I’ve been here before

seeing you seeing me at the gig

Before the third show of our tour, I took my bandmates to Golden Gardens, a park in North Seattle where I spent a lot of time in my late teens and early twenties. After spending two days in 100 degree heat, we parked the van in the shade next to the water, and I walked us along a path to a pier where you can look at the boats and the creatures circling the breakwater. The heat had broken that morning and the weather was Idyllic Washington - soft and consistent breeze, warmth filtering thru clouds, green sun-beamed water. I had reminisced on the drive about seeing seals here, and they popped their puppy heads out of the water like we had an appointment to keep. We looked down at fried-egg jellyfish and anemones and watched the Sailing Camp kids get towed into harbor by the only slightly older kid counselors.

The scene mixed together almost like a still-wet watercolor portrait of what it was like to grow up in that area, and I started crying. I guess it’s because we’ve been spending a lot of time in the van listening to different meditation teachers, thinking a lot about how we’re growing and changing as people, and how our expectations for ourselves and our world have to constantly adjust and shift. We also had just driven the length of the west coast, seen friends in three different cities who still remember our names and make the effort to come see us play music, who bring us treats and surprises and space to hold our creativity.

I’m aware I sound a little goo goo with woo woo, I’m clocking that maybe I’m romanticizing the mundane, but in the moment on the dock, trying to lock eyes with a seal, I recognized the truth of the matter which is that we have, as musicians and people, placed big slices of our little hearts all over the place. There are so many portions of us spread out all over, ready to meet us when we arrive. I mean — my middle school science teachers came to the Seattle gig! These people that knew me as a 12-year-old pigtailed twerp still have room in their hearts and minds to see me as the person I am now - and to take in the music I make which has changed significantly since Camp days (I went to a middle school where we camped a lot… very PNW).

The warmth of that PNW jaunt is carrying me into my new-hometown gig; I’ve been in the bay for 11 years (save a brief stint in North Carolina), and my community here is wide and deep. I also love and trust the venue that we’re playing at (The Independent) to have incredible sound, kind staff, a parking space… mundane things that add up, on tour, to huge servings of Grace. I’m excited to just sit in the green room with Daisy from Suver, who contains this same style of warmth and grace and somehow injects it into all the art she makes (and it’s a LOT of art!!) And of course to witness their 8 person band and its amalgamated joy.

This is, of course, a way to say hey — I’d love to see you at the gig. But I think it’s also a way of saying that I’m aware that getting up on stage to play these songs is a rare privilege; a brief time in my life where people will want to buy tickets to hear something I wrote, a very short amount of time I get to spend with three deeply feeling and brilliant musicians, a flicker in the grand scheme of the mass of music being released daily. All I can do is see it, and be grateful for it.

Tonight at the Independent in SF - 8:30pm. All ages! <3