Almanac

Digging Into the Depths of Gratitude

Posted on by aidan.christine

It’s been a long time since I have posted here. Weird. I’ve been writing. I’ve been writing a lot. Usually just for me, sometimes to share with an audience. A couple of years ago I shared a talk on gratitude. It was popular, I gave this talk a dozen times. But then I retired it. I get bored with myself easily and I was way beyond bored with this. But rather than delete it forever, maybe parking it here would be worthwhile.

A couple of years ago I joined a group who shared our daily gratitude. At that difficult time it seemed like a good idea to be reminded of how much we had to be grateful for. These friends continue to share their thanks often for fundamental things – their health, family, friends, perhaps that they have a roof over their head and food on their table.

There is good science that supports a daily practice of gratitude; strong evidence that a practice of daily gratitude increases your happiness, improves your quality of sleep, even lowers blood pressure. Measurable results. So yes, be grateful I love my friends, but honestly, somedays their gratitude seems so small.

They’re grateful for coffee. Aren’t we all, but is that that the best we can do? The sunset. Gorgeous, yes be grateful for it. That is certainly part of the point of a gratitude practice, to remember some small bright light at the end of a dark day. But rather than reach for the obvious couldn’t we, sometimes, dig deeper? Isn’t that also the point? Especially when our days are not so dark Brene Brown has said “What separates privilege from entitlement is gratitude.” But I think that gratitude is deeper than simple appreciation. So let’ us’ dig in a little deeper to how our gratitude intersects and interconnects.

Health is always on someone’s list. So much of our overall life satisfaction relies on even the slightest improvement to our health. Absolutely, appreciate your health. And then what? In part, maybe being grateful for health is also being grateful for the decent insurance coverage that your job provides. Dig deeper and you might be grateful that your parents could adequately nourish you as a child so you didn’t develop life long maladies. Keep digging and find gratitude for who your parents’ parents were, what they looked like, where they came from that allowed them to pass on the ability to feed the kids. Keep digging. If you look like me odds are that you grew up where the air was a lot cleaner than the neighborhoods where our black and brown friends lived. Be grateful.

Many of us are grateful for family… people who love you even when they don’t like you… the continuity, connection of that love. Be grateful, and then what? Dig deeper, to see that perhaps your family wasn’t torn apart when one parent had to leave to find work. I wasn’t sent away for safety, were you? Generations of my family weren’t intentionally separated to stop the spread of language, culture, and history that binds us together. Be grateful.

We are grateful for the roof over our heads and the food in our bellies. But let us acknowledge that the roof covers air conditioned space and the food in my belly is way beyond sustenance, it’s usually delicious and comforting. There is nothing at all wrong with that. Don’t feel guilty about that. I am grateful for the comfort and excess I have and I am grateful for any you have because I like you and I want you to be happy. Be grateful. And then what? I dig a little deeper see that my success is a product of my education and I am thankful that I grew up in a household where the luxury of an education was a reality. My dad, didn’t finish high school, he didn’t even start it. He went to work. Eventually he joined the army, then got a job, went to college. So I grew up fairly comfortably. Be grateful for your parents but, don’t stop there, dig deeper.

I know that the GI bill which helped my dad was not given out fairly. He got a boost that men of color did not. My roof and the food in my pantry are a direct result of that. I am grateful. So when it comes down to it, some of my friends and I, and maybe some of you, are grateful for generations of advantages We are who we are. We have what we have. Please be grateful. But then what? To begin with, please be happy, it’s a benefit of gratitude. Get a better night’s sleep courtesy of your gratitude. Your blood pressure is lower because of your gratitude. And then what?

I find it interesting that two men who were ideological opposites came up with these very similar sentences: Leo Tolstoy wrote “I sit on a man’s back choking him and making him carry me, and yet assure myself and others that I am sorry for him and wish to lighten his load by all means possible… except by getting off his back” Decades later, Dwight Eisenhower said “A people that values its privileges above its principles soon loses both.”

Please know that guilt has no place in gratitude. You have what you have. Be grateful. You should not have less. Should you? I don’t know. There are a few areas in which I should have less. But that’s me. Personally. We all should embrace what we need to feel fulfilled, safe, happy, secure, valued. It isn’t one size fits all. But too often, in the way our world is organized, the fulfillment of some comes at the expense of others. Does it have to be that way? I hope we actively look for the line between gratitude and greed, need and want, us and them.

Too often we are led to believe that we need to be on top, better than. And here is where real gratitude pays off. Material gain gets you some happiness and well-being. To a point. We get used to things being rewarding & pleasurable – take the good for granted It takes more and more to get us there. Conscious gratitude helps balance that. True gratitude is rooted in humility. In a survey of olympic medalists, bronze medalists were happier than silver medalists. What? Yes, really The bronze winners were grateful because they almost didn’t get a medal. Silver medalists had a measure of disappointment for not getting gold. Standing at the cusp of the haves and have nots, the bronze medalist is much more aware of all the athletes in their interconnected web. They see just how lucky they are. Luck, privilege, mystery of the universe – we simply did not earn all that we have and our gratitude should acknowledge that.

When we combine our gratitude with humility we find that our health is a little dependent on our behavior and a lot on the luck in our stars. Doesn’t every kid deserve nutritious food? Doesn’t every kid deserve lead-free water out of the tap at home? Doesn’t every kid deserve to breathe clean air? But we know that poor kids live in food deserts. We know that lead pipes don’t get replaced in all neighborhoods, and that statistically people of color more likely to live near polluting industries. Those problems are huge and the solutions are complex. But we can at least dig in and acknowledge the inequity of the system that gives some of us so much to be grateful for.

We dive into the deep end of our gratitude for family and see that we were allowed to maintain connections through generations. No one erased our heritage. These issues run deep, but we can acknowledge their continuing effects. We can do that while being grateful. We take a harder look at gratitude for a home and see that it is easier for some us to get a mortgage because we look like the bankers. Institutional change is a long road. But we can recognize that the overarching economy is built on a foundation of inequity. We can do that while being grateful, in fact maybe we can do it more clearly because we are grateful. When we can see those places where our privilege actively bumps up against someone else’s oppression we can see an opportunity for change. But I think we have to look.

JFK said “As we express our gratitude, we must never forget that the highest appreciation is not to utter words, but to live by them.” How do we do that? I can’t answer that for you. I can’t fully answer it for myself. I do know that there is no shortage of health or food or shelter or education or happiness. There is enough. We don’t need to horde those things nor do we need to sacrifice the things that truly make us feel safe and happy. Some day soon I want us to be grateful that we helped the next generation, all of the next generation, feel gratitude for their health, their family, a roof over their head and food on their table. I want us to be grateful that we helped the next generation all of the next generation, have the luxury of being grateful for coffee & a sunset.

Can we get there? Yes. Emphatically unquestioningly yes. Do I know how? No. But I am certain it starts with being humbly grateful and digging a little deeper.

Happy Easter. Chocolate Bunny, yes. Peeps, no.

Posted on by aidan.christine

As easter approaches I feel the need to remind you that peeps ™ are not food.

The ubiquitous marshmallow critters were a part of my spring tradition for decades. I don’t like marshmallows, and yet, each year I found myself putting one small sleeve of little yellow chicks into the easter basket. For a brief period I thought of myself as a kitchy version of Martha Stewart and baked cupcakes topped with frosting and a toasted coconut nest with a brooding peep upon her jelly bean eggs. There were years I would walk a mile to visit choclatier Jacques Torres. I would purchase hand crafted chocolate wonders and place them next to the yellow, sugar-covered, industrial lab created treats. More recently, I nestled the peeps in with organic jelly beans and organic gummy bunnies and fair trade organic chocolate bunnies.

On the left are peepcakes circa 2015. Peep Gothic and Peep Camp are awesome but, sadly, not mine.

I understand that they are not a healthy treat. But sugar, corn syrup, gelatin and less than ½ of a percent of color, preservative, and carnuba wax? come on. Two little birds. Once year. By the way, yellow birds. Bunnies are not peeps. Bunnies do not peep. Pink and blue chicks? Really? No, anything other than yellow chicks is just wrong. But I digress. Two birds. Once a year.

And then we moved to Greenville. We lived in a little house just at the edge of downtown where children from the neighborhood would walk by on their way to school. Some one dropped a peep. Technically they dropped a purple, bunny shaped thing sold under the peep brand, not a yellow bird, so you know…

It was at the edge of the side walk directly in front of our house. Perky eared, smiley bunny. No ants approached the peep. Interesting. In the warm spring evenings cockroaches could be found on the sidewalks. They did not appear to eat the peep. Surprising. The parade of dogs, practically a westminster dog show of mixed breed with mixed success, who walked their owners each day did not eat the peep. Sunshine did not fade the peep. Light rain did not run the color of the peep. Perky eared, smiley bunny remained for well over a month before we swept him away with organic debris.

That was the last time I ate a peep. Mystery of culinary science: peeps are not food.

A Source of Hope for the New Year

Posted on by aidan.christine

Happy New Year. Many of us are approaching this one with some caution. Full of joy that the last one has passed, but struggling to find optimism in this one. I hope these two stories, one from December and one from yesterday, will help.

A bit more than a year ago several oak trees came down in a storm. I was heartbroken to lose those beautiful forest elders. Aidan cut great lengths and slabbed them into lumber that we hope to use in the future. We’ll create shelves and tables that will help us remember and honor what was. We cut up the rest into movable sizes, knowing it was way too much firewood for our needs. Unlike any other winter in recent history, we are home. Everyday. We need more firewood than we could have predicted. We were thankful as we cut and split the wood in November. But there was still so much. December was colder than usual and we asked a neighbor if she knew anyone in need. She did. Five members of her church showed up and loaded four trucks of wood for folks who don’t have money for heating fuel this winter. They will probably be back for more this month. We didn’t know what would be needed. We couldn’t see why the trees had sacrificed themselves. But they knew, and they did what needed to be done. For us. I hope that we do what needs to be done, for each other, and for the trees.

Yesterday a tufted titmouse flew into our window. Hard. I was sitting just a few feet away and the sound stunned me. The bird did what I can only describe as a few seconds of incredible break-dancing and then lay on its side on the porch. A dove had been sitting on the railing. She flew down to the porch a few feet from the titmouse and sat motionless. Minutes ticked on. I couldn’t look away, trying to will the one bird to fly while wondering what the other was doing there. At the ten minute mark I was sure he was a goner. But then he lifted his head a bit. The dove flew off. It took another minute for the titmouse to right it self and then a grueling (for me) twenty or so before it finally flew. I don’t know anything about bird behavior, but all of my hopes for this new year ride on the narrow shoulders of that dove. Did she offer comfort? protection? I say yes.

Happy New Year. If we listen to the true voice within us we will be okay. It is in our nature to help each other move forward.

Be Careful When You Clean Your Office

Posted on by aidan.christine

Sub titled: What I learned in the song circle.

I’ve been cleaning my office. On the surface it already appears tidy. I have a small table that serves as a desk. No drawers, no where to hide anything, so that helps. I have some papers in folders. Behind a curtain there is one drawer, one basket and three shelves. How bad could it get? And so I never feel like I need to deal with it. I moved into this office four years ago. It has never been organized, de-cluttered, sorted. Never.

I dove into what should be an hour-long task. Have you done this? Why didn’t anyone warn me? Each folder, each pile was a geologic era to be studied. After a short while I decided that this egozoic era was not worth study. I piled paper into two stacks. One can be re-used, writing on the back, the other recycled. Done.

But before that moment of revelation, I found pages from various song writing circles. Our typed song lyrics which had been handed out to a circle of listeners. Fellow writers had critiqued our first, or second drafts and offered thoughtful comments. Often I had highlighted those comments which were the most useful and helpful in rewriting and crafting the songs. They fell into just a few categories.

Overwhelmingly the most frequent and most useful was a simple line through a word. Redundant, excessive, superfluous, extra. I’m a word hog. After years of seeing this same edit, I continue to hoard words in my first drafts, but I have learned to self edit by the second edition. The second most frequent was a mixing of tenses. Verbs morphed from past to present to future. Occasionally I forced a rhyme and slightly more frequently forced a rhythm, choosing a word simply because it fit the meter. Finally, from time to time, I was lazy with my word choice. It was interesting to see the evidence across a half-dozen year time line. I committed them to the scrap-paper heap and moved on. But they lingered in my mind, which refuses to be organized or de-cluttered.

Our habits are telling. I’m convinced that they spill over into many aspects of our being. Extra words. Why? To fill the space. No doubt that is the reason for me. A word on every beat, because otherwise there is silence. I’m a writer, an absence of words is an absence of me. But it is not. The work is a combination of the sounds and the silence. I know that. I know both have power, more together. But apparently I needed reminding. A lot of reminding. My recent work shows that I recognized this and have become capable of self-editing that vice. In songwriting. What about the other aspects of my life? Where else am I excessive, what am I hoarding? Where else do I fear being erased?

Which brings us to tenses. Past. Present. Future. Do I co-mingle those outside a song? Forget that the past is done and try to drag it into the present? Do I obsess about the future while the present slips by? A quick scan of a page shows me if I’ve done that lyrically. But I don’t have a behavioral critique circle. Oh. Yes. I definitely do. Perhaps they could write out polite suggestions that I could read later. It worked for songwriting.

Forcing rhyme and rhythm. Choosing an easy word. Those are both symptoms. They are some combination of laziness and conformity. I don’t like that description. I don’t want to be lazy or settled into a conforming to a routine. But clearly I do want those things sometimes. Often enough to form a pattern of criticism. Comfort zone is aptly named. Of course there is nothing wrong with seeking comfort in familiar things. Until it becomes defining and confining, an excuse for not taking a risk or making the effort. And there it is again, art imitating life.

Hopefully when I check in with myself in the next decade I will have learned to self-edit some of these bad habits. What part of me will be turned over and re-used and what will end up in the rubbish bin?

Hope Is Not Just That Thing With Feathers

Posted on by aidan.christine

If you are like me you hear the words “hope is” and immediately your brain fills in the rest:

Hope is the thing with feathers
That perches in your soul
And sings the tune without the words
And never stops at all

But hope isn’t that. Not always. It isn’t etheral. It isn’t some mysterious constant. It isn’t even optimistic.

Hope is trial and error
Sweat and deep concentration
A knowing that better things lie ahead
Despite the current frustration

I’m no Emily Dickinson. But my version is truer for me, although less beautiful. Hope doesn’t just come. We call it into being, create it, nurture it, work at it. And thank goodness hope isn’t just the thing with feathers because my wings have been clipped. We can’t travel, our shows have been cancelled months ahead. So I hope.

I hope that in this strange period of tumultous quiet we discover the things that really matter to us and what we can let go of. I hope that we learn we can do with less. I hope that our pace slows a bit so we can experience each moment. I hope that my beloved local shops and retaurants have survived, that the small bookstore still thrives, that good coffee and good cheese are still being made by hand. I hope we deeply miss our friends and are reminded how important they are. I hope we recognize that there are a lot of people out there who are friends we haven’t me yet and we value them as well. I hope, that on the other end of this, the habit of listening to music together in a room hasn’t been supplanted by some lesser substitute.

By hope, I mean that I have a knowing that these things will be true if I try, if I work hard enough to sweat and challenge my thinking. My energy will change the trajectory. Here’s what that looks like.

When we begin to leave the house again, I will support small business over larger ones even if it means less choices and more dollars. That is the right choice and the right choice isn’t always the easiest choice. I will make that a habit, and when the wider world opens up I won’t break that habit. When the small town I am in is your town, not mine, you will have to guide me so be ready to recommend coffee shops, bookstores, and more.

I will commit to seasonal eating where possible to sustain a local food supply and yes that means I don’t get everything I want when I want it. Of course I won’t suspend my joy, there will be indulgences, but they will be savored. And I am sure there will be new joyful indulgences discovered in this process. I’ll get by with less, won’t be wasteful, so that I have more to give and more to put away for a small emergency.

I will campaign for people, support issues more than ever. Because we can’t do this alone, we have to work together to make our changes more permanent. I will be paying attention to the details, the systematic steps that are taken by our communities and lawmakers. We have witnessed how vulnerable our policies make our people and we cannot willingly allow that to go on.

And when the wider world opens again, I will gasp in its splendor, every mile of it. We’ll hit the road and sing with more heartfelt emotion than we knew possible. We will relish telling our stories and hearing yours. But it can’t go back to business as what was once usual. My community of artists, writers, and musicians suffered. Hard. We need a better model. I am going to hope for that. And Hope is not just a thing with feathers.

Theoretical Asparagus

Posted on by aidan.christine

Four years ago when we were building our house I planted asparagus. The plumbing wasn’t in yet. The electric wasn’t in yet. But I convinced Aidan that the most important thing for us to do was to build two contained beds in which to plant asparagus.

I’d never planted asparagus before. The first year, asparagus tips emerge and the enthusiastic gardener must summon all of their strength to leave them be. No harvesting in year one. Strength must go ointo the root system. Year two, allows for 25% of the yield to be harvest, year three 50% and finally, eating at will. I stood on the muddy hill in front of the shell of a house and imagined myself eating asparagus straight out of the garden one day. Today I’m eating asparagus.

That first planting was a commitment to staying in this one place for at least four years. I’d never made that commitment before. I was commiting not only to a house, but to this small street. Which meant I had to decide to get to know my neighbors. This had always been an easy thing, but now it was a more difficult commitment. When I get home from six weeks on the road I don’t want to see anyone. Ever again. Usually by the time that feeling passes we are loading the car again. But now, we would arrive home, and check in, ask after, engage in social conversation. Four years in I can report that that phrase “by the time that feeling passes” is self-fulfilling mythology. The longer one waits to re-engage in community, the longer it takes for that feeling to pass. A couple days of self-care before diving back in is really much easier in the long run.

Planting asparagus also meant commiting to my town. It meant having a beer at the local brewery, eating at the local cafe, and buying a book from the local book shop. Those things are completely and totally enjoyable, but I had always let them happen. Or not. Often a couple of weeks would go by before I supported my community. I have great excuses for letting that happen. Town isn’t really nearby, its a fifteen minute drive. That’s real time and fossil fuel I save by staying home. And dollars, hard earned folk musician dollars, are saved by eating and drinking at home. But the asparagus had been planted, the commitment made. So off to town we went. By design.

We sought out people and places that we liked and cared about, we participated, good grief we even joined a civic group and we show up at meetings once in a while. We decided that there was tangible value to be a part of this community. And so we budgeted in the time and resources, with intent. Fours years in I can report that the value of my community outweighs the dollars, and in fact it really didn’t cost more dollars.

Maybe you aren’t a gardener. Maybe you don’t have space for asparagus. Maybe (gasp) you don’t even like asparagus. But you should plant some, theoretically. Stand on your muddy hillside and imagine what it could be in four years. Commit to it without immediate reward. Decide that it matters.

Kinetic Connection

Posted on by aidan.christine

I love live music. Much more than recordings. I like the moving parts coming together; sound and light and motion in real time with all of its frailties and imperfections and the improbability of everything being absolutely right at the same moment. So I guess it follows that I would like live art. Theater, readings, and art. We have a fondness for kinetic sculpture, and it seems to have a fondness for us.

A few years ago while in France I learned of an automaton museum and was determined to find it though I had only a vague idea of where it was. Turns out the information was vague because the museum had closed due to a fire. But we found it, though getting directions in French to a non-existent place is no easy feat. After some convincing Aidan got us an invitation from the museum’s creator to enter an be given a personal private tour by the artist who created every part of the wind-up scenes. That is a long and fantastic story for another time.

Closer to home went to see an outdoor installation of whirlygigs by Vollis Simpson in North Carlolina. Vollis is now known as a folk artist, but when he made these things he was a retired house mover. The park displaying his work was just being set up and there were a few large pieces on display. But the grounds keeper alerted us the the garage where the pieces were being cleaned and restored. We found ourselves in the company of a folklorist turned preservationist and got a personal, private tour.

You might recognize those things, “mechanical creations by a strange Frenchman” and “whirligigs made from recycled signs”. We adored those things and their creators so much that we wrote a song to honor them. Whenever we play it folks share their favorite local places, artists, creations, and oddities. And off we go to see what’s out there. At our Glasgow concert we learned of Sharmanka, a collection of kinetic sculpture. The next morning we headed straight there.

It was closed. Of course it was. They would be open for a demonstration later in the day, but we had to hit the road. We stood at the door. Visibly disappointed, reading the brochure, watching a short video on a loop. Someone came to the door, rang the service bell. A deliveryman we presumed. But no, it was a friend of the curator. For the third time the improbability of everything being absolutely right at the same moment brought us inside the closed studio for a private look around. It was stunning. A wood carver combined amazing sculpture with industrial gear to create a complex moving scene. That would have been good enough, but each piece was set to music with a simple but dramatic light show. Each piece was a performance.

My life is better for having seen each of these things and having met people with a passion for creating or preserving them. I can’t articulate how but I know it is true. The things that would make your life inexplicably better are out there. Go see them. Go experience them. Go create them.

The (deep, dark) secret life of a folk singer

Posted on by aidan.christine

The (deep, dark) secret life of a folk singer
originally posted Sunday, March 31, 2019
Here, and in my monthly newsletter, I like to share little snippets of our music-making, traveling life. You all seem to enjoy a glimpse of what its like on tour when we are not actually performing… the places we visit, the people we meet. Even the home life looks different when you’ve been gone for two months, so that is also a good place to mine secrets to share. I try to focus on the good stuff and the funny stuff in part because it is who I am, and in part because I want to bring good, funny, stuff into your lives. I don’t share the dark matter. It feels so much like complaining and I have nothing to complain about. Our lives are rich with friends, deep in support, and filled with joy we have done little to earn.
But if I never talk about it, who will? So here goes: Health Insurance. Something has to change. Soon. I promise I will not takes sides, politicize, or tell you what to think. But I hope you will read through this in its entirety to vicariously experience the current health insurance market for self-employed persons. I am going to share too much personal financial and health information. That makes me uncomfortable. But we need to talk about this. We need to talk in real terms. I keep reading commentary about hypothetical people – faceless, nameless, statistical amalgamations of people whose theoretical lives are nothing like mine. We are real human beings working for a living and literally becoming afraid for our lives.
We had a good year. We made money. Tours were successful. Merchandise was sold. All the little music-related things we do on the side happened. A lot of luck and a lot of kindness were sent our way. We are middle class Americans. Yay! Confetti should be falling from the sky. That’s the goal right? That’s not only the dream but also the expectation of working people contributing to the community/state/nation. But before you do your happy dance for us, please keep reading. (Actually, I will not stand in the way of a happy dance. We are happy. Dance away and then continue).
Last year the United States considered an annual income of $16,460 to be the upper limit of poverty for a family of two people. In order to qualify for the sliding scale of health insurance tax credit one must earn less than 400% of the poverty line. $65,840. That is pre-tax income, before any personal deductions. Seems fair to me. We did that. We did that writing and playing music. Cue confetti. So we purchase our own health insurance. Our annual health insurance premium is $20,938. Really. Yes, really. Did you see all that confetti get sucked into a black hole? Approximately 30% of our pre-tax, pre-personal deduction income goes to insurance. We pay federal and state income taxes as well as social security after that. Could you live on what’s left?
A little background might be in order. In our state there is one company that offers individual medical insurance. One. At a glance it looks like there are others, but they are only for groups, individuals who get a federal subsidy credit, or for things like medicare supplements or very short term policies. So we went to the one company. They have a variety of plans and we do not have the cheapest one. Ours offers a no-copay annual exam, some preventive coverage, and has a deductible less than $1000. The cheapest plan would have cost us about $17,000 but would have had a $14,000 deductible and higher co-pays. We could have chosen that and saved some cash, but it did not a good financial risk for the savings.
We could have gone with out insurance. If you have had any medical servicees please take a look at your explanation of benefits and observe their cost. Not the amount you or your insurer paid, but the actual cost of service. For example, in our area a scheduled, non-emergency MRI costs $1911 plus the cost of the doctor who recommends it and the doctor that reads it. It adds up fast, and that’s just little diagnostic stuff, not an actual injury. Despite the fact that I have never been hospitalized or seriously ill, that I take no prescription medications, that I have never used my insurance for anything other than wellness and preventive care, I chose the responsible thing. I don’t have the right to share the other half’s medical history, but he is very healthy. Still, we decided not to risk financial ruin over a health issue. I can’t say how long we will be able to make that decision.
Just a bit more background. According to the South Carolina Department of Insurance in 2017 our insurer collected $2,254,056,331 in annual premiums. They covered 499,520 people. Their market share in health coverage is 68%. These numbers include medicare supplement plans, short-term plans, etc. Trust me, they are the only writer of individual comprehensive medical coverage here. I include these numbers because with such a large amount of premium coming from our state, we the people of South Carolina and our representatives should have a lot of influence on the company. Over 2 billion dollars a year paid to this company should buy us some consideration. Ironically, the opposite is true.
Stay with me. That’s the end of the numbers. What I want to share is this: we followed the rules. We behaved responsibly. Before venturing out as full time musicians we lived a very small, frugal life. We paid off all of our debts. We put away a small nest egg so that we might retire someday. We put aside enough to cover our deductibles and emergencies. We pay our premiums. We will continue to do so. We can live on what is left. It isn’t easy, but we can do it and be happy doing it. Really, this is happy dance time for us. For now. It is easier for us because we love our work, we are healthy, and because we have you out there cheering us on and feeding us and letting us do laundry. I cannot imagine how the average self-employed working family can cope. And it looks like it might get worse.
Please share this if you feel it will help start a meaning full conversation. Link to this blog or paste into wherever you paste things. Please feel free to use my name, tag me on social media. Please don’t shout at each other. We need to talk about this. I believe it starts with sharing our honest numbers, our real, personal stories. So I’ve shared my story. What’s yours? We need to talk about who we are as a nation and who we want to be going forward.

We Survived Snowmageddon

Posted on by aidan.christine

We Survived Snowmageddon
originally posted December 13, 2018
We survived, but are irrevocably changed.
I know that some reading this are from the north, the mid-west or higher altitudes. Have a good laugh at our 6” of snow that will be gone in a few days. But our weather can be a challenge. We often have rain mixed in with our snow so there may be layers of ice. And our road will never be plowed.
Storm prep here is a little different. We don’t stock up on milk, bread and eggs. Although I did bake some bread. We fill jugs with water because we have a well and if the power goes out there is no water. We grind coffee in case the power goes out. We load firewood onto the porch where it will stay dry and in easy reach. We bring wine upstairs and birdseed too. We harvest anything we don’t think will survive, charge our phones, and make a list of things to do while stranded.
We ( actually just one of we) made some rookie mistakes.
My boots are in the basement. The basement is only accessible by going outside and around the house. We should have put some of the water into the refrigerator to help maintain the temperature in there. Though I enjoy cooking on the wood stove, prep by candle light is not fun. We had rain, frozen rain and finally snow – none of my winter greens will survive that. My list of things to do included too many that require electricity.
That last item was disappointing. I thought it would be great to really, really clean the house. No power means no vacuuming, no running water. I dusted and swept thoroughly but it was not satisfying. I thought we could learn some songs, but without power we couldn’t listen to CDs. The sad list goes on. We have books, and scrabble, and instruments. When the threat of falling branches seems clear we can wander in the wood. I typically crave those activities, but now they seem like unproductive punishment compared to my fabulous list. I also began to wonder what you were doing. Yes, you. All of you. Was it snowing where you were? Were your dogs running about in it? What were you reading? What were you eating?
It turns out that I can withstand physical longings and moderate discomforts or inconveniences quite well. I am a wimp at the emotional ones and I’m kind of needy. When, exactly, did that happen? I haven’t had a TV in over a decade. I loved being alone, could spend a day reading, forget to eat, realize I hadn’t left the house in days. But this year, even more than previous years, I have spent a lot of time with you. I have become accustom to having dinner with you before a show and to having conversations over breakfast. You check in on email and other e-things. We meet sometimes on the road just to say hello. And sure, I have always like those things. In moderation. But something strange is happening.
I’ll be vacuuming if anyone needs me.

The Kids Are Alright

Posted on by aidan.christine

The Kids Are Alright
originally posted June 23 2018
We are just home from our summer reading kick-off tour. After the first couple of shows I found myself singing that song from The Who. I’ve never really known the lyrics other than ‘the kids are alright’ so I looked them up. They are weird. It’s not at all what I thought it was about, if I even gave it any thought. Forget all that, just focus on that one line.
This was our first tour with the kids songs, playing to young readers mostly aged 6-9. We were more than worried. We were terrified. First, we were fearful for our own well being. Kids are honest. Brutally honest. What if they didn’t like us? What if they didn’t like the songs? What if they weren’t interested in the books we chose? Second, but way more important, we were fearful for their well being. What if they didn’t like us or the songs and we turned them off reading.
If our Read, Love Grow project is new to you here’s the short version of the back story: One lovely morning over coffee Aidan read that the for-profit prison industry uses the illiteracy of eleven year olds to determine the number of prison beds they will need in fifteen years. We clean up coffee. We cursed evil businesses. We cried. And then, we set aside our anger, our disgust, our heartbreak and got to work. If that research is what an industry bases its profit on, it’s probably accurate data. If they can use it, so can we. And we didn’t have to pay for it. There are a dozen other statistics that link reading at grade level by grade five to long term improvement in life. So we wrote songs inspired by ten amazing children’s books. Some of our generous, supportive friends and fans helped us pay for the recording, mixing and production of a CD called “Tell Me A Story” We developed a program to present these songs to kids as a way of encouraging them to read. We leave a CD or two with each library or location we visit.
In June we played for hundreds of kids across four states. We will continue to visit libraries, camps, schools, and after school programs talking to young readers about books that we enjoyed and sharing with them the process of using a book as inspiration for songs. If that sounds familiar, it’s because that is very similar to shows we do for grown-ups. But with the kids we also read a bit of a few of the books aloud. We ask them how they feel about the situations and characters in the books or what they think might happen. They sing. They dance. They ask a lot of questions.
A shout out to the librarians and library staff. They put out the books and authors that we referenced. They create comfortable spaces for the kids to listen and move around. They have programs like reading aloud to a dog to build reader confidence. One librarian told me that on rainy summer days they create “reading caves” from chairs and tables and blankets. The summer reading programs offer prizes (but of course the real prize is reading).
The accompanying adults were also pretty terrific; counselors who made up dance moves and a bus driver that helped us get the kids talking. And then there was the grandfather, who held the hand of the only brown child in the room and listened carefully as I talked about Marion Anderson. He smiled and nodded approvingly when I simply said she wasn’t allowed to sing at certain places because of the way she looked.
Much to our joy and relief the kids seemed to like us and the songs. They expressed an interest in reading. The young folks we met were incredibly smart, very engaged and willing to participate. They know that insects have six legs and spiders have eight. Not only did they ask about the harmonica and the capos and the tuner, they also listened intently to the explanations (even the Aidan-style lengthy detailed answers). They spoke in turn (mostly), listened to each other (mostly) and shared interesting comments and observations.
At the very first show a young girl told me that if I like “Don’t Let The Pigeon Drive The Bus” there were a whole lot of other pigeon books I should read. Later someone suggested a Peter Seeger song. There were white-skinned, blue-eyed boys who were happy we sang in Spanish because they are learning Spanish. An avid reader with dyslexia told us that there are great audio books available for young readers. A group of kids serenaded us with “You Are My Sunshine” – it was adorable, but grown ups, please please teach your kids a happier song. And at the last show the last of a hundred questions was “why are CDs round?” Aidan offered a detailed, technical answer. They listened, asking some follow-up questions. One young boy laughed and asked me “what if CDs were square. I laughed and said it would be weird. But once the giggling stopped one young girl raised a hand. “Maybe a square CD only seems weird because we are used to them being round. If they had been square that would seem normal.” It silenced us. All of us. Aidan explained disruptive thinking to this group of 6-9 year olds. He told them how bold thinking led to inventions and big changes in the way the world worked.
Yeah, the kids are alright. Really alright. I hope they stay that way.