Last day of March....First adult student!

It has been a long, cold, windy month.  Full of teasers and hints of Spring, but then...smackdown into winter mode again!  At least the sugaring started in earnest, and the mud roads sprouted their weight limit signs, and the frost heaves are in heave heaven!

And today, a lady who approached me last Sept. To enquire about harp lessons actually made it here for her first.  Carol is an accomplished musician, so I already feel she will blow by me quickly, but despite her major in church organ, being a daily keyboardist who also plays guitar and trumpet, she was having the same "pat your head and rub your belly" moments I remember from when I first started! But so delighted!  So excited to be learning new stuff, and finally playing this harp she has had for years , just waiting for life to calm down enough to take on something new.  This is what I was hoping for!  So, I hope things continue to be as much fun for us both down the road!  Hooray!  2 other potential students in the wings, also adults...but we shall see.  I just have to cultivate my own musical group to jam with, not having Andee's incredible proximity to so much talent!

Church music prep for Palm Sunday paid off!  I love that service!  My choir pulled out the stops, and we had people in tears in the pews.  Music is such a powerful thing, isn't it?  Magical, mystical, healing.

Well, that is my news. Andee and Lucy sound like things are fabulous and right where they need to be!  Wish we could share a cuppa!!  Stay warm and Happy Eastertide!!

March and this butterfly is emerging from her cocoon and spreading her wings

There is a heck of a lot going on for me right now!  My life is wildly different than it was six months ago, and I am emerging for the long dark winter. I have been practicing both harp and fiddle like crazy and making great strides on the fiddle and slowly (not so slowly as before though) adding new tunes to my repertoire.

I am making friends hand over fist at the moment and have established myself as a regular at the Friday and Saturday night sessions at The Roadside Tavern (fiddle only at the moment).  I get support and encouragement there.  I now go to a Tuesday night session in Ennistymon at Cooley's Pub.  Monday night is listening only in Doolin at Fitz's Pub which is more like a performance and features Luka Bloom, except now I have been invited to bring my harp!

There is a large group of French music students coming over here for a week of Irish music experience.  It will be new for them.  Two of the students are  harpists and I am going to show them how to approach the harp for Irish music.  I am excited about this!

Who am I and what is happening to my life?  It is crazy, intense and wonderful!  Playing music in my leaky caravan on a stormy day, turf and wood fire blazing, with my flute playing friend and neighbor and my friend Severine who works here now on fiddle, and a man I have a bit of a crush on, one of the most amazing fiddlers around.

March has marched on by . . .

This is a little late - but I hope you all had a fun time St. Patrick's WEEK (or two) - because it does go on and on!  Mine started with a  fabulous concert,  Caitlin na Gabhann  (concertina and dance) with Ciaran O'Maonaigh (fiddle) that blew me away totally.  Do not miss these two if they are ever in your vicinity.  Then I played concertina at the ceili that the Burlington Irish Heritage folks organize.  I'm not actually fast enough but it is a very casual event and there were plenty of other players who are fast enough.  I sat in back and did the best I could.  We had a ripping good session on Thursday (again concertina only).  Finally I wanted to go tonight to a concert of the Young Tradition players because a group of kids from Philadelphia's Next Generation group are coming up to play there, but I have to meet a plane.  I've seriously thought of making my husband take a cab to the venue, but .. . . he will have been traveling a good part of the day.  Not sure that is fair!  Still considering it though.

In harp news - well - I am not playing.  I am a mess.  A total wreck.   I've had several conversations with people about the musical hiatus.  It is almost entirely because of my other work, I think, which is a vocation about which I feel even more intensely than music.  Music is meant to be -- you know -- my happy thing, no pressure, all fun.  So.  The end is in view for my writing project, at least, let us hope a temporary end while the agent decides they DO want to try to sell it to a publisher for me.  If that happens there will be another round of serious work, I'm sure.

So that is my life.  If I were younger I think I would have more energy to play more at the end of a day of writing.  But as I am I just want to lay about at the end of the day and watch a BBC mystery and go to bed.

The weather is still disgusting.  So disgusting I am genuinely depressed, as in weepy, when I look out the window or think about getting all those damned winter clothes on to walk the dog.  99% snow cover.  Ice.  Misery.  They aren't even sugaring yet  - the temps rise to the right combination for a day or two and then plunge back down, so the sap  isn't running.