be clean and ready for the journey ahead!

Saturday Morning Musings – Farewell, for now.

Tags

blogging, life, perpsective, traveling, Winnebago

Have you ever tried to prepare your own self and a 31 foot Winnebago for an eight-week long adventure?  Let’s just say, it’s been a really hectic week.

This Monday, Shawn and I are headed on another adventure.  Along with Davy, with our instruments in tow, we will be setting sail on Miss Winnie!

We will arrive in Montreat, NC next Wednesday for the SERFA conference where, in addition to presenting an official showcase on Friday night, we will be meeting up with old friends, making new ones, sharing our songs, stories, and selves with presenters, radio folks, venue owners, and fellow artists from all over the globe.  This is a fantastic opportunity for us!

We’ll be in North Carolina until Sunday-ish – then we bring what we do to Eddie’s Attic open mic in Decatur, GA on the evening of the 19th!  That’ll be fun.

Davy flies home from Atlanta on the 20th, and then Shawn and I mosey on down through the deep south to New Orleans (arriving on the 23rd) where we will be camped out until the end of June.

I.  Can’t.  WAIT!

Nearly a year ago, I set out to post every Saturday morning to this blog, and for nearly a year I have done so.  I’ve shared stories, lyrics, sometimes deeply personal, other times light-hearted, always honest.

It’s time now for me to take a break.

Believe me, I’ve still got plenty to say.  I am just feeling a need to write a little less often, to ease up on my pace.

“It ain’t a race, kid,” my dad used to say.

If you’re so inclined, you can certainly follow me on Instagram, Facebook, and/or Twitter (links in the sidebar).  I’ll be posting at least one photo and/or a short video every day of our eight-week-long adventure.

Writing has always been and will continue to be a deep passion of mine.  Though I won’t be posting every single Saturday morning as I have for the last year, I will still on occasion and as the muse strikes be sharing my thoughts here.

So… farewell, for now, friends!  I can’t tell you how much I have appreciated you taking the time to read my musings all this time.

Stay tuned!  And much love to you.

And off we go…!

Saturday Morning Musings – The city that rarely sleeps.

Tags

Big Apple, New York, New York City, NYC, touring, traveling

Last week at this time, Shawn and I were on the road.  We made lots of new friends, reconnected with old friends, and played some well-attended shows for appreciative and attentive audiences – life can’t get much better than that.  (And you can watch a short clip from our Maryland show here.)

We were in New York City for three nights, staying with a friend in Harlem and exploring the Big Apple for the first time, at least for me, since high school.

After our show at Bowery Electric on Sunday night, we rushed over to The Blue Note to see an incredible trio: Donald Harrison on alto sax, Ron Carter on bass and Billy Cobham on drums.  I was dumbstruck by their arrangements and their effortless virtuosity.

A visit to the American Museum of Natural History was a dream come true for both of us.  The Dark Universe show at Hayden Planetarium, narrated by director Neil deGrasse Tyson, was especially humbling and awe-inspiring.   Spitzer Hall of Human Origins, with all of its undeniable evidence of the evolution of our species, nearly brought tears of wonder to my eyes.

Dinosaurs, gems, minerals, ancient Chinese art, painstakingly crafted dioramas – by the end of our visit I was exhausted from the sheer volume of information and stimulus.

Later that evening, we had dinner at Silvana, a great little Middle Eastern spot in Harlem, and listened to the Ekah Kim Quartet.  Fantastic!

And that was all on Monday.

On Tuesday, hand in hand, Shawn and I took a stroll through Central Park.  Even though the Reservoir was still frozen, it was 65°, sunny, slight breeze.  In other words – perfect.

At Greywacke Arch, we were treated to the gorgeous sounds of a classical guitarist from Chile.

After lunch on the West Side, we made our way to Steinway Hall.  Downtown.

“I’ll take one of each, please.”

Finally, we took the subway back to Harlem, waited for Andi to get home from work and planned our last evening in the Big Apple.

There was even fantastic music in the subway.

I’d made reservations at Iguana in Manhattan to see Vince Giordano and the Nighthawks, who perform 1920s and 1930s big band and jazz arrangements.  Our friend Dan Levinson was playing clarinet and alto that night and we wanted to be sure to see him while we were in NYC.  Great food, awesome music, swanky vibe.

We vowed not to visit Times Square – once in a lifetime is more than enough.  We came within a few blocks before the descent into the subway saved us.

Our time with Andi in the city was coming to an end.  We were looking forward to being home (despite the snowstorm that awaited us) but we were sad to leave this amazing place.

We left for home the following morning, just one hour before the terrible explosion in East Harlem – just a few blocks away from Andi’s place.  He’s okay – but many more are not.  So sad.

Not only was the entire trip inspiring and exhilarating, something else happened that I can’t quite shake.

On the way back to Harlem from Iguana, an older disheveled man staggered into our sparsely-filled subway car.  He had urinated many times into his dirty blue sweatpants.  His voice was rough and hoarse as he asked for something to drink.  A woman across from us reached into her purse and gave him what was left of her small bottle of water.  He didn’t drink it.

He then asked everyone for spare change.

None of us – including me – did not reach into our pockets.  We did nothing to help him.

I don’t know why I didn’t help him.  I wanted to help him.  And yet… something stayed my hand.  I honestly don’t know what that something was.

No one in that car made a move or a sound in response to his plea.

As we walked home from the subway, I voiced this to Andi and Shawn.

“Why didn’t I help him?”

“I didn’t either.”

“I wish I had.”

“Well, next time.”

Does the city harden hearts?  Maybe.  Who knows, really.

Shawn recalled all the beggars in New Orleans that we had helped with many fistfuls of spare change and dollar bills.   True – we had done that, and I remember the time we gave someone an entire bag of oranges.

And yet… we were unmoved by this one man in New York City who, at this moment, is probably still in great need, still asking for help.

I hope I don’t make that mistake again.

Saturday Morning Musings – Falling in love with a small world.

Tags

Earth, Heather Pierson, life, perspective, small world, South Florida Folk Festival, traveling

At the moment that these words are being delivered to the blogosphere, I will be in an airplane headed for Fort Lauderdale to take part in the South Florida Folk Festival.  I am one of twelve finalists competing in the songwriting competition taking place on Saturday morning.  Just three and half hours after leaving the northern, winter-clenched landscape, I’ll be touching down in what will feel to me like a summery paradise.

“It’s a small world after all…”

I remember singing those words as a kid and thinking, “Small?!  Are you serious?!”  Upon entering fourth grade, even my new school felt huge to me after leaving the three-room schoolhouse in Hebron where I’d completed first and second grades.  After learning in high school that the radius of the Earth is 3,959 miles, I felt dwarfed ever still.

196.9 million square miles is a whole lot of planet.

And yet… I learned.  Eventually.

Last Monday, Shawn and I were the featured performers at The Cantab Lounge’s weekly open mic night in Cambridge, MA.  A likely place as any to reconnect with a new friend, a musician from Colorado whom I’d met at Falcon Ridge Folk Festival in New York last summer, now living in Beantown.

Small world.

Many people over the years have asked me, “Why aren’t you in New York
or something?  You should be famous!”

A very kind and generous sentiment.

I have to admit, a part of me has long been drawn to that idea, to living the life of the struggling artist lost in the sea of faces in the big city.  In a lot of ways though, I’m already floating along that river of fellow songwriters and performers, sometimes paddling upstream it seems, booking a lot of my own gigs, pounding that proverbial pavement.  I appreciate more and more the steady gigs I have here at home, and even more the deep, peaceful silence of living in the remote mountains of New Hampshire.   I like the idea of being lost in these woods, content with a comfortable and simple life and few responsibilities.

There is, however, a darker side to this desire: I struggle with low self esteem, with a feeling of not deserving success or even happiness, and, even more strongly, with a desire to hide and to not be noticed.

Slowly, though, as I extend my reach a little further out into what can sometimes feel like a big scary world, I am shedding the hefty baggage that I’ve carried all these years and embracing, rather than running from, the warm glow of recognition that the musician’s life offers.

When I get off the plane in Fort Lauderdale, I’ll be greeted by my host, whom I’ve not yet met, and be driven to the festival where I’ll be greeted again by many familiar faces, gathered from various points, whom I’ve met in my travels in the last couple of years.

I even got an unexpected message from a woman who lives in Fort Lauderdale whom I met in New Orleans and is excited to see me.

This big beautiful world gets smaller every day but no less beautiful.  I find that I’m having a lifelong, on-and-off love affair with this shrinking world and learning to open my arms and my heart to it just a little bit more every day.  One of these days, I’ll be head over heels.  As Oliver Wood sang, “I want my fall to last.”

Saturday Morning Musings – The most important moments.

Tags

community, family, friendship, life, love, music, Nashville, NERFA, traveling

I’ve been zigzagging all over the map this week. It’s exciting to visit unfamiliar and new places. It’s inspiring to see the lay of the land, to see more of what the glaciers did, and then to experience what we humans have erected in the valleys and hills in their wake.

Last weekend was my second (and Shawn’s first) NERFA conference in Kerhonkson, New York. In a sentence? It’s a four-day-long, folk-music-filled sleep deprivation experiment. All eight hundred of us in attendance sang, played, listened, ate, laughed, talked and connected with one another.

So many moments:

There was Alan who remembered me from last year and couldn’t wait to hear my version of Norwegian Wood on the hotel lobby’s piano again.

I discovered the incredible poetry of a folk singer named Ian Fitzgerald. The line I can’t shake: “A dollar ain’t worth nothing ’cause it can’t buy any time.”

Spontaneous jam sessions with so many musicians, including with a cellist and flautist to create a beautiful rendition of Autumn Leaves.

Hearing a six-string violin sing beautifully like a humpback whale.

Lots of hugs and smiles from equally overtired attendees.

Sharing my bag of clementines with a fellow singer who felt herself coming down with a cold.

From there, we loaded up and hit the road for Nashville for our very first visit. One of my best friends from childhood lives just north of Music City and I finally took her up on her offer of her spare bedroom for a few nights.

More moments:

Waiting in line for nearly two hours with over a hundred others to get into The Bluebird Cafe for open mic, only to not make the cut. (I did get a stamp for next time though, and we got to see a gorgeous sunset while we waited.)

Overcoming my lifelong fear of horses and going for a horseback ride on Megan and Matt’s farm.  Jake (the horse) was truly awesome.

Jawbreakers at Savannah’s Candy Kitchen the size of pool cues. (No I didn’t eat one!)

Seeing Johnny Cash’s guitars and his trademark black suit at the Country Music Hall of Fame.

Singing two songs at Douglas Corner Cafe and hearing a hush fall over the bar.

Teaching Megan’s daughter Chloe how to play the C major scale on the piano.

Three year old Carly asking us to play “Roll Off Your Back” and hearing her little voice singing along.

I’m back home now, staring at a to-do list about a mile long: follow up phone calls and emails, laundry, new song ideas percolating.

My favorite moment from this adventure?  It’s hard to choose, but among the most moving – receiving this text from Megan yesterday morning: “We already miss you guys. Chloe and I are going to buy a yamaha keyboard this morning.”

Saturday Morning Musings – Do *you* know what it means?

Tags

Bourbon Orleans, Do You Know What It Means To Miss New Orleans, French Quarter, Heather Pierson, music, New Orleans, New Orleans Traditional Jazz Camp, NOLA, trad jazz, traveling

Following last week’s post, I have received and continue to receive a whole lot of loving and heartfelt emails, comments and messages from so many of you. I can’t tell you how much it means to me that what I say here could mean so much to all of you! Thank you all so, so much for your kindness and support. xoxo

I spent the entire dreary, drizzly day on Friday in my PJs working on building a new website (www.heatherpierson.com – that’s the current version. The new and improved version will be launched soon!). After a nutritious, fruit/rice milk/hemp seed smoothie – as is my daily ritual – I had cold leftover pizza for breakfast. Perhaps not the wisest choice, considering that I didn’t allow myself any time to get out on the pedal bike or the hiking or running trail to work off those carbs — but I have a feeling that my brain has already burned through them all, thinking about what awaits me on Sunday…

In the wee hours of this coming Sunday morning, Shawn and I will be boarding a plane for the city that enraptured me from the moment I first step foot on its cracked and weather-worn streets – New Orleans. We’re heading down yet again, this time to take part in a weeklong jazz workshop for adults, called the New Orleans Trad Jazz Camp. Held at the Bourbon Orleans Hotel (right smack dab in the middle of the French Quarter), we will be sharing this experience with over a hundred other horn players, drummers, vocalists, bassists, pianists, banjoists and guitarists from all over the world eager to absorb as much of this tradition as one week in NOLA will allow. Last year was an absolute dream and this year proves to be just as fantastic! We’ll see some of our friends that we made last year and we’re bound to make new ones.

This trip will be my fifth visit to NOLA in the past three years. Shawn and I were just there in January and I was literally in tears the day that we got in the car to head north.

Can I make a confession?

I’d love to live in New Orleans. Oh, I really would.

I’d always been fascinated with the city, being the birthplace of jazz and a hub for all sorts of beautiful, inscrutable things – art, music, voodoo, the mouth of the Mississippi River, alligators. I remember on several occasions as a young tween making the following announcement to my parents at the dinner table:

“Someday I wanna learn how to play the accordion and move to New Orleans.”

My father would always just smirk a little and give me a sideways glance, and my mother would just shake her head and go on some rant about “how much crime there is down there”.

I pretty much forgot about it for years.

Finally, in 2010 – that glorious year that I wrote about last week – I visited for the first time.

From the moment I stepped outside of the airport and experienced that oppressively heavy humid air, I was hooked.

And the seduction continued – the European architecture, with its wrought iron fences and soft pastel colors; the clack clack clack of the horse-drawn carriages in front of Jackson Square; the thump thump thump th-thump THUMP of “the big four” being pounded out on a second line bass drum; ancient trees standing watch and providing luxurious shade – oak and magnolia and cypress; the slightly spooky above-ground tombs in St. Louis Cemetery; the shrill refrain of a lone trumpet echoing down Royal Street; the chirping of the calliope atop the Steamboat Natchez; the dingy, dusty walls at Preservation Hall; the smell of freshly handmade pralines and of coffee with chicory; strings of brightly colored beads hanging from every tree branch, lamp post and power line; the wild cacophony that is Bourbon Street; the dazzling array of street performers – musicians of all disciplines certainly, but also the young tap dancers and break dancers; bizarre yet beautiful costumes and body paints; contortionists; but most beloved of all, of course, the music that drifts freely from every single open door and window, from every street corner, every park bench, from the lips of those passersby who can’t help but sing along to songs that they don’t even know.

If you’ve never been, do yourself a favor and get there someday, especially if you love music, food and/or art – which, I think, covers just about everybody on the planet. And then when you hear the old lyric ask: “Do you know what it means / to miss New Orleans / and miss it each night and day?” then maybe you’ll be able to answer, like I do: “Yes, I certainly do.”

New Orleans means something very special to me, but maybe not to you. Maybe it isn’t a city that you miss. Is there something that you once had that you could have again and all you need to do is just reach out and take hold of it again? Maybe it’s an idea, a hobby, a friend, a lover, a new path. Whatever it is – don’t wait. Do it now!

Oh, and you know, I never have learned how to play the accordion – not yet anyway – but I did just recently acquire a melodica, which isn’t quite the same thing as an accordion, but it kinda sounds like one…

Saturday Morning Musings – My one wild and precious life

Tags

domestic abuse, emotional abuse, Heather Pierson, life, love, Mary Oliver, moving on, music, Saturday Morning Musings, The Summer Day, travel, traveling

In the last two lines of her poem “The Summer Day”, Mary Oliver poses an incredibly haunting question:

“Tell me, what is it you plan to do / with your one wild and precious life?”

My first encounter with these words came several years ago, during a time that now seems like an entirely different life, like an old acquaintance, someone I used to know.

And I suppose it was.

I was living in Fryeburg, Maine, working four part time jobs. (Yes, four.)  I was playing music while wearing one of those many hats, but my true talents of performing and songwriting were lying almost entirely dormant.

Why?

Well, that’s a long sad story, but I will give you a condensed version:

For the several years that I lived in Fryeburg, I was in an increasingly harmful relationship with a deeply controlling and manipulative man. Did he beat me? No – the bruising that I endured was much more insidious.  He didn’t attack my body.  He attacked my mind – my self-worth, my self-esteem, my humanity.

That’s the worst kind of abuse.

So, when I first heard Mary Oliver’s question, its salience stunned me; it immediately brought tears to my eyes. It seemed to underscore everything of importance and meaning in my life. This wise woman, this gifted poet, was offering me a way out.

Sadly, it would take me a few more years before I would be able to answer Mary’s question with any sort of confidence.

But that question stayed with me, hung over me, tugged at the corners of the veil.

Finally in February 2010, after encouragement from and with the help of very dear friends, I broke free and reclaimed my life.  There are some deep wounds that are still healing, and patience has never been my strong suit.  But, just like with any serious physical injury, the millimetric movement towards wholeness of spirit will take time.

It is still taking time.

In the three years since, I have come to know and experience the fullness of love, joy, exciting uncertainty, respect, adventure, discovery – all the best qualities of a life fully lived.

As I type these words, I am also preparing to leave for a conference in Rhode Island, where I will be one of ten performers (out of a juried pool of seventy) in front of an audience of fellow songwriters and musicians, venue operators, radio DJs and other music biz folks.  What an awesome opportunity this is!  I am also reflecting on three years of so many amazing experiences that have found me making so many new friends, creating an entire catalog of new music and forging incredible new bonds; meeting and falling in love with my best friend and traveling to nearly every corner of the U.S. with him and sharing my music and myself on concert stages, in coffeehouses, at open stages, in people’s homes; seeing the Grand Canyon at sunset and the midwestern plains at sunrise; hearing the thump and roar of a second line in New Orleans and the hustle and bustle of downtown Chicago; smelling the Pacific Ocean in San Diego and fresh tortillas in the New Mexico desert.  And in addition to all of that – actually making a living with this sort of life!  If a messenger from the future had visited my former self in Fryeburg – the timid, depressed, downtrodden one – and told me what awaited me in my life these past three years, I wouldn’t have believed a word of it.

And here I am today!  With so many reasons to smile!

So, with my one wild and precious life, I intend to continue living in full pursuit of my dreams – to share my love of music and of life with as many people as I can, and to experience this planet as fully as I can until I can no longer.

And how about you?

Home sweet rainy home.

Tags

Heather Pierson, music, New Hampshire, New Orleans, traveling

Not much to report this morning.  Our flights were smooth, the weather in Portland was lousy when we got in (further adding to my melancholy about leaving New Orleans) and Matty (with his sweet little dog Arbor) picked us up and brought us home, giving Shawn just enough time to turn right around and play a gig with Dan and Ryan at Delaney’s in North Conway.  I settled right in with my cool weather jammies, threw all my laundry in the washer, made some dinner and hung out with Tina before entering a deep sleep coma on the couch.

This morning, it’s still cold, rainy and dreary.  I have to go pick up my mail, meet up with Nate today and pick up some my gear for open mic at Ledgends Pub in Gorham tonight and try in general to get back into the swing of things.

Tina remarked last night about how “fun” it was to “follow someone else’s vacation”.  I hope you all enjoyed it.  I certainly had a blast both experiencing it all and sharing it with you.  Spring is here, the snow is all gone (except of course up in the extreme elevations) and I’m ready to bring that New Orleans vibe to the North Country!

What to do…?

Tags

Heather Pierson, traveling, Wisconsin

3:39 a.m. CST.  I’ve been awake for about an hour now, unable to sleep, debating about what to do.  I’m tired, lonely, sad, deeply disappointed and feeling a very strong pull to get back on the road for home.  To put it mildly, this excursion hasn’t panned out to be nearly what I hoped it would be.  Such is life, of course.  You can’t “win ’em all”.  I guess one of life’s many lessons is to try and figure out the balance between when to see things through and when to cut your losses.  The resort unlocks its doors at 6:00 a.m. and I am really debating whether or not to go over there then, load up and hit the road — or if that is just the cowardly thing to do, the “easy” way out.  Truthfully, nothing feels easy about that decision – it hurts and it makes me feel like I’m somehow not fulfilling some promise that I made, whether it’s one I made to the organizers of the conference or one that I made to myself.  All I know is that this trip, despite the wonderful people I’ve met and the truly heartfelt connections I’ve made with a handful of folks who really appreciate what I do and what I’m about, has, for lack of a better word in my sleep deprived state, largely been a flop.

When I got back here to my room last night, I started looking up “open mics Milwaukee” and “open mics Madison WI” and found a small handful of interesting hits that all intrigued me and set my mental wheels turning.  In all honesty, though, I’m feeling such a strong pull towards home – yes, home, the place I’ve been bitching about lately, with its long winter and unwelcome (at least to me) snowstorms and what not.  I miss seeing mountains on the horizon and clusters of pine trees hugging the roadways.  I miss Tina and the kitties and the taste of well water.  I miss my own bed and my own cooking and I really miss Shawn.

Meteena suggested that I do something nice for myself, either here or on the way home.  My route home does take me right through Buffalo, just a hop skip and jump from Niagara Falls.  I realize, too, that Chicago (Georgi!) is close by too.  Exhaustion is pulling me in just one direction though…

Obviously by the time I post here next I will have made a decision about what to do, so stay tuned – and thanks for sticking with me this far.