I had been summoned to Miss Gady's sixth grade class just outside the city of Yakima Washington, a place I'd never been.

Tam, my agent, kindly suggested we drive their together, so I could meet her sister and her partner, and have an actual social get-together, replete with a meal cooked by someone else! I just couldn't think of a reason not to go, so off we went, up the Columbia River Gorge.

This last week has been a little strange for me, perhaps because I'm not touring, which always keeps me sane, perhaps because I'm truly alone, but mostly not lonely, perhaps because this is what happens when the course of one's life has altered so dramatically.

Whatever it is, I feel as though I'm being born backwards, that everything is upside down...forever changed. I have no map but instinct and the centering, precious work I've known for so long...the constant in my changing horizon. I am dwelling in Honesty these days and nights, and sometimes it is brutal, sometimes just refreshing.

As I shine my light, I see my own history mirrored in the lives of those who listen, who weep, who laugh as we go through this Change together.

"At least we are together, at most we're family, at times we all are fortunate, at best we all can see."

-- "House of Bones" CW

The Road winds on, around bends I cannot see. I am so in the Present, my Past lies behind me now, and my Future unknown. Honesty, though painful, nourishes my Soul, and fosters my healing. I am here.

Dear Friends:

These first gigs have been so deep and so profound as I make my way through these early days of work without Tret. You know, the hardest part for me is not on stage, as some would have to believe, but rather the everyday world of eating and sleeping and moving through life in an ordinary way without her.