I, who have ventured

On starting over, showcase existentialism, and calculated risk

Is it normal to feel like you’re back at square one when you’re 30?

In my pjs next to a stuffed octopus @ a Night with Friends concert, by Esther S.

We spoke about this in the car on the way back from our gig in Quebec city last night. It was a very short set, only 15 minutes (3+ hours driving on those crazy roads, setting up and sound check, much ado for 15 minutes), designed to put us in front of festival programmers and the like so we can fill up the coming year with shows.

If you’ve played a showcase, you know how nerve-wracking they can be. The audience of professionals might talk over you, slosh their wine, schmooze with each other during your set while you’re up there trying to tune your guitar fast enough to get your fourth song in before one of three sound techs waves you off stage. Any minor flub seems to take up half the set because it’s so short.

This time, we forewent the usual crafted setlist and called songs based on the vibe in the room, and like usual, people quieted down when I started singing. I shook some hands while the band tore down, reconnected with folks I hadn’t seen in a while. As far as showcases go, it was nice.

The drive home through the dishwater-coloured night always has me feeling existential, like I’m wasting my own time and the time of the musicians around me who are all in other projects that do well, all waiting for something to hit, and am struck by the sickening thought that I’ve taken for granted that they’d always be young and up for anything, that I had all the time in the world to become materially successful enough to not have to worry about the time passing.

But I don’t. Some of us in the car already have families, and others are planning for their future in other ways. All of us are building.

Oli, Christian, Nora, Annabelle @ Montreal Jazz Fest 2023, by Sam Hanley

This rubs against the mild indignity of standing on a stage like a hopeful American Idol contestant, reminding people I exist and to please book me. (Here, I will add the requisite gratitude disclaimer: I am very fortunate to be able to do this, to be included in this circuit. The people who book me are lovely folks who are serious music fans, and have been so supportive throughout my career. I think showcases are just a little bit humiliating by nature.)

My career so far has been an experiment in self-rehabilitation through musical expression. I exploded on the scene full to the neck with love and anger and hope, and harnessing those forces carried me and the band to some amazing places faster than I could have imagined.

Montreal Jazz Fest 2023, by Sam Hanley

Then, the pandemic put a lot of us in a limbo of sorts (read this amazing meditation my friend Emma wrote about limbo), and I treaded water for a long time, surviving and hoping something would happen. I was forced to make some difficult decisions that felt like amputations (and I know I bring this up a lot and there is so much to be grateful for but it was just really hard and I’m still sifting through the rubble, rinsing off the wounds).

In the aftermath of those major losses, feeling the momentum I once had waning (true? false?), and watching my peers who once expressed envy for my situation start to make their own waves, I feel like I am back at the drawing board, paralyzed between the necessary insanity of dreaming (shoot for the moon, land amongst the stars etc), and boots-on-the-ground tasks like planning my EP launch and finding a new accountant. Sitting with my to-do list, I find myself feeling like I’m too old for this, or like I got off the bus early by mistake.

How is a sensitive soul who makes music to maintain her sanity cope with such a quandary?

My solution: Calculated risk.

Nic, Kelo and Meggo @ Meggo's EP listening party, craft night, Stefanie Parnell, Max in studio, family

My resources are limited but my potential is not.

I am going back to Austin, and if circumstances allow, I will go further than that. I am writing songs with folks whose work I admire and respect. I am writing songs on my own. I am playing small DIY shows because my career happened sort of backwards, big stages early, small stages now. I am facing the hard work of paying your dues (debts in my case, because I tripped and fell right over that phase) and the joy of building and supporting community. I am resolving old conflicts and showing up to parties. I am taking improv classes. I am making cool crafts and sharing them, even hosting craft nights. I am re-devoting myself to my loved ones. I am thinking up big projects and calling people to help me make them a reality. I am talking to people myself instead of hiding behind the mother’s skirt of representation.

A picture is starting to take shape in my head, which means a dream is coming. I hope I’m not too late. I don’t think I am.

xx