I came downstairs to Big Brother helping Little Brother with ABCMouse. This sight helps me breathe deeper.

I keep thinking of essays I want to write. I think of them at 3am. What is it that you think of at 3am? Or for you is it midnight? Or 5a? Or noon? Our brains are working overdrive, trying to survive, to breathe, to keep our hearts beating and our families fed.

It's Anxiety, and it's invaded most of us. We can't sleep. We worry about everything. Our brains jump to worst or all scenarios immediately.

Newgrange, Ireland, and my shadow.

Six weeks ago, I was in the Wicklow Mountains in Ireland, mapping out a memoir I’m writing about the sandwich generation and my experiences caregiving for two parents with cancer while also solo-parenting an infant and a preschooler (the book now feels completely inappropriate to finish, now that being an adult orphan with young children is not so unique, thanks to pandemic, but anyway).

I took that trip to give myself the space I’d missed out on for years, when other people’s health was priority. It was an affirming trip, a beautiful trip, and I’m also 100% sure that the French couple next to me in the pub one night (and I only went out ONE NIGHT) had the Coronavirus. (My cohort in Ireland agrees, and as that couple finally left, every other table in the room looked at each other with a “Why in the world were those two just dry coughing over their entire dinner and dessert???”)

But that was six weeks ago. A continent away, the day before the first positive case was found in Ireland, and, as it seems in my head: a lifetime ago.

Today I’m thinking about all people in my social media friends who are new to anxiety. They are mentally exhausted, freaking out about things that aren’t a big deal, generally irritable, can’t sleep, and can’t turn their brains off. It’s oddly reassuring to see the people whose brains typically work “normally” to be susceptible to stress and anxiety, and it reminds me that my own experiences over the past few years (caregiving, working from home, wiping baby butts, parent butts, unable to take care of myself because that whole oxygen-mask metaphor doesn’t always apply: and yes, I have a therapist) were legitimate.

I’ve written about Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs before, but let’s revisit, in case we’ve got any new readers. In the spirit of being kind to yourselves, let’s try to remember that during this pandemic, this strange period of quarantine, of uncertainty, of fear and anxiety, means we are trying to just survive right now.

Literally: we are trying to survive.

It’s a challenge. Happy humans need a lot, but right now, allow yourselves breathing room. Do yoga if you can, but don’t if you just cannot. Because sometimes you just cannot do the things that the Twitter tells you will make you feel better. I don’t care what studies show that getting dressed every day will make you magically feel better about yourself. Sometimes spending that time showering and getting dressed means you missed morning snuggles with your sobbing child, and guess what? I often feel better with bed head and pajamas, no matter what my more put-together friends suggest.

Let us remember that, when we are at the bottom of this pyramid (survival), we are not trying to get straight As in life.

Right now, it’s all pass/fail.

Give yourself grace and permission. Permission to sleep, to hold your breath, to not do everything right, to make butter noodles for dinner, to let your children watch Pokémon, to work your ass off because you still have a job (congrats!), to not finish your book, to not return a phone call or a text, to ignore your voicemail, to not make your bed, to not use this “down time” to better yourself.

We are trying to survive.

Trying to find rainbows everywhere. This one is in Ireland, February 2020.

Last night I played a 30-minute concert for the Kentucky Performing Arts: from my sunroom! After the show, I was a sweaty mess who could not fall asleep, not until well after midnight. Why? I was SO pumped from having played a live show -- with actual, real people watching! Who commented! Who made requests! Who sang along with me! Who cried with me when I couldn't make it through "Souvenirs" without tears. It was such a joy to share feelings and feel connected to the universe in some small way.

You can watch the archived show here.

I wore sequins and brought four instruments and managed to play quite a few songs, including two John Prine tunes and a bunch of originals. It was a great evening. I hope you get a chance to watch the show and smile and little. Let it out. Pour yourself a vodka and ginger ale (John Prine reference) -- or some water in a beautiful glass. Let the love pour out.

Speaking of John Prine -- and I have so many words that I need to save for another blog -- here's a video of me playing one of my favorite John Prine songs.

HUGE thank you to those who tipped last night or joined my Patreon page. Things like that make it easier on me as I try to navigate unemployment claims (so far I don't qualify).

And now ... ugh, how can I play MORE!? I'd love to do a daily livestream concert, but I'm also homeschooling, navigating NTI, still trying to hustle and book future shows and generally stressing myself out.

I was just invited to play a Folk Festival in England next May, so I am working hard on how to make that trip feasible/profitable -- or at least to break even -- by booking enough other gigs over yonder.

Does anyone in England/Scotland/Wales (or nearby?!) run a folk club or house concert or festival? I'd love to come play some music and share some stories with you? And maybe bring Banjo Steve, who could run a banjo workshop or something :) Email me!



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Today is April 3. April 3 was a triggering date for my mother, as it was Easter morning, April 3, 1983, when she received The Dreaded Phone call — the unexpected “your mom had a heart attack in her sleep last night and has been dead for hours.” I was in the dining room eating chocolate from my Easter basket (funny story; Easter & Passover were, to me, exactly the same holiday until I was about 11 and finally saw Jesus Christ Superstar) when the phone rang and I had my first experience with sudden grief, loss, empathy.

I wasn’t particularly sad because I didn’t have much of a relationship with her, but I remember feeling just awful for my mother, whose grief was immense. Born in the early 1900s, she was part of The Greatest Generation — and their grandchildren were seen occasionally and heard from never. We went to her apartment for Passovers and Rosh Hashanah’s, but (along with her pound cake and brisket) I mostly remember being shuttled off to a tiny desk in her bedroom to play paper dolls that smelled of stale cigarette smoke. Hello, little girl, aren’t you cute, now go play ...

I’d asked The Four Questions just days before when we’d been at her apartment for both Passover and her 63rd birthday, the 31st of March. Four days later, she wouldn’t wake up.

Did any of you out there know my grandmother? And while I’m thinking of her, Evelyn Helman Speevack, did any of you know Abbie Osterman Kaelin? Because she died shortly after my 2nd birthday, and I have no memory of her either.

I’ve got a grandmother problem, made worse by the fact that my children will not remember (or only have the vaguest) memories of my own mother.

If you knew either of my grandmothers, would you tell me something about them? Favorite foods? Attitudes? Hobbies? Favorite sayings? Travel habits?

I’m leaving this blog out in the world, and I so wish my grandmothers had had blogs I could pour through.

Anyway - deep thoughts from today. XOXO

P.O. I only mention the Tornados in the title because my parents moved into this house the week of April 3, 1974, and told me repeatedly about the awful tornado that Louisville experience that week that ripped apart our neighborhood.

I know - I KNOW. I've been negative. I've tried everything I can to shift my thoughts, to focus on gratitude, to focus on the positive. The problem with that (and yes, I recognize that already I'm pointing out a problem, but this is the point!!) is that for everything I am abundantly grateful -- and there are so many things for which I am grateful -- I am brought back to sadness that I can't call my parents to tell them about this cool new thing for which I am grateful.

Grief is a process. Grief is unending. Grief is a ball in a box.

I've read all the articles. I've read all the books. I've talked to all the people. It doesn't change the fact that my parents are dead ... that they died horrific, slow, painful and unproud deaths. It doesn't change that they didn't see their grandson play the son of Mark Ruffalo and Anne Hathaway in a fucking Todd Haynes film!! These HUGE things ... these celebrations and joys are celebrated and then immediately deflated because I don't have my best friends to share them with.

Stained glass window in my mother's former dining room.

Grief and depression and love and regrets. Oh, to be human is so complex.

I wish I could believe that my parents were sitting on a fluffy clouds in the sky looking down at all their grandchildren are doing. Maybe you believe that. I don't. I can't. I'm sorry.

I sit here in the dining room of my childhood home -- a home I bought from my mother, so Medicaid wouldn't take it if she outlived her prognosis (cancer had already practically bankrupted my parents during my mom's breast cancer treatment in 2001) -- staring at a beautiful stained glass window that my mom chose, and under which she would draw her last breath and then never exhaled again.

Y'all know how she painted this room five different colors and never bothered to move the furniture, but just painted around it. Well, the window that remains contains several jewel-tone colors that remind me of all the colors she once painted this now-greige room.

I love the daily reminders. I hate the daily reminders.

Any positive news is immediately flanked by negative thoughts, no matter how much therapy or reframing or "it's just a thought" or meditation or whatever happens, and I hate how it's making me feel.

All I've got is writing and music, and the outlets for that feel very small at the moment.

Hold your loved ones, my friends.

Here's a John Prine cover that makes me smile and cry. Perhaps that's the point. Tears and smiles go together, and that's okay? Ugh. Thanks for coming to my journal entry.

Today I woke up on my own, at a reasonable hour, without anyone fussing at me or needing breakfast immediately or a butt-wiping or rushing to the bus stop. It was beautiful!

Yes, Angus sleeps with me still, and the morning was full of sweet snuggles. We were going to move him to his room on his 4th birthday, but that was in the middle of the pneumonia, when I was counting his breaths with a stopwatch pretty much all night. He’s recovered, but I’m unwilling to move him to his own bedroom. The pneumonia scare along with the COVID-19 situation makes me actually want to bring Graham back to our bed too and just revert to: Family SuperBed!

I’m writing here partly because my own quarantine journal has suffered. I’ve been having Graham write a daily entry, and the archivist in me loves the idea of everyone having a journal. I’ve just not quite been mentally available to write my own, however, so this blog must do for now.

We are hanging in there. I’m desperate for community, but also relishing the time with my family. I’m confused about testing, and I’m wondering if we’ve already had the virus. Angus, of course, was not tested, though he had every symptom. I’ve lived on high-anxiety for years, so I’m not taking any more deep breaths or Xanax than usual. But life is getting scary, wouldn’t you agree?

Random thing that helps my income: click on one of the ads that pops up? I don’t control the ads, but I actually get paid per click and I get paid a lot more for an ad click than I do for a Spotify stream, so that’s a free and easy thing you can do to support an indie artist :) 

We’ve had real conversations about who gets the children (it’s in our will, but then I worry about people contesting and such) if worst-case scenario happens. We are on lockdown. I might take the kids on a bike ride and let them play in their backyard, but we haven’t even played with our neighbors since the first week of March (Angus’s fever first appeared the evening of March 8). I’m leading a neighborhood book club for the kids on Zoom, so that’s fun, but mostly I’m trying to enjoy every day. Life can shift on a dime.

Weird thing: I’m so glad my parents are already dead.

They would not have been so good at obeying the lockdown orders. Also, I don’t know how we could have managed chemo, Hospice, appointments, etc. They would have had to just suffer at home to an early end anyway. So right now, my thoughts are with everyone out there who is caregiving for ill parents — illnesses that have nothing to do with COVID-19, but which nonetheless make life difficult. I imagine your days and nights are even more anxiety-ridden and stressful than mine ever were. And remember my dad was diagnosed with Stage 4 cancer the same week he admitted my mom to Hospice care. I’ve been through some crap.

So today’s ramblings are just about love, and loving each other, and caregiving, and heroes (Hospice workers; all medical workers; all firefighters; oh, just so many people!!), and family and the love.

Also, I made a fun video for my Patreon community a few days ago, and now I bring it to you. Thanks again to my beautiful Patreon community — that is a LOT of you reading now, and please know that you are my lifeline, my income, and my inspiration.

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Here's a photo of my kitchen for now!

Checking in, my beauties... how are you doing? I have now been pretty much self-isolated for over two weeks. I've been focused on keeping my littlest guy breathing for the past two weeks, so apologies for being absent on the blog. Believe me, I have things to write. Things seem okay now though, and I'm starting to feel good because: I have a functional kitchen!!

David spent the entire weekend shifting cabinets over by inches so the refrigerator would open, designing a temporary countertop so we could install the sink, searching for p-traps and various other PVC pieces from neighbors so we wouldn't have to go to the hardware store, moving the contractor's tools into the basement so we could have our dining room back, and so I would stop crying at having to take a bath with a casserole dish. Our contractor wanted to stay away because Angus had been sick, and I wanted our contractor to stay away because he also works for the Archdiocese, who continued to hold mass despite public health warnings. Win-win/Lose-lose, for all (shrug emoji). The kitchen is not finished, but I made coffee and toast this morning and did dishes in an actual sink.

I've lost all of my income for the next three months (except my Patreon! and random thing but if you click on whatever ad links are surrounding my blog, I actually get paid like ten times more than I do for a Spotify stream, how weird is that?), but I am grateful to have a husband with a job and health care and my four-year-old (he turned FOUR last week!) is breathing normally again. We will manage.

Angus spiked a fever on March 8, so I've been basically holding his sick li'l' coughing body. He spent his 4th birthday alternating antibiotics and nebulizers and cough meds and acetaminophen. The poor kid is asthmatic and could not break the fever from the adenovirus he tested positive for. Chest x-rays showed bacterial pneumonia. No, he was not tested for COVID-19, and his doctors were doubtful that he had it (because he was positive for two other respiratory viruses). Nonetheless, I have been behaving as if he does have it because this is a public health issue and when we went in for swabbing on March 11, there were no tests in Kentucky yet. He was negative for flu and strep, but positive for two respiratory viruses and an ear infection which they believed led to the pneumonia. His asthmatic tendencies made it worse. It was an awful week of tears, stress, adrenaline, no sleep, and holding my sweet baby, who is currently dressed in a dinosaur costume and on Zoom with his preschool teacher for a singalong.

Other updates: Our sweet au pair left us in February. While we are grateful to have had her when my parents were dying, we are equally grateful that she is gone now -- and not trapped in our house during The Plague. Times are strange enough, and I'm so glad she gets to be back in Brazil with her family.

I wish Graham's school had closed a week earlier, but I'm grateful that Kentucky shut down schools on March 16. On a positive note, Graham has been begging to homeschool all year long because he's grown bored with the schoolwork. I'm a big believe in public schools, and I'm welcoming this opportunity to try out homeschooling without losing his place in the wonderful public school he attends.

Now that Angus is better, I'm looking forward to making music for you, recording, writing, posting, sharing on my Patreon. I've been wanting to do more Facebook Live concerts, but haven't been able to plan any since Angus had been sick.

I'm washing my hands and settling down to write a few postcards to my Patreons and edit up some travel photos I took in Ireland last month (long story!). I had a writing retreat I've yet to tell you about, where I got back in the zone and was ready to write write write the book and the album, and then I went straight into hardcore parenting and am once again out of practice with writing. But I'll get there. Take care of yourselves and wash your hands and STAY HOME (unless of course you're an essential worker in which case bless you times a million).


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I walked a labyrinth last month. Anyone recognize where?

I've been manic posting today, and I need to lay off the social media. It's weird when your two oldest friends die. My parents were the recipients of random texts and thoughts and occasionally of packages I needed signatures for (Mom even reminded me in her farewell letter of the time she opened the front door to a giant box labeled "ACCORDION" when I was a teenager). David now gets all of my texts and when I know he's busy, I turn to Twitter. This leads to just manic tweeting and people flooding my DMs with "Hey, just checking on your mental health," which reminds me that I look like a danger to myself and others and I should just lay off the internets and go for a walk.

Thanks today to the friend to texted me to go for a walk without straight-up saying, "DUDE, YOU'RE MANIC AND YOU NEED TO STOP."

Where I should be turning, I suppose, is this blog. It's a kinder community and my wonderful readers are peaceful and loving and thoughtful, even when they are quiet non-commenters. This blog doesn't get a lot of comments, but it gets a whole lot of page views. It leads to emails and wonderful private conversations.

What I'm wondering now is, can we turn those conversations outward? Facebook allows too much verbal violence, and Twitter the same (though I prefer Twitter). Instagram is full of beauty, but also of the sense that I should be using it for business.

I'm trying to come to terms with the pure 100% fact that my business is failing. I've been a shocking musical success -- shocking to myself and to the basic idea that someone can make a living at being a musician. 2008 started the decline and 2020 is perhaps the harshest of all. My business creative brain has a zillion ideas that I just don't have the energy to implement.

I just want to spread joy, to connect, to create, to homeschool my children, to bake cookies, to house a homeless family, to speak for those who have no platform, to eradicate covid19, cancer and headlice, and to maybe make someone smile when they've had a shitty day.

None of this would fit in a tweet, so I turn to the blog: where likeminded people may lurk without announcing their presence. And that's ok. I love you still. But if you wanna holler out and find community: there are others like you, like me. There are kind ones out there. There are lovers, dreamers, songs about rainbows, and oh ... i'm going to just hit publish on this one before i go back and regret sharing my words. Words are all i've got right now, as sharing my music has become impossible.

Time to write that book. I'm feeling it.

So much love!

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Also: here is some art I created this week. I shared it with my PATREON folks a few days early because it's all I've got.

Sun and wind and curls.

I took a break from parenting last week. And from partnering. And from daughtering. I did not take a break from work because I find that impossible to do, as an ADHD-creative that is impossible for me, no matter how hard I try.

What I did do was try very, very hard to to be gentle on myself, no matter the outcome.

The trip was work, the trip was break, the trip was joy, and the trip involved mountains and horse country. There was sunshine, and there was snow. There were tears, and there were deep breaths. There was a dead horse across the river, a bizarre view from the picture windows of my Airbnb.

I mean, I travel many hours to escape death because it just keeps hammering me over the head and there it is, bloated and hooves in the air, a very unsubtle reminder -- like, were this in a book, a workshop group would call it too contrived -- that there is no escaping death.

How are y'all today? ::insert crying laughing emoji::

Anyway, I'm trying hard to figure out just how to come out of the other side of this grief, all while holding space for my family and friends and internet BFFs and knowing of course that the world doesn't revolve around me. I'm actively seeking connection with people, which is hard for me to do. It's much easier in song or behind a microphone. I'm working on a book, and it's a lot more raw than anything I've ever sung.

Since I returned home I played four gigs or sessions in five days, and I really need some space for myself to figure out what the next chapter will look like, both in my book and in my life.

Cheers to you and thanks for sticking with me ... and for checking in on me. I know I apparently scared some of you, and I appreciate your checking in on my mental health. Nothing but love.

Be gentle on yourselves.

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Hyrdation. Markers. Bullet Journal. #smug

I've been grasping at planners -- planners because I've always enjoyed filling out forms and grasping because I feel like implementing some structure will make everything okay.

David and I laughed about us doing all the major life-stressors just back to back to back. We got married in Kentucky one July, moved to Scotland the very next month, had a baby twelve months later, did another international move when said baby was seven weeks old, were unemployed for a year, got back on track, then decided to have another baby, who is a total delight, but I'm only learning about him now because shortly after he was born, both my parents got cancer and I nursed them to their home deaths, and then we moved again, but have been living out of suitcases since May 24, and basically, everything is really weird.

I recap all of this for you, mostly for me, to type out that, yes, I've been through a LOT recently, and it is okay to feel like I'm slowly emerging from a decade of stress and chaos. Anxiety tells me not to get complacent because control is an illusion, etc. 

Anyway.

I'm trying to focus on things I can control. Which I guess is my actions, and only my actions? Did I get that right? (Still hunting for a therapist who can prescribe and who takes my insurance, but I read a lot of novels, so I feel like I'm pretty good at extracting life lessons.)

For some reason, meal planning feels like it would solve all of my problems.

I used Fresh20 for three years, and I really liked it. Eighty percent of the meals were yummy (all of them needed salt), and it was nice knowing I always had the ingredients for supper in the kitchen on any given day.

When our au pair moved in, we stopped doing Fresh 20 because she loved to cook and her diet was drastically different. I really enjoyed having family dinners, but then life got too complex. Now our au pair keeps to herself, and I'm trying to figure out what home life will look like when she departs. (We will miss her terribly!)

I tried The Fresh20 again last week. It didn't work out for me because of schedule changes (maybe it's my weird last-minute gig schedule that makes structure difficult to apply?). I tried two of the mail-order meal kit things, and was just too freaked out by the amount of packaging to continue them (though it's a cool idea).

What do you families out there do? Do you just have Meatless Monday, Taco Tuesday, Watermelon Wednesday, or whatever? And repeat the same dishes every week?

Who's got it all organized?

Of all the meal kits I tried, I liked the Purple Carrot recipes best (I need meals that are healthy), but I really really can't stand the plastic and the oil miles. I'd love to be able to create the perfect week of meals without any food waste AND without any plastic. I think I'm going to have to sit down some time, get all the recipes I liked and figure out how to buy a Purple Carrot-style meal-plan, but order it from Kroger. It may involved having a neighbor share with me because what if I only need one stalk of celery??? I'll report back with a grocery list and recipe cards if I ever get that organized.

Ugh. This just leads me to wondering why I didn't take HomeEc instead of IB Calculus? Harumph.