Okay, so I won the award.

The night was fun. My name was pronounced wrong, as usual, when they announced the nominees. And after I stumbled somewhat clumsily through my acceptance speech, and wandered hazily off the stage, I noticed it had been spelled wrong too. Oh well. They offered me a new one, but I said I'd keep the misspelled one. It'll make a good conversation piece.

The last time I got an award, was when I was 9 or so. I was on a softball team after school, and everyone on the team got tiny trophies at the end of the season. I got a "best attitude" trophy. Which means, of course, that I sucked. I'm not sure which is worse, no trophy at all, or a "best attitude" trophy.

The other time I remember winning something was in grade 7 when Cabbage Patch dolls were in. The local mall opened its doors on a Sunday exclusively to every single Cabbage Patch Doll in the city, and their owners, hosting a Cabbage Patch Birthday Bash, with performers, draws, and an enormous birthday cake. I found a quarter in my piece of cake, which meant that I had won a prize. It turned out to be a crystal quartz necklace from a jewelers in the mall. About an hour later I left it in the bathroom, never to be seen (by me, that is) again. I wonder if someone in the world still has that crystal necklace tucked away somewhere all these years later. Do they tell the story of how they found it lying on a wet, slimy counter in the girls bathroom during a Cabbage Patch Doll Birthday Bash?

So last night it felt nice to win something. I have been plugging away for so long all alone in my little living room, that after awhile, one might begin to wonder if one is somewhat delusional to think her songs might mean anything to anyone. So this morning, when I woke up and saw the sharp, pointy plexiglass trophy sitting on the edge of the piano, I smiled quietly to myself.

Later, I went for a walk. It was warm again, almost like summer had returned. There are yellow leaves falling and spinning everywhere. It was a perfect, perfect morning. Down on the waterfront, everyone seemed to be on top of the world. Old men were out in their hats, sporty women were speed-walking through the park with their trendy walking sticks. Kids were feeding the ducks. People were donning their new fall Lulu Lemon wear. Everybody was saying hello and smiling and shouting "beautiful day!" I passed a bush of raspberries and picked a few. There is nothing in the world like sun-warmed raspberries. I almost had to stop and sing a few Hallelujas.


Everything seemed just a little bit brighter than usual.

But awards, shmawards.

I just try to keep remembering something I read once in a great book called Zen Guitar. The writer tells a story of how, in Japan, there is a flute that monks play, and the goal of the flute playing is to become so present, that there is as much enlightenment in the silence as there is in the notes.

Which means, of course, that everything counts. The ups & downs, the dry and the fertile times. The awards and the afternoons of struggling through some lyrics in a little living room. It's all the same & it all matters. And, after all is said and done, you just have to keep going and keep trying to remember to keep doing it day after day.

So for future reference, or in case you were wondering, it's like this: Mick - meck - un.

Okay. So I was apparantly nominated for an Okanagan Music Award for Best New Artist. I will be heading to The Okanagan Music Awards on Tuesday to hang with fellow local singer-songwriters and hear some good local music and... well, we'll see.

Somewhere along the line here, I manage to somehow get some songs written and some guitar played and some shows booked, though I hardly know how. I spend a great deal of time these days cutting up apple and putting goldfish crackers into little containers for the park, so how anything else is getting done lately is beyond me.

Today was a bad day. I'll just say it. My 1 year old is cutting a tooth and I seriously can't handle the noise sometimes. The inane conversations I have all day long with my 4 year old about fish and cats and witches. God knows I'm grateful. God knows I could barely live without these 2, I'd have to throw myself off a bridge if I ever lost one of them. But today, I want to quit my job. I hate my job. I hate being a mommy. That's today. Today I feel like Ashly Judd as the mother in Divine Secrets of the Ya Ya Sisterhood. "I want to run away... I want to be famous..." I imagine myself escaping to some little shack by the sea, and sleeping sleeping sleeping the way she did for 3 days, waking only to smoke cigarettes and stare at her weary complexion in the mirror.

Today I became semi-conscious to find myself at the kitchen counter eating peanut butter on crackers, over and over and over. God knows how many I'd eaten. I was accutely aware of the fact that I was trying to stuff something down. keep myself from feeling the emptiness gnawing away at my insides.

Yesterday, at the park, I watched the ducks for a short while, watched them floating along the water, not wanting to be more than just ducks. And something inside me said, Yes. Get me some of that.

It was cold again this morning. I think beach days are over. Summer ended abruptly there with all that rain, and now I find myself smack dab in the middle of fall, not quite knowing what to do with myself.

Around 10:30, I decided I needed a walk. I was slightly headachy and tired and worried. I'd had strange dreams all night, busy dreams, dreams where you wake up tired. As I headed ou the door, I saw that it had begun to rain. I almost stayed in, but reluctantly, I forced myself to put on my rain jacket and head out anyway.

There were yellow leaves blowing across the roads. I walked for awhile and crossed a little bridge that goes over the creek. The water was dotted with raindrops. I stood there, watching the raindrops, watching them come and go, watching them move all over the water.

It was exactly what I needed then. To just stare at the raindrops while they dripped around me.

How sometimes we resist the very things we need. How I almost didn't go for a walk. Too cold, I thought. I don't feel like getting wet and cold. How many times do I do this, I wonder?

It's cold tonight, the windows are closed. I have a sweater on. The leaves are still mostly green, but a few are beginning to change and fall. The mornings are cold too. I go out with my tea and sit on the front step at 6:30am and it's still half-dark out. Oh, sunshine, I will miss you!

I always want to go back to school this time of year, look for some new shoes. My favorite shoes were the pink & white runners I had when I was eight. They had tiny white zippers up the side. I got them at Sears. I also loved a pair of blue & white Adidas runners I had around the same time. For about a day, and then they got dirt on them from playing in the hills, and after that they weren't special anymore.

I have always loved something when it is brand new, perfect. Maybe that is why I have a hard time accepting myself in my flaws (as we all do, to some extent). I like the term that SARK gives it: Perfect imperfection. More and more, I like myself with the bits of dirt and the stains. The things that make me me.

Tonight I am sitting in my little room. I made a big bulletin board to hang on my wall above my desk and 2 smaller ones for pictures and reminders. Of the two small ones, the top is filled with images for my life, bits of magazine articles that are helping. Last Monday's: Martha Beck writing about perfectionism, quoting an old proverb - "To be enlightened is to be without anxiety over imperfection."

There is a photograph of a woman sitting on a rock by the ocean because the sea is so symbolic for me, and a picture of a singer I admire for her songwriting, and a list of fun things I want to do before it gets too cold.

On the other smaller board, there are to-do lists and goals and reminders of things & ideas. There are little tiny pieces of paper with nice, encouraging quotes on them, such as: "Self-criticism inspires shrinkage", and "Just trust yourself, and then you willl know how to live."

On the big board, there is a "project" I am trying to finish. There are black & white photos of my daughter and bits of scribbled words and things crossed out and some empty space. Every day I come here to try to finish. I try to be brave. I try to tell myself nice things, kind things, hopeful things. But mostly, I try to finish.

Starting is scary. But finishing is one of the hardest things.

Sometimes I get afraid that it is too late, I have waited too long, and the time has come & gone. I didn't get on the right boat, and now I will forever be at the dock, watching it sail away. But I try not to listen too much to these things.

As I look up at my bulletin boards, I remember the day I made them. It seems small, but mechanical tasks intimidate me to no end. I've always been terrible at crafts. Mine end up looking like someone in grade 2 made it. They come out mangled and crooked, with glue everywhere. I wanted to make myself a bulletin board, a nice one, with hemp cloth or something. I wanted it to be big. So I took the measurements. Then I went out and bought the supplies, got the board cut by the guy at the back of Home Depot, stood there while the sawdust flew around, coughing. I took it home on the top of my car (it nearly flew off at an intersection) and stapled it all together. With the really good kind of heavy duty staples. And when it was done, I walked over to my fridge and took a quote down and pinned it to my new, huge, handmade bulletin board. It said:

"You must do the thing you think you cannot do." (Eleanor Roosevelt)

So here I am again. I will sit here again tonight for awhile, looking up at my bulletin boards, trying to do the next right thing. Reminding myself that baby steps lead to big places. But all you can focus on, is that next baby step. The one to be made right now, this minute.

So it's September now. Already last week I noticed the Poplars down by the water beginning to turn. And although it's still been warm, the nights are getting cooler, sometimes we even have to shut the windows.

It's been one of those summers where sleeves feel strange to wear now after having had bare arms for months on end. It's been long and hot and glorious. Sand in hair and toes and across the floors, dragged in too many times to bother sweeping up some days.

By this time in the prairies, the Dutch Elms along the roads would be turning gold. I remember sitting on my front steps, admiring the bright trees lined up like glowing torches on the boulevards. This year, my house is surrounded by towering Maples, and it occurs to me that I don't know what Maples look like when they change color, so I'm excited to see, excited to walk in all the crunchy brown leaves that will soon be covering the roads. However, I feel a tiny sadness at seeing this lovely summer heading out the door. And although the locals insist I'll still be swimming late into September, it feels different now. It's dark by 8:00 and I won't be able to ride my bike down to the beach to watch the sun go down.

Last week, Michael Peters came and stayed for a few days. Weirdly, he got dropped into town a block down from where I was just beginning to play a show, and he passed by, heard my voice, and came in. I happened to have my electric guitar plugged in beside my (playing acoustic) so he joined me for the evening. What are the chances? Gawd, it was good to play with someone else... I really think my thoughts of quitting have more to do with the aloneness I feel than anything else... He taught me some stuff and we showed each other our songs. He made us some yummy chick pea wraps with cumin. Mmm. Mmm.

This week has been a week of reading books and visiting family and playing some guitar on quiet evenings. My baby girl has begun to give hugs now, and she wraps her arms around me, squeezes, and pats my shoulders with her two chubby fists. It undoes me. When I look at her sometimes, so small, eating a popsicle on the kitchen floor, I think of how she will never be as tiny as she is today and it reminds me of this bit of poem by Mary Oliver:

Oh, to love what is lovely, and wil not last!
What a task to ask
of anything or anyone.