Hello dear friends!

I write y'all because I'm awake at 12:30 am! Wintergrass delightfully altered my schedule... So, wintergrass is a bluegrass festival held in Tacoma. I volunteered as an usher in exchange for a free weekend pass. Let me set the scene for ya:

Friday night.

I had been up since 5:30am and worked a full day at L'Arche. (usually on Fridays I come home and play music/stare out the window/bake/go to bed super duper early)... after work I took the bus to Tacoma (which is quite pleasant)... met up with the Tacoma Lutheran Volunteer House folks for dinner and then went to the festival for my 9pm-1am shift. The Punch Brothers were setting up (with Chris Thile, singer and mandolin player from Nickel Creek). I'm wearing some fantastically dorky red staff vest and am pretty darn sleepy. Then it happened... I heard the first live bluegrass that I've heard since I left Kentucky. It was amazing. I teared up a bit! I thought, my goodness, I feel like this music is like a siren singing me back east... callin' me back to those beautiful mountains and back more within range of my family (including those babies who I love so)... I was super dazzled by the whole experience. In the hotel lobbies there were groups of people just jamming... strangers coming together and creating such rich music. This wasn't the kind of jamming that we did at the Berea Farmer's Market or on the patio of the SENS house in the Ecovillage (nor is it what we do here at the Rainier Valley Unitarian Universalist Congregation)... but this was traditional bluegrass jamming where one person might be calling the songs but most of the instruments get a chance to do a break (an intricate, mostly improvised or personalized solo). It was amazing! There was such energy there!

Last night at the festival after my shift I hung out with Lizzie, Laura, Bill, and Trey, (folks who are all either LVs, L'Arche workers, or catholic workers)... It was an absolute blast we had our own terribly wonderful jam circle. We played "The Lion Sleeps Tonight" on banjo, guitar, and mandolin.... complete with vocal interpretation too... it was one of the funniest things I've been a part of recently! We also played a few bluegrassy tunes.

The entire weekend I felt elated! Going between workshops and shows and rubbing elbows with the bands in the hospitality room where we all got free food. My heart was so delighted, so refreshed by this festival. When I think of it, I'm surprised at how deeply bluegrass seems to be in my being... or maybe it's just music that's deeply there... or maybe it's just the presence that music usually helps me find... but regardless, I'm just so grateful for the music in my life. When I was in Australia, I went to a music festival with my friend Sven and that was my first taste of this scene... and I recall a conversation over breakfast with one of his friends from music camp. She said, as I'm sure others have said, that "it's just never too late to learn to play an instrument"... and for some reason it sunk in... and when I got back to Berea I signed up to take banjo lessons.... and how much richer my life has been because of it! Sometimes I think of Oz as a bizarre time in my life when I got to become quite out of character and learn from it later on... but shucks, if it was part of my journey to bluegrass, it needs to be held in higher esteem! Also news in my music life-my new mandolin has arrived :) The one I had before gave up when the face caved in due to manufacturing defect... but this new one is so exciting.

Almost as wonderful as the festival was the change of scenery... The LV Tacoma house has a back yard with a climb-able tree and a massive garden. I'm jealous! It feels much less like a city.

Update on the future plans: The heart tuggin' contest is between Berea, Arcata, an Outdoor Ed school in Ohio, and spending a bit of time at the Tacoma L'Arche (they have a farm, a big enough staff, and they're in the country, can you blame me?).

Also, because I think being real is the whole darn point of this blog thinga-jig, I've got to confess that I caught myself in a negative space again. I think this is how my heart feels in February... as if the winter really might stick around forever... as if spring can't come soon enough.... but I do feel that I am on the upswing. I think I've learned a lot from my LVC experience thus far (here's a brief re-cap):

-I feel like I'm unable to sum up what I'm learning from core members... it's so vast! They are amazing and beautiful. I'm really glad they let me into their lives. I do feel like I'm getting good "mama-reflexes" (eyes in the back of my head) I often find myself sensing when a core member is about to run into the street or flush a dryer sheet down the toilet.

-I will try to avoid living in a house of 7 women from here on out. This is because I'd rather feel that I had time to connect in a real way with all my housemates, than feel like I live in a dorm.

-Beth and I can pray together on the phone for some reason neither of us thought of that until recently.

-It's important for me to live in a place where I have a music community.

-I've acquired a few new favorite foods- peanut sauce and noodles, as well as homemade refried beans, and golden beets.

-Turns out I'm a kid who likes some personal space.

-I don't reckon that I'd like to live in a city forever. It's too darn easy here to feel unconnected with wild natural things... and it might just be too darn overstimulating for me too.

-Seven schedules might not ever line up!

-That on the enneagram I am a one with a strong 4 connection.

-That blackberries and I have a strong connection.

Grateful list:

-spring is on the way... I'm grateful for the concept that "this too shall pass", and all the instruction that it implies: feel fully, take comfort in suffering, and celebrate seasonality

-flowers! After this grey rainy winter my heart appreciates their beauty more than ever before

-houseplants

-thoughts of gardening

-sunshine!

-Wintergrass festival!

-music!

-clean drinking water

-the bus system

-did I mention bluegrass music?

-the Tacoma LV house

-my own bed and sleeping bag again

-realization that my perfect day (which has happened countless times) includes any number of the following: cooking with garden fresh veggies, playing music, dancing, being outside, being with people I love, and spending some time alone.