Ten years in, I’m not sure I could define what it means to dedicate your entire being to the craft of music and to find kinship in a small group of people who share an insane dream and commit beside you to a career riddled with potholes and booby traps and barbed wire...which is equal parts moonlight, velvet, and glitter. Taking this path was the oddest and boldest decision I’ve ever made, and whether tenacity or stubbornness has turned the wheels, each time I’ve been unseen, passed over, objectified, or criticized, the simple act of singing itself has remained the irrefutable force that draws me gently back in, without any effort at all. My relationship with music could have gone a number of other ways, but the home I built in The Blind Spots is sweeter, wilder, and more unpredictable, ridiculous, and ever-evolving than any other one I imagined. It’s a brand of motion that suits me. I’ve worked harder at this than I have at anything else in my life, with no guarantee of success. My family and closest friends have watched me suffer through failures and bouts of debilitating self-doubt—I’ve grown thicker skin by default. I’ve debated often about whether these are things I should share or keep to myself; entertainment is a precious illusion that hardworking people invest in because it lifts them up, and if you know too much about gaff tape and the sludge built up behind curtains, the dream is broken, and I don’t want that for anyone… But I’ve opted, time and time again, for honesty, and I guess this time is no different.
This tour was magical. We’ve started to see things happen out there. We are forever streamlining and learning, and parts have gotten easier. I’m waiting for someone to see it all, and say, “Hey, I could make money off these guys...and the show’s pretty alright too.” [*which is me saying we still need management and booking support, so if you know anyone…] We were blessed by human kindness over and over again, and in spite of the unexpected full brake job at the very top of the tour, the mechanic we found is now a friend [hit me up if you need a guy in Wilmington, NC], and I find myself evaluating the whole run as this fortuitous, peculiar, and altogether alive thing. They wear me out, every time. I come home bruised and dirty and desperately in need of things I still can’t afford: a spa day, maybe, with steam and soaking and massage...some fluffy robe I’ve only ever imagined. But, like Patty Smith said, we are “extravagant bums,” and I prefer a feast-or-famine existence to consistent comfort, because at least after days in roach motels on sticky floors, we sometimes end up cruising the gulf jamming bluegrass on a boat with dear friends, and right in front of us, a dolphin shoots its entire body up out of the water in an exultant C-shape, landing with a joyous splash, and we cheer and shriek, wondering at the stunning timing of everything.
We came home to a house full of bees. Yellow Jackets. I am allergic. Bees in the walls, bees on the window panes, a bee in the folds of our blankets, between the seat and bowl of the toilet, on the screen of the laptop, in my bedside water cup. We probably killed hundreds with our two swatters, and when one stung me on the arm in my sleep at seven a.m., sending me to Urgent Care, we finally called the exterminator. During a week of preparation for this album release and ten-year bandiversary party, the temperatures at night were in the low-to-mid-thirties, and we rehearsed five or six hours a night in our unheated barn. I tucked an icepack inside my winter coat to try to ease the swelling of the bee sting, and the guys called me Popeye. Playing music with dear old friends (former band members from the past ten years) plus some Benadryl and wine helped out (I know), and somehow all the things on the to-do list got checked off: the programs, the cue sheet and itinerary, and the merch price list all written, printed, laminated, and placed; the merchandise and my new white gogo boots arrived in the mail in time; the anniversary sheet cake, plates, napkins forks, keg, pizza all paid for and picked up. We pulled it off, and we greeted the sun the next day still celebrating.
But this is what is hardest to talk about. On Monday night of last week, arriving home that afternoon from an eighteen-hour drive through the night from Brunswick, Georgia to Ithaca, New York, Suave’s maternal grandmother, Anna Sheffer, passed away at Binghamton General Hospital. It was fast—she hadn’t been ill long, and at 98 years old, she still remembered an entire family’s birthdays (spouses, grandkids, great grandkids), anniversaries, dog’s and cat’s names. She understood the jokes and had great stories about California. She noticed I wore scarves and bought me few, and one Christmas she asked me if I’d show her how I liked to wear them; I wrapped it around her delicate neck with the loop hanging loose over her throat, either side draping down her tiny frame, and she was delighted. She taught the neighbor’s daughter to sew, and when she asked if the girl wanted to take her machine back to her house across the street, she said no, she’d rather come over to Anna’s house to sew, even once she didn’t need the help anymore. That makes a lot of sense to me.
We took her to lunch at Cracker Barrel as often as we could, and she’d browse the shop in the front: white lace blouses, yard ornaments with kitschy quotes, old-fashioned jellies and hard candy. People opened doors for Anna everywhere we went with her, which I like to believe is evidence that even at a time that feels like the height of our nation’s ideological divide, there exists a nearly universal goodness that surfaces in people when they’re faced with a creature as tender and benevolent as she was—as if, toward the end, we can’t help but look out for each other. Suave and I cried in the car a little every time we dropped her off.
When I met Anna, it was like I got granted another shot at soaking up the wisdom of a great matriarch, after all of mine had passed. And as lonely as it sounds to reach the age of 98, having lost most of the people she had known as a younger woman, including her husband, her friends, and all of her younger siblings, she remained joyful—her blue eyes lit up all the time. She was one of the kindest, most impressive, and selfless women I have ever known. What a gift.
The church service and burial were scheduled for the morning of our show at the theater. When we first booked the show, I had a vision of her sitting in the top row beside Suave’s mom and dad… We set the alarm and drove to Binghamton to greet his wonderful family at the doors of St. Francis of Assisi. The Catholic service was proper, as she would have wanted it, and the burial at the cemetery was fast due to freezing rain, unsuitable shoes, and umbrellas upturned with the ribs poking out from the wind. It isn’t unfair or traumatic, it’s just sad. I’ll miss her so much.
And then the show. Talk about a day of extreme lows to extreme highs. (I’m reminded of June 8, 2010: Suave and I closed on our house, and later that night a vet came to the yard to put down my dying dog, Obleo, and we buried him under a weeping cherry tree. Maybe life gives me both when I can barely handle one.)
I don’t know what more to say about the night and that room full of people, other than that I worked my way with love and sweat through every mile that brought me to that stage, with all those dear friends from different eras of the band, and I’m so grateful to each person who has drawn the music from me and demanded—both passively and dynamically—that I keep going. It was...FUN. It was a lot more than that, but how much can I gush? It’s annoying how honored I feel, how full I feel; crazy how risky it’s all been and how much it’s all been worth it.
To Suave and to Khris, with whom I started this thing a decade ago, thank you for finding me, for continuing to show up, for not allowing me to stay down or discouraged too long, for entertaining and helping me bring to fruition my most ambitious ideas, for bringing yours to the table and rounding it all out, for showing me a different—maybe more dysfunctional but equally valuable!—version of family, for rolling with changes and recovering with me again and again, for turning inward when the outside looks like a sham. It’s all real. We did it.
Thank you to Zach and Aaron and to all of the past members and fill-ins with whom I have made music for sharing your talent and time and laughter. Huge thanks also to the crew and promoters who have helped make these shows not only possible but excellent over the years: John Ryan and Dan Smalls and each of your amazing respective teams. Let us all keep growing together.
I’m going to be quiet for a minute. I miss my family and my best girlfriends and my woodstove and the big rock out by the pond. Fall is the season for windows and color falling down. I’ll be humming through my smile. Drop me a line anytime. I hope you love the new record. I do. Happy Halloween, and DON’T FORGET TO VOTE.
I love you, Blind Spots. “How did I get here? Thank god I got here.”
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