A few small victories

My acupuncturist changed the direction of one of my chakra wheels yesterday. I didn't know chakras had wheels -- I thought they just had colors. I must scour the interwebs for more information on that. Perhaps a future entry I'll tell you what I find.


In the meantime, and in an effort to introduce balance to this blog, I have a few small victories that warrant a short entry:


Small Victory #1: Last night I made it down to Istanbul to hear Eve Goodman & John Caldwell, with Tracy Drach. I didn't last the whole night, but the fact that I made it there and had a nice dinner and heard live music is something indeed.


RAH!


Small Victory #2: I just returned home from a 10 minute walk under blue skies. My lungs and limbs are heavy, but ten minutes anywhere would have been unthinkable on Friday. And no acute symptoms.


YAY!


Small Victory #3: This morning I re-listened to Rick DiClemete's reading of my astrological chart from earlier this Spring and pulled out a sketch pad and made drawings. Doodles really, but doodles with an art pencil on art paper.


YAWP!

A word of hope to all who need it: 

"Don't Let the Bastards Get You Down" - Margaret Atwood

Bag full of pills & and viral art direction

Much as I don't have the midas touch with music marketing and self-promotion, I do sort of love all the details. So, I was really looking forward to a design seminar I was registered to take today for my part-time day job (architecture firm). I thought it'd be useful for the music biz, too. After all, in the end, marketing is marketing is marketing.

Instead? I'm sucking down a bag full of pills for my chronic Epstein Barr virus and trying to make sure I can breath. I  am on 4 -- count 'em -- 4 antivirals. I probably take 20 pills with each meal. I only hope they kill all those little bastard viruses that are having way too much fun making my body totally anaerobic.

I'm looking for balance. I can't sing 'cause I get winded. That's not balance.

Back in the early 90s I dropped out of school for a semester due to mono and pneumonia. I was supposed to create and present my senior show, and I had grand ideas that involved large paper mache fruit and mennonite coverings. The mono totally changed my show. It was my new artistic director.

Instead of product I could only focused on process. And the process had to be gentle and small-scale. I moved home and bought myself a little watercolor block. Oils or other art were just too strenuous or chemical. So watercolors it was. I slouched on my folk's cream colored feather futon in the tv room and attempted to make 1 painting a day. Didn't matter what it was. And in the end I thought I'd have stacks of paintings to select from for the senior show, once I got well.

I didn't have stacks, but I had a lot of paintings, and I sold almost every single one of them. I was kind of proud of that. But I was most proud that I gave up the goal. I was delighted to find I became a better painter and more in tune with what watercolor does. It's talking all the time. You could look at the dates at the bottom of the painting and you could see me getting better. You could see me trusting the material more and more. You could see I became a better listener.

Having a hard time breathing is reminding me of this. I don't know how I continue as a singer-songwriter when I can't sing, and practice/songwriting is just too strenuous. Sitting at a computer fatigues me. 

I guess maybe my virus is my art director once again. I'll ask a friend to buy me a new little watercolor block. I'll set it beside my bag full of pills. I'll paint again.

Roller coaster ride

Today it's back to muscle fatigue, fever, headaches, and tight throat. You know there are two things I miss most from this:


1 - I can't travel. A simple 1-day road trip can devastate me. I love to travel, so the prospect of not doing anymore of this upsets me. Plus, there go all hopes of doing music tours.....


2 - I haven't had 2 days in a row of feeling good since last year. And I forget it every day that I feel ok. If I feel good I think "Hey, maybe I'm kicking this" only to find out the next day or maybe later that same day that it's a ferris wheel roller coaster ride and I can't get off. And every time I dip down I have a new fresh wave of despair. 


These are the things I miss. I miss the prospect of seeing the world with my own eyes. I miss the expectation of tomorrow and making plans. The Catholics were wrong: purgatory is actually hell. 


My mantra these days is "This too shall pass." 

Budding evangelist for acupuncture

Yesterday I could barely drag myself from one position to another. I couldn't speak because of the energy it took. I could barely cry, because it exhausted me. I was clearly losing the battle with my viral friends. 


Somehow I managed to drag myself to my car and drive a mile to my acupuncture appointment. One hour later I could walk, I could carry a conversation (brief), I didn't want to cry. I know if I would have stayed at home and rested on my couch all day that I'd feel like a brick, just as sick as ever.


So, even though I'll lose 2 great-paying gigs this week because I've got no stamina, I'm gonna sing small praises to acupuncture. I can make myself a meal at home and answer the phone. Life is good today.

Living means turning

I had intended for this blog to catalog my art-making, but I'm now discovering that if I blog at all it will probably be about my healing. Yesterday I was diagnosed with Epstein Barr virus, after 9 months of "Why don't I feel better?" It feels good to know something. Beyond that I have no idea. Life is turning me somewhere, and to live peacefully means following down this road. I cannot step off. What this means for songwriting and recording and performing, I don't know. My main hope now is finding the right healers, people who can walk with me and know my needs deeply.

A Letter to My Pittsburgh Peers

Dear Musicians & Friends,

I just wanted to send you a note of appreciation for all of your creativity this year. Whether I saw you at the Open Stage while hosting, or shared a bill with you, or trotted out to hear one of your shows this year as a listener, I have been inspired by your music and lyrics, your tenacity, and your contribution to the music scene in the city.

I recently ran into a Pittsburgh artist that decided to hang it up, for good reasons. The DIY culture has become a mandate of sorts, leaving many of us less time to create. Sometimes this can inspire you to go harder, and sometimes it can make you feel like you're in a crazy hamster wheel. The stress of having to do it all inspires different responses in different people. This artist decided it was time to leave. I'm on the edge, I guess.

My body crapped out on me in late summer. After some diagnostic efforts we figured a major part of what happened was a little something called Adrenal Fatigue. It took years to develop, I bet, and I had never heard of it before. I suspect, though, that many a DIY artist is especially susceptible to this syndrome. You may or may not be one. I hope you are not.

Anyhow, I'm looking at the world from a different angle. It's pretty freakin' great and it makes me grateful to be alive. It makes me do odd things like turn down First Night gigs on New Year's Eve, and write letters instead just to say I think you're on The Good Road, walking it in your own way.

I look forward to hearing your new songs and your old favorites in 2010.

My best wishes to you,

Heather

Happy Holidays

Well, it's been quite some time since I've written. I've been thrown into a really intense few months of internal work, healing from some chronic illness, and evaluating my sense of vocation around being an artist. Mostly I'm tired, but lately I do find myself waking up and thinking about songs...which I hope means that I'll be back making music soon.


I heard of the passing of one of the wonderful people who booked me this year. It's amazing how short life is, and how one minute a person can exist physically in the world and then they don't. 


In this cycle of life and death and life, I hope you are spending the holiday season with ones you love and who love you. Here's to a fine year in 2010, year of the tiger. I wish you safe and warm darkest days.