NOTES - 2007

June 2007

My recent tour of the UK and Scotland didn’t actually begin in Aberdeen, but it was here my schedule offered me some time and space to breathe in the magical mystery quality of my trip thus far. I was bringing my songs to these places as far from Muskoka as you can get and still speak English as a first language. A few days before, I was on the far south coastland city of Portsmouth, home of tall ships and pirate mythology, and now here I stood in northeast Scotland, on her magnificent purple-hued hills framed by ocean reflecting the ancient settlements nestled into the windswept wave-wracked coastline. Fifteen miles outside Aberdeen is the ancient town of Stonehaven, and aside this seaside town, 500 year old fisherman cottages lean towards the ocean, as if on a perpetual eastbound voyage. Along the coast, standing persistent and unaffected, is the ancient Dunnotter Castle whose residents have included William Wallace and Mary Queen of Scots. How strange I thought, and miraculous, this feeling of being invited to share my songs in this historic region.

Years ago, my first time in Scotland, I was inspired to write this poem:

    Come with me, we’ll carry our fine selves into those hills,
    Far from here, when I tell you of my love you’ll want to stay,
    Hidden with me there all the day
    Ah those eyes, those eyes on me,
    as gentle as these highlands that hold me to the sea.
    Now the feeling behind those words returned to me.

And were I really to consider the magic nature of my tour, the bigger miracle might have been that I had arrived there at all, having as I did to wend my way through cities, towns and villages, braving the M-ways and B-ways’s and circumventing industrial parks on graying stone streets until I lost my way, and then gallantly, alone, finding it again, driving from gig to gig, up and down this crowded little island, and up again, in my Ford Xtac 5 speed diesel, shifting gears and driving on the left side of ever narrowing roads leading me eventually into the magnificent hills surrounding the surprisingly sprawling city of Aberdeen, and once again having no idea where I was going to end up and only completely sure that I am in the right place and eventually given enough time these ever rounding round a bouts will take me to my destination. Tonight, The Blue Angel, one of the oldest and most prestigious music venues in Aberdeen apparently, all the great artists passing through have played there, and so I will keep good company and surely the main street I have been told the venue is on will be sign posted, unlike most streets in the UK which remain blissfully unmarked, ever to stay that way because according to the locals, street signs would only make things more confusing and besides "I know where I am going" is the current and genuinely thoughtful response to my query into the efficacy sign posts might lend to travelers. I can’t argue the point, I am only there for a day after all, and am completely in love with the experience of my brief visit to this remote and currently affluent part of the island. I have written a song called "For England" and I realize I will not be able to play it this evening, because these people do not feel English, they will not appreciate my attempt to understand that place to the south of them, where my language was born, and the poets who bare my heart, and my husband. So I will tell them of my Norwegian heritage, and my feeling of being closely tied to them through landscape and history, and suggest our ancestral paths will have crossed somewhere back there in time; and I will sing my songs of the journey I have tread, these roads of the songwriter I travel, this soujourn of my creative soul that inevitably brought me to them, that eventually narrowed my choices, like the narrow roads that meander though their beautiful countryside.

April 15, 2007

Winds from the south blowing through town.

There was a shift, did I miss it? From people (or is it just me) not really understanding what this online thing is all about, to everyone feeling life is not normal unless you are typing on a keyboard for some part of your day. Do we really believe the technology that is telling us we can be co-creators of this new mythology, this new language of "computer". At any rate, here I am again, exercising my brain, working those finer intuitive muscles by learning about the inner workings of my website. I'm not ready to take the wheel, you know, build my own web pages or anything, nor do I want to really (I think I should) but I have developed a deeper admiration for those who have found an aspect of their artistry through this strange fitting and firing of bits and bites, of ones and nones; those who are communicating glibly from fingers to xml platforms to the computer screen. I woke up this morning wondering how all this 'on line communicating' is affecting our human evolution, does it connect us as a species, does it harmonize us, bring us to a deeper understanding of our common purpose. War does that they say, but I don't even want to think about war, it's all I hear about these days it seems. I would rather continue thinking about this computer I am sitting in front of. My new toy, a present from my partner, a MacBook, cute and white and cuddly, my new pet, my kitten that doesn't require litter box training. I am thinking that when I am working on line, 'internetting' (did I coin a new phrase?) I am adding a new layer of consciousness to my concept of levels of being, I (fingers. toes, ego etc) am conscious (the greater 'I') of the web of consciousness (this idea that when I am online I am connected to the rest of the world) that is conscious of this universally accessible 'un'consciousness. Perhaps I shouldn't think too much about this either. So, there you go, this is what what you can get up to when you perched on a windy hill waiting for a spring that seems to never want to come.

It has been a great winter though, I can't complain, playing in my studio, writing new songs because when they come they must be attended, while trying to not write too many so all the songs waiting for the band and the next stage of recording don't feel neglected while waiting for all the pieces of the 'production puzzle' to take shape. I'm in no rush though, because No Language is still finding hearts to reside in....As is Betty's Room for that matter. It seems we make records that have "long shelf life".

I am going back to England to tour in a couple of weeks and I am going to play a few of the new songs when it feels right. I am getting an energy efficient car to drive myself around, will be traveling all over the island, from the very south of England to the near north of Scotland. It's not all work though, I'll be ending my journey in Dublin to visit family and do the James Joyce walk. And, while I am in the northeast, I have a couple of free days, and my brother in law is promising to let me help him in his garden plot (he has a magnificent allotment right behind the ancient cathedral in Durham City). I love to be in England in the spring. They actually get spring there, lovely lounging spring that reaches from March to June, just like the calendar says it should. I love Muskoka, sure, but we rarely experience what you call spring. This year again, it looks like we are going to go directly from winter sleet to summer heat.

Wind has passed through, we're back to a bit of a lull, waiting for the "rain or snow expected" to inform the rest of this day.

January 2007

The year is opening with a nagging question; why is there no snow on the ground?

I am back from Europe and the 4 weeks I booked off from my quiet life. Facing a few gigs, a couple of meetings, and packed with guitar and a set list of songs and stories, I set off with a curiously unyielding sense of purpose, I am stepping into the unknown but something tells me I need to be "over there". And I found myself intuition to be right. The weeks went from wonderful to wonderfuller, (sorry) and I now have a great team to work with me all around Europe, I found some great new friends and fans (hello to you), and I came back with my trust of intuition stronger than ever. And maybe the most revealing aspect to my journey was experiencing the power of sharing the personal story, like:

Don't you love high speed?

This summer I returned from my summer vacation in busy crowded England and Wales, happy to be back in my quiet home on a hill. I was looking out my kitchen window admiring the ridge of trees that stretch along the horizon, when, there in the distance, like a dagger piercing the heart of my beautiful view, I spotted it; the ugly metal tower that had been erected while I was away. I totally freaked out. I wanted to report this aberration to the view police. I plotted to go and chop down the blight with an axe. I thought, what can it be, who could do such a thing, maybe it's a wind tower and I peered through my binoculars to get a closer look, maybe it's a look out perch for a crazy neighbour and in that case, it has to go. And then I found out it was a tower erected to provide high speed connection to remote areas like mine.

Needless to say, but, maybe I will say it anyways, I have made peace with my view. And I love my tower.

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