I was fearing this weekend. Not hugely. Not terribly far in advance. But I was concerned about it starting on Tuesday when it turned out that some sort of miscommunication meant that we had THREE gigs this weekend, not “merely” two.
Now – in the Before Times I’d not have thought twice about this. Hell, five to seven gigs a week? It’s my JOB, you know? But COVID definitely knocked back our gig schedule, and though there were some pretty fierce weeks over the spring, summer and fall – winter has definitely made me feel sedentary. I feel it in my limbs. I’m not moving enough.
I’ve been recording recently, that gets my voice in shape, but recording doesn’t really keep my PRESENCE in shape, doesn’t keep my fingers moving, undermines the emotion of the music. And so it’s 5pm on a Sunday, I’ve played 3 three hour gigs in three days and I’m very, very glad not to be feeling it the way I’d feared I’d feel it, and grateful to be feeling it in another way entirely.
Gratitude and manic depression. Movement and stillness. The quiet of the NOW vs the loudness of so much of the past 72 hours. This last one, a strange noon to 3pm time slot with Jon Patton at a local coffeehouse, is muddied and complicated by it being a solo performance…. Not that Jon and I didn’t pass back and forth, but I didn’t play with anyone else, and that is always, always, always intensely emotional for me. 2 or 3 songs at an open mic is fine – but anything more than that and I often fall into my head, reliving and remembering the stories and songs, mayhaps in a way that makes the performance better, but I took the long way home, driving in the rain through small Catonsville streets so I be by myself a little bit longer.
Generally, I’m not very good company for myself. I say weird things and respond poorly. I don’t have anything to pull myself back, but today – on a grey day after playing my heart out to a small but attentive crowd in the kind of environment that MADE me who I am…
My fingers are tingling as I type. My strings were getting tetchy. My throat is happy to speak quietly and I’m on the edge of violence or crying or … other emotive extremes.
I was fearing it, but it was a GOOD weekend.