BACK TO ZERO

I’ve been a bit buried under a rock with all of the work that needs to be done. I'm still sending out packages, I'm finishing the manuscript for the book, and all the while, kids are complaining of achy bellies, one had pneumonia, and then also a tour being planned for my trio Trent Severn has added up to…well, not a lot of diary-writing time.

I notice that as I ramp up my half-marathon training, the decision to ditch drinking has made me feel about 10 years younger, so I’m sprinting around the house in a very good mood through it all.

Now, I write this not in judgement. I’m the first person to imagine myself sailing away on a sea of Scotch in my old age. Perhaps you’ll all join me. We’ll have a listening party for the old tunes, and then we’ll just pass out, somewhere at the 5 minute mark of Stereochrome…and then wake up to a group sing-along of Hook Machine. But for now, this makes a lot of sense.

Lately, my focus has been on giving. I thought I was at my maximum potential for giving last year, and I pretty much shut down when I decided I had given too much. But this year, I seem to have knocked down a wall in the ever-growing mansion of my being…and there’s just a little more energy for giving. 

The thing is, a lot of people - by this stage in their lives - have made fear a full-time occupation. And for someone like me, the blind optimist, (brave or blinded, not sure which am I - to quote from my own lyrics) finds a fearful outlook very frustrating. So I work to get beyond it, to understand it, or to meet it with love in the cases of certain friends. Even my kids are sometimes are riddled with fear, but their fear stems from the unknown…so instead of throwing up my hands and wondering what the f*** is wrong with them and why can’t they be better, I’m finding ways to calmly connect with them.

The other thing about giving which has been liberating is to let go of people who cannot give you what you want. And possibly the reason why they can’t give you what you want, has nothing to do with you. Maybe they just don’t know how to give period. 

My half-marathon is May 6th in Winnipeg. It's put on by Police Services and honestly, I am not quite at the state where I can see myself running for 3 hours. But I am running for 60 minutes, at times, so it’s quite possible that I can meet my goal. Ah well, let’s just say right now, since I am the blind optimist, that I will meet my goal. 

The “why” behind the half-marathon, which I should add raises money for Cancer research, is of course Greg Lowe…who stays with me in a variety of ways and this memory is starting to become more positive, and less riddled with sorrow. The only way I am healing from the loss of this fantastic human and musician is by talking to people who were close to him. That’s been very scary for me, because the people who knew greg, are not people that I know very well. So … i’ve had to, in some cases, be very forthcoming with perfect strangers in order to find the right people who will empathize with the loss. Also, healing has come by exploring some of his old songs. By plopping myself smack-dab in Winnipeg for the release week, where there are a few cool events lined up. A show at The Palm Room which is just a nice casual room with a grand piano, and hopefully an in-store will shape up at what was the old Music Trader record shop in Osborne Village. 

So for all of you who are going through a tough winter…keep talking about it. Throw caution to the wind and talk to whoever you feel will listen and have the right spirit for taking in your words. Bury yourself in your favourite music and go for a walk, even if it’s 30 minutes. Think for a moment about the “why" in your life, and attach it to an action. You’ll be amazed what it might breed in your life, what energy might spill over into other parts of your life. And move as slowly as you need to through these things. 

In other news, the video for Imagination is being assembled, rendered, cooked-up, and dusted with fairy sparkles by my brother Frank. I haven’t seen anything yet but I can’t wait to post it here first. that song was the first I wrote after Greg passed away, after I honestly couldn’t imagine writing a song he wouldn’t play on. “There’s goes a light, a flicker of something good…like a brick wall, we’re back to zero.”

So just remember, when you reset to zero, you have the pleasure of starting over…

5 min 21 sec read