I wake up in the fourth bed this week and go through the usual process of figuring out where I am and why.
I wake up in the fourth bed this week and go through the usual process of figuring out where I am and why.
I’m in the house of fan-turned-friend Kim and his wife Lynn, here in Huntsville to play the show they set up for me at Tangled Strings.
My consciousness swims up through the jet lag and grief, and settles on the fact that tonight I will be getting up in front of people to perform.
Yesterday Kim asked me if I enjoy touring and I didn’t know what to say. Sometimes I enjoy playing. Sometimes I enjoy the places I go and the people I meet. Sometimes I even make a little money. But that’s not why I’m dragging this guitar around the world at the moment.
I feel grateful to people for supporting me to continue making music. There’s a reciprocity in all of this — reflected in the Patreon and the Kickstarter campaign and the millions of streams — that makes me want to come connect with people in the most direct way I know how.
Each of these songs is a time machine, a brief voyage back to when I wrote it, to where I was and what I was feeling. For the listener it might be overlaid with where they were when they heard it, and who they were with.
It seems important to take these journeys together in person. When 50 or 100 of us come together to head off into the past, I feel bound to each of you. And the treasures we bring back makes the jet lag and exhaustion and disorientation worth it.
I love going there with you. I love having gone there with you, over and over, each trip a little bit different than before, the past and present brushed together like coats of wet paint.
So thank you for coming to see me. It has been the privilege of my life to engage in this exchange with you. I’ll be doing it tomorrow night in Nashville if you’re around.
