The Summer Weather Report

Wow...what a summer! Apocalyptic forest fires aside, this has been more fun than a girl should get to have.

I am writing you from the banks of the Mississippi...which will be a bit misleading since it's the one that runs by our host's home is in Lanark Ontario (who knew?) where we are staying while performing at the Blue Skies Festival. I have always been a water person, but have not, since my childhood summers on the San Joaquin River, spent much time on rivers. What a sublime experience. I've just spent several days in upstate New York with Karen Savoca & Pete Heitzman at their place, and it has a similar simmering lush feel as this area. Pete said "with the growing season so short nature knows it has to get to it!". It indeed feels like an explosion of life, with a din of everything teeming. You can hear it. Between the Cicadas and the wind in the poplars, and the heat and humidity that seem to emit a hiss of their own, it gives "the sounds of summer" a whole new fecund (I love that word!) and sultry meaning. 

This whole week, well, really the whole summer, has been not just about music (and there has been LOTS of that) but about friendship. That word sounds small compared to the depth of experience and sense of connection it brings us. And our Blue Skies Festival host Cathie Green said - "sometimes it takes only a short time to make old friends". And sometimes, those who have been in my life for a long time, despite great long spans of time when we don't see one another, are old friends of the most enduring and enriching kind. These are the deep friendships where you know well the range of laughter from the grin to the sustained, belly wrenching, tears streaming moments that infuse your heart and soul with a life-giving elixir like nothing else in the human experience. Geez, I love that. 

Friendship, not bread, is the staff of life. Gluten free.

Happy trails my friend and stay in touch!

Shari