Long May You Ride...

Where has the time gone? It's hanging out with my old bike in front of the Bloor. st cinema. The back tire flat, the front break busted & its rusted, tired surface once gleaming with pride now only a reflection of the long road behind it. This bike was more then a sweet ride. It was a gift at a time of immense change & loss. Leaving it at the side of the road was like tearing a teddy bear from the arms of a 5 year old whose parents just got divorced. You'd think there was an imaginary string section playing some weepy song as I stood there for 15 minutes with my arm outstretched. Sigh. Where has the time gone? It's stumbling through the streets of La Rochelle singing 'les poison, les poison!' Or sitting on top of a hill in Segovia on a rainy night, getting soaked with a bottle of cheap champagne. It's standing on stage with the wind blowing the streamers from her wrists & ankles & our three voices making music in the heart of Salmon Arm. It's making its way from Parkdale to St. Clair west at 5 in the morning, 30 degrees & the birds chirping 'it's way past your bedtime!' Time, time, time.. it's hiding in the canoe we took to the little island up at foxwood. We spread out a blanket & with our books & a bottle of wine, enjoyed the sweet silence that one year of marriage has earned us. & a particular moment in time… stomping my foot on that Massey Hall stage in my lovely red dress & Luke by my side. I apologize for the overly nostalgic tone of this journal. I always get this way this time of year. Happy fall my friends.

Where do I begin. Lets go backwards, just for fun. Here I am in my living room, rice on the stove, big momma thornton wailing hound dog on the stereo, michael our old italian neighbor working on his vegetable garden in the backyard. I have a pile of laundry as tall as the CN tower, but our house is clean & smells like fresh flowers. It's nice to be home. Rewind two days & I've realized that I've mastered the art of sleeping on a plane. Really sleeping. Not noticing the take off or the landing & completely missing out on those crappy handout factory scraps they try to pass off as snacks. The night before, I stood on a stage in Burnaby in front of 6000 David Gray fans, turned around & snapped a picture of my dorky grinning face, trying to capture the moment. For days before that I bounced around from place to place playing for summer tourists & anybody willing to listen. I got to play rockstar for a day singing backups for Sarah Mclachlan at the Starbucks mansion in the Hamptons. The event was to raise money for the Jane Goodall Institute & I was lucky enough to hear this brilliant, compassionate & inspiring woman speak. I spent some downtime in Vancouver celebrating pride, hanging out with my wonderful little stepdaughter & managers (whose professional title seems silly when considering friendship) & writing music. new songs are starting to find their way to my fingertips & vocal chords.. always a good feeling. Now comes the meat of my journey.. the big hunk of tofurky shoved in between now & then (wow my metaphors need work). The route 66, from Chicago to LA in 9 days with some talented friends, a van, a fancy pants camera, my guitar & of course a few pretty dresses. There were many purposes served on this trip. A music video for Passenger 24, documentary footage of the historical route & its keepers, live performances & new songs. what stands out to me though.. names for slippery body parts in 110 heat (eg. tit falls, crack creek), individual pickles in plastic sacks sold in gas stations, laughing fits at 1am, coffee that tastes like hamburgers, ostriches pecking at my hand, eating ants for lunch, muppets at 6am, homemade moonshine in a mason jar, a hillbilly biting my thigh & the list goes on. Full tales of our adventures will be revealed over the coming months. And now we end up at the beginning. Standing at the edge of a lake with the reverand NQ Arbuckle, family, friends & my brand spankin' new husband! I wont go into details cause then it would just sound like a wedding & it was really so much more. The coming months I'll find myself sticking close to home before I completely uproot myself to Nashville. This is just a temporary American fling though. Canada is home & I realize this more & more each time I arrive back on my doorstep. sigh.. home.