Nashville, Louisville, Cincinnati, Chicago

Family, music, animals, pastures

Hello sweet ones,

How are you? I am tired.

I made it to Chicago, my last stop on this tour before ending up in Minneapolis for at least a month. Phew. I can feel the exhaustion slowly oozing out of my body. Into? I don’t know, it’s around.

This last week has been really lovely. I wrote to you last from Nashville. Thursday night Shea and I had dinner at my friend Evan’s, then I played some songs with Evan and our friend Ella. It was magical to find gorgeous three-part harmonies almost immediately, and made me fall in love with Nashville and the people it attracts a little more.

izzy!!!

That night, I went to pick up my friend Chris from the airport, and to my surprise, my friend Izzy was with him! I was so surprised and excited, and somehow I squished them all in my packed car. Since meeting them this summer, Izzy and Chris are friends I keep spontaneously meeting in various places, and it feels really nice to have some familiar faces in these unfamiliar towns. They were only in Nashville for 18 hours, for Chris’ band’s live radio performance. Check out the Faux Paws, they rock. It was a glorious 18 hours.

At the radio show, I ran into a dear friend I hadn’t seen for years—someone I met in Northfield, Minnesota in the summer of 2021. They were on a road trip passing through Nashville from Santa Fe—it was such a synchronous meeting, and a joy to see them.

shea :)

On Friday after the radio show, Shea and I drove to Louisville, Kentucky, where we stayed with his grandma “Mammy”. On Saturday we toured his aunt’s farm. First stop was the house, which was themed by room, decorated to the max with trinkets and knick-knacks. I was in awe.

goats Jeb and Job

Then we met her animals—rescue horses, donkeys, goats and cows. Oh how sweet they are! We fed them some snacks and got to pet them a little, before they ran off.

We then drove around the farm, toured a historic mansion that is on their property, and rode in the back of the truck around their extensive property. It was kind of mind-boggling how one family could own this much land. They were trying to preserve it from building more roads through it, and had won a battle with the courts to preserve it.

Shea’s dad, mom, grandma, brother, Shea and me outside of church

On Sunday Shea’s parents and brother came down from Cincinnati for church. We went to a methodist church. The choir wore robes and some children sang. The preacher gave a strange sermon about Bryan Johnson’s Don’t Die campaign and showed us tweets from X, without making clear why he was addressing it. Overall, I enjoyed this service less than the baptist and presbyterian ones, but the singing was nice. And I got a window into family dynamics on Easter.

Rosieeee

Then, much of Shea’s extended family came over for Easter brunch to his grandma’s. We ate asparagus casserole and French toast casserole, ham and biscuits and gravy and donuts. I sang for his family, and hung out with them to whole day. We talked with his grandma and aunt, asking questions about their childhood and young adult life, and played a lot of bananagrams

Mammy and Helena

field time :)

Shea and I got to drive his aunt’s convertible into Louisville

Then Shea and I drove to Cincinnati and stayed with his parents in the house he grew up in. His mom had me try on many of her old clothes, and I ended up adding more dresses than I’d come with. We went to Skyline Chili and Graeter’s ice cream and got a little tour around the city. Then I played a set of all originals Tuesday night at a wine bar. Shea’s parents and friends came, and it went well.

Ohio River in Cinci

Skyline Chili :O—- - -

me and the alien at the wine bar

Then on Wednesday I left Shea in Cincinnati and drove to Chicago by myself. I saw a bunch of friends and mentors yesterday. Today I met up with my advisor Tracy, and we had a conversation about activism and art in protest. She taught a performance activism class I took, and knew me as a passionate activist, processing my place as an artist in the movement. We discussed Dolly Parton, and what type of art is impactful, what bridges divides, what type of art we want to be making, and how it fits into the ecology of the movement.

I found myself tearing up talking to her. I don’t quite know how to calibrate my current path as a musician with my previous life as an activist. I feel drawn to a wider stance politically, one that tries to understand across differences and realize the spiritual underpinnings of our world.

I listened to the Emerald podcast that was reissued this week about the trickster, and how Trickster always comes when things need to be shaken up, and it’s sometimes not quite in the way we want it to. But I found it useful to recognize what is happening politically through a larger lens of mythical pattern and archetype.

Alright sweethearts. I keep wanting to go more in depth with these, but have gotten in a rhythm of just stating what’s going on in my week with little analysis. Next week I’ll be back in Minneapolis (woo!) and I’ll try to write one a little more thematic and reflective of this whole tour.

Gomer, one of my favorite dogs

Bisquick, my other favorite dog

If anyone’s in Chicago, I have a show tomorrow at Uncommon Ground!