Last Word on Yale Reunion

About Spotify. I get why musicians who hope the CD will somehow make a comeback are doomed to disappointment. As a consumer, I cannot believe how great Spotify is. And yet...

Amelia, Elle and I left for my Yale reunion on Friday afternoon, and as we made our way onto 91 South, I handed my iPhone to my 13 year old niece and asked her to play my new mix, 1989. She did so, and for a few songs, we rocked along to the melange of tunes. But pretty soon, someone told a story which led me to mention Jay's obsession with "Brave," at which point Elle insisted we listen to it right away. Since we could, we did. And then Amelia wanted to play us something from HER iPod touch, and then we were basically playing DJ. Which is cool. But I realized that we are now in a world where the music is completely in the hands of the consumer. Even the "artist" who does nothing more than create a playlist gets compromised by the handler of the device. It's all singles, all the time.

So what of the writer who conceives of a full-length CD? Are there any listeners out there generous enough with their time to actually listen through it? I am not sure I am that generous. I just want to hear my favorite songs. Maybe when I was 15 I was willing to listen to all of Paul Simon's pre-Graceland Hearts & Bones, which is wonderful but requires some patience, but not today. Today, I want that one song ("René and Georgette Magritte With Their Dog After The War"), and I am totally going to buy it on iTunes. I might pay for it five times before I'd buy the entire album's worth of songs.



I had hoped to blog daily about my reunion, a sort of on-the-scene reporting. As I clambered up the five flights of Lawrence Hall to get to our dorm suite, I was composing the blog. As I found out for the second or third time that two friends of mine had married each other (that's the great thing about losing your memory--you get to be happily surprised over and over again), I was writing the blog. As I recognized my suite mates, and as we made a wonderful connection around being Suzuki violin parents, I was writing this blog (and taking pictures--see below.) As I took the girls to the Drama School's fantastic workshop in which two freshly graduated drama students were working a scene from Henry VI Part 1, I was composing in my head.

As we studied Maya Lin's Table, as I was thinking about how hard it was to be a woman at Yale only 20 years after co-education, as I revisited the beautiful Sterling Library where I spent so many hours studying Shakespeare and old microfiche for my theatre classes, all this time I was writing to you. But I had not brought my computer, and even if I had, I would have been too busy talking to old friends (and too tired when I wasn't talking) to write. In fact, I was so completely exhausted by the reunion that I left early and went home with Tom and Jay, who came down to watch my panel on Saturday afternoon.



The panel was the reason I was there. I love seeing old friends, and I love nothing more than sitting around and talking, but I probably wouldn't have gone if the reunion committee hadn't asked me to participate on a panel. The one in question,“Making Music: An Inside Look at the Music Business/ Creative Process," consisted of an amazing clarinetist/composer named Derek Bermel who is currently Artistic Director of the American Composers Orchestra at Carnegie Hall, and the beloved musical hero of my class, Mark Miller, Minister of Music at Christ Church in Summit, New Jersey and teacher of sacred music at the Yale Institute of Sacred Music, who also serves on the faculty of Drew Theological School. We knew him as Bubba, the guy who could make Woolsey Hall shake on Halloween when he played the organ. And then me. I brought Katryna for reinforcements. Jen Jacobsen, one of the best singers and people I know, was the moderator for our group, and she did a fabulous job interviewing us, creating a sense of cohesion to our panel, and keeping us on time--an incredible feat, considering we talked and each performed several songs or pieces. Jen is a lawyer for Sony Music who is currently working on legislation to make the Spotifys of the world pay artists and labels a fare percent. So there is hope for us musicians, and I don't have to feel guilty using Spotify.



How awesome is this? And what is better than musical collaboration?

Eric Rosin, one of my classmates, said, "At Harvard, everyone who shows up Freshman year looks around and goes, 'Why are all these people here at my school?' whereas at Yale, the incoming freshman looks around says, 'How the hell did I get in here?'" I can't speak to the Harvard experience––and I suspect they actually feel the same––but certainly I and everyone I knew at Yale lived in fear of being discovered as the admissions committee mistake. (I have heard Yale admission folks say that if they took the entire admitted group of 1400 and replaced them with the next 1400 on the list, they'd have just as strong a class.) On our panel, we each shared experiences of being rejected from groups, crushed by reactions of faculty to our work, or--in my case--refusing to try out for any singing groups at all, because I was positive I would not get in. "Yale did kind of try to crush us," Derek said. "But the other side of the story is that I was tremendously lifted up by my classmates. In the end, that's what I took from the place."

Yes. That was my experience too. It was a highly competitive world at Yale, but it was also highly collegial, and everyone (mostly) had tremendous respect for the talents of their colleagues and peers. When I had the notion to start a singing group to be accompanied by my acoustic guitar and sing folk songs, I was absolutely astounded by the enthusiasm my crazy idea drew. On the first day of rehearsal, the Calhoun Common Room was crowded with my friend Trex Proffitt's entire Freshman Outdoor Orientation Trip contingent. For the next three years, I'd like to say that I put my head down and worked to make Tangled Up in Blue a singing group that people would want to join. But the truth is, I was just having fun, and doing the thing the admissions people had hoped I would do with my little basket of talents. All around me, sophomores were lifting up their heads too, after the Big Crush of freshman year, and discovering their own talents––that gift only they could give––and finding ways to express themselves.

I found my old year book, and next to my photo I'd used as my quotation Dylan's line from "Tangled Up In Blue," "All of these people we used to know/They're an illusion to me now." And I'd thought of that line again, in the week leading up to the reunion. Who were those people? Did they matter to me?



Yes, it turns out. They did. Even the ones I barely knew--even the ones I never knew. They were the school I went to, far more so than the buildings or the classes or the professors. My peers educated me, through their courage--for every one of them, I am sure, had the experience of being crushed by Yale at some point in their four year career--through their ambition, world view, passion and commitment. I would not be who I am today if I hadn't been lucky enough to go there. All those people I used to know--they are amazing.

And--Yale is not the be-all and end-all. Being at Yale even for 24 hours re-infected me briefly with the idea that Yale was it, that probably no one else had ever had a good idea. But of course I have met thousands of people in the past 25 years who have proved to me that you don't need an ivy education to be inspiring, funny, brilliant, insightful, big-hearted, courageous, talented and charismatic. In fact, what I was struck by at the reunion was not so much the dazzling achievements but the quiet contentment, that feeling that I was having of contributing appropriately to the world, based on one's true talents.

And when the panel was over, I knew I was ready to go home. I was full to the brim. I got to see my dear friend Leon Dewan. I spent a lovely twenty minutes hanging out with Trex and his wife Beth and their fantastic kids. I jumped on stage at Woolsey Hall and sang with the Glee Club. We let Jay kick the soccer ball around Old Campus with some other kids who had, in a few hours, become his new best friends. But instead of dressing up and eating the fancy dinner at Commons, we dragged our stuff over to Claire's Corner Copia, a vegetarian deli where I had practically lived senior year. It was at Claire's, back in 1989, over my usual meal of soup, salad and bread–– plus the occasional Lithuanian coffeecake and hazelnut coffee––that I first conceived of moving to Western Mass. As I have said previously, I don't know where I got the idea, but it was probably from Alice's Restaurant.

I had this vague notion that Western Ma (I didn't even know there was a town called Northampton, except as it was home to Smith) was hip and full of artists and musicians and intellectuals and liberal do-gooders. So I set my sites on one day living there.

And I am here to say...Susan Chua was right. The food at Claire's is really not good. But I didn't care. I wanted to sit one more time in that red bricked room, eat my expensive salad with its meager portion of tofu and elderly cooked vegetables, bus my dish and then hit the road back home, ready to dive back into my life. Goodbye, 1989. And thank you.

Yale Reunion and Spotify 1989

This is a bad formula: rainy day, PMS, and a nostalgia mix from 1989. I upgraded to Spotify Premium (though I am not sure what I gain, since I don't listen to Spotify that much. I did it mostly to support those musicians, like me, who want those Spotify royalties.) "Luka" is on, and whoa, does it bring me back. Magic, music is, and more evocative even than the sense of smell, which is what usually slams me back in time. Right now, I am back in 1987, home from college, late May, a rare Virginia rain. Hopes in my heart to have a career like Suzanne Vega's, though I couldn't even have articulated that then. Waiting to hear what my Words & Music College Seminar professor thought of my 50 page paper on the apocalyptic imagery in Dylan's "Desolation Row." Going to the mailbox every day with baited breath, the way we all approach our inboxes today. What on earth is it like to be a college student today, what with FaceBook and texting? Do people even miss their pals when they go home for the summer? Back in '87, we had the telephone, and the newly invented...what were they called? Oh, yeah, answering machines.

Today, I don't want to do anything. Gmail changed its inbox, and I just spent ten fruitless minutes trying to restore it to the old system. My new crown hurts, and I chickened out in the dentist's chair when she asked me if she thought it needed to be adjusted yet again. I said I was fine. I wasn't. What is it in me that makes me want everyone to think I am more OK than I really am? I have totally unsexy things to do on my list: edit a scene from The Big Idea, practice piano, and beyond that, tidy my office. I don't want to do anything. So I should probably do just nothing. Or, perhaps, there is some big feeling I need to feel that I don't want to. The gloomies have got me. I lie back on the couch and do some nothing for awhile.

Then I go back to focusing on my Spotify mix. I put on Tracy Chapman, and I remember John at Record Works, my supplier in Virginia who shared my love of the Beatles and insisted I buy Tracy's debut album, produced by Joni Mitchell's then-husband Larry Klein (who also produced Shawn Colvin's Fat City, my favorite of her albums, but I am getting ahead of myself.) Shivers up my spine, thinking of how that CD changed my life, how I played it over and over on my elaborate multi-unit stereo which I lugged back and forth from Virginia to New Haven, up and down the Jersey TPKE, up and down four flights of stairs to my dorm room. I hear Bonnie Raitt's "Something To Talk About," and think about our first summer as a band, playing at Williamstown Theatre Festival, discovering the fabulousness of Bonnie Raitt and loving her guitar playing. I put on "Bohemian Rhapsody" and am in the audience of a Trinity Pipes show, watching my amazing sister sing with some of the best singers I've ever heard, with this incredible guitarist they all call "Guitar Dave" playing along. Neil Young's "Ohio" was a song we covered in Tangled Up in Blue, and here I am, next to Leon Dewan, proudly flatpicking that riff, while my crazygreat tenor friend Joe Shieber sings the shit out of "Tin soldier's and Nixon coming..."

There is no better track in the history of the world than the original "Knocking on Heaven's Door." TUIB also covered this, and when we sang it at my aunt Elizabeth's house in upstate NY on our 1989 cross-country tour, five year old John Colonna, her son stood up after the applause and shouted, "But heaven doesn't HAVE a door!"

"Cactus Tree" by Joni Mitchell felt to me, in the fall of '88, as though Joni had crawled inside my head and had catalogued every boy I was dating. I had a Sony Walkman, and my job in the afternoon's was in the Dean's office, often delivering mail. I'd make my rounds in the New Haven rain, with this song playing in my ears. It took me years to figure out how Joni had tuned her guitar for that song.

When I first heard of Suzanne Vega, I was jealous. She had done what I wanted to do, and so my first reaction was to pretend she didn't exist. Then I heard "Luka" and immediately wrote my own song ("Tripping the Light Fantastic"--better left unheard, folks.) Same with the Indigo Girls. I was so jealous that they had stolen my idea of being two women singers that I refused to like them for several years, even though I bought and listened to all their CDs. Now, I kiss the ground they trod upon.

I stuck on Sinead O'Connor's "Mandinka" just because it was produced by our Greta producer Kevin Moloney, whose picture I will put here to freak out Katryna:

And then I stuck on a bunch of random 80s songs, some of which I hated at the time (Tears for Fears) but have now been around so long they have worn me down from sheer exposure and corporate nostalgia. In fact, I am so old now that I am not sure some of my memories are truly my memories; I might have borrowed some of them from the movies or have them confused with the memories of some of my contemporaries who drank too much at the time. Either way, I now like the song "Everybody Wants to Rule the World." So shoot me.

This is a work in progress. I am hoping some of my classmates will help me remember what else needs to be on this mix. Oh! Like ALL of Graceland! And the Neville Brothers' Yellow Moon. And the Folkways Woody Guthrie/Ledbelly tribute. And Sweet Honey and the Rock. And Vladimir Horowitz Plays Mozart. But this is just my slice of the late 80s.

After I make the mix, I call a friend and cry. I pick up Johnny for violin, and on the way, I see a woman who looks like my best friend from 20 years ago, in my Loomis Chaffee days. And there on the streets of Florence, it IS my best friend, Gwendolyn. I pull the car over and screech her name. I jump out of my car and she grabs me by the shoulders and we both jump up and down like little kids. We make plans to see each other when I get back from reunions; I jump back in my car and continue to violin. At dinner, we listen to the mix and let the music rock us back to the past and forward to the present. It works on me like water, gently washing me clean again, massaging my heart, preparing me for whatever is next.

To hear the mix, you'll have to follow me on Spotify, apparently, though I have no earthly idea how to do that. But you probably do. The mix is called "1989."

Reunion Part 1

I have a fear that the pet store was not totally accurate in their presentation of the genders of these guinea pigs. It's just a feeling I have; plus last night's dream about finding giant white mice, the size of lop-eared rabbits living in my refrigerator on top of the lettuce and the eggs. Also, the diagrams on the internet to demonstrate the sexes of guinea pigs are troubling. That's all I'll say about that for now. But if we end up having a litter of baby guineas, I am going to take them babies back to Dave's Soda and Pet shop and politely inquire how much it costs to neuter adult guinea pigs.

My kids are in heaven, though. The guineas make very sweet chirpy sounds. They purr and cuddle and eat kale leaves out of the kids' hands.

I am in heaven because Jay now sings pop songs, like "Let it Go" and "Brave" and "Sir Duke" in his sweet little soprano. Elle whistles along, or plays songs on her violin for the rodents. Not every day is like this, or to be more precise, every day has its share of screaming fits and dramatic exclamations about the torture of being so bored by life in our house that Tom and I should be seized and have our parental licenses taken away. But I know how fleeting these golden years will be, these years when the kids would mostly rather be with us than off on their own. And so I breathe and try to remember to look up at the sky and really pay attention.

But this is not my forte. On the weekends, I try to take it all in and be one giant pincushion of appreciation, and usually by 9am all of us are yelling at each other. Then we have to lower our expectations, have some tearful apologies, and go on about our business. By afternoon, we are all friends again, and by Sunday we are exhausted as though we did not just have two days "off." (Of course we didn't have two days off!)

I am getting ready to go to my 25th Yale reunion. I am sick with anxiety about the whole thing, though a part of me is full of healthy anticipation and curiosity. Back in 1985 (!!!!!) I was, to put it mildly, anxious to be going away to college, even though I went with the ultimate security blanket: my high school boyfriend, an excellent guy who was very patient with my extreme co-dependence and neuroses for almost five years. I look back at pictures of myself and cringe. Not so much for the 80s fashions (white flats, balloon pants, bad perms) as the look in my face. I so desperately wanted people to like me, and I didn't yet know that I was pretty much OK. The first two years of college are a wash of misery, conviction that I was the mistake in the admission process, and overeating. The second two years I climbed (or was lifted) out of the muck and mire and fell so deeply in love with the place that all I wanted upon graduation was to figure out a way to stay in New Haven for the rest of my life. Failing that, I got engaged and started a rock band.

In anticipation of my reunion, I just listened to "Tangled up in Blue," the song I loved so much I named my singing group at Yale after it. Listening today, that song is clearly about Bob Dylan's 25th college reunion! I am pretty sure Dylan went to Yale and was writing about all the same people I used to know who are (somewhat of) an illusion to me now. But many of these people will quickly prove themselves real on Friday when I see them again, 25 years later, and I may well fall in love with New Haven again.

Wormholes, Best Trick in Beating Resistance, and Perfectionism

Wormholes
And here’s where the concept of Wormholes comes in. Wormholes, as I define them, are these little breaks of opportunity in my great wall of resistance. They’re the moments when I feel like maybe, if the circumstances were just right, I might possibly be talked into:
• Giving up bananas (they are SO not local)
• Organizing my office
• Writing a new song
• Doing more than just my one sun salutation in the morning
• Doing more than just 2 miles in my morning run
• Doing whatever totally heinous chore has been on my To Do list since two years ago Christmas (Today it's finding a new stylus for our aged turntable; last week it was filling out copyright forms to register the songs on our new CD)

Now, if I take advantage of these miraculous wormholes, the impossible not only can happen, but usually does with remarkable ease, especially if I have a little grace and humility about it. I resist playing the guitar until I stop telling myself I’m supposed to be playing the guitar. Then, usually, I want to play it. I go through phases with it, and today I know that about myself. Some years I practice diligently, with love and great enthusiasm and creativity. Other years, I coast along. Even though I have made my living as a singer-songwriter who plays the guitar, I know I will never be a virtuoso. What I have done is evolved my own style, and today it’s good enough for me. And I got that style from a certain amount of “just doing it,” as a certain shoe company would say. Just showing up and gritting my teeth and pushing that Sloth to play scales and figure out songs. On the most wonderful days, actual enthusiasm would appear in the middle of a practice session, and I know there’s nothing I’d rather be doing than just joyfully banging away at my guitar.

Best Trick Beating Resistance
“Play till you feel like resting. Then rest till you feel like playing.”––Martha Beck

When I have a lot to do and I don’t feel like doing anything, I make a deal with myself. I say, “Okay, then: do nothing. But really do nothing.”
Doing nothing involves reclining on my couch and staring into space. I do not get to talk on the phone, read, check my email, or sleep. On the other hand, I do not have to meditate, count my breaths or practice any kind of spiritual discipline whatever. All I do is space out. Somehow, this always relaxes and refreshes me, and before too long, my spinning mind has a million things it wants my body to do. I jump up and start accomplishing all the tasks I was fixing to resist.

Perfectionism is the Enemy
So when I look back on my “goals” list, my IAP sees all the things I haven’t done and won’t ever do. (Not going to be the next Beatles. I am clear on that. Don’t think Harvard Div’s in my future either, but that’s another story.) My IAP can sometimes be quite disappointed. But the truth is, I played the guitar well enough to make a career that has sustained me emotionally and financially and artistically for the past 22 years. Instead of becoming the next Beatles, I have this fantastic patchwork life: a manageable, wonderful music career, and a life as a freelance teacher of writing, music and life. I get to write books, go to my kids’ assemblies, and have date night with my husband once a week.
Like the person who really wanted to be a gardener in Ogunquit, the Real Me chooses the life I have made over the life I thought I should have when I was 22. This life, as they say, is right-sized. But I am also glad I gave it my all and “went for it.”

From How to Be an Adult: A Musician's Guide to Navigating Your Twenties, by Nerissa Nields, Mercy House 2013

Setting Goals and Resistance, Part 2

The Problem (For Some of Us) About Setting Goals

I am working on songwriting even as I post this. So far, so good, but man is it hard to get me to sit still!

From How to Be an Adult: A Musician's Guide to Navigating Your Twenties

The trick for me is to get the IAP and the Willful Child talking calmly to each other instead of having one of them throw a tsunami-size tantrum while the other one nags like a critical op-ed writer. For this is the challenge. As soon as I set a goal––like getting in shape so I can look great in a Betsey Johnson dress—my inner six(teen) year old (WC) immediately rolls her eyes and curls up in bed with a book. Meanwhile, my IAP goes ballistic on the poor reader, screaming, “Your thighs! That bulge above your triceps! Not to mention you’re going to get osteoporosis and heart disease! Get out of bed and do forty laps around the park!”

Eventually I learned to treat these two opposing personalities the way I would treat a cat. Cats (at least the ones I lived with) don’t respond well to direct orders or being scooped up and cuddled. They like to be wooed, approached at a 45 degree angle. Slyly. Gently. Coyly. And so when I am feeling listless, I have my IAP say, ever so slyly, gently, and coyly, “Wow, remember how nice it was to go for a run? You used to bring your iPod and listen to Anna Karenina. That was fun. Hmmm. Maybe if we go back to running, we can download Middlemarch. You could start by just walking, and call Susan on your cell phone… no pressure.” The six(teen)-year-old responds much better this way (though she negotiates for Patti Smith’s Just Kids in lieu of Middlemarch), and there is peace, harmony and fitness in the kingdom once again.

But this diplomacy has been long in negotiation. This should give you hope: in order to meet my second goal (to be the next Beatles) I knew I would have to practice my guitar a lot more. (I am undisciplined about practicing my guitar, and I pretty much always have been.) When I started at age eleven, that directive: “I should practice more!” rang in my ears every time I came home from school and saw my little nylon string guitar safely tucked away in its black pleather case. What did I do? Sometimes felt kind of sick and guilty and stuck the guitar in the nether regions of my closet. But often the desire to make music would come and pull at my heartstrings, and I would pull the guitar out of the case and open my Beatles for Easy Guitar book, sit down on the carpet and painfully play a few songs with especially easy chords. But I’d get so frustrated because the songs sounded nothing like the Beatles LPs I’d put on the record player that I’d slam the book shut in frustration and lock my guitar up in its case, to be ignored for the next few weeks. Still, the IAP had some effect, as I eventually played the guitar for my living.

Setting Goals and Resistence, part 1

Today, Katryna and I rehearsed (and even kind of wrote!) songs for our new CD. So my post is from my book How to Be an Adult: A Musician's Guide to Navigating Your Twenties. Makes an excellent graduation gift. Just saying.

Setting Goals
Goal-setting is probably not new to you. Who hasn’t at some point tried to achieve something just beyond one’s reach? How does one do such a thing? By working a little harder, a little longer, a little more often, in a focused way. We can set goals for ourselves around almost anything: making it through school, training for a race, mastering an instrument, achieving a social status, winning a chess ranking, winning first prize at a Rubik’s Cube tournament. When I was 22, my goals were: to never have to feel lonely again; to start a band that would be the next Beatles; to write a hit song; to look great in a Betsey Johnson dress; to have a daily yoga practice; to run every day; to keep a daily journal; to (eventually—many years in the future) have a family; to go to Harvard Divinity School and be a minister living in western Massachusetts.

Dealing With Resistance
The problem with setting goals is that as soon as we do, 95% of us come up against the source of all evil: Resistance. [For more on Resistance, you must MUST read the excellent Steve Pressfield's The War of Art.] Resistance, as I am defining it here, means not doing something you know you want to do, ought to do, love to do, and won’t do––yet have no logical reason for not doing. There is something about the nature of resistance that speaks to the very heart of this question of maturity. We all know resistance in some aspect of our lives; we all know that huge creature slouching toward the mall, if not Bethlehem, this three-toed sloth who sleeps all day in the cool of the trees and rouses itself only to eat and excrete. We all know the frustration of setting a goal—to keep our living room tidier, to jog three miles in the morning, to practice the guitar, to send out that resumé, to straighten out our finances––only to watch as the weeks go by and helplessly observe that sickening refusal in some deep part of ourselves to participate. What is it? Where does it come from?

I have no idea. All I know is that I recognize this sloth in myself, and it baffles me that I have accomplished as much as I have, given its hegemony over me. But I do have some observations.

Of course, if we never set goals, we’d never have to deal with resistance. I tend to see the whole issue of resistance to goals in myself as a conversation between a very willful, creative child and a very ambitious parent with the “Real You” stuck somewhere in the middle.

Sigmund Freud uses the terms “id,” “superego” and “ego” here, but some of us have problems with old Siggy, so I’ve provided some alternative jargon for you. Perhaps your resistance is actually healthy and self-protective. What if the goals you are setting for yourself are the wrong goals anyway? What if these particular goals do not support your true dreams and desires? What if the Real You––your true self before socialization, the unique person you were meant to be during your brief sojourn on this planet—what if this You does not care about glamour and fame and money? The Real You might think your perfect manifestation to be a gardener in the town of Ogunquit, Maine. The Real You might fall in love with an overweight, illiterate cab driver with eyes like Tom Hanks’ and a heart as big as Canada. The Real You might just want what it is meant to want.

Your Inner Ambitious Parent (IAP), on the other hand, is who and what our peers, People magazine, The New York Times and perhaps our actual ambitious parents tell us we should be––what we should look like, how much money we should make and what we should accomplish in our lifetime. Your IAP has been told to follow in the family business, or to be a doctor or a lawyer or something (please, God) that will provide our parents with some security upon retirement. Your IAP might want you to be straight, though sometimes, in some communities, gay. Your IAP wants you to contain your feelings (unless it’s Italian, which means it wants you to be extremely emotive, operatic, and a good cook and lover to boot. Pardon the “boot” pun). In short, the Real You and your IAP might be worlds apart.



Maybe the reason you keep procrastinating on your screenplay or sleeping through your morning workout is that you don’t really want to be an award winning documentary filmmaker or a triathlete. Maybe your house continues to be a disaster area, even though you subscribe religiously to FlyLady , because you don’t really want your house to look like it sprung from the pages of House Beautiful. Maybe this resistance is some kind of divine protection, a cry from the dark saying, “This is not me!”

The Willful Child on the other hand is not that helpful either, though some of us in our teens and twenties champion our WC and follow her on a long goose chase to degradation (see The Prodigal Son and a bazillion other characters in literature). The Willful Child is not that keen on making money, friends, or attending to personal hygiene. She’s fun for awhile, but not for a lifetime. You really don’t want her running the show, or you’ll end up like one of my actual willful children who, on occasion, refuses TV and candy simply because their actual IAP (me) is offering it to him or her. Or in my case, the WC is that same sloth spoken of earlier who doesn’t so much stamp her foot but rather curls up on the couch for an entire season if left undisturbed. Life, of course, is a process of finding that balance between chaos and rigidity. The balance point changes over time, which is why we need to practice balancing a lot.

(For tomorrow: The Problem (For Some of Us) About Setting Goals)

Sandra Tsing Loh and the 'Pause

I had the great pleasure of seeing and hearing Sandra Tsing Loh on Monday night. She spoke to a group of fabulous 40-60 something kick-ass Northampton women at Cathi Hanauer's house, and read from her new book The Madwoman in the Volvo: My Year of Raging Hormones. We were all in hysterics ("hysteria" comes from the Greek "hystera" which means womb, people) at what Cathi had termed "a 'pause party." And it's a great thing to laugh at what we most fear and relate to, with a group of others who seem to feel the same. I swore ahead of time I would not buy another book, since my list is so terrifyingly long, as is the stack by my bed, but I was first in line after the reading, and I haven't been able to put it down since.

I'd wanted to come because in 2011 my friend Jess Bacal (whose great book Mistakes I Made at Work: 25 Influential Women Reflect on What They Got Out of Getting It Wrong also just came out) had sent me a link to this excellent article from The Atlantic. I think it's poetic and also scary that when I spoke to Sandra, I had no memory of what the piece was about, only that I had loved it.

"It was about menopause," said my friend Lisa, who is younger than I by a good five years. (Younger as in she can remember what she reads, not as in: "she added, 'Duh!'" Which she could have.)

"It was?" I said.

So that was why, when she told us on Monday, that we should think of "menopause" not as a change from the regular state (fertile) to the abnormal (infertile), but a return home to the state we knew as girls, it rang familiar.

"IT’S INTRIGUING TO ponder this suggested reversal of what has traditionally been thought to be the woman’s hormonal cloud. A sudden influx of hormones is not what causes 50-year-old Aunt Carol to throw the leg of lamb out the window. Improperly balanced hormones were probably the culprit. Fertility’s amped-up reproductive hormones helped Aunt Carol 30 years ago to begin her mysterious automatic weekly ritual of roasting lamb just so and laying out 12 settings of silverware with an OCD-like attention to detail while cheerfully washing and folding and ironing the family laundry. No normal person would do that—look at the rest of the family: they are reading the paper and lazing about like rational, sensible people. And now that Aunt Carol’s hormonal cloud is finally wearing off, it’s not a tragedy, or an abnormality, or her going crazy—it just means she can rejoin the rest of the human race: she can be the same selfish, non-nurturing, non-bonding type of person everyone else is. (And so what if get-well casseroles won’t get baked, PTAs will collapse, and in-laws will go for decades without being sent a single greeting card? Paging Aunt Carol! The old Aunt Carol!)" (from The Bitch Is Back, Atlantic, Oct. 2011.

Of course, I have lots of thoughts and feelings about this, but right now, today, it's refreshing to remember that I am in a cloud of estrogen which propelled me to take a break from my work to jog down to the Smith Botanical Gardens and spend five or ten minutes holding my son's hand as his Kindergarten class got a tour. I'm glad for that cloud; and I am glad that it will end, and that someday I will go back to putting my writing front and center. Or sit on the couch and read a novel. Or just take more evenings off to watch a hilarious and brilliant woman share her life and her art with a bunch of other hilarious brilliant women.

Mother's Day

My writing group isn't meeting tonight, because I got invited to hear Sandra Tsing Loh read at a friend's house. She has a new book out called The Madwoman in the Volvo: My Year of Raging Hormones. Though I'd generally rather write with my writers than almost every other activity, I wanted to say yes to this invitation. I don't know from raging hormones (yet) and I like to be prepared for such eventualities. But what I want to write about today is Mother's Day.

I feel guilty saying this, because I know how hard Mother's Day can be for those who have lost theirs to either death or illness or painful choice; or for those who yearn to be mothers and aren't, or who were mothers and suffered the cruelest loss. But I have come to appreciate this holiday, and not just because my kids made me beautiful cards, gave me the day off and just plain exist. I hated it as a child, and in our family it was almost universally ignored until the three daughters became mothers ourselves and started getting cards, flowers (or resenting the lack thereof). Now we regularly thank our own mother. Now we get it.

In church yesterday, Steve said, "Every day should be mother's day. We owe a debt we can never pay back." And all of us had a mother, however imperfect. My life was changed when a wiser woman (not a mother herself) shared her own breakthrough: "I realized that the sometimes mean, sometimes crazy alcoholic mom I had was exactly the mother I needed to become the person I am." That statement set me free as a mother. Whenever I worried that I was wrecking my kids, I thought of this: the mother you get is the mother you need. For better or for worse, my kids got me. And mostly, it's for better. I have to trust that even when it's not so lovely--like when I ignore them for my iPhone, or yell at them for not showing up for violin practice--that somehow, someway, God can turn this to good: compost becomes flowers.

More about Sandra Tsing Loh tomorrow.

Guinea pigs

My kids got guinea pigs last week. The guinea pigs effectively bought us a year off the dog question. What Elle really wants is a dog. Her ambition in life, courtesy of a movie called Snow Buddies (which features talking golden retriever puppies who all have the word "Bud" somewhere in their name) is to be a musher. She wants to move to Alaska or Maine and raise sled dogs. Meanwhile, she would like us to get her a dog, more than anything in the world. In the past few months, we have found her stretched out on the couch, weeping silently, her arm over her eyes, grieving sweetly for her lack of dog. Everywhere she goes, she points out the dogs, races up to their owners and politely asks if she can pat them. She gets down on her knees and puts both her hands into the fur around the dog's neck (the bigger the dog the better, mostly: her favorites are Aussies, Great Danes and, inexplicably, Shih Tzus). This is very hard to resist.

Jay does not want a dog. He wants to be a dog. For now, I prefer the Jay dog to an actual dog. Jay still can curl up easily on my lap (though he is not allowed to lick my face, though he can pantomime), and I am savoring these last months of Kindergarten. I too want a dog, in theory. I don't really want to have to walk it, and I don't have time this summer to take a pup to obedience school. But I know I can't stay the tide forever. If you saw Elle with her arm over her eyes and her fingers in our neighbors' dogs' fur, you couldn't either.

So for now: guinea pigs. Their names are Eleatt (pronounced "Eliot") and Zippy. They are great, so far. They purr and grunt and chirp. Elle sits for hours with Eleatt on her chest, curled in a little ball. So far, Jay has not killed Zippy. All is well.

New CD, New Van, New Commitment

What have we been doing lately? Glad you asked. In addition to the usual, Nerissa has been writing a huge number (like 20) of songs; we drove our new van, Bessie Van Gogh, down to Virginia where we played at our church Immanuel Presbyterian, and also at the Ethical Community Charter School where we did our Pete Seeger Wasn't That a Time? show. Meanwhile, as we drove up and down the Jersey Turnpike, our kids made a chart of all the states represented on the license plates of the cars we passed on the way.

We visited the Mall in DC and tried to go to the East Wing of the National Gallery, but it was closed. So we visited the West Wing and gave the kids a scavenger hunt: "Find a painting with fruit in it." "Find a painting with two women," etc.

We also went to the American History museum and looked at a display on the Civil Rights era. We watched footage of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., and also saw Joan Baez's guitar, which she played at the Lincoln Memorial.

We sang Pete Seeger songs and some of our new ones. We used our brand new sound system. We were grateful for every single extra inch Bessie Van Gogh afforded us. We hung around the playground while our kids gamboled, and we talked about the new CD we are going to make this summer. We talked about a CD release tour in 2015; about going to Florida for a gig, about our dream of performing in all 50 states in our lifetime (we've played all but Montana, Idaho, Nevada, Mississippi, Oklahoma and Hawaii.) We showed our kids the neighborhood we'd lived in in the 70s. We saw our parents. We saw spring in Virginia, which gave us hope that spring would eventually come to Massachusetts.

Last weekend, we celebrated Elle’s 8th birthday. Katryna's kids gave her the soundtrack to Frozen, a movie she'd watched with her friends at least twice before we got to see it as a family. Jay had also seen it without us. Katryna's kids know every word of the soundtrack, and after dinner Saturday night, the four kids closed the French doors, which separate the dining room from the music room and proceeded to sing and dance along to practically the entire movie, emoting majestically with their arms, shooshing their hair back dramatically along with "Let It Go." We grown-ups snuck over to the backstage area to spy on them. They were in perfect bliss; and I realized that this was their music as much as anything has ever been my music, and for that reason, I decided to love it, even though it is the kind of aggressive pop music I have historically eschewed.

I was 8 when I discovered my first LP--the LP that I would wear out, play over and over, knew every note to: The Captain and Tennille's Love Will Keep Us Together. Katryna and I used to do the same kind of interpretive dance, belt-it-out reveries to that LP.

The joy and vulnerability is so delicious to watch, but we felt almost guilty spying on them. In fact, five year old Jay eventually spotted us, and when he did, immediately said, “Go away. This is pwivate.”

We are about to record our 17th CD. We have almost all the songs. I should have been working on a song tonight, but instead I wrote this. I feel the need to connect back to the readership of this blog during the next few months. My creative entrepreneurial group (CREMA—Creative Entrepreneur Mastermind) met last week and talked about how important it is for writers to be disciplined, to write when they say they will write. To write for at least an hour a day. I want to commit to that for the next two months leading up to our time in the studio. When I am not writing and performing regularly, I forget who I am. (Which might not be a bad thing, but for the sake of argument...) It’s almost impossible for me to remember that my music matters unless I am onstage, or it’s the day after a show, or I’m singing a new song in church. By day two, post-show, I have forgotten that anyone likes my music or remembers who I am (if I have forgotten who The Nields are, which I usually do, why should anyone else remember?) We are not gigging very much this summer because this time around, we're doing the "hole up in the studio" version of recording a record (whereas with The Full Catastrophe we did the "let's try to live our whole lives while recording for an hour a week" version. Result? A record that took three years to make.) Now is a good time to remember that I am a musician and a writer and not get distracted by my child's guinea pigs (more on that later) or get consumed by a clutter-clearing initiative.

I need, once again, to commit to an hour of creative time per day. Not so much in the hopes that I will write something Outstanding That Outlives Me (OTOM=my perpetual goal), but to remind ME that I am an artist, first and foremost. Remember when I spent a whole month blogging every day? That was March 2009, after having that formative tour/vacation in Florida where I couldn't appreciate the view of the Gulf of Mexico because I was too tired. On that trip, we played a couple of shows at the Craftsman House, and while resting between, I found a book called The Mud Pie Dilemma about an artist named Tom Coleman who had struggled to raise a child and make a living while remaining an artist. It gave me a kick in the pants at the time––I was newly postpartum after my second child, Jay––and I committed to a daily blogging practice. I don't think I can do that right now, though I hope to in July and August while we're recording the new CD. But for now, I can commit to hitting the piano, guitar or laptop for some daily open-ended creative time. I want to feel some of that exuberance my kids feel when they sing along to "Let It Go."

“If you had started doing anything two weeks ago, by today you would have been two weeks better at it.”
― John Mayer

Why I Don't Get to Feel Superior Ever Again

Last week, we bought an all-wheel drive minivan.
Before you stop reading, send me threatening emails or unfriend me, hear me out. There are stranger things, Horatio...

Before there was the mini van, of course, there was the oft celebrated Jetta,which could run on vegetable oil and in any case got 41 miles to the gallon. Tom and I bought it shortly (like 3 days) after seeing Al Gore's An Inconvenient Truth. Only problem with the Jetta was that, by 2014, it could barely contain the four of us, let alone our stuff, so if we went anywhere at all, we'd need to put the Yakima on the roof. When I pick the kids up from school, only one of them could have a playdate, and if the playdate was Elle's best friends who are twins, I had to make them walk home, which was fine if the weather was ok (though Jay inevitably protested). When my parents came to visit, we had to go everywhere in two cars.

And then there came a procession of not one but two gas guzzling silver trucks, a honking Tundra and a much svelter (but still guzzling) Tacoma. They were the purchases of my husband, and since I've vowed never to speak ill of him, I'll just leave you with that information. I am a loving wife, and I want my husband to be happy. 'Nuff said. Plus, that husband of mine bikes almost everywhere. It takes him over two months to use one tank of gas. Still. There were two trucks. And a Jetta. Did we really need to be a three car family? I mean, a two-truck, one-car family? No.

But there came a time when said husband came to his senses and said, "Lo, good Wife! But these silver trucks doth consume much more than their share of global commestables in the form of fossil fuels, and methinks we should unload at least one of them! For I have climbed high up yonder mountain, and I have seen the New Order, and Lo! It containeth no trucks!"

Or something like that. Anyway, the point is we were both feeling sick about the two stupid trucks taking up space in our driveway, not to mention making it impossible to get in or out of our driveway without scratching said vehicles on the arbor vitae, or occasionally leveling the arbor vitae. Meanwhile, Katryna and I have some gigs coming up on which family members wanted to join us. We're going to visit the grands over April vacation, and while at it play at our old church (Immanuel Presbyterian--come on out on Wednesday April 23 and see our Pete Seeger Sing Along!) and do a school gig in New Jersey on the way home. Katryna's ancient Sienna, which used to be our touring vehicle, has gone well over 200,000 and is in grave need of repairs, if not the grave itself. Not to mention, it's snowed in at the moment. We can't all fit in her Corolla, not 3 kids, a sound system and the guitar, the violins and the stuffed animals and pillows and blankets and all the garbage we'll surely accumulate on the trip.

And so the idea curled up in my brain like a seed about to unfurl, and soon I was mentioning minivans to Tom at every opportunity. "Well, if we had a minivan..." I'd begin most sentences. And for the first time, he was not opposed. Well, actually, this was the first time. See, I'd had an aversion to minivans. I felt that to own a minivan was to just roll over and declare myself a middle-aged mom whose priority was her kids. NOT THAT THERE'S ANYTHING WRONG WITH THAT!!!!!!! But it didn't fit with my own self-image of hip aging-rock-star/environmentalist.

Elle concurred. "No!!!!" she wailed, pointing at the sticker in the car dealership. "This gets 17 miles to the gallon! Let's get a Prius!"

Our plan was to sell the trucks on Craiglist for $11,000 (Tundra, 91,000 miles) and $8000 (Tacoma, 169,000 miles) but no one else, apparently, thought that that was a good idea. Why? Who could resist this photo we posted?

The trucks did not budge. So, just to see what would happen if we went to the dealer and asked what the trade in value would be, we spent a Sunday afternoon not buying a minivan. "See?" I told Tom as we walked away from their insulting offer ($6000 for the Tundra, $4000 for the Tacoma). "I don't budge."

We did test drive the van, though. And all my Puritanical, high-minded, Polarbear-loving leanings were sorely strained by the smooth ride, the leather seats, the amazing sound system, the automatic doors, the squeals of delight from the kids in the back seat (even Elle was won over). We could live in that van.

Still, it was just all too much. Literally. Too big. Too fancy. Too wasteful! I'd thought, initially, we'd buy and sell on craigslist and end up with more space in our driveway and a bit of cash. Instead, we were facing a much smaller number in our bank account and two huge losses on our trucks. And no vehicle to lug the trash to the dump. Or to loan to our friends who were moving, or to offer as a prize at the auctions our school and church hold annually. (Two days with Tom's truck!)

So Tom and I had a sleepless night, a dark night of the soul, if you will. And when we woke up, we were in agreement.

"Let's do it," he said. "You need it for your gigs. And we can bring it to the Adirondacks. We need to be able to carpool, have playdates for the kids."

"And I was thinking," I said. "That you should keep the Tacoma. You love that truck."

The truth about what happens when you go to a car dealership to see what the trade in value of your trucks is that you eventually buy a car and spend way more money than you want to. So we have a lot less money now, and no more room in our driveway. I spent a week in feverish buyer's remorse, thinking of all the worthy causes we could have supported, all the time off we could have taken. And we have blood on our hands, not that we didn't already; but now we can't act superior to all those other minivan moms and dads who are, like us, just doing the best they can, trying to juggle it all. My friend said, "You feel sad because you didn't win at the car game? No one wins at the car game! Only car dealerships, who are experts. We're supposed to lose money on our cars!"

Still, I have to admit, as I read through what I have written here, I still shake my head at myself and scold. "What are your grandchildren going to say to you when you tell them, 'Sorry that there are only cockroaches and starlings and squirrels left. Here are some pictures of all the other animals we annihilated by driving gas guzzlers and drying our laundry in machines. We could have been more eco-conscious, but it was crowded in our Jetta!'" And they will look at you, these grown up children, and say, 'Wah, wah, wah. Tell it to the polarbears."

But maybe beating myself up is better that than the alternative: blaming everyone else. Or each other. Truth is, I was so judgey of Tom and his trucks, in case you couldn't tell. I felt no compassion when he said, "But it's so much fun to drive!" Now, that's how I feel about my van, who I think is named Bessie, for she is like a big, contemplative, ruminating bovine. I drive around in Bessie, and it's just so much fun. OH! The humility.

This morning, Tom got in the Jetta to go somewhere (we're still mostly driving the Jetta.) But because of the recent late March torrential rains, he spun and spun and spun the wheels. No movement. That baby is completely stuck in the mud.


Thank goodness for our 4 wheel drive truck and van. I get to be one among many, on the ground, not looking down from above. We're in this together.

Thoughts Post-FAWM

I am paying a debt of honor by finally reading Charles Dickens. And by "reading," I really mean listening, since all I ever do anymore is listen to audiobooks. And by "all I ever do anymore" I don't mean that literally. Because I do a lot. This is my daughter's depiction of her day:

You can surmise the apple does not fall far from the mama tree. I got up this morning at 6, did some yoga, then meditated, then counseled a friend on the phone, then cuddled my 5 year old, made him and me breakfast, then made my daughter's breakfast, then tidied up, did violin practice with the kids, then cleaned the house, ran to the Y, lifted weights, ran home (all while listening to my audiobook), led a phone meeting, ate lunch while listening to NPR on my iPhone to try to figure out what is going on in the Ukraine (now I kind of have an idea, which is better than yesterday), then sent out a dozen emails and texts that ranged from the personal to the familial to the various businesses and classes I run. Then Patty (my manager) and Katryna came over and we had an hour meeting to figure out booking issues, and by the time it was over, I had to pick up the kids from school. I took them straight to the corner supermarket to get bananas and milk and to the post office where I sent a friend a CD copy of my demo of new songs. Then I dropped off Jay at a playdate, took Elle to her violin lesson, talked to a friend who has a rare stage 3 cancer about her chemo treatments, picked Jay up from the playdate, scooted home with the kids, made them dinner, ate dinner, played ten minutes of piano, and here I sit in my writing group, writing prose for the first time in a month.

Our prompt today is a poem called "Let Go. Return" by Josephine Johnson, from 1937. In it she writes:

This is the need, the deep necessity of every life:
To scatter wide seed in many fields,
But build one barn.

This is our blunder, to have built
Gilt shacks for every seed,
And followed our sowing on fast anxious feet,
Desiring to grind the farmost grain.

Let go. Let go. Return
Heighten and straighten the barn's first beam.
Give shape and form. Discover the rat, the splintered stair.
Throw out the dry, gray corn.

Then may it be said of you:
Behold, he had done one thing well,
And he knows whereof he speaks, and he means what he has said,
And we may trust him.
This is sufficient for a life.

I am queen of building gilt shacks for every seed. Did this woman worm herself into my head and speak to me from the grave, reaching her hands out to grab my ankles the way Pip imagines the dead might treat his sinister nemesis Abel Magwitch in that first chapter of Great Expectations? For this is my midlife crisis, right here: I am in danger of letting my barn fall down because I am so busy tending to every little gilt (guilt) shack. And which ones really merit my attention?


On the way back from the violin lesson, Elle said, "I didn't know T had cancer."
"How did you know she did?"
"I eavesdropped on you."
"Ah," I said. "That is a good skill to have."
We drove for awhile. She said, "When did she get cancer?"
I said, "No one knows when exactly, but she was having trouble breathing, and they found out about it around Christmas." My eyes welled up a bit. I had just told T how brave I thought she was, and she said, "You'd do the same thing. I mean," and here she had pointed at Elle who was on the floor playing with the violin teacher's baby. "We don't have a choice. We can't just roll over and die." T has two young daughters. I said now, to Elle, "We need to pray hard. Not that that always works, but sometimes it does. And we need to be really nice to her kids right now. And I am going to be really mad at God if we lose T."

Elle paused. Then from the backseat: "It's not exactly God's fault."

Part of the problem is that the barn, as I saw it, was the music I created with my bandmates. The music is obviously my life's work, even as I can neglect it dreadfully for months at a time. This past month, I did not neglect it. I spent the whole month of February writing songs, 14 to be exact. Well, really 13. One was a duet of Katryna singing "You've Got to Walk that Lonesome Valley" with Siri, the iPhone voice over.


My big contribution to that number was to immortalize it on my own iPhone and post it on Facebook. But I did write 13 whole other songs, some of which are pretty good. And what was great about the experience was that I don't even care that much if the songs are good or not, or if I'll record them and put them on my next CD. I now remember how to write songs, and I have confidence that I can. February was like spring training. I'm ready to play ball now.


But like so many mothers I know, I also feel that my "real" work is my family: nurturing my relationship with my husband, and the day-to-day mothering of my two children. I spend much of my energy (as demonstrated by my big list) on keeping the machine going, that contraption that feeds, clothes, transports, amuses, bathes and grooms and educates and snuggles my children. And on many occasions, that other barn (for I won't, certainly, call this a gilt shack) seems directly at odds with the first. Which barn gets the attention, the small improvements? How can I chose which beam to straighten when they both need fresh wood? How can I chose which one thing to do well?

Well, for one thing, let's simply acknowledge that Josephine Johnson wasn't writing at a time when women could, from a practical perspective, raise two barns. But in the age of Hillary Rodham Clinton, Nora Ephron and Cate Blanchett, to name just three career moms among countless others, I think it's fair to say that many do, nowadays, build two barns. (Men as well as women.) But perhaps I don't need to build fourteen. Maybe I can let some of my smaller projects be just that: smaller projects. Pete Seeger's death reminded me that my true calling is still, and always will be, conveyer of song to a group, however humble that may look. It's a ministry calling, every bit as dramatic as Jonah's. We don't get to choose where we get sent. I might prefer Telluride Bluegrass Festival, or the Grammies to the parking lot of River Valley Market, but I am a singer, and as Pete said to the HUAC, "I'll sing for anybody." We singers can only hope, as Dickens might say, to be beams of God's grace, shining on all alike.


Back in the car, I was struck by Elle's lucidity. I don't know if agree with her, theologically. I have read When Bad Things Happen to Good People, and I am intrigued by the idea that since an omniscient God cannot co-exist with an all loving God, we need to choose which we believe. I haven't come down firmly on either side, and I suspect, still, that God is somehow all loving and omniscient, but we humans can't possibly be expected to take such a long view. Still, I said,

"You're right. I agree with you, actually."

"I don't like when people blame God," Elle said. I turned to look at her. She's seven, now. She wears, daily, a fuzzy plush vest of tiger stripes with a tiger hood, and on top of that an Adidas windbreaker. Her eyelashes are so long I sometimes can't believe they're real, that she's real, this elf-like child of mine who can go from regular silly kiddo to wise-beyond-her-years sage on a dime's turn.

"Neither do I," I concede. "Thanks for the reminder."

So it's March, now. The songs got written. Now it's time to make them good. Write more songs. Schedule the recording we'll be doing this summer. Book some gigs. Practice piano, play guitar, read some classics, listen to a lot of old and new music, hand your guitar to young ones stronger, thank God, thank God, thank God.

I'm Pretty Sure That My iPhone Is Making Me Sick

I’m Pretty Sure That My iPhone is Making Me Sick

I’m pretty sure that my iPhone is making me sick
And still I can’ stop poking at the apps and the pics
Every time I hold it to my head
It makes the insides of my body feel like lead
Not to mention when the thing goes dead
I want to poke my eyes out with a stick
Yeah, I’m pretty sure that my iphone is making me sick.

I’m pretty sure that my iphone is making me stupid
It’s as if all my vast stores of knowledge have been pillaged and looted
If I don’t know a fact, I poke the question in Safari
I might recall your number but I’m sort of in a hurry
So I ask, and I’m reminded by Siri
It’s just as if we’re paired by an arrow of Cupid
Yeah, I’m pretty sure that my iphone is making me stupid

iphone, you’re like some magic wand!
Harry Potter’s got nothing on you
One day you’ll have an app for apparation!
Will there be anything that you can’t do?

I’m pretty sure that my iphone is wrecking my marriage
Even though my iphone and I go like a horse and a carriage
My husband says my face is turning green
From all that hunching over tiny screens
My children want to flush it down the can
Until they see that I have Instagram
And then they, too, step in the hologram
They’re walking the plank, they pledge to join me in bondage…
Yes, I’m pretty sure that my iPhone is wrecking my
Yes, I’m pretty sure that my iPhone is making me
Yes, I’m pretty sure that my iPhone is making me sick.

By Nerissa Nields
©2014 Peter Quince Productions ASCAP all rights reserved
Feb. 20, 2014

FAWM Halfway Check In

It's more than halfway through February, and I have seven songs written. I need to do something today or risk being mad at myself. We're in the Adirondacks for the long weekend, and it's cold, thick with snow and gorgeous here. Our Jetta couldn't make it up the steep driveway, so it's parked on the dirt road we live off of. We hiked everything in: food, luggage, violins, guitar, computer. Left the cross country skis in the car.

My first day on vacation is always a waste of sorts. A clearing out. I am useless, cranky, exhausted, depressed and non-functioning. This makes everyone in my family mad at me, which only exacerbates the problem, but today everyone, including me, is much better. We all had to readjust expectations and accept that we are not fully evolved beings quite yet. Things that helped: crying, telling the truth, making dinner together, listening to the 70s mix I made, and playing Attaturk. Jay can now read and write! This is quite an advantage in life, as is being able to play Attaturk.

Katryna helped a lot with FAWM. She said, "Don't think you're supposed to come up with 14 finished songs. Just get 14 song starts. We'll refine later." So that being said, I think many of these are very close:

1. Dave Hayes The Weather Guy
2. Everybody Needs a Witness
3. Turn It Around Again
4. Welcome Song
5. 12 Rocking Princesses
6. Snowblower
7. Skunk


I should also say, not that it has anything to do with anything, that all this not-being-able-to-get-up-the-driveway has us in New Car Lust mode. Suddenly, we need a car with AWD, even though in the almost 8 years since we've owned our Jetta, we've only regretted the front wheel drive twice. That Jetta gets 41 miles to the gallon. Plus it's paid for.

We also have two, count them two, silver trucks with 4WD, but neither one is appropriate for long family trips. And we are trying to sell one of them.

And finally, in the list of things that have nothing to do with FAWM, Elle wants a dog more than she wants anything in life. That child is determined (see: violin and cleverly tricking me into being YESM=Yelling Evil Suzuki Mom), and I think a dog might be in our future. Next car will depend on size of said beast.

FAWM #3: Welcome Song for Guitar Students

I told my guitar students yesterday that I would write them a new "Hello" song. Currently, we've been using "Good Morning, Sunshine," which is the HooteNanny welcome song, written in 2006. It's pretty easy, but for a brand new beginner, the changes come fast. Plus there is a pesky F#m7 which is kind of advanced for newbies. I wanted to give the guitarists their own song, anyway. So here it is.

FAWM Day #2 One down

I wrote my song! It took me all day, but it's finished, or close to. It's called "Dave Hayes the Weather Guy." I know he's Dave Hayes the Weather Nut, but "Nut" was just too silly for the song. I will post the video in a few days. Meanwhile, I am working on another song in E tuning, and it's killing me. I should go back to it. More soon. Here's the writerly advice for the day:

FAWM Day One-Excuses, Excuses

It's February 1st, the beginning of February Album Writing Month, and I feel doomed because I have lost my journal. I am in the middle of my writing retreat, a Deep Retreat in which we spend all day Saturday (all day!) writing, with breaks for lunch, dinner, and of course singing tonight. It's 9:55am and I have already wasted 25 minutes of my writing time searching for this journal, making my cup of tea, reheating my cup of tea, gathering two different guitars, (one in standard, one in E tuning), finding my songwriting journal (different and NOT a replacement for my actual journal in which I have collected all my brilliant thoughts and ideas for writing this month). I also gathered three fat files from my filing cabinet full of crappy song starts from the 90s, plus some guitar lesson ideas and random sheet music. I made my bed. I made a new category of "Reminders" for my iphone, whose screen got wrecked this morning when, in the middle of my run, I answered a text from my sister and the thing flew out of my hands and shattered on the pavement. Naturally, I am thinking that I'll have to make a trip to the Apple store in Holyoke to get it replaced. This weekend. (Maybe I should go now.) I need to send out my newsletter to remind folks about the next retreat. And really, as I am sitting here not writing songs, I am contemplating the notion that I am more of a teacher than a writer now, anyway, and so maybe I should spend my time coming up with articles and blog posts instead of new songs. My Pete Seeger piece was published in today's Gazette. Maybe I should call the Gazette and see if I could be a writer for them! That would get me out of this songwriting gig.

I have written a lot of songs in my life. I have not counted them but figuring that I've averaged about 12 songs a year since I was 18––I am now 46––that's well over 300 songs. That seems about right.

Does the world really need any more songs by Nerissa Nields? Haven't I written enough? Can't I just keep singing my old songs?

To my right are two full bins of clean laundry waiting to be sorted. Maybe I should sort them. Maybe that would be a good thing for my right brain as I compose.

And what should I compose? I have a lot of ideas, and the ideas have no central axis. I have ideas for typical Nields teen age girl songs. I have ideas for spirituals and protest songs, and silly kids songs. We need to make a new CD this summer. I have to have the songs by then. This thought makes me want to pant like a nervous dog. I have an essay I want to finish. I am dying to get back to my novel The Big Idea, but I pledged to my novel group that I would not touch it until after February. I need to write songs. Where is my journal???

Ira Glass said this great thing about writing that I am just going to post right here:

“Nobody tells this to people who are beginners, I wish someone told me. All of us who do creative work, we get into it because we have good taste. But there is this gap. For the first couple years you make stuff, it’s just not that good. It’s trying to be good, it has potential, but it’s not. But your taste, the thing that got you into the game, is still killer. And your taste is why your work disappoints you. A lot of people never get past this phase, they quit. Most people I know who do interesting, creative work went through years of this. We know our work doesn’t have this special thing that we want it to have. We all go through this. And if you are just starting out or you are still in this phase, you gotta know its normal and the most important thing you can do is do a lot of work. Put yourself on a deadline so that every week you will finish one story. It is only by going through a volume of work that you will close that gap, and your work will be as good as your ambitions. And I took longer to figure out how to do this than anyone I’ve ever met. It’s gonna take awhile. It’s normal to take awhile. You’ve just gotta fight your way through.”
― Ira Glass

OK. A lot of work. The laundry will remain unfolded. I am hereby checking in to write a song. It might not be a song that ever sees the light of day, but right now, I will write a song. I'll let you know how it turns out tomorrow.

Pete Seeger

When Pete Seeger was blacklisted in the 50s, after being accused of being a communist by the House Committee on Un-American Activities (HUAC), the Weavers’ career dried up. Pop radio’s loss was my family’s gain. Pete’s wife Toshi booked him in colleges, but he also made regular appearances at the Dalton School in New York City, where my father was lucky enough to have Pete’s brother John Seeger as his geography teacher. Pete taught the Dalton children “Deep Blue Sea,” “Sweet Potatoes” as well as his friend Woody Guthrie’s “This Land Is Your Land.” My father’s idea of what a song was, what a song could do, grew from these assemblies. He and my mother fell in love at a Pete Seeger concert in 1961, singing along to “Last Night I Had the Strangest Dream.” They raised their three daughters on folk music in the Pete Seeger tradition. Pete, being one of the most generous as well as courageous musicians who ever lived, had introduced many a young performer to his audience: Bob Dylan, Tom Paxton, Odetta. We grew up with their albums, but in true Seeger style, we mostly learned them straight from my dad, who metabolized the LP versions of the songs and made them his own by singing them and playing them to us, guitar on his lap, us at his feet.

In college, I founded a folk group called Tangled Up in Blue, and we covered many a Pete song. One early spring day in the late 80s we all trooped over to the Shubert Theatre to see Pete play with Mikata, a local salsa band. After the show, there was a VIP only meet-and-greet. We stormed the cordons, surrounded Pete and sang him our version of “Wimoweh.” He beamed at us, sang along and afterwards said, “I’d love to have you all come up to Beacon and help me lead a workshop on rounds. I’ve been thinking a lot about rounds….”

I’d read David Dunaway’s 1981 biography How Can I Keep From Singing when I was seventeen, and it was as if I’d been handed my How-To guide. How could I be anything other than a folk singer working for a better world, using the power of song and voices joined together in community to effect changes in people’s hearts and attitudes and actions?

But I was also a teenager, a poet––hungry for what my other heroes, Bob Dylan and the Beatles had achieved: fame, money and influence. Also, I am a woman, and in the late eighties, all I saw was how hard it was to get attention if you didn’t possess the trifecta of being young, thin and beautiful. And so I lobbied my beautiful sister, Katryna, to join in my quest, to let go of her long term dreams of becoming chief Justice of the Supreme Court and her short term dream of getting a fellowship to travel and study in Nepal, and instead become the next Beatles with me.

"I am not going to spend my life trying to get a number one hit,” she said. “I don't think I could be happy trying to be a famous pop star and not getting there, but I could spend my whole life striving to be the next Pete Seeger and I'll love it even if I fail. Pete's work is all about the journey. I want my life to be about the journey.”

That woke me up. We had indeed gotten a lot of attention in the early nineties for being “young, hip and hot,” as the Boston Globe termed us. We were pretty girls, or pretty enough. I’d studied how to write an alt-rock song full of alt-rock angst and irony and noir. We wore black motorcycle jackets and boots to match and scowled at the camera and coaxed feedback out of our amps. We’d gotten signed to the same label as the Beatles and procured a publishing deal from Madonna’s imprint. But when the labels went belly up, Katryna’s mission statement shone strong: fame and fortune are ephemeral. What matters is the kid dancing at the front of the stage, or the one singing along in her car. Did we inspire these kids? Are they going to make music, pass along the message of peace, love, self-worth, courage? If so, we’ve done our job.

We wrote a different kind of song after that. We dug into our own communities. We became parents. We started making music for kids. After all, that’s what Pete had done. We continued to perform and travel and produce CDs and books, but the focus was less on vainglory or even some humble ambition, and more on gratitude. We are lucky enough to be musicians. We are lucky enough to serve with song. We won the lottery.

Over and over again, when Pete was questioned by HUAC about whom he knew—they were of course trying to get him to name names—he’d say, “I won’t tell you who I sang to, but I’d be more than happy to play you the songs we sang. Don’t you want to hear a song?” He so believed in the power of song to change a person, and I love that he knew that those congressmen would soften if he sang them “Wasn’t That a Time.”

Today, I sing “If I Had a Hammer” to the second graders at Jackson Street School (it is, for some reason, heavily requested). We talk about courage; we talk about justice and freedom. And we sing about love between our brothers and our sisters. In singing, we practice love. It’s all we have. And it’s all we need.

Photo c/o Amy Meltzer. Katryna and Nerissa teaching "Ain't Gonna Let Nobody Turn Me Around" for Monday's Martin Luther King, Jr. celebration at Edwards Church in Northampton MA.

The Nields are performing at the Iron Horse February 8 with their band. www.nields.com

New Year's Pep Talk for Writers

It's January 3--a month since I last posted. Too much time has gone by, and as the days moved along on the calendar, it seemed harder and harder to get back to this blog. I am all about the daily, as you know, and when I lose my regular momentum, I struggle mightily to get it back. Plus, I have to admit, I've felt guilty about even having a blog lately. I am trying to finish my novel The Big Idea (a book I have been writing on and off for 13 years now, albeit with a long hiatus), and every novelist I know says to kill your blog.

But I like my blog. In my head, anyway, I am always writing to you, whoever you are.

I started to write a post in mid-December that went nowhere. (But you can find its remnants here.) December was full to the brim of red Christmas lights staying "Stop everything and just make sure your Santa list is complete." We played a bunch of shows, jumped onstage with Dar on the solstice, celebrated my mother's 70th birthday in Florida, missed flights, cursed Winter Storm Hercules, got the stomach flu, and now my early January retreat which was supposed to start this evening at 5:30 has been cancelled.

A wise friend once said, "When something goes awry, ask yourself, 'Why is this the best possible thing to happen right now?'" And so I am doing just that. I lost my writing retreat, but I am giving myself this time, right now, to write about my writing intentions for 2014.

I woke up on January 1 with this extremely familiar question:
If you are a writer, what are you writing? Isn't it time to concentrate on one medium, or at least one novel? Can you really write/re-write two novels, maintain two blogs, AND write songs (both kids songs and adult songs), all while running five classes/workshops, and coaching individuals and mothering two children (who need to practice violin every day)? Are you a novelist or a songwriter?

I sat on my meditation cushion and stared at the dry, suffering Christmas tree. I had no answer. But a few hours later, I got one. Tom and I went to Yoga Sanctuary for an energizing and restorative date. Sara Rose, my dear friend and teacher, led a wonderful class. During the "sermon" part at the beginning she spoke about why we begin the year in January instead of the more obvious March or April. She said something similar to what our minister Steve Philbrick says: the seed can only grow in the dark. We need darkness, even burial, to manifest anything. These are the natural conditions of life, aren't they? No one can really develop in broad daylight. We all came from the windowless womb.

We finished the class by setting an intention for the year. We wrote down our themes and intentions on little pieces of paper and hung them on branches that form an arc around the entrance of the studio. Mine was about being open-hearted and truthful, especially in the words I write and speak.

My theme for 2013 was “seeds,” and my intention was "go slow," and as frustrating as this theme proved to be, I recognize the sprouting, even in these hardening, frosty mornings where the sun graces us with her appearance a few minutes earlier each day. (She is coming back.)

Along with my more concrete 2013 intentions (read more, get stronger, practice an instrument daily), I set some other intentions––which is to say, planted seeds (or at least that is what I hoped I was doing)–– many years ago now; so long ago, I can’t even tell you when. The kinds of intentions you whisper to your best friend, or scratch into a journal, or pin to a vision board, fold into a God jar. “I want to be a writer,” was the gist of it. “But you are a writer,” God said back. “Not just songs. I want to write other things too. Books. And I want to make my living from my words as much as from my showing up. I want my projects to have legs. I want them to run, and fetch me some income.”

This wish for works that worked (as opposed to me doing all the work in real time) was practical as well as mystical. I wanted to have a family. I didn’t want to be traveling the continent for 320 days a year anymore, promoting my work. So I did what any good life coach would tell me to do. First, I made my broad strokes; then I made a long list of baby steps for the broad strokes. The broad strokes were easy: an album every year and a half. A first novel. An active blog. Well, make that two. How to Be an Adult finally written. And then make it an ebook and an audiobook. A second novel: The Big Idea, write the soundtrack, publish the whole thing as an interactive web page.

And the baby steps: Write. Develop a daily practice. Learn how to self-publish so you won’t be beholden to anyone, so you can call the shots and design your own book covers. Make a bunch of mistakes. Learn from them. And then the part comes where you market the darn things.

I am a Quick Start, which means I love to jump in and learn from my mistakes. I’d rather get the thing out there, warts and all, while my sister and partner Katryna would rather polish and perfect. But part of my “seeds” intention was to focus on the daily practice: slow growth. And so I am trying to notice the slow growth. I am veering away from the hit I get from posting a blog (or a soundbite on Facebook or Twitter) and even the song, which can be written in a day and performed that evening. It’s a heady hit. Not so with the novel I’ve been working on (on and off) for 13 years. It will have to formulate in the cold darkness.

This fall I started taking piano lessons. I studied classical piano as a child, and I was awful. I still am. But every day, I get a teensy weensy bit better. I also started lifting weights to build strength. I was pretty weak, but when I upped the weight by five pounds every few weeks, I got a teensy bit stronger. I read a little every day, and I might remember one percent of what I read a year from now. But my reading muscles are working. And I see incremental progress. I am trying to polish and perfect. My novel is slowly progressing. I am able to play the piano in church. My Bach Minuets are now fairly smooth, and I am on to the Prelude in C from the Well Tempered Clavier. The ebook finally got published. It took way longer than I ever imagined, but it has happened.

So here I am, January 3, reaffirming that yes, I am a spread-too-thin writer of a bunch of different genres. I have written three books that have been published. I have written 16 CDs full of songs that I (mostly) wrote. I am a novelist and a songwriter. Oh, yeah, also I have two blogs. This spread-too-thinness, so far anyway, is what I am. It's who I am.

I wrote a lot of stuff in 2013, some of which you know about (many songs, many posts, How to Be an Adult), and some of which you might never see (the novel chapters). A lot is in the ground right now, turning around, trying to find which way is up, reaching tendrils deep into the earth and up toward the nascent sun. I am learning to accept that I need to work incrementally these days. I do other things besides write, and because I am balancing being the best mother I can be with being the best writer I can be, that means that things go slowly. No matter--my success and/or speed is none of my business. I say yes to the process, to the reality. I am in.