ani.

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(public post, xposted)

my friends. life is strange. if you’d told me 25 years ago that i’d be spending an evening talking with ani difranco about careers, writing process and natural childbirth backstage at a venue we are playing back-to-back on the day after donald trump got elected president of the united states i’m not sure which one i would find more unfathomable.
ani: she is a force, a feminist, a storyteller, a powerful musician and songwriter and guitarist. so much better at her instrument than i am. i did not allow myself to love her as a teenager because i was too afraid of looking in the mirror.

as an adult, i’ve come to see that she’s my lost sister.

i listened to her soundcheck, alone, as she worked out some appropriate songs for tonight. the mood is dark. i sat there awash in gratitude and feeling the strains of her consoling music right now the way people will probably feel about me tomorrow in this same space, where i will be sitting at a piano, 24 hours from now, in the exact same place she is standing with her guitar.

nothing is coincidence.

this is what we do.

life happens, politics happen, babies get born, friends die, weather pours, our country snakes left and right and up and down and into a ditch and rares it’s engine and gets pulled out of the ditch by a group effort and meanwhile

always

there is music.

there is music, and songs, and the stories we tell each other about what we are feeling, because we are humans, and this is what we do when we’re in pain.

we commune.
we feel.
we rinse and repeat.

there is music.

there is going to be

A

LOT

OF

MUSIC.

i explained patreon to ani. she was intrigued.

it could happen.

everybody….
i love you.

(and if you’re here in albany at the ani show, tug my sleeve.)