Spillage

Every gig lately has involved successively more sky spillage.

Even if the harp did fit under the umbrella, this is no protection in a deluge.

I happen to love rain. I just don't enjoy getting caught in it, nor solitarily moving gear after gowns and heels and tuxes and leather have run for cover. Harp and bench and stand and amp and DI do not move quickly, especially when there is mud in which to slip, yellow-jacket-infested electric boxes from which to unplug, and the only real cover -- the car -- is a good half mile away.

But I love the rushing of the river after a good rain, the way the mist rolls in over field and fence, the renewed ethereal intensity of nature's palette, and the way music floats more readily over dampened landscapes -- chamber piano and horn and strings from the looking-glass home on the river, Freebird and other guitar solos from the rock band rehearsing somewhere in the woods, violins readying for this weekend's Dublin Irish Festival in the white farmhouse squatting roadside.

When certain news hits out of nowhere, and it's difficult to discern if it was better not to know at all, what remains is to notice the rush of what comes up and either edit or allow the flood.

Maybe it results in pulling out harp versions of a bluesy Janis Joplin "Summertime" and a free-form "Stairway to Heaven" at a church concert when the audience least expects it, even when the tunes need a lot more work. Maybe pushing them out unpolished is worth the surprise and joy they elicit from fellow musicians who have a certain affinity for music from that era.

Maybe it results in excessive talking when it's obvious there can't possibly be anything left to lose.

Maybe it's diminishing the haunting by finding new homes for possessions that quite suddenly no longer have weight or meaning.

Maybe it's trusting that you will know exactly what to do at exactly the right time.

Where and how do you safely spill?

Listening to: Imogen Heap, Canvas (perfect lyrics and video), and the gripping Hide and Seek