A grand adventure in a new city

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At the beginning of this year my friend Tracey demanded I submit a list of 5 things I wanted from 2013. That conversation had to have been in January, before anything much had happened in my life. When I could feel that 2013 wouldn’t be normal but I had no real idea why. I told her I already had 5 things to work on. I had my Mighty Life List and the 5 things I chose to accomplish in 2013. 

She said that wasn’t good enough. She wanted a fresh list from me. I obliged. 

One of the 5 was, “Have a grand adventure in a new city.” 

I’ve had my eye out for this item to present itself all year. I’ve had grand adventures. And I have been in new cities. They have been mutually exclusive until a week ago. 

I told my friend Nathan, who I knew was playing Rocky Mountain Folks Fest, that I was jealous he was going to be there. And that I had played around with the idea of going. Like a good little hint-reader he said, “Well, if you decide to come up I’ll be sure to put you on the guest list.”

!!!

I let that whim roll around in my head and heart for a few hours. I worked a little, then I looked at flight prices. I worked a little more then texted friends for advice (fly? drive?). I worked more then thought of all the reasons I shouldn’t. Then of all the reasons I should. Rinse, repeat. That night after an hour of yoga, I thought I had gotten clarity. I texted Tracey and told her my decision and she agreed it was the right one. I was going to stay home, not be wrecked on Monday and get things done. Help a friend pack. Go help my dad with his printer. Clean my house. Be practical. Save money. 

The next morning I woke up, did my daily meditation (more on that later) and found a great passage I shared on Facebook. 

“To cultivate the light of awareness, pay attention to the clues and evidence that miracles are unfolding in your life. Notice the unexpected opportunities that come your way, the flash of insight, a sudden feeling of peace or joy, a chance meeting, or a spontaneous creative experience. You may want to keep a list of daily miracles in your journal. Whatever we pay attention to expands in our experience, so as you focus your attention on miracles you will begin to notice more grace, happiness, and love.” 

To which Tracey replied, “Maybe you better go away this weekend after all. Be wrecked Monday. You’ve been worse.” We took the convo offline and I told her all the reasons I could not go with a list of wonderful things I’d accomplish if I stayed home. She said, “We are all going to die. Eventually. When you look back this will be one of those things you did right. You won’t remember the tired. You will remember the good vibes of music in a mountain town.” To which I replied, “Fuck.”

She was right. So….I went. I got my inbox to zero, texted a lady in Colorado I’d found the day before on a festival forum about a place to stay, ran home for 10 minutes to pack and started driving north. After 4 hours I turned left, then drove 6 more. I stopped three times for less than 10 minutes each.

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I-70 from Salina to Denver should have been soul-crushing boredom, but I was giddy. I saw so many places and things I wanted to stop and photograph: Cool/weird billboards touting Jesus or chimney sweeps or odd museums; wind turbines placed right along the highway like dinosaur-sized daisies; a small clapboard church sitting in a green, planted field (of what?) whose steeple contained a brass bell; a gradually darkening smokey blue sky containing no other color or shape but a perfectly round sun that turned from brick red to crimson and slipped beneath the wide, flat horizon. But I did not stop, because the 10 hours I had planned to travel could easily turn into 14 hours of chasing rabbits down holes and I was headed towards music — nothing else. 

Upon arrival to Lyons, CO, I felt like the biggest fucking badass that ever existed.

Ever.

Despite crawling into bed around 12:30am, it was still an hour before I was able t wind down enough for sleep. I was awash with joy and gratitude! My home stay was lodge-like and walking distance to Planet Bluegrass, which are both the festival grounds and the home of the family of festivals I adore. Driving in during the night meant that when I walked to the festival that morning, I was treated to completely spectacular scenery. 

On Saturday I was on the guest list courtesy of Seryn, my friends from Denton, TX. Those guys who crashed on my floorI arrived at the ranch with just enough time to get my wristband and watch the annual running of the tarps, a tradition that happens at most or all Planet Bluegrass festivals in which folks line up to stake their claim on prime real estate every morning. Sometimes in costume. 

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The festival without the music is so cool. Lots of laid back hippies mixed with really awesome people. There was a guy handing out bear hugs. There was the St. Vrain river that runs by so close to the stage that lots of people opt to watch from a low-slung chair sitting right in the cool flowing water. I decided that what I had packed impulsively was going to murder me slowly under the blaring Colorado sun, so I stopped into a vendor tent and bought a tye-dyed sundress. Then wore it.

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 I watched a TON of music. If you go to Flickr you can look at all the photos I managed to catch with my iPhone. Amazing day. Uh-ma-zing. 

After I wrapped up a night of crying to Shane Koyczan and Patty Griffin followed by going aaaalllll the way down to boogey town with the John Butler Trio, I sat down in a chair backstage and took a moment. Had a breath. Looked around and experienced my gratitude. Gave it to the Universe. Namaste and all that. Out of the corner of my eye I saw this guy. 

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I had spoken to him earlier in the day to compliment him on his dancing. Josh, as his name turned out to be, had looked like the happiest damn guy in the whole wide world. Completely uninhibited. I don’t remember exactly why I went to talk to him, I just did. I am soooo glad I did. We got to chatting and I told him that I was having the best damn day ever. He must have asked about my excitement level for Sunday and I told him I didn’t have a plan or a ticket. He mentioned that he had just given away his +1 media pass because he hadn’t found the writer for which it was intended and didn’t want the ticket to go to waste. I mentioned I was a writer. He groaned. I groaned. So! Close!

Josh caught a festival organizer walking by and told him of the situation. He said he would try, but made no promises. I had zero expectations. He would text Josh in the morning. Josh and I talked a while longer and, maybe because I was drunk on Colorado air, festival love and a teensy bit of New Belgium products, I followed Josh into the evening.

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We went to song circles and in the morning I got a text. I would be attending the festival with press credentials.

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Later in the week, I published an article for Marquee Magazine. The editor said that anytime I wanted to write for them, I was welcome. Please take the time to let Josh’s photo galleries roll as his talent is almost as enormous as his heart. Many, many thanks to this new friend of mine. I hope to be writing alongside him again very soon.

Bonus: This is how Dancin’ Josh enjoys music festivals.

Then, this happened…

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Then I took a shower and went to work. For lunch that day I had a nap. I napped SO HARD, you guys. 

Best! Weekend! Ever!

As I was leaving Lyons, Tracey sent me my texts from Friday morning along with a note. “Just a reminder of how lame you almost were.”

 

 

A month, huh?

It’s been a whole month since I didn’t just totally phone in a blog post? Eh…it happens. Life happens. Life has happened. I’ve had a fun month, though. 

1. I took the kids to Dallas for part of a weekend. The whole reason we really went was to see Seryn. You remember them, right? Several months ago they played a show in OKC and we took the whole band home afterwards. Those guys (and girl). They played at a charming venue called The Kessler that is situated near the Bishop Arts District, where we had spent that afternoon dining and shopping.

Enjoying @serynsounds

My daughter captured a lot of video in which she moved her phone a lot, flipped back and forth from portrait to landscape and stopped and started filming several times during a song. It’s cute. This was the most continuous one. 

My son slept through almost their entire set and only awoke when Trent and Nathan came up to where we were sitting to say hi. Yeah, the rock show didn’t wake him but the two people in the empty room did. Third graders. Sigh. I found a nice quiet place for him to chill out while his sister and I hung out with all the friends and family after the show. This is Seryn’s hometown venue in a way, so lots of people mingled after for hugs and stories into the wee morning hours. I think we finally gave up and left the party at 1am. 

The next day we slept in and I took the kids to breakfast at Spiral Diner, a restaurant where everything is vegan (except us) and most of it is house-made. 

The Lumberjack

Then we had an afternoon at Klyde Warren Park. What a cool public space.

Dogs. Fountains. Yoga.

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2. I started running. I don’t know exactly why I want to run so bad, but I do. And I am terrible at it. But I keep trying because I feel like there is an athlete in me that I have buried under toffee and self-doubt. The reason I feel this is because during times of stress I want to run or kickbox or swim or do hot yoga. My body doesn’t know how to do any of those things but I get serious cravings for them and those cravings go unrequited. No, I don’t replace them all with food but I do replace a lot of them with regret that I’ve not treated myself better. How healthy is that? Feel stress, then feel bad because you aren’t some kind of magician. Instead, I’ve opted to teach myself to run (with the aid of a couch to 5k app). The good news is that I can run for 10 minute stretches. The bad news is that I strained my left calf because I don’t do enough 10 minute stretches after I run. Super frustrating, but now I am doing a little bit of yoga while I wait for the calf to heal. Attempting to listen to my body all the time, is what this seems to be. If I need running, give myself running. If I need resting, give myself resting. 

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3. I almost lost my MacBook Pro. One day I turned on my laptop and it was whirring hard. And the battery indicator had a weird little ‘X’ on it. I couldn’t leave it untethered to a power supply and the fan only stopped running when I powered the computer all the way down. After running disk ulility I had an “Oh shit.” moment. It said my hard drive was corrupt. ::fuck:: I sent some panic texts to my nerd fleet. I used to be a bit of a nerd but let all that knowledge crumble with time. And I hadn’t backed up my computer in three years. Yes, you read that correctly. After buying a new external drive and clinching all of my body for a weekend, I fixed my own computer. LIKE A BOSS. It really wasn’t fixing as much as it was doing a ton of grossly overdue maintenance. At the end of it all, I even downloaded the lastest operating system like a victory lap. 

4. I bought a car. The Accord needed to be replaced last summer. The transmission went belly up after some grossly overdue maintenance never happened (do we see a pattern yet?). At the time I was fuh-freaked out about 10,000 other things and rather than calmly assess the situation, I just panicked and threw THOUSANDS of dollars at the problem. Like a moron. Flash forward to this spring… The transmission wasn’t out yet, but I could tell that it was only a matter of time. Too much shit was hitting the fan this spring for me to do much about the car, I just crossed all my fingers and toes that it would live a litte longer. Liiiiiive, dammit!! And it did. In the last month or so I took two road trips and rather than be risky, I rented cars. I have another road trip planned for Saturday and last week I thought, “Oh, I guess I’ll rent a car again.” Then I died a little on the inside. Then I thought, “I’m just gonna call my bank and get a loan.” So, while waiting for a table at lunch a week ago today, that’s what I did. Two days ago, after much online searching and Twitter whining, I found the one I wanted from the dealership I wanted to support. 

 

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5. I let Rick Bayless make me dinner. If you ever get the chance, I highly recommend you letting Rick Bayless make you dinner, too. Sure, there were 100 other people there and his hands didn’t likely touch every single plate…but damn was that a great meal. I’ve had a lot of great meals, his was definitely in the top 5 “event” meals I’ve had. Specific dishes were so good I don’t want to eat them again if he isn’t making it. Ceviche, I’m looking at you. This was part of a series of tornado relief events in Oklahoma City called OK Chefs’ Relief.

Insane ceviche & plantain chips. #latergram #okchefsrelief

Glory be! #okchefsrelief

Oh, just hanging out with Rick Bayless. Like I do.

 

6. The fourth of July happened. I found ways to occupy myself as I was alone. For the first time in what feels like forever I had no boyfriend (long or short term), no husband, no kids and no family to work into my holiday weekend. I could just go and do and be. It was glorious. I did spend a fair amount of time with friends, but only made my plans last minute. And when I finally said, “Yes, I will come to your cookout,” I first laid down and took a two-hour nap first. Just because I could. In the latter part of the weekend I spent a holy shit ton of time alone, mostly at home. Again, glorious. My honey-do list shrank, my sleep deficit decreased and I got quiet. I wish I could say that I had some sort of epiphany, but really I just piddled around. I never do that. It taught me that I need to do that at least one day a month. Piddle with no real intentions other than baths, books and staring at the ceiling.Somewhere in there I bought a case of peaches and went to Food Swap OKC with mason jars of cobbler.

7. My kids are growing up. Before they left for summer vacation, they put in two weeks at a theater camp. It hurt my heart to see them so very on their acting game. I mostly added this in so I could share the pics. 

Show time!

Now we’re all caught up. Wasn’t that fun? 🙂

We saw Seryn at The Blue Door in Oklahoma City, then in our living room.

A couple of weeks ago one of my friends, Geoff, texted me that Seryn was coming to my favorite venue in Oklahoma, The Blue Door. I’ve wanted to see this band for a year or so and was half-heartedly thinking about a trip to Dallas in June to catch them. But…they were coming to my backyard! Nearly literally! The Blue Door is about 3 miles from my current house (about 1.5 from my new). 

The show was on a Wednesday night, which is a night when I always have my kids. They had been to their first show a couple of weeks ago and these tickets were only $10, so… family outing! The day of the show I took them straight home from school for snacks and disco naps. We were all set. 

Seryn on Band Camp. Feel free to start the music while you read this post. 

Geoff, his wife Holly and two of their kids saved us a seat on the front row. They also saved us cupcakes. 

Cupcakes & Seryn

The show was incredible. I get a little judgey of bands who fill the stage with lots of people as often one or two of those people’s only function seems to be to provide body count and perhaps more cowbell. Not the case here. They keep six musicians on stage who all play something besides their primary instruments. And what a line up of instruments! That night I saw banjo, drum kit, extra tom tom for the lead singer, violin, ukelele, misc percussion, several assorted guitars, electric bass (sometimes played with a bow), two xylophones (one sometimes played with a bow) and a partridge in a pear tree.

Additional elements of the soundscape were provided by Mother Nature. That night a typical, tornado-possible, dramatic spring storm came rumbling through the state. As several of the songs ended in their beautiful, delicate arrangements the music would soften into near silence while the thunder rolled in the distance, seemingly on cue. It was magical.

They had two more members of the band who were production people to help with things like sound and merchandise. Eight total. As the show ended, Holly heard one of the band members mention that they needed a place to stay. She wished they could but their house was in El Reno, 1/2 an hour away. 

Flash to a seemingly unrelated moment earlier in the day when I saw my friend Ann post that she often makes decisions based on the story it would provide to her life. And that she was moving to live on a chicken farm.

Seryn was my chicken farm.

I gave my contact info to Jenny, the only female band member. That seemed the least creepy way to go about it. I am not one so desperate for a story that I’ll hand my name, address, phone number and Instagram handle to a guy. Yet. 

I told Jenny that I had a five bedroom house about three miles away. That we were about half-moved out and that there weren’t enough beds for everyone. She enthusiastically said they mostly needed just a roof and floor. I moved my son’s extra mattress to an empty bedroom and put my daughter into my bed before they arrived. (BTW, it’s been years since I’ve slept with her. What an ENORMOUS bed hog.) Sure enough, about 40 minutes later after I arranged kids into bed, she called to say they were on their way. 

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My front door seemed like the gateway from another realm. Eight hipster humans, all very nice (and most very tall) entered my living room laden with backpacks and pillows then took off their shoes. I really urged them to look at the carpet because that wasn’t necessary, but like I said….they were nice. They thanked me profusely, asked for the showers, asked for directions for fast food and worked out their sleeping arrangements. It turns out that only three of the eight had to sleep on the floor (I think. I didn’t check with my own eyes.) I stayed up late talking with one person or another. I had a long, lovely conversation with Trenton about SXSW, Newport Folk Festival (bucket list for both of us for different reasons) and the Telluride Bluegrass Festival (which both of us loved dearly for the same reasons). And about his Native American culture, lovely wife who is in the restaurant biz and music in general.

After not enough sleep, I got up and got the kids ready for school. We walked softly around the house and tiptoed through the living room. My daughter whispered as she looked at the guys sleeping on the sofas, “This is so weird. But so cool.”

I took them to breakfast at Kitchen No. 324 after promising them that it really was just down the road. I think I clinched it when I explained the “free” part. They marveled at the space (hell, I still marvel at the space) and raved about the food. I was proud and happy to have extended hospitality to a group of talented artists who were also nice people. If you get a chance, check out a tour date. 

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