My goodness, it’s been a busy week. I was hoping to have more time/internet connection to blog while in USVI, but the circumstances were not quite there!
It was an amazing experience, both personally and as co-director of our little band. Hank and I learned a lot, very quickly, about how the islands work and what we need to do for our next tour down there (yes, there’s already tour #2 in the works!) to make sure we all come back with a healthy bank balance, as well as the great stories we have (and inevitable in-jokes to annoy everyone else with). Most of all though, I have incredible gratitude for the people we met on St. Thomas and St. John, who were strangers for only a few moments before they extended their hand and helped us in ways we couldn’t have imagined. We were so protected and supported and for that, we are incredibly appreciative.
I’m going to start compiling a few blogs with more detail about the tour, complete with photos (most of which I will steal from our merchandise maven, Julie, as I was usually too busy, too tired or too lazy to take a lot) of us performing and enjoying a few moments of relaxation.
Now I’m back in chilly New York, temping in a financial office less than 24 hours after leaving the warmth of the Caribbean. After catching up on lost sleep, I’m going to be energized to do even more amazing things this year. This won’t be the last awesome trip I take in 2011!
Well, it’s been a busy couple of days since we arrived in St. Thomas. After being delayed an hour on takeoff in New York so they could de-ice the plane, we landed in 80-degree weather on a tropical island in the Caribbean to discover that the rum is cheap, the sea is warm and taxis are really expensive.
We’ve played our first of four gigs, which had its share of technical difficulties (monitoring system was literally all plugged in backwards) but once we got it all sorted, the gig rocked and they all loved us! We sold some merch, which was super helpful for our budget, and we’re now frantically packing up to head over to St. John (the island across the way) for tonight’s gig.
The only downside so far has been the plethora of mosquito bites I have received. I’m a bit of a magnet for them, as well as being allergic, so my legs currently look like an angry, red map of the world. Hello, hydrocortisone cream.
Tomorrow I am leaving New York for a week of sunshine, music and (hopefully) blue drinks with umbrellas. I have been so looking forward to Coyote Love’s tour and I can’t believe it’s finally here.
Since Sunday, though, this excitement has been tempered somewhat. I’m still looking forward to it immensely, but having had tough news about three friends in the last three days has really rocked me and I’m left trying to find my balance. These friends of mine are each, separately, going through hell and it feels difficult to say ‘yay, beaches’ because my heart is broken for them all. I remain determined to be positive and support them, but I was left feeling rather helpless in the moment. Times like these, you wish you had magical healing abilities or super-awesome injustice-fighting powers, but I don’t. I just have me. The last few days, that hasn’t felt like enough.
Tomorrow is a new day.
We had our final band practice last night before the tour, where I got to be my favourite person – bossy in-charge Rachel – and hand out itineraries to everyone as well as a list of things to remember. I drew the line at ‘toothbrush’, but instead tried to just stick to band-related things to remember, like instruments and spare strings.
I’m getting genuinely excited now. This tour has been a brainchild of mine and Hank’s for over a year, and the impending reality of it has not really sunk in yet. I have never been to the Caribbean, or any kind of tropical island before, so the lack of a frame of reference for where I’m going to be probably adds to the exciting unreality of the whole thing. I have a feeling I will learn to adjust pretty quickly, though. Today’s summer-like temperatures help to get me in the right mood.
Bring on the blue drinks with umbrellas!
It’s sunny and warm in New York today, and the birds are tweeting outside my (open) window as I write this. I strolled down to the supermarket this morning to pick up a few things for my lunch, and it was so GLORIOUS I could have skipped and sung a little tune.
Spring is such a wonderful time, but I think you can appreciate it best after a long, cold, dark winter. If we hadn’t had such ridiculous snowstorms, cold weather and dark days over the last four months, I doubt I would have been so deliriously happy at the sight of a warm spring day today. I’m definitely a product of my upbringing in a northern European country, where the winters were dark and cold (alright, not quite as cold as NY gets, but still pretty chilly and damp) and the arrival of spring was something to get really excited about. As much as tropical climes and permanent sunshine sound exciting in February, I don’t think I could ever permanently live somewhere that didn’t have winter. I love the cold and dark just as much as I love days like today – and their contrasts are what make them so wonderful. I’m eagerly awaiting the arrival of spring fruits and vegetables at the farmer’s market, and that glorious day in early summer when the tomatoes start appearing. Succulent, fresh, local tomatoes. The ones you buy in March taste dreadful, because they have been frozen and shipped from somewhere far-flung. Nothing beats the taste of a tomato grown nearby, plucked off the vine and taken straight to market. You’ll never want to eat a tasteless, pale, Mexico-grown one again. Unless you live in Mexico, in which case they probably taste delicious all year round.
