tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-212204372024-03-19T00:38:36.234-04:00Trista HillTrista Hillhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14829996785328454630noreply@blogger.comBlogger118125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21220437.post-89992211475673787352019-03-10T21:46:00.000-04:002019-03-10T21:49:33.800-04:00Glimmer<span style="font-size: small;">From Pam Houston's book <a href="https://pamhouston.net/new-page-1" target="_blank"><u>Deep Creek: Finding Hope in the High Country</u></a>, © 2019, pp. 78-79.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: small;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: small;">"I have always believed that if I pay strict attention while I am out in the physical world - and for me that often means the natural world - the physical world will give me everything I need to tell my stories. As I move through my day, I wait to feel something I call a glimmer, a vibration, a little charge of resonance that says, 'Hey writer, look over here.' I feel it deep in my chest, this buzzing that lets me know the thing I am seeing/hearing/smelling/tasting on the outside is going to help me unlock some part of a story I have on the inside. I keep an ongoing record of these glimmers, writing down not my interpretation of them, not my imagined connection to them, not an emotional contextualization of them, but just the thing itself. Get in, get it down, get out and move on to the next glimmer. Then, when I have some time to write, I read through the glimmer files in my computer and try to find a handful that seem like they will stick together, that when placed in proximity with one another will create a kind of electricity.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: small;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: small;">"I try to keep my big analytical brain out of this process as much as possible, because I believe my analytical brain at best only knows part of the story and at worst is a big fat liar. I believe - like religion - that the glimmer, the metaphor, if you will, knows a great deal more than I do. And if I stay out of its way, it will reveal itself to me. I will become not so much its keeper as its conduit, and I will pass its wisdom on to the reader, without actually getting in its way.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: small;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: small;">"In addition to being my method, the way I have written every single thing I have written, it is also the primary way I worship, the way I kneel down and kiss the earth."</span><br />
<span style="font-size: small;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: small;">More about Pam Houston is <a href="https://pamhouston.net/" target="_blank">here</a>. </span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #444444; font-family: "helvetica"; font-size: 13px;">~~~~~~~~~</span></div>
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<i><a href="http://www.tristahill.com/" style="color: #3778cd; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 14px; line-height: 19px; text-decoration: none;" target="_new">Trista Hill</a><span style="color: #444444; font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-size: 14px; line-height: 19px;"> is a professional harpist and fine artist, creativity coach, educator in the arts, and Board-Certified Music Therapist. </span></span><i style="color: #444444; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 14px; line-height: 19px;">What
her formal degrees in music and art gave her pale in comparsion to the
gifts she's experienced in working with creatives just like you. </i><i><span style="color: #444444; font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-size: 14px; line-height: 19px;">Visit her website — </span></span><a href="http://www.tristahill.com/" style="color: #3778cd; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 14px; line-height: 19px; text-decoration: none;" target="_new">tristahill.com</a><span style="color: #444444; font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-size: 14px; line-height: 19px;"> — for </span></span></i></i><i><i><span style="line-height: 19px;"><span style="color: #444444; font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-size: 14px;">links to her </span></span><span style="color: #674ea7; font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-size: 14px;">monthly letter, </span></span><span style="color: #444444; font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-size: 14px;">blog,
listening library & compositions, performances, and offerings to
further you along your own glorious creative journey. </span></span></span></i><span style="color: #444444; font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-size: 14px; line-height: 19px;"> </span></span></i></div>
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Trista Hillhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14829996785328454630noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21220437.post-35878594109594466252017-11-19T09:21:00.000-05:002017-11-19T10:43:53.628-05:00I Light a Candle<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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I light a candle.<br />
<br />
I light a candle with a violent abrasive scratch of sand on powdered glass, a ripping open of the dark, a hissing expletive, a tearing of What Is.<br />
<br />
I light a candle because light is older than time.<br />
<br />
I light a candle because fake luminescence will not cut it. I need the very human experience of directing light, by my own hand, more than finger-swiping. <br />
<br />
I need the acknowledgement and reminder that what I'm about to do could destroy everything if not handled carefully, correctly, intentionally.<br />
<br />
I light a candle because my heart is sick and weighted yet wanting to take flight straight out of my chest.<br />
<br />
I light a candle because I'm wondering yet again and always about art and vulnerability and the mere act of being and living in a world rife with insatiable need and hunger and pain. I'm up in the dark not knowing what to do or say anymore - all is cliche yet constipated.<br />
<br />
I light a candle because the other day I wrote a long list of names of those who have throughout my life violated my physical, mental, emotional and spiritual boundaries and I'm still blaming myself for not having drawn the line. I wrote these names to see what it felt like to bring them to the surface, like others before me. I wrote this list to exorcize. To let go, again, because I thought I already had. Because I want to be free - I want us to feel free.<br />
<br />
I light a candle because I fantasize about burning them. The names. Or the people who have so carelessly burnt in the past, like the man in the mall years ago who unwittingly and unconsciously held his cigarette out in way that left round button scars of searing smoking flesh on innocents who came too close.<br />
<br />
I light a candle to illuminate the list of names of those lightworkers who are pushing archaic parameters in our present day and time; not just pushing them, but pushing them DOWN.<br />
<br />
I light a candle because flame is alive, and we are alive in this moment as much as some of us don't want to be.<br />
<br />
I light a candle to light a way. A path toward the <i>belief</i> that understanding is possible even while it's entirely possible that we can't and won't ever understand.<br />
<br />
I light a candle for me and anyone else whose desire to live by example and to practice a new way of being outweighs the crystalline reality that we don't know what the fucking hell we are doing.<br />
<br />
Because we cannot undo centuries of wrong. At least not in our lifetime. But we must set the foundation for the shift, even if we won't be around for the change we're dreaming of. This is on our watch. <a href="http://tristahill.blogspot.com/2015/12/get-off-boat.html" target="_blank">Our hands are on the wheel of that rudder</a>. Pretending they're not is nothing short of stupid, selfish, ignorant, and fascist.<br />
<br />
I light a candle because I get tired of being kind. Patient. Tolerant. Careful. Nice.<br />
<br />
I light a candle because there are times I want to burn it all down to the fucking ground. Because I want to strip down and paint my face with my own blood and spin and wheel and careen around that pyre to tear out, release and annihilate the wretched age-old shame-pain in my gut, mind, soul.<br />
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Because my and others' pollyanna light-holding rose-glasses whine-ass plaintive grasps at "doing and being better" are starting to bore me. Annoy. Aggravate. Incite. Inflame.<br />
<br />
I light a candle because there is something more, deeper. Because the festering is starting to poison. Because an eruption is inevitable, is already happening. Strap on the goggles, this shit is real.<br />
<br />
I light a candle because I'm feeling the cold bracing wave deep in my brittle human bones that there is no time to waste. That everything is flammable. That we must take care AND we must scream.<br />
<br />
I light the fucking match.<br />
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* * *<br />
<br />
<b><u>Art as metaphor, instigator, inciter:</u></b><br />
<br />
Amanda Palmer's video cover of Pink Floyd's <a href="http://amandapalmer.net/mother/" target="_blank">"Mother"</a><br />
<br />
Bjork's crystalline prismatic explosive fluid opening in <a href="https://vimeo.com/238433477" target="_blank">"The Gate"</a><br />
<br />
Yaa Gyasi's exploration of generational atrocity via multi-level enslavement in <u><a href="https://www.npr.org/2016/06/07/480477931/homegoing-is-a-sprawling-epic-brimming-with-compassion" target="_blank">Homegoing</a></u><br />
<br />
Ta-Nehisi Coates' honest <a href="https://onbeing.org/programs/ta-nehisi-coates-imagining-a-new-america-nov2017/?utm_source=On+Being+Newsletter&utm_campaign=842c470929-newsletter_20171118_tanehisi_coates&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_1c66543c2f-842c470929-69993337&goal=0_1c66543c2f-842c470929-69993337&mc_cid=842c470929&mc_eid=34c3a0a785" target="_blank">discussion and interview about hope or lack of it</a> with Krista Tippett<br />
<br />
* * *Trista Hillhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14829996785328454630noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21220437.post-46541221772131944552017-03-06T21:50:00.000-05:002017-03-06T21:53:21.489-05:00Church of the Running Water<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">
<span style="color: #505050; font-family: "helvetica neue" , "helvetica" , "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 16px;">On most Sundays I would make every effort to go to church. MY church.</span></div>
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<span style="box-sizing: border-box; color: #505050; font-family: "helvetica neue" , "helvetica" , "arial" , sans-serif "important"; font-size: 16px; line-height: 1.5;">Though initially deathly afraid of quicksand </span><span style="border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; color: #505050; font-family: "helvetica neue" , "helvetica" , "arial" , sans-serif "important"; font-size: 16px; line-height: 1.5; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">upon moving from Colorado as a child </span><span style="box-sizing: border-box; color: #505050; font-family: "helvetica neue" , "helvetica" , "arial" , sans-serif "important"; font-size: 16px; line-height: 1.5;">- a fear I gained while sitting in Grandma Ruby's lap as we watched a cowboy in an Old Western film die in it - </span><span style="box-sizing: border-box; color: #505050; font-family: "helvetica neue" , "helvetica" , "arial" , sans-serif "important"; font-size: 16px; line-height: 1.5;">I made swift friends with the Ohio land when we finally settled there. A stream wound its way through the back edge of our six acres, and I assigned myself as its keeper. Sunday mornings were the days to do this work, alone. Occasionally I was accompanied by our dog Sheba if she wasn't in the barking mood, and if she was, in the house she was left. </span><br />
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<span style="box-sizing: border-box; color: #505050; font-family: "helvetica neue" , "helvetica" , "arial" , sans-serif "important"; font-size: 16px; line-height: 1.5;">It would inevitably rain, bringing out the scents of wet leaves and rich earth. I watched the water and gauged its swiftness, and if wearing Mom or Dad's too-big <a href="https://www.pinterest.com/pin/231020655859259953/" target="_blank">moon boots</a>, I'd carefully cross it to reach the repeat-trek path on the other side.<br style="box-sizing: border-box; line-height: 1.5 !important;" /><br style="box-sizing: border-box; line-height: 1.5 !important;" />The edges of the stream crunched in fragile shale, and if I gingerly stepped and cautiously moved small stones in the cold water without stirring up sediment, I could find crawdads, almost transparent in their newness. I carried a large stick with me, and used it not to climb steep slopes, but to dislodge mounds of rust-leaf and black-stick natural debris that had collected in pockets of the stream. <br style="box-sizing: border-box; line-height: 1.5 !important;" /><br style="box-sizing: border-box; line-height: 1.5 !important;" />It was very important to me to allow the Rushing Forward, to assist the Clearing, to invite the Clarity, to remove the Holding Back. <br style="box-sizing: border-box; line-height: 1.5 !important;" /><br style="box-sizing: border-box; line-height: 1.5 !important;" />Hours were spent in the woods, writing / singing a song or concocting a story while straddling a large log slippery with moss, or carving into the hillside a boot-wide toehold, or looking for small fish or worms or ants or mice. The sound of the water was music. I had names for areas of the stream where it had carved out round-sided pools, where it crashed mightily in tiny waterfalls, where it moved slowly enough you could see through to the multi-colored wonder of its bed-pebbles. I knew the stream like the back of my hand, and rounding every turn brought sheer delight, every time. I'd watch for gnomes. I'd listen for fairies. I'd delay going back home, inviting anything that would help me anchor myself in my middle-and-high school chaos. A place to heal. This, my sacred space. My church. Where I felt at home, connected, at one with Something.<br style="box-sizing: border-box; line-height: 1.5 !important;" /><br style="box-sizing: border-box; line-height: 1.5 !important;" />That house is gone now. <br style="box-sizing: border-box; line-height: 1.5 !important;" />It was bulldozed just over a week ago. <br style="box-sizing: border-box; line-height: 1.5 !important;" />The land has been cleared and terraformed. <br style="box-sizing: border-box; line-height: 1.5 !important;" />I will never see that stream again. <br style="box-sizing: border-box; line-height: 1.5 !important;" />I can never go back.<br style="box-sizing: border-box; line-height: 1.5 !important;" />The end of an era.<br style="box-sizing: border-box; line-height: 1.5 !important;" /><br /><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjIE6Us0JVrfE4r_HGrwvf0_s6JuLrpABUWLJ-O6Ub0eXj7naacY5Y76poEMPrpIQkwY8Qot6d3s4yR_tOzlzM4IeuVo7Q2MwSXi8ZLAikw1-UFivBwi_EqiUBcyGV4cE1fHmqGmA/s1600/IMG_1619.JPG.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="font-family: -webkit-standard; margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em; text-align: center;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjIE6Us0JVrfE4r_HGrwvf0_s6JuLrpABUWLJ-O6Ub0eXj7naacY5Y76poEMPrpIQkwY8Qot6d3s4yR_tOzlzM4IeuVo7Q2MwSXi8ZLAikw1-UFivBwi_EqiUBcyGV4cE1fHmqGmA/s320/IMG_1619.JPG.jpeg" width="320" /></a><br /><br style="box-sizing: border-box; line-height: 1.5 !important;" />We find our refuge. <br style="box-sizing: border-box; line-height: 1.5 !important;" />And we find it again. <br style="box-sizing: border-box; line-height: 1.5 !important;" />A new era, whether we like it or not.</span><br />
<span style="box-sizing: border-box; color: #505050; font-family: "helvetica neue" , "helvetica" , "arial" , sans-serif "important"; font-size: 16px; line-height: 1.5;">How will we step in?</span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #444444; font-family: "helvetica"; font-size: 13px;">~~~~~~~~~</span></div>
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<i><a href="http://www.tristahill.com/" style="color: #3778cd; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 14px; line-height: 19px; text-decoration: none;" target="_new">Trista Hill</a><span style="color: #444444; font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-size: 14px; line-height: 19px;"> is a professional harpist and fine artist, creativity coach, educator in the arts, and Board-Certified Music Therapist. </span></span><em style="color: #444444; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 14px; line-height: 19px;">What her formal degrees in music and art gave her pale in comparsion to the gifts she's experienced in working with creatives just like you. </em><em><span style="color: #444444; font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-size: 14px; line-height: 19px;">Visit her website — </span></span><a href="http://www.tristahill.com/" style="color: #3778cd; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 14px; line-height: 19px; text-decoration: none;" target="_new">tristahill.com</a><span style="color: #444444; font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-size: 14px; line-height: 19px;"> — for </span></span></em></i><i><em><span style="line-height: 19px;"><span style="color: #444444; font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-size: 14px;">links to her </span></span><span style="color: #674ea7; font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-size: 14px;">monthly letter, </span></span><span style="color: #444444; font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-size: 14px;">blog, listening library & compositions, performances, and offerings to further you along your own glorious creative journey. </span></span></span></em><span style="color: #444444; font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-size: 14px; line-height: 19px;"> </span></span></i></div>
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Trista Hillhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14829996785328454630noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21220437.post-7816007757478333672017-02-11T10:56:00.001-05:002017-02-11T10:56:57.624-05:00The Gypsy and the Poet<span style="background-color: #fcfcfc; color: #505050; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 16px;">"YOU!!!!" he bellowed. "It's YOU!! The Gypsy! There she is!! The </span><em style="color: #505050; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 16px;">GYPSY!!!</em><span style="background-color: #fcfcfc; color: #505050; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 16px;">"</span><br style="color: #505050; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 16px;" /><br style="color: #505050; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 16px;" /><span style="background-color: #fcfcfc; color: #505050; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 16px;">Suddenly he is high-powered sprinting toward me from down the long white corridor, a slim giant of a man with a beautiful bald dark shining head, huge wide black eyes, long arms and fingers extended in my direction, leaning out and over his own powerful churning legs. </span><br style="color: #505050; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 16px;" /><br style="color: #505050; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 16px;" /><span style="background-color: #fcfcfc; color: #505050; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 16px;">"GYPSY!!!" </span><br style="color: #505050; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 16px;" /><br style="color: #505050; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 16px;" /><span style="background-color: #fcfcfc; color: #505050; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 16px;">I stand riveted - young </span><span style="color: #505050; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 16px;">pale Trista in a bright </span><span style="color: #505050; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 16px;">pure red blouse, midnight blue pants, bright red shoes, and long black hair trailing down my back</span><span style="background-color: #fcfcfc; color: #505050; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 16px;">. The door is locked behind me and my key card will not allow me to quickly exit. Beside me is my charge, a scared-out-of-her-mind junior intern, looking to me for direction, hoarse-whispering my name with a questioning lilt. I feel responsible, I feel charged, I feel judged, I feel caught. </span><br style="color: #505050; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 16px;" /><br style="color: #505050; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 16px;" /><span style="background-color: #fcfcfc; color: #505050; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 16px;">There is no record of this incident in my journal. Details were not carefully notated. Feelings were not processed, at least not on paper. </span><br style="color: #505050; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 16px;" /><br style="color: #505050; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 16px;" /><span style="background-color: #fcfcfc; color: #505050; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 16px;">But it is emblazoned in my memory. I remember how it felt to literally have my back against the wall without an outlet for escape. How it felt to out-of-habit assess what I had done to trigger an attack, to quickly question what part of my femininity had threatened yet another man. How it felt to have to make a split-second decision to assure the safety of myself and others. How it felt to not know what to do, when there's no time to differentiate right from wrong. I remember how it felt to be in survival mode. How it felt to meet his eyes and not know our immediate and future fate.</span><br style="color: #505050; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 16px;" /><br style="color: #505050; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 16px;" /><span style="background-color: #fcfcfc; color: #505050; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 16px;">I remember how it felt to watch strong orderlies in white rush out of side rooms and fling themselves on him from either side, holding him down and back. I remember the look in his eyes, full of fury and passion, when they dragged him away. I remember both the relief and shame I felt for having witnessed a takedown, h</span><span style="color: #505050; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 16px;">ow it felt to watch someone else in survival mode</span><span style="background-color: #fcfcfc; color: #505050; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 16px;">. How it felt to have Blame hang empty in the room without a resting place. How it felt to learn later that he was a famous poet struggling with a schizophrenic episode on a locked ward in the corner of a dirty city - a </span><span style="color: #505050; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 16px;">highly intelligent genius with broad sweeping vision, a man who is l</span><span style="background-color: #fcfcfc; color: #505050; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 16px;">oving, creative, kind, beautiful.</span><br style="color: #505050; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 16px;" /><br style="color: #505050; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 16px;" /><span style="background-color: #fcfcfc; color: #505050; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 16px;">I'm thinking a lot about misperceptions. How important it is to not jump to conclusions. To question everything. To suss out the truth.</span><br style="color: #505050; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 16px;" /><br style="color: #505050; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 16px;" /><span style="background-color: #fcfcfc; color: #505050; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 16px;">I'm thinking a lot about how much we don't know about each other. How much we think we do, because for generations and generations and generations, people we've never known, over vast swaths of space and time, have unwillingly passed down to us their own fears, traumas, biases, and unexplored "truths".</span><br style="color: #505050; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 16px;" /><br style="color: #505050; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 16px;" /><span style="background-color: #fcfcfc; color: #505050; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 16px;">It's time for a reckoning, say the Gypsy and the Poet.</span><br style="color: #505050; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 16px;" /><br style="color: #505050; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 16px;" /><span style="background-color: #fcfcfc; color: #505050; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 16px;"> Are you ready?</span><br />
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<i><a href="http://www.tristahill.com/" style="color: #3778cd; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 14px; line-height: 19px; text-decoration: none;" target="_new">Trista Hill</a><span style="color: #444444; font-family: 'times new roman';"><span style="font-size: 14px; line-height: 19px;"> is a professional harpist and fine artist, creativity coach, educator in the arts, and Board-Certified Music Therapist. </span></span><em style="color: #444444; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 14px; line-height: 19px;">What her formal degrees in music and art gave her pale in comparsion to the gifts she's experienced in working with creatives just like you. </em><em><span style="color: #444444; font-family: 'times new roman';"><span style="font-size: 14px; line-height: 19px;">Visit her website — </span></span><a href="http://www.tristahill.com/" style="color: #3778cd; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 14px; line-height: 19px; text-decoration: none;" target="_new">tristahill.com</a><span style="color: #444444; font-family: 'times new roman';"><span style="font-size: 14px; line-height: 19px;"> — for </span></span></em></i><i><em><span style="line-height: 19px;"><span style="color: #444444; font-family: 'times new roman';"><span style="font-size: 14px;">links to her </span></span><span style="color: #674ea7; font-family: 'times new roman';"><span style="font-size: 14px;">monthly letter, </span></span><span style="color: #444444; font-family: 'times new roman';"><span style="font-size: 14px;">blog, listening library & compositions, performances, and offerings to further you along your own glorious creative journey. </span></span></span></em><span style="color: #444444; font-family: 'times new roman';"><span style="font-size: 14px; line-height: 19px;"> </span></span></i></div>
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Trista Hillhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14829996785328454630noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21220437.post-25378631873497303892016-12-15T17:43:00.000-05:002016-12-16T11:54:07.432-05:00Upon Witnessing the Upside-Down-Car-Skid<div style="color: #1d2129; font-family: Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 6px;">
<i>{This was originally written as a post on Facebook on November 17, 2016. The year, and particularly the month of November, has left so many careening with questions, non-answers, and a sincere desire to find Hope and Truth wherever possible}.</i></div>
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When you suddenly see smoke and shattering in the oncoming lane up ahead and traffic careening, and you pull over and find yourself sprinting across the highway to the end of a trail of smeared glass and car parts, and from the flattened overturned vehicle you watch a young man crawl out on all fours, dazed and shocked and very very pale, and a gruff man is barking from 5 feet away, <i>Don't move!! Stay there!! Don't get up!!</i> you head straight for him anyway, needing to see his <span class="text_exposed_show" style="display: inline;">face and eyes to see if he okay, but now he is face down on the pavement with his knees and elbows tucked under him, and while another woman is caressing his upper back, you find the only spot of bare skin of his lower back on which you firmly place your hand and in a low voice repeat quietly, <i>We got you, We got you</i>, and irritating stupid cold tears are running down your face and you don't want anyone to know, because they'll incorrectly assume you're hysterical, when in fact you are very very present and aware, ready to do absolutely anything to help this man, right here, right now. </span></div>
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We can see something happen right in front of us, or even out of the corner of our eye, and continue along our merry way so happy the sun is shining and casting rainbows through the new crystal hanging from the rearview mirror, or we can stop everything and run straight into the chaos, reach out to touch and feel and stare it straight in the face, to really really Know. Because the world is changing very very fast, not just by the decade, not by the year, but every freaking DAY. We are a witness to something Very Important, every. single. day.</div>
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At the park later, after you were assured that the young man was all right (really?), overwhelmed by the enormity of change and needed change, when you're madly flail-sprinting through the meadow trying to get back into your own body, and your mind is screaming as a result of weeks of catastrophes, <i>There is so much I must do!!! - We have so much to do!!! - I have so much to do!! </i>- and when you finally stop in the forest at the same place you seem called to every time you're there, you cry for real, and the thought that gives you the most peace without knowing at all what it means is, "<i>I'm going in.</i>"</div>
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And when you pass the accident scene only 1.5 hours later, there is no evidence that anything occurred there at all, except a small puddle of blue glass dust at the median. We can "let it go" and forget it happened, or we can hold steady to the Big Experiences we are rapidly accumulating, even be haunted by them, and let them lead us straight into Next, facing Fu*@ing Forward, eyes wide open and hands and arms extended, stupid tears and all.</div>
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<i><a href="http://www.tristahill.com/" style="color: #3778cd; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 14px; line-height: 19px; text-decoration: none;" target="_new">Trista Hill</a><span style="color: #444444; font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-size: 14px; line-height: 19px;"> is a professional harpist and fine artist, creativity coach, educator in the arts, and Board-Certified Music Therapist. </span></span><em style="color: #444444; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 14px; line-height: 19px;">What her formal degrees in music and art gave her pale in comparsion to the gifts she's experienced in working with creatives just like you. </em><em><span style="color: #444444; font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-size: 14px; line-height: 19px;">Visit her website — </span></span><a href="http://www.tristahill.com/" style="color: #3778cd; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 14px; line-height: 19px; text-decoration: none;" target="_new">tristahill.com</a><span style="color: #444444; font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-size: 14px; line-height: 19px;"> — for </span></span></em></i><i><em><span style="line-height: 19px;"><span style="color: #444444; font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-size: 14px;">links to her </span></span><span style="color: #674ea7; font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-size: 14px;">monthly letter, </span></span><span style="color: #444444; font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-size: 14px;">blog, listening library & compositions, performances, and offerings to further you along your own glorious creative journey. </span></span></span></em><span style="color: #444444; font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-size: 14px; line-height: 19px;"> </span></span></i></div>
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Trista Hillhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14829996785328454630noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21220437.post-71476974030818886152016-12-15T17:30:00.000-05:002016-12-15T17:30:19.759-05:00When a Professional Musician Is Asked to Play for Free<div class="_1dwg _1w_m" style="padding: 12px 12px 0px;">
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<i><span style="color: #1d2129; font-family: Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: 14px;">{This was originally written as a Facebook post on October 26, 2016. As of this writing, it has received over two dozen relieved responses from other creatives, and almost one hundred "Likes". All of us who make / create are still working to improve how we and our work are perceived, in part by taking responsibility for how we present ourselves - thank you sincerely to all of you who support us in so many ways.}</span></span></i></div>
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Dear friends - this is a long post about creative work and money. It's atypical for me to post like this, but it's that time of year when "giving" is a focus, when many of us are asked to do what we do for a reduced fee or free. I write this not as a rant but with a very strong educational intent.</div>
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"Giving" is a noble and worthy act of expression. Of course we give our time and talents to people and institutions to whom we have a deep connection, in the name of someone we deeply cherish, because we really believe in a cause or interest and want to support it. </div>
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And the more life experience we gather, the more meaningful certain people and causes become. Thank goodness money can exist as a tool that helps further what we believe in.</div>
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AND. If I agreed to play for free every time I was asked, these donations would far outweigh the times I receive mutually-agreed-upon compensation for my chosen profession, the way I earn a living. </div>
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This is really hard, folks. When these situations come up, it's not out of malice or lack of respect. Anyone who asks you to provide your services for free has either been directed to do so by a higher-up or is simply acting upon what our culture has told them - the arts are non-essential, a "nice" thing to have, a piece of beauty that without question benefits society because it transcends monetary worth. And non-artists aren't the only culprits - artists do this to each other, and to themselves. Arguments-with-artist-self can sound like this: "This is something I love so much I don't or shouldn't care If I'm paid for it (wait, yes I do), and others expect me to not expect money for it (I'm not sure why and how can I keep going like this?), and I keep being asked to give this (a)way so it must be the norm (?!?)". </div>
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And so the myth of the "starving artist" is perpetuated - that you can't earn a living as an artist (defined as anyone working in the arts), that what you do really doesn't have value in the "real" world.</div>
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Yet what would the world be without the arts? A sad, sorry, and emotionally/intellectually/spiritually desolate place. Period. </div>
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It takes massive effort on the part of both artists and non-artists to turn this ship around. As an artist, you are afraid you will lose gigs, lose the right (???) to perform/show/play, or mightily piss someone off and send yourself into financial ruin. As a non-artist, the artistry you're specifically requesting to make your event beautiful and deeply meaningful typically does not have a line item in your budget.</div>
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Here are two things we can do to start the shift.</div>
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1) <b>Ask.</b> Non-artists - before you approach an artist you don't know personally to do their thing for free, ask yourself: Would I consistently do my own job - the way I earn a living - for free? Artists - before you accept any gig about which you may have doubts, ask yourself: How much do I value what I do, and how willing am I to stand behind that?</div>
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2) <b>Educate.</b> Below is a letter I recently sent in response to a well-meaning request for free music. (This letter is different than the one I sent in response to playing for a reduced fee, outside during twilight hours, in mid-November. But that's another story). Artists, please feel free to use a version of this when you feel caught in similar situations. And please use it, or any of the numerous better non-sniper examples on the internet, with professionalism and respect - any tone of malice or resentment helps no one, gets you nowhere, and earns you a reputation you don't want, fast.</div>
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<i>"(Nice greeting). I so appreciate your asking me to contribute to the wonderful (event name). </i></div>
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<i>From your helpful description of what you’re planning, I know just the kind of delightful music I’d contribute to this special event!</i></div>
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<i>Unfortunately, I am unable to donate my time and services - that first week of December is my busiest paid performance week of the year, and music is my chosen profession by which I earn a living.</i></div>
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<i>While I love your offer of a tax exempt receipt in exchange for the donation of my services, according to the IRS, one cannot deduct the value of time and services. My accountant / tax preparer echoes this rule (I learned it the hard way).<br /><a href="https://l.facebook.com/l.php?u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.irs.gov%2Fpublications%2Fp526%2Far02.html&h=QAQF8le0ZAQHCctWrqwZccA7T89BixDd_pSuFiKUOgZt6fg&enc=AZOrNKK-_CTd7x85UZDz808ADqCjIVb3I-sIF8ZOSUWmsiFm0WbVnBYHfvP4PYH4AYY5GRQpNG4m12SKkO_ldbXqitjcK85NkM_MQhzcQyczlcc3NN81MzM1k4ZP6TOPj7MkPtKuUVzNP0SCdrxSfSoPoSCS9nt9biDSi7_ESrJItY3sKJbvvow3ogP15e1eah8&s=1" rel="nofollow" style="color: #365899; cursor: pointer; text-decoration: none;" target="_blank">https://www.irs.gov/publications/p526/ar02.html</a></i></div>
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<i>My regular fee is (amount) and I would be happy to apply that to the 1.25 hours for which you’re requesting harp music. I would arrive about one half hour prior to set up and perhaps a little more if amplification (I bring my own system) is required.</i></div>
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<i>Thank you again for reaching out and please let me know if you have any questions! I love what you’re planning, the reasons you’re doing it, and the love you’ve already all put into this special event."</i></div>
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And dear friends, if you've got this far, thanks for reading. The above applies to more than just the arts. It's a complicated issue with many layers and is not really about money, but about external and internal worth, value, and the importance of / necessity for what we deeply love.</div>
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<i><a href="http://www.tristahill.com/" style="color: #3778cd; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 14px; line-height: 19px; text-decoration: none;" target="_new">Trista Hill</a><span style="color: #444444; font-family: 'times new roman';"><span style="font-size: 14px; line-height: 19px;"> is a professional harpist and fine artist, creativity coach, educator in the arts, and Board-Certified Music Therapist. </span></span><em style="color: #444444; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 14px; line-height: 19px;">What her formal degrees in music and art gave her pale in comparsion to the gifts she's experienced in working with creatives just like you. </em><em><span style="color: #444444; font-family: 'times new roman';"><span style="font-size: 14px; line-height: 19px;">Visit her website — </span></span><a href="http://www.tristahill.com/" style="color: #3778cd; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 14px; line-height: 19px; text-decoration: none;" target="_new">tristahill.com</a><span style="color: #444444; font-family: 'times new roman';"><span style="font-size: 14px; line-height: 19px;"> — for </span></span></em></i><i><em><span style="line-height: 19px;"><span style="color: #444444; font-family: 'times new roman';"><span style="font-size: 14px;">links to her </span></span><span style="color: #674ea7; font-family: 'times new roman';"><span style="font-size: 14px;"><a href="http://tinyletter.com/tristahill" style="color: #674ea7; text-decoration: none;" target="_blank">monthly letter,</a> </span></span><span style="color: #444444; font-family: 'times new roman';"><span style="font-size: 14px;">blog, listening library & compositions, performances, and offerings to further you along your own glorious creative journey. </span></span></span></em><span style="color: #444444; font-family: 'times new roman';"><span style="font-size: 14px; line-height: 19px;"> </span></span></i></div>
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Trista Hillhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14829996785328454630noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21220437.post-14733240179527953532016-07-07T17:54:00.000-04:002016-07-07T18:04:16.846-04:00Same Same, But Different - An Ode to Our Changing Harp World<div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; line-height: normal;">
<i><span style="font-family: inherit;">
This story was written shortly after attending </span></i><i><span style="font-family: inherit;">the 2015 <a href="http://www.somersetharpfest.com/" target="_blank">Somerset Harp Festival</a>, where </span></i><i><span style="font-family: inherit;">I led workshops and represented the <a href="http://jazzharp.org/" target="_blank">Jazz Harp Foundation</a>. It's a unique perspective on a </span><span style="font-family: inherit;">spectacular</span><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-family: inherit;"> annual event that exposes those who play and love the harp to the best </span><span style="font-family: inherit;">and<span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;"> brightest in the lever harp </span>world. The 2016 Somerset Harp Festival takes place in New Jersey from July 21-24!</span></i></div>
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***** </div>
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It’s very very cold. Huddled with my back against a windowless wall, swathed in almost all the clothing I packed for this journey, I’m waiting. In mere moments I’ll find myself in a deluge where I’m overrun by the curious, or in a desert where I’m isolated and left alone. I have no idea what to expect. Though I’ve gathered my resources, I’m not sure I’ve got what I need, or enough.
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Loud and confusing is this large enclosure; paradoxically, passerby are making their way slowly and in a daze. Just a few feet away, almost-chaos breaks out as supplies are yanked from crates and quickly pieced together - is that a quiet-yell of excitement or irritation? We’re surrounded by both very familiar and foreign sounds, a constant din that foretells Something Big is Going Down.
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<i>What did I get myself into?</i> Here I am, locked up for the next three days with so many situational unknowns, chronically chilled, incredulous, apprehensive, and hyperaware.
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<br />
And then, the first of many approaches, hesitant. We look at each other cautiously, eyes wide with hope. “Do you…?” she trails off. I smile encouragingly. “I don’t know exactly what I need right now,” she continues in almost a whisper. “But I know I want something different. Can you help?”
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<i>Oh yes I can.
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***** </div>
<br />
Outside is hot July summer; inside is winterish under the ceiling vent expelling steady chronic air-conditioned blasts. Before me are two tables piled with flyers, CDs, DVDs, sheet music, and books. To the side are two sets of headphones, my laptop for processing payments / exchanging panicked digital messages, several carefully-laid cables linked to a nearby mixer, a freestanding iPad, and an impressive shiny black 32-string electric harp on tripod-legs. Behind me are boxes of backup supplies, folders of paperwork and hastily-scratched instructions, tee shirts in brown and black, tote bags in bright orange, hidden extra cash, bags of teaching materials for the upcoming workshops I will lead, and the snacks - er, dark chocolate - that given the situation I can’t believe I remembered to bring.
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We’re in the Exhibitor’s Hall at the 2015 <a href="http://somersetharpfest.com/" target="_blank">Somerset Harp Festival</a>, and I’m overseeing the booth for the <a href="http://jazzharp.org/" target="_blank">Jazz Harp Foundation </a>(JHF). I’m amidst an amalgam of harps - lap, medium and full sized, fashioned from precious multi-wood and indestructible carbon fiber, robust acoustic and sleek electric, bare-unfinished and gloss-shellacked. Milling about are both men and women of all ages - admirers, players, professors, private teachers, composers, therapists, artisan-makers, dealers and manufacturers. Here we witness firsthand just how much, in the past few decades alone, the interest in - and love for! - the harp has exponentially grown.
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Somerset attendance increases every year. While the JHF has been a part of Somerset for several of those years, chances are what the JHF offers is still new to many and unlike what most harp players typically see, hear, and play. Launched in 2007 by Brenda Dor-Groot and Sabine Meijers of the Netherlands to “strengthen the position of the harp in jazz”, JHF’s presence at Somerset and its creation of events - the July <a href="http://www.jazzharp.org/uana-ete" target="_blank">2016 Brazilian Jazz Harp Immersion</a> is happening now! - embody their mission of putting “jazz harp on the map, to increase its reputation and quality, link jazz harpists around the globe, and inspire harpists, peer musicians and audiences alike.”
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<span style="font-size: x-small;"><i>Sabine Meijers (left) and Brenda Dor-Groot (right)</i></span></div>
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As the U.S. representative for the JHF, and as a teacher and music coach advocating creativity, I’m at Somerset to also help spread the word that we all have a choice in our harp journey; we’re living in an exciting time when we have more diverse and prolific options and opportunities available to us than ever before.<br />
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“I’m sorry, Trista,” a favorite rep from the <a href="http://www.vaharpcenter.com/" target="_blank">Virginia Harp Center</a> says as she approaches the borrowed DHC electric harp we set up for the free online JHF jazz harp lessons offered via the iPad. “We just sold this instrument plus all its accessories - he’s taking it to a workshop that starts in ten minutes.” She gestures to a gentleman who, with wife at his side, is grinning broadly.<br />
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I smile back - his purchase is a perfect example of how, in response to the harp world’s rapid growth and increased interest in all things harp, makers are meeting our needs by producing high-quality harps at a variety of price points. Harp gatherings now feature “harp tastings” where we can literally sit behind the very instrument we just saw online. And these instruments can’t help but entice us to discover and explore new ways to play.<br />
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“Show me what’s new and good!” a repeat customer booms as he grabs a pair of headphones. “I bought a lot of jazz harp recordings from you last time, and my friends loved them so much they took them home. They can listen to what I buy today, but now I’m gonna hide the CDs where my friends can’t find them.”<br />
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Those outside the harp world are drawn in, allured by its magic. Those of us who live in the harp world see it broadening, changing. Our opportunities are changing. We are changing. The answers to <i>where do I start? how do I continue? </i>are now a whole lot more interesting.<br />
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Those answers are in the birth and propagation of programs and offerings designed to help us find our own voice in the growing harp world. Along with the emergence of the JHF, we’ve seen top performers like <a href="http://hipharp.com/" target="_blank">Deborah Henson-Conant</a> offer a smattering of extensive online courses and grow a community around new ways of playing. New online groups and forums are forming every day to discuss and share both old and new music. Podcast-programs like Harpestry (<a href="http://krvs.org/programs/harpestry-krvs#stream/0"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none;">http://krvs.org/programs/harpestry-krvs#stream/0</span></a>) and Harp Talk (<a href="http://harptalk.podomatic.com/"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none;">http://harptalk.podomatic.com</span></a>) highlight players and cultures around the world, blurring lines between lever and pedal harp music while showcasing similarities and differences among other stringed instruments birthed from divergent lineage in distant eras.
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">*****</span></div>
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The lines between lever and pedal harp, and the type of music played on each, are no longer straight and solid. At best, they are dissolving into dots and dashes and even melting into flexible curlicues that happily intersect at random points throughout harp time and space.
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This phenomenon is brought to life in the evening performances at Somerset. There’s Jakez Francois, the President/CEO of <a href="http://www.camac-harps.com/fr/" target="_blank">Camac Harps</a>, performing on a lever harp his own company made with as much ease and grace as he brings to pedal harp. And <a href="http://www.alfredo-rolando-ortiz.com/" target="_blank">Alfredo Rolando-Ortiz</a>, drawing upon his own rich heritage, bringing butterflies to life on a Paraguayan harp before our very eyes. And there’s <a href="http://www.edmarcastaneda.com/" target="_blank">Edmar Castaneda</a>, playing with such intensity and passion that we can’t help but lean forward and stare while collectively thinking,<i>“OHHHH $*%#@!!! It CAN be different!”</i> There’s <a href="http://hipharp.com/" target="_blank">Deborah Henson-Conant</a>, through an instrument made just for her, giving it her all - as always! - and encouraging us to do the same.
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In a workshop I led at Somerset called Songs Without Words, in which we explored composing music that relays a feeling or message without lyrics, participants almost whispered, “I just want to… “ or “How can I get to….” or “I don’t feel I’m creative enough to…” Our discussion gently circled and dipped into our innate ability and desire to create, where and how we find personal meaning, and how our instrument is a portal to our soul in ways we both already know and are as yet undiscovered.
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<i>We are all just trying to find our way.</i><br />
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Many harp lovers initially find themselves adapting to and accepting what’s believed to be the right way to play the harp and what makes a good player. This is how we learn - we’re very busy earning our proverbial wings, looking for affirmation and confirmation in an external stamped seal of approval. We may remain here for a short or long while before we ask, <i>what else?</i>
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As a pedal harpist who never started on lever harp, who doesn’t subscribe to the idea that the harp world starts with the small lever harp and ends with the gigantic pedal harp, and who doesn’t hold the pedal harp as the pedestal-penultimate, I firmly believe we find our music and just-right instruments - or our instruments find us! - that best meet us where we are, as we are, on our very personal harp journey. There is no one Right Harp, no one Best Player, no Perfect Way.<br />
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And by the looks of all things Somerset, I’m in good company.
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">*****</span></div>
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Back in the Exhibitor’s Hall, an accomplished player leans in close over the JHF table. Like the others, she is barely whispering. “I’m bored with what I am doing. How do I not fall asleep on my classical gigs? How do I start learning / hearing / playing jazz?”
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“I’m so tired of Celtic / Irish music!” another woman declares loudly as her stack of new music lands in front of me with a thud. “Haven’t I endured enough suffering in my own life to not have to play yet another tune about someone else’s wayward Daddy and the horrors of the potato famine?!?”
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Clearly no one I encounter here at Somerset is denouncing their instrument, its heritage, anyone who plays in a specific style, nor the way they’ve played themselves for most of their lives. Underneath each swift and offhand comment is this: <i>I’m changing. I’m ready. NOW. </i>
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Listening to and experiencing other harp voices reminds or clarifies for us what we love, where we want to go, who we really are. We’ve been given permission to lean deeper into our ongoing journey toward what resonates more clear and true, what is more uniquely us. There are those that help preserve our past, and those who help shape the future. Traditions are important to uphold and maintain, and boundaries are meant to be pushed and reshaped.
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<i>Same same, but different. </i><br />
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The development and popularity of entities like Somerset, Camac, the JHF, and our most admired performers are already demonstrating there is more to the harp than we thought or assumed, that this instrument can transport us to worlds that were previously out of reach, that our dreams are actually possible, tangible, and real.
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Everywhere there are tools and resources that help us edge ever closer to the Unknown where our own voice rings powerful and true. Look for us, your Personal Advocates, huddled in the cold, behind the strings, offering a slow smile at your admission that you want more.<br />
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Here we are, ready and willing to place in your hands, heart, mind, and soul all that helps you see, touch, feel, hear, and play in ways you haven’t before. Here we are, in this luminous and diverse harp-tuning din, now, together. Welcome.
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">*****</span></div>
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<i><br /></i>
<i>‘Same Same, But Different’ is a loving reference to a <a href="http://jazzharp.org/product-rudigeroppermann-samesame-cd" style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-family: inherit;" target="_blank">recording title</a><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;"> by jazz and world music harper </span></span><span style="color: #0000ee; font-family: inherit;"><u><span style="font-family: inherit;">Rudiger</span></u></span> Oppermann. Learn more about the Somerset Harp Festival at </i><a href="http://somersetharpfest.com/" style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-family: inherit;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; line-height: normal;"><i>somersetharpfest.com</i></span></a><i style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-family: inherit;"> and the Jazz Harp Foundation at </i><a href="http://jazzharp.org/" style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-family: inherit;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; line-height: normal;"><i>jazzharp.org</i></span></a><i style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-family: inherit;">.</i>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><i>Another imperfect post, accompanied by:</i></span></div>
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Paul Simon - <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OeRtfvuwPic" target="_blank"><span style="color: #674ea7;">W</span>ristband</a> and <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yhuoeh6KCI4" target="_blank">Werewolf</a></div>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; line-height: 19px;">~~~~~~~~~<br /><i>Related posts:</i><br /><a href="http://tristahill.blogspot.com/2015/07/sparks-of-july.html" target="_blank"><span style="color: #674ea7;">S</span>parks of July</a></span><br />
<a href="http://tristahill.blogspot.com/2014/01/inviting-yeti.html" target="_blank"><span style="color: #674ea7;">I</span>nviting the Yeti</a><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; line-height: 19px;"><br />~~~~~~~~~</span></div>
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<i style="color: #333333; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;"><a href="http://www.tristahill.com/" style="color: #3778cd; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 14px; line-height: 19px; text-decoration: none;" target="_new">Trista Hill</a><span style="color: #444444; font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-size: 14px; line-height: 19px;"> is a professional harpist and fine artist, creativity coach, educator in the arts, and Board-Certified Music Therapist. </span></span><em style="color: #444444; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 14px; line-height: 19px;">What her formal degrees in music and art gave her pale in comparsion to the gifts she's experienced in working with creatives just like you. </em><em><span style="color: #444444; font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-size: 14px; line-height: 19px;">Visit her website — </span></span><a href="http://www.tristahill.com/" style="color: #3778cd; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 14px; line-height: 19px; text-decoration: none;" target="_new">tristahill.com</a><span style="color: #444444; font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-size: 14px; line-height: 19px;"> — for </span></span></em></i><i><em><span style="line-height: 19px;"><span style="color: #444444; font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-size: 14px;">links to her </span></span><span style="color: #674ea7; font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-size: 14px;"><a href="http://tinyletter.com/tristahill" target="_blank">monthly letter,</a> </span></span><span style="color: #444444; font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-size: 14px;">blog, listening library & compositions, performances, and offerings to further you along your own glorious creative journey. </span></span></span></em><span style="color: #444444; font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 13px;"><span style="font-size: 14px; line-height: 19px;"> </span></span></i></div>
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Trista Hillhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14829996785328454630noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21220437.post-59983364270811817822015-12-04T23:53:00.001-05:002016-07-07T15:34:16.304-04:00Get Off the Boat<div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; line-height: normal;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">So very very dark. </span></div>
<div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; line-height: normal; min-height: 13px;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; line-height: normal;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">Decades have been spent on this very white prow. <br />
Pulling, heaving, gasping, weeping. </span></div>
<div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; line-height: normal;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">Alone. </span></div>
<div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; line-height: normal; min-height: 13px;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; line-height: normal;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">You can’t remember when you arrived. It seems you have always been here. It felt once like the right thing to do - get on, go. That’s what you heard.</span></div>
<div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; line-height: normal; min-height: 13px;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; line-height: normal;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><i>You should! </i>they declared. </span></div>
<div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; line-height: normal;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><i>You’d better!</i> they quipped. </span></div>
<div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; line-height: normal;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><i>Why wouldn't you?</i> they dared. </span></div>
<div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; line-height: normal; min-height: 13px;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; line-height: normal;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">This massive ship, this heavy heaving hulking mass - it has carried you for a very long time. You were up for this journey, for a long time. You trusted this boat to churn in a solid direction, for a long time. You expected to arrive, for a long time.</span></div>
<div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; line-height: normal;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; line-height: normal;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">Early on you realized the ship was only drifting. </span></div>
<div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; line-height: normal;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">Aimless. Non-directional.</span></div>
<div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; line-height: normal;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; line-height: normal;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">Do-or-die focus: Steer the ship.</span></div>
<div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; line-height: normal; min-height: 13px;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="line-height: normal;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;">The marine steering wheel - broken. Turn and turn and turn, push and pull and strain and cry. I</span>t's <span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;">a useless empty-iris eye that taunts you with its barely-there night-glimmer.</span></span></div>
<div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; line-height: normal; min-height: 13px;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; line-height: normal;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">It’s only the splintered mast, one long pole upon which no sail ever flew, and you, dipping it over the edge, again. Again. Again.</span></div>
<div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; line-height: normal; min-height: 13px;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; line-height: normal;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">Is the ship shifting? You’re putting in the effort. You feel the stress and strain coursing through every vein, feel it in every pore. Clouds pass over head, big fluffy creatures or endless woolen blankets, the sole accompaniment on this journey.</span></div>
<div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; line-height: normal; min-height: 13px;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; line-height: normal;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">It’s always been night here. Always dark. Where is the moon? Faint stars have never illuminated a way - the distance is dark blue and empty, so dark you could be coming up on something and not know it. </span></div>
<div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; line-height: normal; min-height: 13px;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; line-height: normal;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">Below you can just barely make out the waves. Harsh-soft silence. Up and down, up and down, sometimes in quick succession, sometimes in almost-undetectable slow motion. Always the heaving.</span></div>
<div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; line-height: normal; min-height: 13px;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; line-height: normal;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">Where are you going?</span></div>
<div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; line-height: normal;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">If you only knew. </span></div>
<div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; line-height: normal; min-height: 13px;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; line-height: normal;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">You chose this.</span></div>
<div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; line-height: normal;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">Yes, you did.</span></div>
<div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; line-height: normal;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">You just can’t remember why.</span></div>
<div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; line-height: normal;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; line-height: normal; text-align: center;">
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">~~~~~~~</span></div>
</div>
<div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; line-height: normal; min-height: 13px;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; line-height: normal;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">One day, tensed and muscled from years and years of hard physical labor as the sole attempter to change the ship’s direction -- </span></div>
<div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; line-height: normal;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; line-height: normal;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">One day, shredded and frayed from years and years of hard mental labor as both the inquisitor and the accused with no answers -- </span></div>
<div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; line-height: normal;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; line-height: normal;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">One day, tattered and hardened from years and years of hard spiritual labor as the doubter and almost-faithless -- </span></div>
<div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; line-height: normal;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; line-height: normal;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">It dawns on you.</span></div>
<div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; line-height: normal; min-height: 13px;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; line-height: normal;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">You could.</span></div>
<div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; line-height: normal;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">Yes. </span></div>
<div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; line-height: normal;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">GET OFF THE BOAT.</span></div>
<div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; line-height: normal; min-height: 13px;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; line-height: normal;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">The cold waves below! Surely leaving means death, a pulling under, a fatal swallowing. </span></div>
<div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; line-height: normal;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; line-height: normal;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">Up here, I have control. Up here, I can feel my way.</span></div>
<div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; line-height: normal; min-height: 13px;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; line-height: normal;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">Or can I?</span></div>
<div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; line-height: normal; min-height: 13px;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; line-height: normal;">
<i><span style="font-family: inherit;">Use the ladder.</span></i></div>
<div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; line-height: normal;">
<i><span style="font-family: inherit;">Or don’t.</span></i></div>
<div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; line-height: normal;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">GET OFF THE BOAT.</span></div>
<div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; line-height: normal; min-height: 13px;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; line-height: normal;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">You may have never been a sea / water person in the first place. You may have, all along, needed to feel terrain under your hands and feet.</span></div>
<div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; line-height: normal; min-height: 13px;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; line-height: normal;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">What contract did you sign that mandated you stay here until your dying days, stay the course, suffer?</span></div>
<div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; line-height: normal; min-height: 13px;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><i></i><br /></span></div>
<div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; line-height: normal;">
<i><span style="font-family: inherit;">Overboard.</span></i></div>
<div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; line-height: normal;">
<i><span style="font-family: inherit;">Out. </span></i></div>
<div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; line-height: normal;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">OFF.</span></div>
<div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; line-height: normal; min-height: 13px;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; line-height: normal;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">What if leaving the Trying was freedom? What if relaxing into the current took you exactly where you needed?</span></div>
<div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; line-height: normal; min-height: 13px;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; line-height: normal;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">You decide.</span></div>
<div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; line-height: normal;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">You do it. </span></div>
<div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; line-height: normal;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">You GET OFF THE BOAT.</span></div>
<div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; line-height: normal; min-height: 13px;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; line-height: normal;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">Suddenly the churning below are not waves.</span></div>
<div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; line-height: normal;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">They’re soft deep purple blue velvet.</span></div>
<div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; line-height: normal;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; line-height: normal;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">What you thought were weak stars reflected in the water are actually crystalline way-showers lit from below. “Step here,” they call out. “Follow us,” they call out. </span></div>
<div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; line-height: normal;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; line-height: normal;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">It is soft, warm, dry, and clear. The clouds part.</span></div>
<div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; line-height: normal; min-height: 13px;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; line-height: normal;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">A silver sail you never saw before drifts away from the disintegrating ship. </span></div>
<div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; line-height: normal;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">Airborne. Flying.</span></div>
<div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; line-height: normal; min-height: 13px;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; line-height: normal;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">On it is an inscription faintly illuminated by moonlight:</span></div>
<div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; line-height: normal;">
<span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-family: inherit;">“To arrive, you must first leave.” </span></div>
<div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; line-height: normal; min-height: 13px;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgtKmlghboSM5hjIBGcTn1BVVOzfYsk9jE36PdU22BKYeKG_rzrWNwh0XoQOpP0jSauB86Fj5uyDk1H86uGSor2RaNqPJ-w-SgfLgHDU2rUd5_1mOBUEzJlCMsDfykJnjX6rSeGew/s1600/DSCF7290.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgtKmlghboSM5hjIBGcTn1BVVOzfYsk9jE36PdU22BKYeKG_rzrWNwh0XoQOpP0jSauB86Fj5uyDk1H86uGSor2RaNqPJ-w-SgfLgHDU2rUd5_1mOBUEzJlCMsDfykJnjX6rSeGew/s320/DSCF7290.JPG" width="298" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">My small painting sits beside the bed as the Ultimate Reminder.</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; line-height: normal; text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div style="background-color: white; color: #444444; font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px; line-height: 1.4;">
<span style="font-size: 13px; line-height: 19px;">~~~~~~~~~</span></div>
<div style="background-color: white; color: #444444; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 19px;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><i>Another imperfect post, accompanied by:</i></span></div>
<div style="background-color: white; color: #444444; font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', Trebuchet, Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 1.4; margin: 0px;">
<div>
Blind Faith - <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3TyynO6O0kc" target="_blank"><span style="color: #61499f;">C</span>an't Find My Way Home</a></div>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; line-height: 19px;">~~~~~~~~~<br /><i>Related posts:</i><br /><a href="http://www.tristahill.blogspot.com/2014/01/inviting-yeti.html" target="_blank"><span style="color: #61499f;">I</span>nviting the Yeti</a></span><br />
<a href="http://www.tristahill.blogspot.com/2013/02/swipe-grime-from-kitchen-light-fixture.html" target="_blank"><span style="color: #61499f;">T</span>he Thing Behind the Thing</a><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; line-height: 19px;"><br />~~~~~~~~~</span></div>
<div style="background-color: white; color: #444444; font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', Trebuchet, Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; margin: 0px;">
<i><a href="http://www.tristahill.com/" style="color: #3778cd; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 14px; line-height: 19px; text-decoration: none;" target="_new">Trista Hill</a><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-size: 14px; line-height: 19px;"> is a professional harpist and fine artist, creativity coach, educator in the arts, and Board-Certified Music Therapist. </span></span><em style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 14px; line-height: 19px;">What her formal degrees in music and art gave her pale in comparsion to the gifts she's experienced in working with creatives just like you. </em><em><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-size: 14px; line-height: 19px;">Visit her website — </span></span><a href="http://www.tristahill.com/" style="color: #3778cd; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 14px; line-height: 19px; text-decoration: none;" target="_new">tristahill.com</a><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-size: 14px; line-height: 19px;"> — for links to her <a href="http://tinyletter.com/tristahill" style="color: #61499f; text-decoration: none;" target="_blank">monthly letter</a>, performances, and other fantastical creative offerings.</span></span></em><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-size: 14px; line-height: 19px;"> </span></span></i></div>
Trista Hillhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14829996785328454630noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21220437.post-73359480001977130362015-07-02T10:12:00.001-04:002015-07-02T10:39:12.570-04:00Sparks of July<span style="background-color: white; color: #505050; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif;"><span style="line-height: 24px;">The 4th of July is a highlighter of life chapters, a harbinger of exploding reminiscence.</span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span><span style="background-color: white;"><span style="color: #505050; font-family: Helvetica Neue, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif;"><span style="line-height: 24px;">A <i>lot</i> of fireworks at home - that's what the e</span></span></span><span style="background-color: white; color: #505050; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif;"><span style="line-height: 24px;">arly 4th's <a href="http://www.tristahill.blogspot.com/2011/10/sense-of-place.html" target="_blank">in Colorado</a> entail. </span><span style="line-height: 24px;">My father and all the other fathers must have pillaged every stand for this showcase at yet another neighborhood block volleyball party. Boxes and bags emerge from the basement garage where the explosives had exponentially reproduced over the course of a year. Speeding flares, screaming rockets, buckets of sparklers, coiling black snakes. My Dad the Igniter. Oh the outdoor smells, the scent of new and old fire. </span></span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #505050; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif;"><span style="line-height: 24px;">Washington state 4th's are at the mountain home of my uncle where volleyball, food, and firework cavalcades routinely appear though we're surrounded by dry forest. Cousin numbers increase every year when you're on the upper end of this generation echelon. One year, uncool me in my black and green. Another year, skinny me in my red and white. Attempting to mingle but still holding back, even among family. Us the out-of-towners, just slightly removed, until we're there again for another short-visit vacation. These childhood holidays might be the most free 4th of July's ever.</span></span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #505050; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; line-height: 24px;">I'm in the recording studio with my harp. It is plush dark. The mics are very very close and I feel horrifically exposed. Oddly, I also feel held and safe, and giddy about what might happen. I've been granted entire days to get down my ideas, to listen back to my creations, to hone what I hear and believe in, AND </span><span style="background-color: white;"><span style="color: #505050; font-family: Helvetica Neue, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif;"><span style="line-height: 24px;">I'm painfully aware I've not prepared enough for these moments - <i>have I not taken myself seriously</i>. </span></span></span><span style="background-color: white; color: #505050; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; line-height: 24px;">He is patient in the control room; I am paying him, yes, and he also has other clients to serve this July, other musicians, other responsibilities. And it is falling apart, right under my fingers, falling away as it is back at home where I explained I need to go do this on my own. Have I really earned the right to take up this space? Listening back years later I hear the angst in my notes, the desire for Different. I also hear what could have only been born there, then, in those very moments of quiet consternation. I hear what tension birthed, I hear my heart speaking without words. This might be the most pivotal 4th of July ever.</span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #505050; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; line-height: 24px;">The stoneyard is a perfect place for downtown firework viewing and for endless tabled rows of family-made food. The invitations to this event always stretch far and wide, so in a way I shouldn't be surprised to hear my name and see him in this context - </span><span style="background-color: white; color: #505050; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; line-height: 24px;"><i>oh DID he marry her </i>- a relic </span><span style="background-color: white; color: #505050; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif;"><span style="line-height: 24px;">from another time deposited right here in the copper dust at my feet. I scour for vegetarian bits among platters of charred meat - I search for water among the coolers of bottled alcohol and sugar. Maybe I don't belong here, but I know how to be here. We'll keep t</span></span><span style="background-color: white; color: #505050; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; line-height: 24px;">he tradition of grabbing a cream dessert at the restaurant next door to wait out the ant-lines of cars and trucks streaming back into the suburbs. It's as much about avoiding unnecessary accidents inflicted by others as it is about buying time for my driver's repeat beer over-consumption buzz to fade. Stirred-too-hard cream fruit dessert is both my body and soul nourishment. These might be the most unsettling 4th of July's ever.</span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #505050; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; line-height: 24px;">We've traveled hours to the river for a small town parade-peformance and are quite a pair, females dressed blue and red sequins with red-white-blue streamers in at least her hair, one of us liberal with the makeup and the other conservative. In everyday life, no one would peg us as sisters, but in these get-ups, they immediately do. We've already done the pool party where it's clear we don't know how to act. We hide away in the second-story guest house for brainstorming sessions, walk around town to escape laptop-laden air, and then get ready in the white-tent dressing room, one of us gearing up for the headline onstage performance while the other captures significant moments on camera because her costume allows her free pass access. The softness of the night is alive with lights and color and bustling people and there is comfort in our not knowing anyone here. Though we stand out like glittering beacons among shorts-and-sandals families who've created long lawn-chair lineups, they don't <i>really</i> know us, no, not really. This is a culmination of my efforts to put everything on the line for a life turnaround, and it sparkles now like the fireworks over the wide river water - here we are, both known and unknown, bound and released by music. I'm humbled by the thought that this might be the best 4th of July ever.</span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #505050; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; line-height: 24px;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #505050; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; line-height: 24px;"><br /></span></span>
<span style="background-color: white; color: #505050; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #505050; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; line-height: 24px;">A parking lot feud, a hot screaming-threat scene straight out of a TV drama. The cops are called, the rights are explained, and the flaming parting of ways leaves me to gather my wits so I can attend, without tainting, a family backyard barbecue. Later, unbeknownst to everyone, I return to the scene, attempt to act rational, find words that do not incite, <i>squelch squelch squelch</i>, and insidiously lay the groundwork that will prevent another blowout and ease us into next steps I don't want. Thus the decision is made - it is over. Without foundations, time cannot grant improvement - in my dismay I see there is no desire for different. It has to change or it has to go. I leave for intense inner work, conduct the business from five states away, and return to both Empty and New. Begin again. This might be the darkest 4th of July ever.</span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #505050; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif;"><span style="line-height: 24px;">Sitting alone on this multi-peaked rooftop, in my heart I know I should love this being above, beyond, alight. In a way, no one knows where I am, and I can see everything from here - the fireworks in the distance, the natural firefly light-blink in the not-too-distant tree lines, the cars below hyped up on July 4 speed-noise adrenaline and who knows what else. I can't hear the symphonic music, and I can't grasp having chosen that over this, and as much as I want to lie down right here and go to sleep, these tears won't let me. I know they mean something isn't good, I know this situation is a sign, but I can't see the shape or the shadow, I can't put my finger on it. I want to be up there, riding the bursts, shooting in a definite direction, not in the seemingly perfect temporary-quiet that is here. I want to feel cared for. I want to feel on fire rather than damped-out kick-boot ash-covered alone. I know I can shine, not be in shadow. This burning has a place, and I want to fly. Up and from the roof, right out of here. This might be the most confusing 4th of July ever.</span></span></span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #505050; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; line-height: 24px;">Flying all day across the country, the snow-capped mountains looming just outside the window, the slow-move peaks are promising adventure and release. We're high on and exhausted by the time and distance - we land and load a good meal before huddling in our light weather gear on a windy crowded bridge with a throng of locals. It's the beginning of our grand west coast adventure, and the fireworks are very far off in the distance over the Willamette River. Hikes, ocean, camping, and donuts are on the long list of Must-Do's. We can't really see the color bursts, but delight in knowing they are there - they are scatter-quick borders of an illustration that has already started to be carefully colored in. This is it, <i>but isn't really it</i> - there's assuredly more. We are excited and hopeful, looking for signs about what this trip means for us, to us, about us. This might be the most hopeful 4th of July ever.</span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #505050; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif;"><span style="line-height: 24px;">Alone again, but welcomed to the small gathering of long-time family friends, the excellent food is offered just outside the remodeled home by those modeling the healthiest of partnerships. The intelligent conversation turns to education, and education reform, and what is best for kids in a world where teachers and parents are more out of touch than they've ever been. I surprise myself with my outspokenness: </span><i style="line-height: 24px;">I have opinions and can communicate them</i><span style="line-height: 24px;">. Driving home in the new car, the moonroof open, the fireworks are THERE! Just above! It's too dangerous to stop along this winding country road where a few days prior the police posted No Parking placards. A church driveway is nearby, the car swerves precariously 180 degrees to face the river. I want to jump through the roof, touch the sky, but instead I steady myself with elbow-roof propping and barefoot-tiptoe standing on new seats. Never before have I seen fireworks so close, and they are loud and booming and beautiful and stark against the clear and perfect night sky, coaxing an answer to <i>What Will Life Now Bring?</i> So many unknowns. I think I know, and I know I don't. This might be the most enlightening 4th of July ever.</span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span><span style="background-color: white; color: #505050; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; line-height: 24px;"><i>What does it mean to be free</i>. </span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: #505050; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; line-height: 24px;">Liberation. Freedom. Emancipation. Release.</span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #505050; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; line-height: 24px;">Hey, baby, it's the 4th of July.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><i>Another imperfect post, accompanied by:</i></span></div>
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X - <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lhu807VUY24" target="_blank">Fourth of July</a><br />
Paul McCartney - <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WkLGpKZEIaM" target="_blank">Fourth of July</a><br />
Ani Difranco - <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sVE0Anq50Bk" target="_blank">Independence Day</a></div>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; line-height: 19px;">~~~~~~~~~<br /><i>Related posts:</i><br /><a href="http://www.tristahill.blogspot.com/2014/08/my-house-is-for-sale.html" target="_blank">My House is For Sale</a></span><br />
<a href="http://tristahill.blogspot.com/2011/10/sense-of-place.html" target="_blank">Sense of Place</a><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; line-height: 19px;"><br />~~~~~~~~~</span></div>
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<i><a href="http://www.tristahill.com/" style="color: #3778cd; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 14px; line-height: 19px; text-decoration: none;" target="_new">Trista Hill</a><span style="color: #444444; font-family: Times New Roman;"><span style="font-size: 14px; line-height: 19px;"> is a professional harpist and fine artist, creativity coach, educator in the arts, and Board-Certified Music Therapist. </span></span><em style="color: #444444; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 14px; line-height: 19px;">What her formal degrees in music and art gave her pale in comparsion to the gifts she's experienced in working with creatives just like you. </em><em><span style="color: #444444; font-family: Times New Roman;"><span style="font-size: 14px; line-height: 19px;">Visit her website — </span></span><a href="http://www.tristahill.com/" style="color: #3778cd; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 14px; line-height: 19px; text-decoration: none;" target="_new">tristahill.com</a><span style="color: #444444; font-family: Times New Roman;"><span style="font-size: 14px; line-height: 19px;"> — for links to her <a href="http://tinyletter.com/tristahill" target="_blank">monthly newsletter</a>, performances, and other fantastical creative offerings.</span></span></em><span style="color: #444444; font-family: Times New Roman;"><span style="font-size: 14px; line-height: 19px;"> </span></span></i></div>
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Trista Hillhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14829996785328454630noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21220437.post-23873912229846126792015-03-31T14:39:00.002-04:002015-03-31T14:47:42.312-04:00Freedom is Another WordHere's what I remember: We almost miss the winding gravel driveway leading up to the dream place - 60 acres of quiet open airy light. We pass an ancient building that makes us wonder if we have the right address. We're not really sure what we're in for, yet we're starved for it. <br />
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They live at the top of a hill in a perfect small contemporary rectangular box whose entire south wall is floor-to-ceiling windows. The kitchen is deliciously tiny with artisan pottery that on its underside may have fingerprints permanently embedded with fire and glaze. The uber-efficient washer and dryer are corner-stacked in a hidden closet beside only-essential clothing. The sleeping loft is cozy with handmade quilts piled on one mattress that's positioned perfectly beneath a low-angled ceiling. A black grand piano, on which both jazz and classical books lie open, looks out onto the garden space with sculpture, wildflowers, and vegetables that are beginning to fade in the North Carolina autumn sun. A giant pyramid trellis tall enough to walk under and through supports hefty vines that arch up and over, leaving gigantic squash to hang like Christmas ornaments.<br />
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<i><span style="font-size: xx-small;">All photos: <a href="http://fredrickstewart.com/project6.php?id=6">here</a></span></i></div>
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They work in a larger building across the pine tree bordered yard. Rough-hewn wood and white rooms open to a two-story-tall communal space. There are more floor-to-ceiling windows, a humble kitchen, a sturdy long exposed staircase, a pottery room, upstairs bedrooms with skylights and tight-weave wool carpet, and a gigantic bathtub. A real fireplace calls for newly chopped wood, and a cozy sofa and chairs are piled nearby. On a grey and rainy day they come home, light a fire, get quiet and warm. The lights are dim. They hardly speak. Settling into a U-shaped workstation that's wide enough both can sit and type, each works independently on what's personally important.<br />
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For dinner, the daily menu doesn't change - meat, greens, quinoa - because planned simplicity leaves time and space to do the creative good work. TV is minimal unless it's about art, and work is left behind when they head to the house for true rest.<br />
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They want an artists' colony on this property with studios for others to do their work. Focused time and energy has been channeled into creating quiet but powerful personal, artistic, and environmental impact. Right now, it's the perfect setup for performances. People sit on the floor and on the staircase, close enough there is no separation between performer and audience. The invitees feel at home in more ways than one. We sell out here, similarly but different when compared to other venues, in ticket sales and almost in merchandise.<br />
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And I can't quite celebrate. We are tired and drained and tense. While everything about this place is a dream come true, I can't seem to fully enjoy it. Matters weigh heavy enough that life and light is being pressed right out of my being. This dichotomy hurts - I love it here, AND I'm reminded my own life is nothing like this.<br />
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One morning, while all are out, I learn no one will return until later that eve.<br />
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Suddenly I feel a rush through my veins. I'm here by myself. For hours. Left behind? Yes. Isn't that <i>delicious?!?</i> Absolute ELATION. I am ALONE. I can take up space, IN this space. I'm irritated that my legs cannot better support my thunder-running through the gardens and down the hills, cackle-laughing loud and wild, giddy as a child. The massive dogs are suspiciously quiet, at peace more than I've ever seen them. No other human is around to hear me. I want to cry. So much to explore, on my own time, in my own way.<br />
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<i>How can I have more of this.</i><br />
<i>How can I have more of this.</i><br />
<i>How can I have more of this.</i><br />
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This level of elation might mean my recent history ratio of saying yes/no - more/less - has been very dangerously off.<br />
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<i>I'm going to get more of this.</i><br />
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So many hours, days, years filled with worry and stress to the point of un-seeing.<br />
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<i>When I get quiet like this I so much easier feel love.</i><br />
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It's possible - the getting closer. Not at all in an expected or preferred way. Who would have chosen this crazy roundabout path?<br />
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Who would have thought the art of late-night panic-planning and cramped power-pavement travel littered with snack-attack foodstuffs would lead to the art of passive solar light space, quiet moments, solitariness, undisturbed nature, and soft and steady creative flow? Who would have thought that systematic, electronic, sequined stardom would lead to unfurling, natural, communal impact? That externals would lead to internals? The black would lead to light? Noise to quiet? Chaos to rest?<br />
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<i>Freedom is... an experience felt as our nature shines forth, unburdened, unattached... (Kate Potter)</i><br />
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A day suddenly becomes delicious. Freedom might be a split-second away - a flip of a switch, a bat of a lash, another run-step toward the light.<br />
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We don't know how optimum the path is until it's behind us. Often, despite everything, we arrive anyway. <br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><i>Another imperfect post, accompanied by:</i></span></div>
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<a href="http://www.andrewbird.net/index.php">Andrew Bird</a> - <a href="https://soundcloud.com/andrewbird/pulaski-at-night">I Want to See Pulaski at Night</a></div>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; line-height: 19px;">~~~~~~~~~<br /><i>Related posts:</i><br /><a href="http://www.tristahill.blogspot.com/2013/03/passion-and-religion.html">Passion and Religion</a><br /><span style="color: #5421bb;"><a href="http://www.tristahill.blogspot.com/2012/06/procrastination-as-punishment-and-other.html"><span style="color: #61499f;">P</span>rocrastination as Punishment</a></span><br />~~~~~~~~~</span></div>
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<i><a href="http://www.tristahill.com/" style="color: #3778cd; text-decoration: none;" target="_new">Trista Hill</a> is a professional harpist and fine artist, creativity coach, educator in the arts, and Board-Certified Music Therapist. <em>What her formal degrees in music and art gave her pale in comparsion to the gifts she's experienced in working with creatives just like you. </em><em>Visit her website — <a href="http://www.tristahill.com/" style="color: #3778cd; text-decoration: none;" target="_new">tristahill.com</a> — for links to her blog, performances, and other fantastical creative offerings.</em> </i></div>
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Trista Hillhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14829996785328454630noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21220437.post-50630494109522887342014-08-29T11:31:00.001-04:002014-08-29T20:01:33.675-04:00My House is For SaleThe "for sale" sign along the tree-lined 40 mph up-and-down route indicates the place where I discovered refuge and quiet, explored and dissected dreams and reality, and both lost and found myself is available for someone else. It will change, transform, and metamorphosize (again) right along with whomever it shelters.<br />
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Though I'm closer than ever to moving from here after thirteen years, my current home is not yet for sale. No, it's my <a href="http://www.zillow.com/homedetails/868-Cedar-Dr-Columbus-OH-43235/2105656923_zpid/" target="_blank">very first ever house</a> that is for sale. Up for grabs. Positioned to transfer / lose / create more history.<br />
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<a href="http://www.zillow.com/homedetails/868-Cedar-Dr-Columbus-OH-43235/2105656923_zpid/" target="_blank"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj3QMuFj_X1nY7fB__7nfujBEBeYgjCk8P7E1v5iEBhQV4qRX_BXjUhyphenhyphenW0ewyD4HnfZusbLmMVLwdMv5u8NJUfLQV4Wd5ITQvftel_hPsxAkvSak_oZ54uTZEBosBFzRLsZeY7Nng/s1600/ISxj1eq5n04g7r1000000000.jpg" height="180" width="320" /></a></div>
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This place marked the real beginning of my Creative Loner Life. For the most part at both colleges and during my internship I managed to live alone, or to tactfully and successfully manipulate circumstances to that end if the direction and angle at which they were leaning weren't severe enough (as in, horizontal). When I needed to officially leave home, moving to an apartment was completely out of the question. Moving into this place was deliberate and liberating, a choice made from excited trepidation instead of how-will-I-#$%*!?-survive ominousness. A place for which I was entirely responsible as much as a renter can be. A little cabin at the end of a cul-de-sac in an area I had always loved by the river. It was a dream come true for this <i>my-head-needs-space</i> introverted <i>I'm-in-denial-of-how-much-I-dislike-the-Expected-Life</i> girl of 23-ish years. Yes, <i>girl</i>.<br />
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The listing says it needs updated and offers no pictures of the inside. This must mean the kitchen is the same white I painted it with the landlord's reluctant permission 18 years ago. That the geometric no-pile carpet in the kitchen remains, that aluminum-bordered single pane windows still look out on the flower beds in which I planted hosta, zinnia, allium, and a variety of annuals. Yep, there are the iris and hosta in the side and front beds, near the steps down which I toddled the harp when I first started gigging with all the <i>do-I-have-the-right</i> professional sincerity I could muster at the time.<br />
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<a href="http://www.zillow.com/homedetails/868-Cedar-Dr-Columbus-OH-43235/2105656923_zpid/" target="_blank"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhwsyXwp12-jiy1-zPcIMWZL4VSKreGaOThq62buPaCc_djNGsUieUyeIsbOKOx4V20w2otIt8uwQB_4qAwg4cdbp4LfV4sdgsvwCOCD8lRtWpgD7uMDxQ4Orzz9NojWh71Yot1MQ/s1600/ISxvmu23802pbm0000000000.jpg" height="180" width="320" /></a></div>
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It must mean that there are still spray paint marks on the basement floor near the water softener where I experimented with creative entrepreneurial surely-this-will-liberate-me-from-Corproate projects. It must mean that you still can't help but run into the shower door when you use the toilet, that the wood paneling still graces the walls in the oddly long and narrow split-down-the-center living area, that the "guest room" is still the brightest space in all of the house's 792 square feet.<br />
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My house of Firsts. It saw me agree to a part-time and then full-time job in human resources at a healthcare hub, and move into payroll and accounts payable for the stability and benefits. A world of money and math and unhappy managers, processors, tele-somethings, smoke-break takers and hall-wanderers in which I managed to not be managed in the most inconspicuous way.<br />
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Then it saw me move into another job with bigger payroll and accounting responsibilities where I dismantled and reconstructed databases and oversaw and administered the transfer of millions and billions of dollars while <b>.</b>0000000x% of that eventually, dutifully, and disdainfully appeared in my own paycheck. After office hours (whoops, also during), I explored pretty much non-existent music therapy positions in the area -- oh yes I did interview at a penitentiary, or what do they politically-correctly call them now? -- started my teaching studio as I invited 6 to 60+-year-olds to trudge up the steps and sit at my used spinet and/or console piano, moved unfinished meant-for-your-wedding paintings around the house, collected and loudly listened to obscurely non-classical anthemic classic/progressive rock (music is absolutely why you get a <u>house</u> and not a place with shared walls), and wondered aloud to myself and in my journal about why I didn't feel more hopeful, free, artistic, creative, and happy in a way I craved and thought I'd finally earned.<br />
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It was where I trudged around the Mt Air neighborhood at all hours silently asking and not always answering persistent nagging questions (<i><u>Whyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy??</u>), </i>a place where I both literally and metaphorically bled in the most profound way a female can.<br />
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It was a messy horrific boundary-crossing relationship time. I took refuge in a too-big and mostly empty bedroom that shared a wall with the noisy washer and dryer. I filled journals and sometimes spent entire days not moving. Through the diamond-window front door I brought leftover veggie pizza and almost-stale cake or donuts from the office if I hadn't eaten it all in a semi-rage on the way home. I scrupulously managed my checkbook on a white and wood barstool set from Meijer I assembled myself.<br />
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I cringed silently as I heard a massive tree falling in the night, wondering if I should run - where??? I heard it creaking, tearing its own and other limbs on its way down, ripping and gripping as gravity won. Is this how I die, I wondered. No. It only decided to clip the edge of the house and fall in neat heavy pieces around every single panel of my new Volvo wagon of three months that on that night I had not bothered to park in the under-the-house garage.<br />
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That house is for sale. My landlord, a retired high-baller businessman and relative of Rush Limbaugh who listened to the famed show at high volume in his garage while yelling out his own acerbic commentary, was a curmudgeony man with whom I had nothing in common. He told me I was one of the few that could get him to smile. He watched over and looked out for me, often in ways he had no business doing and every right to do. He built the wraparound deck for me, broke his own no-pet rule by allowing me to take in a won't-see-me-for-years-but-I'll-eat-all-your-ferns cat, and marveled at both my purposeful and willy-nilly perennial (or not) plantlife. I met his dying wife, saw him involuntarily fitfully cry, watched him hobble across the yard after he painstakingly mowed and trimmed and fussed and fumed over what he could control and what he couldn't.<br />
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We were a pair. He didn't approve of my few boyfriends and now I know why. He told me I was from "good stock" when he met my mother and handed me a handwritten lease I signed and dated on the spot.<br />
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I left that place years later for a guy who not long after, left me. (It's okay - he's married with kids now). I went on to try to re-create Refuge on the great endless rolling landscape of No Guarantees.<br />
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I both miss you and don't, <a href="http://www.zillow.com/homedetails/868-Cedar-Dr-Columbus-OH-43235/2105656923_zpid/" target="_blank">868 Edgecliff (Cedar), 43235</a>. How you held and shaped me, little almost-private crouching hilltop brown box with streaming southern window light and huge tree shadow silence. As with every single life experience, at the time you were exactly what I needed. I wonder, where will we go now?<br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><i>Another imperfect post, accompanied by:</i></span></div>
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<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bWURE6AKaD4" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 19px;" target="_blank">Renaissance - Prologue</a><span style="color: #444444; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;"><span style="line-height: 19px;"> (album)</span></span></div>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 19px;"><span style="color: #444444;">~~~~~~~~~</span><br /><i style="color: #444444;">Related posts:</i><br /><span style="color: #4d469c;"><a href="http://www.tristahill.blogspot.com/2013/08/senses-placed.html" target="_blank"><span style="color: #444444;">S</span>enses Placed</a></span><br /><span style="color: #5421bb;"><a href="http://www.tristahill.blogspot.com/2011/10/sense-of-place.html" target="_blank">Sense of Place</a></span><br /><span style="color: #444444;">~~~~~~~~~</span></span></div>
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<i><a href="http://www.tristahill.com/" style="color: #3778cd; text-decoration: none;" target="_new">Trista Hill</a> is a professional harpist and fine artist, creativity coach, educator in the arts, and Board-Certified Music Therapist. <em>What her formal degrees in music and art gave her pale in comparsion to the gifts she's experienced in working with creatives just like you. </em><em>Visit her website — <a href="http://www.tristahill.com/" style="color: #3778cd; text-decoration: none;" target="_new">tristahill.com</a> — for links to her blog, performances, and other fantastical creative offerings.</em> </i></div>
Trista Hillhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14829996785328454630noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21220437.post-69308020902146707822014-01-26T16:39:00.000-05:002014-01-27T11:29:30.227-05:00Inviting the YetiIn this blustery, coldest, whitest January in years, people are hunkering down. The young are celebrating school-closings due to blanching subzero temperatures, and the older often call for a 'break" in addition to the one life just recently and unexpectedly handed them.<br />
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<a href="https://www.etsy.com/listing/175097128/landscape-photography-winter-scene" target="_blank"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh4RIf_K7MJQpNAjizhebrZlUPmyaU9Oz69Bm1FoQNT4zHUU0WjPd4-2eM9gItr8sRLclYlogvwgOhC-Vvtlqj7YPX2rzMzQheahwgnuI8K61vRm1KxNDbDBJGEOLAhNP-it2P4Tw/s1600/il_340x270.548342172_27iv.jpg" height="254" width="320" /></a></div>
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It's a time for streamlining food intake, monetary outflow, objects in the environment. Roadway snow piles, calendar commitments, shoddy didn't-fit compromises.<br />
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It might look like paring down, but truthfully most of us are in the throes of managing Our Latest Upheaval. More than likely we felt the swell of its arrival, perhaps even wished for it. We watched the hulking mass on the horizon creep closer, listened to the crazed updates, played it all either up or down to support our other contradicting wish. We purchased snowshoes a long time ago, stocked the pantry with canned goods, stuffed newspaper and rags into the crooked doorframe to thwart icy blue-white drafts.<br />
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All buckled in. So prepared. All that's left to do is wait for it to just blow. on. by.<br />
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But we forgot about the <b>Yeti</b>.<br />
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A quick peek from behind the covers confirms that yes, it's circling the abode, but not from want or need or some other scarcity. It waits, without expectation, to be sighted. It's not going to force itself in. The longer we put off opening our door to it, the more it restless-izes all surrounding persons.<br />
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This deliberate separation and tension - it out there, us in here - can go on for years.<br />
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The Yeti is about exposure, vulnerability, and facing reality. That's all. Its coexistence with Avoidance can only last so long.<br />
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For those that pull their eyes from the screen or the paper or other necessary-for-survival distraction, the Yeti offers a disguised release, a doorway into another dimension. As the day-wake hours fill with our story about what's necessary to get by - Safety. Stability. Quiet. Action. A Plan - the Yeti looms in the shadowy periphery, not doing anything other than lingering. The pressure of its silent power grows exponentially with each passing day.<br />
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Its gentle hulking reminder: The more you think you've got it under control, the less you actually do.<br />
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We think we can escape the Yeti, though it's never hunting us.<br />
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We think the Yeti is a monster, though it's actually a mirror.<br />
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After so much denial, when the Yeti is finally invited in - <i>how did that happen??</i> - all grows very very quiet. Very still. Breathing is limited or stops altogether. It's not necessarily Threat that hangs in the air. Nor Fright.<br />
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It's just an astounding realization: Oh, I SEE now.<br />
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In front of the Yeti, all is pulled into the light. That inaccuracy you hoped you could gloss over with speed, or excuses, or peripheral noise, is now front and center. The nugget of not-quite-sure is suddenly and thoroughly stage-light illuminated. The carefully hidden is now fish-food fragmented, exposed and floating to the silky surface.<br />
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<i>Wow, I was pretty sure I had that perfect. </i><i> </i><i>Thought I had it all figured out. Grip was tight on my Right Thing. </i><i>Ah, I didn't know, and still don't, after all. Not One Thing. Until now, this one small piece. Until next time, next piece. </i><br />
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It's out there, the Yeti, waiting. Open the door.<br />
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What's your Yeti?<br />
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* * *<br />
My Yeti right now is a <a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B002VA464S" target="_blank">microphone</a>. Silent silver stares at me from across the strings, waiting as I wrestle with my own sounds. Notes are netted, over and over again, <a href="https://soundcloud.com/tristahill/sapphire-11614" target="_blank">bound into a bundle</a> and thrown overboard into the web to fend for itself. A personal bared experiment and truth - like a photograph or a journal page or a CAT scan. There it is. Sink or swim. Now I know. No going back.<br />
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<iframe frameborder="no" height="166" scrolling="no" src="https://w.soundcloud.com/player/?url=https%3A//api.soundcloud.com/tracks/129863216&color=ff5500&auto_play=false&show_artwork=true" width="100%"></iframe>
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<span style="font-size: 13px; line-height: 19px;">~~~~~~~~~</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><i>Another imperfect post, accompanied by:</i></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><a href="http://waxfang.com/" target="_blank">Wax Fang</a> -- <a href="http://www.npr.org/blogs/allsongs/2014/01/21/264537559/new-mix-real-estate-actress-wax-fang-more" target="_blank"><span style="color: #4d469c;">T</span>he Astronaut Part I</a> (17 mins)</span></div>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="color: #444444;">~~~~~~~~~</span><br /><i style="color: #444444;">Popular posts:</i><br /><span style="color: #4d469c;"><a href="http://www.tristahill.blogspot.com/2013/08/senses-placed.html" target="_blank"><span style="color: #444444;">S</span>enses Placed</a></span><br /><span style="color: #4d469c;"><a href="http://www.tristahill.blogspot.com/2013/02/swipe-grime-from-kitchen-light-fixture.html" target="_blank"><span style="color: #5421bb;">T</span>he Thing Behind the Thing</a></span><br /><span style="color: #444444;">~~~~~~~~~</span></span></div>
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<i><a href="http://www.tristahill.com/" style="color: #3778cd; text-decoration: none;" target="_new">Trista Hill</a> is a professional harpist and fine artist, creativity coach, educator in the arts, and Board-Certified Music Therapist. <em>What her formal degrees in music and art gave her pale in comparsion to the gifts she's experienced in working with creatives just like you. </em><em>Visit her website — <a href="http://www.tristahill.com/" style="color: #3778cd; text-decoration: none;" target="_new">tristahill.com</a> — for links to her blog, performances, and other fantastical creative offerings.</em> </i></div>
Trista Hillhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14829996785328454630noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21220437.post-55267413236077437632013-09-25T16:19:00.000-04:002013-09-25T16:24:53.326-04:00True Story, Published<div style="text-align: center;">
<i>This article was published in the "Strange But True Harp Stories" column</i></div>
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<i>of the July/August 2013 issue of <a href="http://www.harpcolumn.com/" target="_blank">Harp Column magazine</a>. Yes, this actually happened</i><i>!</i></div>
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<i>*****</i></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">Someone was supposed to be there at the loading dock -- that’s what the booking agent said -- but after repeatedly punching the intercom unit with no reply, I knew I wouldn’t be entering through these particular Statehouse bowels.</span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">Phoning the booking agent yielded no assistance -- their part was done and over. Left on my own to find a suitable alternate entrance, I reload the harp and back out dangerously fast, speeding through a parking garage gate. Rounding the corner, I spot a wide berth of glass doors through which a very well-dressed group of individuals is marching in. I pull up short, grab my bag, bench, and music stand, and follow them.</span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">We walk up a few set of stairs and file through a small door. But this is a small quiet type of salon, nowhere near the noisy hub-bub where I’m sure I’m supposed to be. Where is the crowd? The snacks? The drinks? The loud voices? </span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">Minutes later, stomping through the marble hallways in search of where to set up, I miraculously come across the office of the event coordinator, with whom I’d spoken with days prior to finalize tonight’s plans. Empty. My actual gig start time has now passed, and many minutes of my angry marching click-click-clicking down the hallways in my all-black gig uniform, after tripping UP a set of stairs with bench and stand, have yielded absolutely no answers nor direction. I pass several police officers who not once stop to ask me who I am and what I’m doing. Security, anyone? </span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">Finally, a man informs me that I am to play on the catwalk far above the festivities and there is no electrical outlet in sight. I’m both relieved and annoyed; suddenly it’s obvious that amplification could be really useful here, but the booking agent never specified to bring it, AND I don’t have access to power anyway. There is a good 50-plus feet or more of carpeted and glass-railing expanse on either side of me, and I’m told I have it to myself. There is no way in %&@*! anyone anywhere can hear me, but I play loud and flamboyantly in a final effort to vindicate myself and this experience.</span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">At the end of the set, the same man appears to help me through the maze of elevators and stairs back to my car. A shocked look of realization passes over his face as our conversation slows and we head out the glass doors to my Volvo wagon.</span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">“Did you come in this way, with your stand and bench?”</span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">“Yes!”</span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">“Did you follow a group of people into that door over there?” he points.</span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">“Yes!” </span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">“I saw you!” He laughs uncomfortably. “<i>You walked in with the Governor!!</i>”</span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">What’s worse -- having unquestioned free reign of the Statehouse, not recognizing my own Governor, or being fantastically late to play for his inaugural ball?</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #444444; font-size: 13px; line-height: 19px;">~~~~~~~~~</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><i style="background-color: white;">Another imperfect post, accompanied by:</i></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=16xHwQcp8x4" target="_blank">Polica -- Smug</a></span></div>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="color: #444444;">~~~~~~~~~</span><br /><i style="color: #444444;">Popular posts:</i><br /><span style="color: #4d469c; text-decoration: none;"><a href="http://www.tristahill.blogspot.com/2013/08/senses-placed.html" target="_blank"><span style="color: #444444;">S</span>enses Placed</a></span><br /><span style="color: #4d469c;"><a href="http://www.tristahill.blogspot.com/2011/09/dear-creative-work.html" style="color: #5421bb; text-decoration: none;" target="_blank">Dear Creative Work</a></span><br /><span style="color: #444444;">~~~~~~~~~</span></span></div>
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<i><a href="http://www.tristahill.com/" style="color: #3778cd; text-decoration: none;" target="_new">Trista Hill</a> is a professional harpist and fine artist, creativity coach, educator in the arts, and Board-Certified Music Therapist. <em>What her formal degrees in music and art gave her pale in comparsion to the gifts she's experienced in working with creatives just like you. </em><em>Visit her website — <a href="http://www.tristahill.com/" style="color: #3778cd; text-decoration: none;" target="_new">tristahill.com</a> — for links to her blog, performances, and other fantastical creative offerings.</em> </i></div>
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Trista Hillhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14829996785328454630noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21220437.post-44395555038382826232013-08-16T15:34:00.001-04:002013-08-16T15:34:58.726-04:00Senses Placed"Can I help you?" A woman's voice called out from behind the row of bushes separating the gravel road that ran parallel to her driveway.<br />
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"Um, yes.... I think..." <i>Clearing throat, choking back tears.</i> "I mean... I used to live here...."</div>
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<i>Heart-flutter-what-is-this-feeling? ~ wide-eyed holding-breath ~ slow-motion movement</i>. An invitation to come over, walk in. And then, now, I am in the place I spent my first five years of life. Home. As if I had never left.</div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjW2sa3y8wW_amG6xBH5aEPYe_xQUmMrZuhj1Z-jW2RMT2dakVp3CncAp3gfX5k_4rJN_KtC-3R3HAjDo-lHO1j_TGI3BNJQAQgg1ZmjFyDD47ViVEiyWQj4i21CHNXq2slOpLM0w/s1600/IMG_2735.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjW2sa3y8wW_amG6xBH5aEPYe_xQUmMrZuhj1Z-jW2RMT2dakVp3CncAp3gfX5k_4rJN_KtC-3R3HAjDo-lHO1j_TGI3BNJQAQgg1ZmjFyDD47ViVEiyWQj4i21CHNXq2slOpLM0w/s320/IMG_2735.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
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So much the same, in excruciating detail -- the five-paneled wood front door, the kitchen windows over the sink that used to cloud up when Mom and Grandma Ruby canned all the fruit from the orchard trees and the vegetables from the huge one-acre garden that is now a horse pasture. The step-up now twice-as-large bathroom with the tub where I split open my tiny chin. The insanely bright green paint, now relegated to closet walls only, of the back bedroom where I used to hide under the heavy massive wooden desk. The porch that was then an off-limits deteriorating grapevine-wrapped threat, now sturdy and wide-view open. </div>
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So CLEAR. And upstairs -- the staircase, so much shorter and less steep than what I remember, leading to the bathroom straight ahead. The same wallpaper!? Pink flowers in a dusty green stripe! What my mother installed when, as very young parents, they converted the entire upper story of this house to a bathroom and two bedrooms.</div>
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Turn left...</div>
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Our little-girl-sister haven. The <i>same</i> purple carpet -- then SO brand new and bright and exciting because it matched our butterfly wallpaper -- <i>THERE!</i> a corner where other wallpaper is stripped away, almost-ancient butterflies now peeking through. Our twin windows, mine then wrapped in pink gingham with sister-yellow across the room, looking out over the garden where I spent large swaths of time watching for deer (and oh did they come).</div>
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I didn't remember that I remembered until I was there again.</div>
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And there it is -- the swelling realization that all that's been important to me was birthed here. A big sapphire ocean wave of reality (on this coast, to me, it is not the <i>sea</i>, it is <i>ocean</i>), slowly climbing, protective hovering, delaying its thunderous crash, holding for me the immense and powerful held-breath truth: <i>This was the beginning of my Sacred</i>. The unique-to-the-west-coast <i>crunch crunch crunch</i> of sandy semi-pathways under my feet, the prolific but not smothering-everything plantlife, the spitting gravel under car tires few and far between, the arching view of other dark-gray-green Oregon trees and hillsides, the open azure sky scuttled with cotton clouds. Fresh, fresh, fresh air. Deep breathing openness.</div>
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The joy in all things handmade, deep and wide and natural-flow quiet, the slower life where the internet was not my fuel. The good-for-me food prepared by hand, even the boxed granola I ate - adamantly - with hot water instead of cold milk on dark mornings. The promise of lizards out on the woodpile, blackberries behind the concrete pad of the not-erected-yet garage, the sound of Cat Stevens on the stereo, the Christmases of dolls and <i><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emergency!" target="_blank">Emergency!</a></i> <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/View-Master" target="_blank">ViewMasters</a>. Boundless awareness.</div>
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Oh my heart. This is <a href="http://www.tristahill.blogspot.com/2011/10/sense-of-place.html" target="_blank">different from Colorado</a>. At least for now. This is my soul, deeper even.</div>
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Here you go, it says, here is your Big Something. Go, Do and Be, now that you remember. Come back, return, come home. Rejoin this journey.<br />
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Reach into that comforting plush softness and gently pull it forward, link it carefully to the oft-harder-edged Present. Not out of desperation, but out of completing some circle of silver and gold and light that along the way got hidden behind LED screen windows. Click click (not) click for Essence. Click, in place.</div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><i style="background-color: white;">Another imperfect post, accompanied by:</i></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><a href="http://www.last.fm/music/Cat+Stevens/Greatest+Hits" target="_blank">Cat Stevens -- Greatest Hits</a> (the cover of him drawn on a white flag against a blue cloud-studded sky? Yeah, that one)</span></div>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="color: #444444;">~~~~~~~~~</span><br /><i style="color: #444444;">Popular posts:</i><br /><a href="http://www.tristahill.blogspot.com/2011/10/sense-of-place.html" style="color: #444444;" target="_blank"><span style="color: #4d469c;">Sense of Place</span></a><br /><span style="color: #4d469c;"><a href="http://www.tristahill.blogspot.com/2011/09/dear-creative-work.html" target="_blank">Dear Creative Work</a></span><br /><span style="color: #444444;">~~~~~~~~~</span></span></div>
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<i><a href="http://www.tristahill.com/" style="color: #3778cd; text-decoration: none;" target="_new">Trista Hill</a> is a professional harpist and fine artist, creativity coach, educator in the arts, and Board-Certified Music Therapist. <em>What her formal degrees in music and art gave her pale in comparsion to the gifts she's experienced in working with creatives just like you. </em><em>Visit her website — <a href="http://www.tristahill.com/" style="color: #3778cd; text-decoration: none;" target="_new">tristahill.com</a> — for links to her blog, performances, and other fantastical creative offerings.</em> </i></div>
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Trista Hillhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14829996785328454630noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21220437.post-7372115308869827422013-07-19T18:17:00.001-04:002013-07-26T11:01:18.856-04:00Unknown in Portland, Oregon<div>
Thank God for our physical bodies, the beauty that is travel, and the combination of both to ensure our souls hear the words they need.</div>
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That's what happened this month at <a href="http://worlddominationsummit.com/" target="_blank">World Domination Summit 2013</a>, an event I knew nothing about when tickets were purchased months ago, and didn't fully understand even when I got there. Entrepreneurs of all ages, people acting on big dreams, people with inactive big dreams, a strong in-heavy-rotation social media component, independently-organized meet-ups, a group-organized world record throwdown, contests, crazy good speakers, an 80's dance party. What?</div>
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Allowing palpably-excited but overly-generalized online descriptions of <a href="http://chrisguillebeau.com/3x5/wds-2013-recap/" target="_blank">WDS</a> -- "awesome!" "incredible!" "life-changing! -- to influence my decision about going felt risky and halfway stupid. But WDS was in Portland, Oregon, a place where I've wanted to rectify having very few memories despite my birthplace being in its general periphery. And, this uber green-in-many-ways city is surrounded by some of the most gorgeous mountains and forests and sand and ocean ever, all within driving distance. I hadn't seen/heard/felt that type of exhilaration and wonder in a long while. Okay!</div>
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It was the second day. The theater was packed with nearly 3000 participants, .002% of whom I actually knew. The words that broke us all open, uniting us in the most unexpected way, was channeled through the unmistakeable voice of a woman on stage who appeared only-slightly nervous, decidedly polished, and definitely <i>WOW-this-is-what-3000-people-looks-like</i> shocked. Presentations prior to this had inspired us to go after our dreams, to never give up when the going gets tough, to make more mistakes, to hold onto Your Thing with the intent to change the world. Go! And keep going! We've got your back, cheering for you the whole Bollywood-chest-bumping-high-fiving way!</div>
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But this was different. Bated breath.</div>
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She began talking about the Unknown. Admitting that she Did Not Know.</div>
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The speaker was <a href="http://tessvigeland.com/" target="_blank">Tess Vigeland</a>, a host, reporter, producer, and editor for public radio for most of her life. The gig that propelled her into fame was <i>Marketplace</i> / <i>Marketplace Money, </i>the same gig from which she semi-recently jumped ship with no net. Despite experiencing both small and large opportunities during the many-month emotional roller-coaster that followed, she still had no idea what the hell she was doing next. </div>
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<a href="http://tessvigeland.com/speaking/" target="_blank">Here, in written word, is what she said.</a> Hearing and watching this in person was undeniably powerful. Her delivery was so personal, raw and engaging that I was convinced she had made up the entire thing on the fly. She admitted it was a risk to say, in front of a few thousand entrepreneurial seemingly-confident game changers, that she didn't have any answers or advice, that she didn't feel anywhere near awesome, that a blank slate was absolutely terrifying instead of liberating. </div>
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<a href="http://www.jdroth.com/backstage-at-world-domination-summit-2013/" target="_blank"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjfAYXauwlf9Z_hVDgQmag2YI05_VULXNwg_kzcgA44mGw0yU7sm380d0R7hVx4-GaSgqIiSKODcAyE2cpEnUb09iQr6B9Pf-JdaTIK8-9ka_m_MH0_xJWdxLRNGY_DAd-WUelTCg/s320/9240972110_b249b49775.jpg" width="213" /></a></div>
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Backstage, right before her talk. (<a href="http://www.jdroth.com/backstage-at-world-domination-summit-2013/" target="_blank">JD Roth</a>)</div>
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Read it all in <a href="http://www.facebook.com/tessvigeland" target="_blank">Tess Vigeland</a>'s voice, <b><a href="http://tessvigeland.com/speaking/" target="_blank">here</a></b>.</div>
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We hung on her every word. The energy was subdued, but not heavy. She was serious, but playfully honest, even poking fun at her own despair by mock-folding into the fetal position we deny we know well. Hearing her story was painful, because it mirrors ours. Hearing her story was also intriguingly hopeful, because it mirrors ours.</div>
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Missing from this transcript are her jokes about what not to say when you recognize a celebrity, specifically a radio celebrity -- be kind and attempt to veil your dismay about how they don't look like what you imagined, okay? Missing also is her surprise around how her tub full of kittens analogy landed, and the near double-take she had about it herself. </div>
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This transcript also doesn't explain what happened when she walked into the audience to ask what people do, if they like it, and what they would do if they quit what they were doing. In a both horrible and hilarious display of ironic coincidence, the first woman was "The Queen of Reinvention!", who helps others find their new and true path and absolutely loves her work. The second person was a financial coach who liberates and aligns others with their dreams, but based on what Tess shared onstage about the real truth of money advice, he was now going in a more fulfilling I'll-help-you-with-your-money direction.</div>
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<i>Okay, THAT didn't go according to plan. Oh, ha ha, there it is again. Sigh.</i></div>
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Walking back to a <a href="https://www.airbnb.com/" target="_blank">rented apartment</a>, silent and fighting back tears, I marveled at her ability to so eloquently and honestly put into words how it feels to be in That Void. To be a living mirror of what happens when we involuntarily find ourselves in an endless era of question marks, where we'd rather do anything but stay. So many people I know and work with are in this exact place. </div>
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It's one thing to have the courage to be vulnerable and bare-bones truthful onstage. But to be able to stand in that space without apology, without needing or knowing answers, without seeking any immediate solution, to rhetorically invite us all to be in that same space, to collectively pause in the discomfort as we hold onto believing each second is one closer to the supposed resolution of our Unknown, and then finally <a href="http://tessvigeland.com/speaking/" target="_blank">end the entire soul-opening experience on a high note</a> -- magical. Among other things, it was a stunning example of how accepting the truth of What Is, rather than dwelling on What Isn't, can help 3000 people (and counting) feel less alone.</div>
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Just yesterday, only a few weeks after WDS concluded, Tess signed a book deal with a Random House publisher who happened to be in the audience that day she vulnerably and courageously bared her soul. </div>
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YES to NEXT and all its maddeningly beautiful Unknowns.<br />
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P.S. Here is <a href="https://www.facebook.com/TessVigelandActFour" target="_blank">a taste of her next adventure</a>, in which you can take part.<br />
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P.P.S. She's started a blog -- this first post is <a href="http://tessvigeland.com/the-book-blog-act-four-working-title/" target="_blank">about what happened after this speech</a>.<br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><i style="background-color: white;">Another imperfect post, accompanied by:</i></span></div>
<div style="background-color: white; color: #444444; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; line-height: 19px; margin: 0px;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RaJAxdGeZ4E" target="_blank">Concrete Blonde -- Everybody Knows</a></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">~~~~~~~~~<br /><i>Popular posts:</i><br /><a href="http://www.tristahill.blogspot.com/2012/10/saying-yes-to-your-yes.html" style="color: #4d469c; text-decoration: none;" target="_blank">Say Yes to Your YES</a><br /><a href="http://www.tristahill.blogspot.com/2013/02/swipe-grime-from-kitchen-light-fixture.html" target="_blank"><span style="color: #4d469c;">T</span>he Thing Behind the Thing</a><br />~~~~~~~~~</span></div>
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<i><a href="http://www.tristahill.com/" style="color: #3778cd; text-decoration: none;" target="_new">Trista Hill</a> is a professional harpist and fine artist, creativity coach, educator in the arts, and Board-Certified Music Therapist. <em>What her formal degrees in music and art gave her pale in comparsion to the gifts she's experienced in working with creatives just like you. </em><em>Visit her website — <a href="http://www.tristahill.com/" style="color: #3778cd; text-decoration: none;" target="_new">tristahill.com</a> — for links to her blog, performances, and other fantastical creative offerings.</em> </i></div>
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Trista Hillhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14829996785328454630noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21220437.post-6722364696161201732013-03-31T20:40:00.001-04:002013-07-03T00:29:15.083-04:00Passion and Religion<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; letter-spacing: 0px;">I don’t subscribe to a certain religion, but as a harpist, I often <a href="http://www.tristahill.com/News.htm" target="_blank">play for several types of churches</a>, especially around Christmas and Easter. </span><br />
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0px;">I’m a part of the sea of white faces, or the only pale face in a darker-skinned crowd. I play music as it exists on the page, or improvise according to what moves me and others, responding musically in the moment, watching and listening.</span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">These are emotionally charged events as those experiencing the service grapple with meaning and metaphor and guilt. </span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">That last part isn’t a judgement: Guilt is just... <i>there</i>.</span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">(It’s more painful to <a href="http://www.tristahill.blogspot.com/2013/02/swipe-grime-from-kitchen-light-fixture.html" target="_blank">deny this simple truth than to accept it</a>).</span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">There is push-pull tension between and around the great need to impart life-changing knowledge and wisdom from the microphoned front, and the deep desire to internalize and truly feel the message from the soft seat in one of multiple rows. </span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">Behind all of it is the need to share something universal, something that unifies us when we spend a good portion of the rest of our lives investigating and often drowning in divisions.</span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">Often in these services, in varying degrees, is passion. Oh yes, if I’m not relating to the message and how it’s delivered, I can certainly relate to passion. It sets me on fire, ignites embers in my core. </span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">Watching others be so present and aligned that passion takes over and shines through loud and clear moves even the most stone-set. This taps deep into the universal for me. It compels me to BE from that space, too.</span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">And while at this present moment I don’t have a specific religious conviction that anchors me as I’m wildly pulled by internal or external sources hither and yon, I know this: Music, movement and nature are my religion. </span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">They have been and will always be, in sum or in part, what grounds me and gets me finally feeling after it takes too long to recognize when my ever-spinning mind has numbed me out again. I forget this over and over, which of course means I also remember.</span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">Forget. Remember. Forget. Remember. I’m fairly sure it’s why religious holidays exist in the first place.</span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">The crocus finally blooms and the sky speaks. The pain and tightness in my right hip hints loudly at a deeper truth. <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E7O-CfJohk8" target="_blank">Reznor and Karen O’s cover of Led Zeppelin’s “Immigrant Song”</a> powers my downtown trip to the church gig.</span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">The sonorous written and musical notes reverberate around the walls surrounding the I-want-to-believers. This is the journey into both the Known and the Unknown -- <i>remind me, but surprise me</i>. </span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><i>Move me. Now.</i></span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">Fire ignited.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><i style="background-color: white;">Another imperfect post, accompanied by:</i></span></div>
<div style="background-color: white; color: #444444; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; line-height: 19px; margin: 0px;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UPW8y6woTBI" target="_blank">Band of Horses -- Funeral</a><br />~~~~~~~~~<br /><i>Popular posts:</i><br /><a href="http://www.tristahill.blogspot.com/2012/10/saying-yes-to-your-yes.html" style="color: #4d469c; text-decoration: none;" target="_blank">Say Yes to Your YES</a><br /><a href="http://www.tristahill.blogspot.com/2013/02/swipe-grime-from-kitchen-light-fixture.html" target="_blank"><span style="color: #4d469c;">T</span>he Thing Behind the Thing</a><br />~~~~~~~~~</span></div>
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<div style="background-color: white; color: #444444; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 14px; line-height: 19px; margin: 0px;">
<i><a href="http://www.tristahill.com/" style="color: #3778cd; text-decoration: none;" target="_new">Trista Hill</a> is a professional harpist and fine artist, creativity coach, educator in the arts, and Board-Certified Music Therapist. <em>What her formal degrees in music and art gave her pale in comparsion to the gifts she's experienced in working with creatives just like you. </em><em>Visit her website — <a href="http://www.tristahill.com/" style="color: #3778cd; text-decoration: none;" target="_new">tristahill.com</a> — for links to her blog, performances, and other fantastical creative offerings.</em> </i></div>
<br />Trista Hillhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14829996785328454630noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21220437.post-29991438155970790922013-02-01T16:13:00.002-05:002013-02-04T09:47:26.331-05:00The Thing Behind the Thing<b:if cond="data:blog.pageType == "item"">
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica; letter-spacing: 0px;">Swipe grime from the kitchen light and wrestle the fixture into ceiling-grip submission. Flavor the quinoa. Turn on the radio. No, not that jangly shit. Insert the dissonant strings and half diminished sevenths. I need to be met first.</span><br />
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">Dreamt of having what is here now. Behind it, the ache for freedom. It snuck in, when? This bird-cat in an open-wire-door prison paralysis.</span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">What is the thing behind the thing? </span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">The thing invented to avoid the gritty steeping stench sludge-mire thing. A toxic, exotic, hypnotic thing to cover the other thing. Thing layers. Surface tension. Implosion. </span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">Pain layers. Mask, cover, again. <i>Didn’t I tell you to shut up and hide?</i></span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0px;">Where’s the mirror to see this from another angle? </span></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiuhppt4AfYEkkpK7D5N8x69nat_X3P8bWhwoMje9-_pQsdxovUvXoBes_IuCJybBGZm_kgDIaX9EoqZ4XBEwkm6MG7GDguz8QYX5xP5zNwLWP4zTcN2AdDZJD5c25n6LSeMaKVlA/s1600/Photo+on+2-1-13+at+3.55+PM+%232.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="213" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiuhppt4AfYEkkpK7D5N8x69nat_X3P8bWhwoMje9-_pQsdxovUvXoBes_IuCJybBGZm_kgDIaX9EoqZ4XBEwkm6MG7GDguz8QYX5xP5zNwLWP4zTcN2AdDZJD5c25n6LSeMaKVlA/s320/Photo+on+2-1-13+at+3.55+PM+%232.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0px;">What is the thing behind the thing? Behind that it’s a man, that work with its ignored deadlines, that money not coming in. Behind feeling the only choice is to suck it up and do it the way they want and expect, Daddy Longlegs self-spread so wide there’s only energy and focus to hold upright and still while not touching or connecting anywhere it counts.</span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0px;">Behind the snarky Fox familial breakdown </span><i style="letter-spacing: 0px;">sexual orientation</i><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;">, the handpainted undulating feathery fallopian tube </span><i style="letter-spacing: 0px;">feminine-owning creation</i><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;">, the not-again face-searing allergic reaction </span><i style="letter-spacing: 0px;">beauty-age desperation</i><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;">, the juicy brand new tube of sensuous rouge </span><i style="letter-spacing: 0px;">self-identification</i><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;">, the dark-chocolate consumption equivalent to the percentage on the label </span><i style="letter-spacing: 0px;">comfort-sweetness deprivation</i><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;">.</span><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"></span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">Behind the <i>I will not go.</i></span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">Behind the <i>Just a little more.</i></span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">Behind the <i>Not yet.</i></span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">Behind the <i>I forgot.</i></span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">Dare you to have better? More?</span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><i>Remember your heart.</i></span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">The pain of avoidance is infinitely, deeply more longlasting than the</span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">white-hot flash pain of breathtakingly clear truth, now. </span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">I choose a word out of my own folded-paper-filled bowl: Gratitude.</span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">Heart, remembered.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #444444; font-family: Helvetica;">~~~~~~~~~</span></div>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><i style="background-color: white; color: #444444;">Another imperfect post, accompanied by:</i></span></div>
<div style="background-color: white; color: #444444; margin: 0px;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #351c75;"><a href="http://open.spotify.com/album/57LAEzKL94ZHwbIkUWYCDY" target="_blank"><span style="color: #4d469c;">G</span>rizzly Bear -- Shields</a></span><br />~~~~~~~~~<br /><i>Popular posts:</i><br /><a href="http://www.tristahill.blogspot.com/2012/10/saying-yes-to-your-yes.html" target="_blank"><span style="color: #4d469c;">S</span>ay Yes to Your YES</a><br /><a href="http://www.tristahill.blogspot.com/2012/06/procrastination-as-punishment-and-other.html" style="color: #4d469c; text-decoration: none;" target="_blank">Procrastination as Punishment</a><br />~~~~~~~~~</span></div>
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<i><a href="http://www.tristahill.com/" style="color: #3778cd; text-decoration: none;" target="_new">Trista Hill</a> is a professional harpist and fine artist, creativity coach, educator in the arts, and Board-Certified Music Therapist. <em>What her formal degrees in music and art gave her pale in comparsion to the gifts she's experienced in working with creatives just like you. </em><em>Visit her website — <a href="http://www.tristahill.com/" style="color: #3778cd; text-decoration: none;" target="_new">tristahill.com</a> — for links to her blog, performances, and other fantastical creative offerings.</em> </i></div>
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Trista Hillhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14829996785328454630noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21220437.post-75194599165776202142012-10-12T15:48:00.001-04:002013-01-29T16:21:21.204-05:00Say Yes to Your YESInitial <a href="http://www.mimetheatre.com/store/dvd.html" target="_blank">Montanaro</a> instructions are simple: Run in a circle. Say the word "yes." Repeat. Continue. Go.<br />
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Keep it that simple. <b>Feel : Yes</b>.<br />
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What will happen? We don't know. Mine won't be yours, yours won't be mine. Start, to just get there. GO.<br />
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Embody the word, the meaning. <b>BE : YES</b>.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjBpPk43rT6aQ2sXMSM7dFFTXx1k2CCvUNJjKA4aJpfmYRPpr_mn0Y16arr3CUxSAJRXtq0nWYm7X9ThRbdJZ91bcD-VeRFcogfleTdHjh2djqCKebSVyf7z1pOnAX8RhHgBFUcrQ/s1600/Reception+(179).jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="241" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjBpPk43rT6aQ2sXMSM7dFFTXx1k2CCvUNJjKA4aJpfmYRPpr_mn0Y16arr3CUxSAJRXtq0nWYm7X9ThRbdJZ91bcD-VeRFcogfleTdHjh2djqCKebSVyf7z1pOnAX8RhHgBFUcrQ/s320/Reception+(179).jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-size: x-small;"><a href="http://www.facebook.com/WildermannPhotography" target="_blank">Wildermann Photography</a></span></div>
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Really feel it -- deep, visceral, both the animal and the angel of it. Keep running. Say / scream / whisper the word Yes. Keep running until you feel it first here, and then there. Yes. Higher, beyond, through the core. YES. First physical, then mental, then spiritual in whatever that means for you. YES! Feel it in every part of your being, every layer, linear and vertical like a gorgeous berry cream trifle, spherical and horizontal like an ancient wider-than-arms weathered oak.<br />
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You will know when you arrive. YES. We'll watch. We are the Witness. YES! We're with you in your shoes, or your bare feet, your flailing, screaming, elevating, rousing, softening self in this white-hot red-tinged experience. YES!! We'll feel the exhilaration, the universal multi-level-layer orgasm void of doubt, concern, ambition. YES!!!<br />
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One focus. Be -- and be <u>in</u> -- YES. It's deceptively simple. You might, like me, sometimes break down into a NO -- a solid pithy grey foamy bog that refuses to abate despite figurative foot speed and vocal volume. Go, again, in a day, or a month, or a year's time. <u>YES</u>.<br />
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It can't help but bubble up -- or geyser push -- to the surface. It's both small and BIG. Maybe not so wide anymore, but oh so deep. It's strength is rooted and also shooting straight through the earth and out the other side, no dimension, phobic-free, unshutterable, cadence-less. YES.<br />
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What is it, to what do you say it, how you do it -- not the point now. <br />
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YES <u>feels like </u><i><u><b>this</b></u>... </i>preceded, and followed by, both question + exclamation marks.<br />
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It's choosing to wear the red dress in addition to your standard black. Roaring through walnuts off the pristine park path. Whisper soft fist-clench-pull-in -- or hoarse yell spread-finger sky sprint -- when you've nailed the note or the chord, final-stroked the creation, aced the looming test, clearly answered the query, sharp-pinned the presentation, made the goal, screwballed the pitch, shot the arrow BAM to middle center black.<br />
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It's behind the life-changing decision AND behind the choice of this week's peanut butter brand. YES. The one that fuels both the beginning -- and the end -- of painfully personal relationships and power-play professional alignments. <br />
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Run literally and metaphorically until you feel flight. YES.<br />
Out of breath -- not beaten down, but pulled up and out. YES!<br />
Move until every fiber of your being knows that<b> yes, this is... <u>YES</u>.</b><br />
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<i style="background-color: white; color: #444444; font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;">Another imperfect post, accompanied by:</i><br />
<div style="background-color: white; color: #444444; font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px; margin: 0px;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #351c75;"><a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-X2lSIPSthU" target="_blank">Low -- Walk Into the Sea</a></span><br />
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<i>Popular posts:</i><br />
<a href="http://www.tristahill.blogspot.com/2011/10/sense-of-place.html" style="color: #4d469c; text-decoration: none;" target="_blank">Sense of Place</a><br />
<a href="http://www.tristahill.blogspot.com/2012/06/procrastination-as-punishment-and-other.html" target="_blank"><span style="color: #4d469c;">P</span>rocrastination as Punishment</a><br />
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<div style="background-color: white; color: #444444; font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px; margin: 0px;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #351c75;"><a href="http://www.tristahill.com/NowHearThis.html" target="_blank"><span style="color: #4d469c;">N</span>ow Hear This</a></span><a href="http://www.tristahill.com/EggProject.html" style="color: #4d469c; text-decoration: none;" target="_blank"> </a>-- Self-discovery through music and stories<span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"><br /><a href="http://tinyletter.com/tristahill" style="color: #4d469c; text-decoration: none;" target="_blank">Trista's newsletter</a> -- <a href="http://www.tristahill.com/Newsletter.html" style="color: #4d469c; text-decoration: none;" target="_blank">Read the current edition here</a></span></div>
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<i><a href="http://www.tristahill.com/" style="color: #3778cd; text-decoration: none;" target="_new">Trista Hill</a> is a professional harpist and fine artist, creativity coach, educator in the arts, and Board-Certified Music Therapist. <em>What her formal degrees in music and art gave her pale in comparsion to the gifts she's experienced in working with creatives just like you. </em><em>Visit her website — <a href="http://www.tristahill.com/" style="color: #3778cd; text-decoration: none;" target="_new">tristahill.com</a> — for links to her blog, performances, and other fantastical creative offerings.</em> </i></div>
<br />Trista Hillhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14829996785328454630noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21220437.post-31906789496107872502012-08-10T09:52:00.000-04:002012-08-10T10:12:46.123-04:00Life Lines Up Like That<br />
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">Here, arranged chronologically from right to left, are the journals I’ve written, illustrated and shelved over thirty plus years. Over time, they have morphed from tiny cloth-covered lined-page notebooks to large blank-paged <a href="http://www.dickblick.com/products/blick-hardbound-sketchbook/" target="_blank">sketchbook</a> tomes whose covers I paint myself.</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: xx-small;">She holds it for me -- a relic from a <a href="http://www.capital.edu/" target="_blank">college-era</a> nude body sculpture class tightens it up.</span></div>
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Over the course of my life, I’ve gone to great lengths to hide them from others, and even from myself. After all, <i>who wants <u>that</u> mirror</i>?<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"></span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">Apparently, hell yes, I do.</span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">The other day I pulled out <i>that green one</i>. Because I date everything I write, I knew this particular book charted the amazingly painful waters of my music therapy internship in a large failing medical/psychiatric hospital that was poised precariously between wealthy pristine neighborhoods and the impoverished rougher part of a <span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: blue;"><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cleveland" target="_blank">grey gritty city</a></span>. Day and night sirens screamed full-throttle into our unprotected 4th floor dorm cavern, and my entries waxed on about my doubt and achy longing for personal and professional connection.</span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">I surmised that reading my own writing again, now, would help highlight how I can be fully present and open to today’s test-drive <a href="http://www.tristahill.com/NowHearThis.html" target="_blank">“Now Hear This!”</a> event that I’m holding in just a few hours in my home -- a house that is stunningly similar to what I dreamily described on Super Repeat in that journal. This gathering is all about careful music listening, storytelling, and the literal lightening of memories. And that green journal -- among entries about brazen many-hour walks through questionable urban territory, an intense observation of a forceps (two types!) baby birth, and what I ate too much of at all hours -- included a particular entry about a <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=97uTa1qVK5U" target="_blank">very specific piece of music</a>. </span></div>
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This piece of music, when heard in a group setting among people actually listening with me, had suddenly shed light on who I was at that moment, what music truly meant to me, and the shape and color of my immediate future should I choose this or THAT (or some other) direction.<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"></span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">Except the entry wasn’t there.</span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">Looking for it meant reading through the entire book -- shockingly, I could not put it down. While that memory could still be hiding in some paperwork I have yet to resurrect from a bedroom closet, very slowly it dawned on me that the reason I pulled out that journal wasn’t for that entry after all. </span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><b><i>Past Trista</i> survived and documented her path so that <i>Present Trista</i>, at least this week, could look back and appreciate, pull forward, share, and luxuriate in the very bits she once meticulously and tirelessly worked to hide.</b></span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">You've experienced this, too?</span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">Perhaps the experience of reviewing written periods of one’s life feels, oh, I don’t know, <i>sickening</i>, and invites “I’d-rather-[fill-in-the-blank]”. Thoughts of zealous book-burning may come careening from dark corners. </span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">What comes up when sitting through that Hell for just one moment longer? No, the moment after <i>that</i>? Holding it -- the feeling, the book, the passage of time, the acknowledgement of change -- and realizing, <i>Yes, it’s clear I am no longer that person,</i> is nothing short of exhilarating.</span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">Life lines up like that. And on it goes -- a chapter shelved, another begun.</span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">Helping others realize the rich value of those challenging moments and how they reward us NOW, especially through music and the arts, is an Amen Hallelujah Glory Be Hot Damn experience.</span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">So today, won’t you help us hold moments for each other, casting away what is NOT, and allowing glorious light to fall upon what we’ve been / who we are? Together we throw wide open the doors for new experiences to oh-so- gladly, good-wickedly, confidently and seductively usher themselves in.</span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">Amen Hallelujah Glory Be Hot Damn.</span></div>
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<i style="color: #444444;">Another imperfect post, accompanied by:</i><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #351c75;">Peter Gabriel -- <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=97uTa1qVK5U" target="_blank">Secret World</a></span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #444444;">~~~~~~~~~</span><br />
<i style="color: #444444;">Popular posts:</i><br />
<a href="http://www.tristahill.blogspot.com/2012/02/breaking-through-philip-glass-and-not.html" target="_blank">Philip Glass: Breaking Through and Maybe Minimalism</a><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #351c75;"><a href="http://www.tristahill.blogspot.com/2011/10/sense-of-place.html" target="_blank">Sense of Place</a></span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #351c75; text-decoration: none;"><a href="http://www.tristahill.com/EggProject.html" target="_blank">The Egg Project</a></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #444444;"><a href="http://www.tristahill.com/EggProject.html" target="_blank"> </a>-- Self-discovery through metaphor</span><span style="color: #444444; letter-spacing: 0px;"><br /><a href="http://tinyletter.com/tristahill" target="_blank">Trista's newsletter</a> -- <a href="http://www.tristahill.com/Newsletter.html" target="_blank">Read the current edition here</a></span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"><a href="http://feedburner.google.com/fb/a/mailverify?uri=TristaHill" target="_blank">Get notified of posts to this blog</a></span><br />
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<i><a href="http://www.tristahill.com/" style="color: #3778cd; text-decoration: none;" target="_new">Trista Hill</a> is a professional harpist and fine artist, creativity coach, educator in the arts, and Board-Certified Music Therapist. <em>What her formal degrees in music and art gave her pale in comparsion to the gifts she's experienced in working with creatives just like you. </em><em>Visit her website — <a href="http://www.tristahill.com/" style="color: #3778cd; text-decoration: none;" target="_new">tristahill.com</a> — for links to her blog, performances, and other fantastical creative offerings.</em> </i></div>
<br />Trista Hillhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14829996785328454630noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21220437.post-91192101832698876122012-06-13T09:49:00.001-04:002012-06-13T23:30:12.298-04:00Procrastination as Punishment<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;">So, we'll just jump in -- what if your fear isn’t completely about failure or rejection? </span><br />
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What if this “holding back” thing is only <u>partially</u> about recoiling from having to feel bad/unwanted/stupid/insane?</div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0px;">What if you are procrastinating because you don’t believe you actually deserve the incredibleness you’re on the precipice of experiencing? </span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"><b>What if your procrastination pause is a form of systematic self-induced punishment</b> -- a wildly creative sabotage you’ve designed especially to keep the beautiful-fantastic-happy AWAY?</span></div>
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What if your procrastination is protecting you from both ick AND bliss?</div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0px;">Withhold the good stuff from yourself? <i>Why... would you do that</i>? </span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0px;">What if your fear is about not quite <u>believing you are worthy</u> of a better life, of having heaven instead of hell, of f</span>eeling good, REALLY good, no explanations nor apology necessary?</div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0px;">What if your fear is about being lauded, appreciated, acknowledged, respected, recognized, seen, heard? </span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0px;">Holy cow what would <i>THAT</i> be like?!</span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"><i>I mean, what the hell would you do with that it would feel so foreign you’re so not used to it and what if everyone expects big everythings from you now and what if you have to constantly live up to that and sitting with the discomfort of praise is SO “blank” and what will others think of you past present and future and how would you explain this newfound whatever to your parents/significant other/church/the government/the cats?</i></span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0px;">OHMYGODJUSTDOIT.</span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0px;">Stop punishing yourself. </span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0px;">What if picking up that pen, the phone, the paintbrush, or hitting “send” means your whole life could change? </span><i>It could. It will. It is.</i></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0px;">What if this next thing you’re about to do makes the dream that much closer to coming true? </span><i>It could. It will. It is.</i><br />
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Isn't it fabulous we always have this choice?</div>
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<i>Another imperfect post, accompanied by:</i><br />
Simon and Garfunkel -- (a very specific verse of) <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GYKJuDxYr3I" target="_blank">Bridge Over Troubled Water - Live</a><br />
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<i>Popular posts:</i><br />
<a href="http://www.tristahill.blogspot.com/2012/02/breaking-through-philip-glass-and-not.html" style="color: #351c75; text-decoration: none;" target="_blank">Philip Glass: Breaking Through and Maybe Minimalism</a><br />
<a href="http://tristahill.blogspot.com/2012/04/walk-into-it.html"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #351c75;">W</span>alk Into It</a><br />
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<a href="http://www.tristahill.com/EggProject.html" target="_blank">The Egg Project</a> -- Self-discovery through metaphor<span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"><br /><a href="http://tinyletter.com/tristahill" style="color: #351c75; text-decoration: none;">Trista's newsletter</a> -- Read the <a href="http://www.tristahill.com/Newsletter.html" style="color: #351c75; text-decoration: none;">current edition here</a></span></div>
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<i><a href="http://www.tristahill.com/" target="_new">Trista Hill</a> is a professional harpist and fine artist, creativity coach, educator in the arts, and Board-Certified Music Therapist. <em>What her formal degrees in music and art gave her pale in comparsion to the gifts she's experienced in working with creatives just like you. </em><em>Visit her website — <a href="http://www.tristahill.com/" target="_new">tristahill.com</a> — for links to her blog, performances, and other fantastical creative offerings.</em>
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</i></div>Trista Hillhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14829996785328454630noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21220437.post-56046285966877025722012-04-16T20:38:00.001-04:002012-04-16T21:03:13.549-04:00Walk Into ItSo, it's a big birthday.<br />
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Go to the desert, meet what comes up. Walk. Right. In.<br />
Surround yourself by people who get it, and come together in love.<br />
Then venture out alone.<br />
Pick up the lemon that rolls out to meet you, greet the mountains surrounding the sun-drenched cacti, smother the apple in leftover peanut butter, invite all of it, in. <br />
Float in the warm water, gaze at shooting stars, let purging tears flow.<br />
Glorious light.<br />
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This is what it looks like, this is what is, Now.<br />
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<i><b><u>Wild Geese </u></b></i><br />
<i><br />You do not have to be good.<br />You do not have to walk on your knees<br />for a hundred miles through the desert, repenting.<br />You only have to let the soft animal of your body<br />love what it loves.</i><br />
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<i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: normal;"><i>Tell me about despair, yours, and I will tell you mine.</i></span></i></div>
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<i>Meanwhile the world goes on.<br />Meanwhile the sun and the clear pebbles of the rain<br />are moving across the landscapes,<br />over the prairies and the deep trees,<br />Meanwhile the wild geese, high in the clean blue air,<br />are heading home again.<br /><br /> </i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #111111; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 21px;"></span></div>
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</span><i>Whoever you are, no matter how lonely,<br />the world offers itself to your imagination,<br />calls to you like the wild geese, harsh and exciting–<br />over and over announcing your place<br />in the family of things. -- Mary Oliver</i><br />
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It is, just right.<br />
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Another imperfect post, accompanied by:<br />
Led Zeppelin -- <span id="goog_1316859259"></span><a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t2015S3A-lg" target="_blank">Fool In the Rain</a><span id="goog_1316859260"></span>, <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a3HemKGDavw" target="_blank">Ramble On</a><br />
Bruce Springsteen -- <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xzQvGz6_fvA" target="_blank">I'm On Fire</a><br />
Fleet Foxes -- <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7HHgedNNQco" target="_blank">Helplessness Blues</a> (thank you, JD)<br />
Mumford & Sons -- <a href="http://www.last.fm/music/Mumford%2B%2526%2BSons/_/Sigh+No+More" target="_blank">Sigh No More</a> (thank you, Ally)<br />
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~~~~~~~~~<br />
Popular posts:<br />
<a href="http://www.tristahill.blogspot.com/2012/02/breaking-through-philip-glass-and-not.html" target="_blank">Philip Glass: Breaking Through and Maybe Minimalism</a><br />
<a href="http://www.tristahill.blogspot.com/2011/09/dear-creative-work.html">Dear Creative Work</a><br />
<a href="http://www.tristahill.blogspot.com/2011/10/sense-of-place.html" target="_blank">Sense of Place</a><br />
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~~~~~~~~~<br />
<a href="http://tinyletter.com/tristahill">Trista's newsletter</a> -- read the <a href="http://www.tristahill.com/Newsletter.html">current edition here</a><br />
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<br /></div>Trista Hillhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14829996785328454630noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21220437.post-90991766561983040122012-02-05T21:26:00.002-05:002012-02-15T00:22:33.437-05:00What I Do for the Super Bowl that is Not Football RelatedIt's Super Bowl time! But I had to look that up.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEideOKR0o1b1vJgQywwmKPk7Mk_67G7IfdDB3OojKoR0akuaNXxSFTzQxF19V3MxWPUJ-TVG6h3cAVu58qMyJPk37E_YcS9V-I62tW4DIwzMqgy0jeB8OLYGf4ZJWXYOiiTrnmH5Q/s1600/elaine+silver+floorcloth.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="168" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEideOKR0o1b1vJgQywwmKPk7Mk_67G7IfdDB3OojKoR0akuaNXxSFTzQxF19V3MxWPUJ-TVG6h3cAVu58qMyJPk37E_YcS9V-I62tW4DIwzMqgy0jeB8OLYGf4ZJWXYOiiTrnmH5Q/s320/elaine+silver+floorcloth.jpg" width="320" /></a>My life is measured by creative projects (including those involving the <a href="http://www.tristahill.com/News.htm" target="_blank">harp)</a>, and I remember the Super Bowl is around this time of year because I agreed to have a <b>floorcloth done and delivered by my client's Super Bowl party</b>. <br />
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My client came to me because her first floorcloth was crafted by someone else from linoleum, and it turned strange colors and curled and peeled and was an overall disaster. <br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiX7vS8Onu5PP0CncvePjj4THSW0A6UXJmISyCVlgOHK2UpvpHyQ5A9QZ5baCVov69TUfDGKugv_Ee_JhWzBzPULP8uWzlVM6H-5xdDzp4qdX4oeaScQ2mf2FLThLnBgDXkI1rw0g/s1600/silver+floorcloth+table.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="235" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiX7vS8Onu5PP0CncvePjj4THSW0A6UXJmISyCVlgOHK2UpvpHyQ5A9QZ5baCVov69TUfDGKugv_Ee_JhWzBzPULP8uWzlVM6H-5xdDzp4qdX4oeaScQ2mf2FLThLnBgDXkI1rw0g/s320/silver+floorcloth+table.jpg" width="320" /></a>Stapling down and priming a very thick raw cotton duck canvas is what it takes to make a <b>floorcloth from scratch</b>. Art room paraphernalia is pushed to the walls (as you see in the tulip example below) to make space for this kind of project, and measures are taken to ensure the cat won't leave prints in the paint. <br />
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For every floorcloth that's going in a particular room, <b>I use the motif, colors and photos the client provides</b>. Above is the simple drawing I submitted to her for approval, at right is the finished floorcloth. <a href="http://www.tristahill.com/FloorclothGallery.htm" target="_blank">Click here and scroll down this page to see how the 68" x 100" floorcloth complements her other decor</a>. <br />
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<b>Function and where the floorcloth will be installed determines the design</b>. The border became the focal point in the above floorcloth because it's home was under the table; the center field (ha -- a Super Bowl reference, no?) of the floorcloth below became the focal point because it was going to be installed in the main room of a contemporary loft in California. This massive 6' x 9' floorcloth's <a href="http://www.tristahill.blogspot.com/2009/12/done-deals.html" target="_blank">final tulip motif</a> offered unexpected depth.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj8UhqjnTyQkOn46Nod3ao8gCZnPS2GjKKmMQ9RpoJvzn9SIXsPsC66-5_QiEqZQddXDIWO6sYictdjBkppb5PUo-7iGeUfZvNrmxl4xvFhSuDfsfHIjBf_b15Y7-VbcBX8dt7iHg/s1600/000_1410+(2).JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj8UhqjnTyQkOn46Nod3ao8gCZnPS2GjKKmMQ9RpoJvzn9SIXsPsC66-5_QiEqZQddXDIWO6sYictdjBkppb5PUo-7iGeUfZvNrmxl4xvFhSuDfsfHIjBf_b15Y7-VbcBX8dt7iHg/s320/000_1410+(2).JPG" width="320" /></a></div>
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Below is a picture of the tulip floorcloth installed in the client's home -- <a href="http://www.tristahill.blogspot.com/2009/12/done-deals.html" target="_blank">click here to see another view and and close-ups of those bulbous blooms</a>. I would also love to see it <b>hanging on an otherwise empty wall</b>.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiKm-pAzVgk6d6wNuf_7bAX_ZKccNLWCZdhyphenhyphensRAE8-ESYF-gitgFYvPWxeKxhPz1GelHDfAyDLh8XhOiKk8UA36XeMq-9izA4DTF5AdET1SF1JQGedmEqZFag-C44gx8OdQpuKkVg/s1600/floorcloth1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiKm-pAzVgk6d6wNuf_7bAX_ZKccNLWCZdhyphenhyphensRAE8-ESYF-gitgFYvPWxeKxhPz1GelHDfAyDLh8XhOiKk8UA36XeMq-9izA4DTF5AdET1SF1JQGedmEqZFag-C44gx8OdQpuKkVg/s320/floorcloth1.jpg" width="289" /></a></div>
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My current project is a <a href="http://www.tristahill.com/Floorcloths.htm#Pet%20Mats" target="_blank">pet ma</a>t for a beautiful golden retriever, and it will probably look something like this, except not quite, and incorporate an awesome shimmering iridescent lime green, the pet's name, and a black and white checkerboard border. <b>The mat is water resistant</b> <b>and can be</b> <b>wiped clean with mild soap and water </b>so pet bowls can be placed right on top.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj-Jfeb9sAGk6farFQubSR8_Ece0nay6SzeT0AxMkL1-i1flHhaWzZtLCVIuX9af1-GA0BKZVuM33WCX39zikX7YkY2TJobJZbZEiBIlWeM03EhEVrdvJb2MkUxJI4IsHNtbooMpw/s1600/000_1612.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="245" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj-Jfeb9sAGk6farFQubSR8_Ece0nay6SzeT0AxMkL1-i1flHhaWzZtLCVIuX9af1-GA0BKZVuM33WCX39zikX7YkY2TJobJZbZEiBIlWeM03EhEVrdvJb2MkUxJI4IsHNtbooMpw/s320/000_1612.JPG" width="320" /></a></div>
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Once I figured out my own method of priming, hemming, acrylic painting, non-toxic varnishing, and (sometimes) waxing floorcloths, the door opened to a variety of home decor options.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiwgKLXzOo5A5EUcBWkya9RhsPyjsDq1AFB9pbJn7T7UIlfsbhkC085BCEhwX5HxnkUyTziR9S3cz3LDlcGpg38sciax7UrG9zRcAemhsH7Cm81fuoB3AEgiEU1_FtHGKsXLFdVnQ/s1600/000_0920.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiwgKLXzOo5A5EUcBWkya9RhsPyjsDq1AFB9pbJn7T7UIlfsbhkC085BCEhwX5HxnkUyTziR9S3cz3LDlcGpg38sciax7UrG9zRcAemhsH7Cm81fuoB3AEgiEU1_FtHGKsXLFdVnQ/s320/000_0920.JPG" width="147" /></a>At left is an <b>advent calendar,</b> measuring 10" x 38". I fashioned this after a wool felt version from my childhood that has long since disintegrated.<br />
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Two sets of felt and velcro-backed Joseph and Mary are included; one travels from left to right, the other right to left. Day 1 is the first house on the lower right, and Day 23 is the last house on the upper left; Day 24 is the stable, Day 25 is the mirrored star of Bethlehem. <br />
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Each house has a velcro piece on the path where Joseph and Mary stop to rest. A pocket on the back of the painting stores the travelers not in use.<br />
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On the art table now -- <b>a four panel project for my mother of fruits / vegetables</b> that she and I have yet to figure out how we'll hang in her sage green kitchen -- I'm loving the idea of suspending them by shimmering sheer white ribbon. So far, one panel is of carrots, and another is of lemons, each highlighted with metallic and glitter paint to accentuate curves and undulations.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi6_KFi1SnRobzP2i-jPbVbNL1vv0m0v_se0YKMZuN_O7dwUWx9G6-dUZ8-VjLYBGpMsCmbe_Rs39nuFc5HTHmoP9KJFGzz19UAtIp992slArUCHw8_0ELYTZqpaJqeGi3HsopolQ/s1600/johannawh.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi6_KFi1SnRobzP2i-jPbVbNL1vv0m0v_se0YKMZuN_O7dwUWx9G6-dUZ8-VjLYBGpMsCmbe_Rs39nuFc5HTHmoP9KJFGzz19UAtIp992slArUCHw8_0ELYTZqpaJqeGi3HsopolQ/s1600/johannawh.jpg" /></a><br />
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This method creates the perfect <b>floorcloths, advent calendars, personalized wall hangings (at right), highchair mats,</b> and more...<br />
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<a href="http://www.tristahill.com/Floorcloths.htm" target="_blank">Click here to read more about <b>floorcloths</b>.</a><br />
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<a href="http://www.tristahill.com/FloorclothGallery.htm" target="_blank">Click here to see the <b>Floorcloth Design Gallery</b> on my website</a>.<br />
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Though all images here reflect a very color-blocked graphic style, I do have a <a href="http://www.tristahill.com/Art.htm" target="_blank">softer side.</a><br />
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And now off to enjoy a Super Bowl of spaghetti, ice cream, or chocolate something, on a placemat like this little girl's.<br />
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<i>Another imperfect post, accompanied by:</i></div>
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Very halftime-worthy, can't-help-but-get-off-the-couch <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hakfpNpLTDw" target="_blank">Pa' Bailar (Bajofondo Mar Dulce)</a></div>
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Popular posts:</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;">
<a href="http://www.tristahill.blogspot.com/2012/02/breaking-through-philip-glass-and-not.html" target="_blank">Breaking Through: Philip Glass and Maybe Minimalsim</a></div>
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<a href="http://www.tristahill.blogspot.com/2011/12/what-do-you-believe.html" target="_blank">What Do You Believe?</a></div>
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~~~~~~~~~</div>
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<a href="http://tinyletter.com/tristahill" target="_blank">Trista's newsletter</a> -- read the <a href="http://www.tristahill.com/Newsletter.html" target="_blank">current edition here</a></div>
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<br />Trista Hillhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14829996785328454630noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21220437.post-30420628329876661842012-02-03T00:15:00.000-05:002012-02-03T01:39:53.137-05:00Breaking Through: Philip Glass and Maybe MinimalismThis week Philip Glass celebrates his 75th birthday. In a most interesting <a href="http://www.npr.org/2012/01/31/146092923/ira-glass-interviews-his-cousin-composer-philip-glass" target="_blank">interview with his second cousin Ira</a>, he explains, "<b>It's not how you find your voice, but how you get rid of the damn thing</b>... "<br />
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I first experienced Glass in a college music class that offered an uncreative listening format of brief lectures followed by corresponding music samples. Sitting through <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Minimalism" target="_blank">Minimalism</a>, 12-tone theory, and the like had zero appeal to my frazzled spirit.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjSS1xUbfEvPONKO9UGrOlzz7iT11SVourvFVnPYFHZAhxwmjjxUF8RPFYtTIGH5w_XNkWkjkWGn8HnGXvrmfSqXeE1n3XLCDqREYI0MNX2TCP9yhDb3y-XctUURQ1T3MB_nKcMHA/s1600/essential-philip-glass.1_225.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjSS1xUbfEvPONKO9UGrOlzz7iT11SVourvFVnPYFHZAhxwmjjxUF8RPFYtTIGH5w_XNkWkjkWGn8HnGXvrmfSqXeE1n3XLCDqREYI0MNX2TCP9yhDb3y-XctUURQ1T3MB_nKcMHA/s1600/essential-philip-glass.1_225.jpg" /></a></div>
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I had barely survived creating my composition for this module in another class, shutting myself inside a piano practice room for the weekend to get it done. Now I know the immense value of composing and performing "live" your own piece for each style we studied, an element I embrace and employ in my own teaching / coaching today. But at the time it was an exercise in insanity -- I had very limited time then to appreciate the assignment as a way to <b>learn the music from the inside out, truly absorb it, through an intensely personalized process.</b><br />
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Fortunately this time, we were able to play a pre-recorded version of our piece instead of perform it live. My aggravation shone through in the title I selected. "This is called S.O.S," I told the class simply, enjoying that it could be interpreted whatever way the listener chose.<br />
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A classmate who knew my angst slowly smiled and asked what that stood for. I stared at him, stood a little straighter, and delivered. "S.O.S. stands for <i>Same Old Shit</i>." Snickers ran around the room as I pressed "Play" to share the angry solo piano recording I had probably made only 12 to 48 hours before. That class included written critiques. My classmate's: "Well, it didn't sound like shit to me." My professor's: "I hope 'S.O.S.' isn't the way you really feel -- you do good work as I've said before and I've really enjoyed having you in class."<br />
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<b>But back to Philip Glass.</b><br />
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Armed with all my baggage and preconceptions, I braced myself for our listening session. And then, there it was -- loud and clear and jarring, the frenetically <b>perfect musical example of my life as I knew it</b>.<br />
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I have no idea how the professor introduced or explained this musical sample -- I could only feel the class recoil at the maddeningly repetitive nature and the sheer volume and never-ending layers that cascaded over us. "Can you hear when one element is shifting, an instrument, a rhythm, one note in the melody?" he offered. "NO!" The class screamed. "What IS this?!? Make it stop!"<br />
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And then there I was, maybe wearing yellow, staring hard at the wall, dead silent and solid, mentally pushing everyone and their noise away, <i>Shut Up!</i> <i>Yes I can hear it! FEEL it! Let me listen! Do NOT stop!</i><br />
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I was riveted.<br />
I couldn't wait to get inside it.<br />
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<i>listen listen LISTEN don't you hear?!?? - <b>this is life</b>, this pulsating hypnotic incessant NOISE, this pounding pulsing driving insistent forcing of rhythm and melody - this pattern, over and over and over again, sustained tones that do not go away - what bravery to <b>capture the human condition</b> like this, to be with it, over and over and over - how as a listener or performer do you <u>not</u> go deep within it and yourself to find the nuggets, the seeds, the place from where all this expanded and grew?</i><br />
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Yes! Let me IN!<br />
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I remember the album cover as pulsing light emanating from a bright white center that both pulled you in and pushed you out. I can't find that image anywhere now, perhaps I made it up, saw it as it felt. In my single dorm room I huddled next to the cassette player, closing off everything around me, pushing everything to the side, get and go AWAY, I'm going in.<br />
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Overlapping patterns, shifting ever so slightly, in any direction, required my dedicated attention. <b>Wavering even slightly from an inner focal point rendered it chaos</b>. Brilliant. Devastating. <br />
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My own life then was exactly like this. I had created so many layers of existence, and it was a constant fight to not drown -- my journals from then document my mind-bending frustration, isolation, and a strange dependency on the glutinous anchor of schoolwork and a schedule not my own. Overloaded with credit hours each semester to graduate early with two degrees, in the throes of a full-blown eating disorder, grappling with imploding issues at home, attracting attention from all the wrong places in all the worst ways, I retreated to campus hiding places where I locked myself overnight to hammer out papers and projects, and walked for miles and hours off campus longingly gazing at warm-lit windows of houses where life appeared to be far removed from my daily careening chaos. I had a zillion eyes watching me but none that really saw. <br />
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<b>In all the chaos, Glass' music assured, there is a subtle shifting. </b>The shifting is inevitable -- nothing stays static. Direction is unknown, but headed somewhere. Linear doesn't apply, there's no room for it. Paying attention to what is happening along the way, hyper-aware and sensitive of the pulsing shifts, is the only way through. <br />
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That album cover and that music was a musical illustration of hope in a world where I felt I had little to no control. It was a vivid portrayal of what didn't make sense, and the meta-vision of what did. In a morass of confusion and overwhelm, choosing one pathway or anchor -- an instrument, a motif, a rhythm -- and following it all the way through, suddenly lifted the veil and revealed a brilliant landscape of incomparable intensity and magnitude that, in a powerfully parental way, demanded focus and reverence. <br />
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<b>This is how transformation happens</b> -- to be pulled, by your own volition or not, out of one place and into another, of newness, openness, and expansiveness. Glass seeks for himself -- and offers to us -- a way "to break out of your own training." Time and time again I've seen my own students at the harp or piano, all faculties ablaze, hit that white center. With a little coaching, they usher in <b>small and large transformations and breakthroughs that shape the course of life from that day forward</b>.<br />
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The "noise" is begging for you to notice its layers, what lies beneath. Demand the space and time to grab that glittering end and hold on tight. You're in for a ride. Open your eyes. Get IN this place that is anything but Minimalism -- <b>inside the chaos is immense beauty and light, </b>illuminating both the path you're on and the one you've been searching for.<br />
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Happy Birthday, and Thank You, Philip Glass. <br />
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<b>What is your transformative "Philip Glass" moment?</b><br />
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<div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;">
<i>Another imperfect post, accompanied by:</i></div>
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<a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=imbwn6iVryQ" target="_blank">Philip Glass excerpts</a>, all recordings listed on <a href="http://www.dunvagen.com/" target="_blank">his website</a></div>
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Popular posts:</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;">
<a href="http://www.tristahill.blogspot.com/2011/05/maybe-youre-harpist-all-over-beastie.html" target="_blank">Maybe You're a Harpist All Over the Beastie Boys</a></div>
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<a href="http://www.tristahill.blogspot.com/2011/09/dear-creative-work.html" target="_blank">Dear Creative Work</a></div>
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<a href="http://tinyletter.com/tristahill" target="_blank">Trista's newsletter</a> -- read the <a href="http://www.tristahill.com/Newsletter.html" target="_blank">current edition here</a></div>
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<br /></div>Trista Hillhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14829996785328454630noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21220437.post-8132646328210306112011-12-29T23:35:00.000-05:002011-12-30T16:57:22.944-05:00What Do You Believe?<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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"Do you believe what they say about 2012?" she asked suddenly, in not quite a whisper. She had just finished playing through a familiar tune on the piano we had <a href="http://www.tristahill.com/Music.htm" target="_blank">learned together</a> only minutes before. <br />
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"What do they say?" I ask. I can halfway sense what's in her head and heart.<br />
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"That... it's the <i>end of the world?</i>"<br />
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I search her small face -- no trace of fear there, only tiny glittering ghost-wisp question marks. "Hmm, I've heard of that," I say. "What do you think?"<br />
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"Well, I don't think so. I saw a movie..." and she describes all the natural disasters the film so vividly paints. The scenes etched in her memory are poignant and meaningful given what I know she's already endured in her young life. "But no," she concludes, "I don't think it's the end." <br />
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<b>I believe her decision to not believe.</b><br />
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Extra flexibility is required to fully pivot for a good view of all the ways my own beliefs have been challenged, my stories tested, this past year. <br />
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Across the sea of retrospect, I spy: The various literal and figurative dimly lit <a href="http://www.tristahill.blogspot.com/2011/12/what-is-performance.html" target="_blank">stages</a> that threw my thoughts and feelings about celebrity and self-worth directly into spotlight glare. My multicolored-snake-rope thoughts about creativity and relationship and their ability to intertwine without strangling each other. How much bigger movement, more nourishing fuel, and increasingly voluminous light my aging body, mind and spirit need to thrive.<br />
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My re-drawing boundaries when they are again unwittingly crossed and building them out of a different medium or neatly packing them up to take with me when I exit. Walking the crunchy undulating sandy path of truth alongside heavy discomfort and volatility, and seeing what small air-starved naked creature toddles out from between. <br />
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How I've brilliantly re-colored the magnetic energy of money and funneled it both toward and away. Questioning why I questioned whether I really need a vibrant, beautiful calendar / house in which to hold all my crucial appointments and to birth-chart my life work.<br />
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And in what direction my heart pulls <i>hard</i> and how it matters less if that trajectory is logical, practical, and sustainable. What and where <a href="http://www.tristahill.blogspot.com/2011/10/sense-of-place.html" target="_blank">my wild childhood abandon was</a>, when it left, and my semi-shock at it's insistent return. What is <a href="http://www.tristahill.blogspot.com/2011/11/night-in-life.html" target="_blank">spewed</a> and <a href="http://www.healingsearch.com/_ReportPages/what_is_left_unsaid.htm" target="_blank">what is left unsaid</a>. How continual digging only leaves scars.<br />
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What expectations I've dramatically thrown into artificial and pure-true light, and how they've either grown into both high-arching beyond-control jungles or lay dormant in desiccated white picket plots.<br />
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<b>I actually celebrate the human capacity to fabricate, in the name of both growth and resistance of, a thoroughly complex and elaborate everyday life around a simple but fully-believed story. </b><br />
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The extent to which we manipulate our surroundings, the lengths we go to convince ourselves and others of our reality, and the way we invent patterns of thought and behavior that support this story scream of our <i>immense and innate creative potential. </i><br />
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<b>What do we choose to do with what we believe</b>? An amazing amount of time, energy, and power goes into building the world (s)he / you / I live in -- just <i>look </i>at this incredible system, this intricate protective framework all spindly and giant and spread-eagled over the itty buried sleeping treasure whose name, color, texture, and makeup we forgot long ago!<br />
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"I don't know how..."<br />
"I can't..."<br />
"It's impossible to..."<br />
"It doesn't work..."<br />
"I've already tried..."<br />
"I could never..." <br />
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Such powerful building blocks, clobbery concrete foundation squares upon which we build a precariously leaning tower that we're incessantly scrambling to prop up. <br />
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How rich the deconstruction can be, how powerful to step aside as it topples, how sudden and frantic the manic digging to uncover the <b>small kernel of truth singing out for a bit of warmth and light</b>.<br />
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She leaned in a little closer to hear me say, "I believe that you and I have a lot of important and special things to do, and be, in the coming year." She nods. I briefly mention my affection for even-numbered years. "I was born in 2000," she beams. <br />
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Later, at the door, I exclaim in my sincerely exuberant way, "I'm SO excited to see you again -- <i>next year</i>!"<br />
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"And it's <i>even-numbered</i>," she smiles. <br />
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<b>I believe in a Happy Healthy Blooming Unfurling 2012, for you.</b><br />
And in the words of <a href="http://www.npr.org/2011/09/20/140435330/this-pig-wants-to-party-maurice-sendaks-latest" target="_blank">Maurice Sendak: "... live your life, live your life, live your life."</a><br />
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~~~~~~~~~<br />
<i>Another imperfect post, accompanied by:</i><br />
The exploding-bubble <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RGIbR5jdA58" target="_blank">Surgeon</a> and the scissor-soaring <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Itt0rALeHE8&ob=av2e" target="_blank">Cruel</a> (<a href="http://www.ilovestvincent.com/" target="_blank">St. Vincent</a>)<br />
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~~~~~~~~~<br />
The year's popular posts (wait, do you have one that's not listed below? Post it in the comments!):<br />
<a href="http://www.tristahill.blogspot.com/2011/05/maybe-youre-harpist-all-over-beastie.html" target="_blank">Maybe You're a Harpist All Over the Beastie Boys</a><br />
<a href="http://www.tristahill.blogspot.com/2011/09/dear-creative-work.html" target="_blank">Dear Creative Work</a><br />
<a href="http://www.tristahill.blogspot.com/2011/10/sense-of-place.html" target="_blank">Sense of Place</a><br />
<a href="http://www.tristahill.blogspot.com/2011/11/night-in-life.html" target="_blank">A Night in the Life</a><br />
<a href="http://www.tristahill.blogspot.com/2011/12/what-is-performance.html" target="_blank">What IS Performance?</a><br />
<br />
~~~~~~~~~<br />
<a href="http://tinyletter.com/tristahill" target="_blank">Trista's newsletter</a> -- read the <a href="http://www.tristahill.com/Newsletter.html" target="_blank">current edition here</a><br />
<a href="http://feedburner.google.com/fb/a/mailverify?uri=TristaHill" target="_blank">Get notified of posts to this blog</a><br />
<a href="http://www.tristahill.com/Music.htm" target="_blank">Coaching Opportunities</a><br />
<br />Trista Hillhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14829996785328454630noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21220437.post-62062905466907664882011-12-02T20:18:00.001-05:002011-12-03T10:59:13.188-05:00What IS Performance?<i>**For an entire month this Fall (2011), <a href="http://www.hipharp.com/">Deborah Henson-Conant</a> and I threw ourselves into a joint traveling adventure of performances, <a href="http://www.hipharp.com/events/fireworks.htm">workshops</a>, and the ongoing development / implementation of fantastical ideas and dreams.**</i><br />
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And so, what <i>IS</i> performance, really? We'll peer into the window of my own experience, conveniently captured in this hardly-vampy video. <br />
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Here's the setup: It's the last performance of the <a href="http://www.hipharp.com/tourdates/tourdates-2011-past.html" target="_blank">DHC Fall Tour 2011</a>. For an entire month (or more) we had been talking about playing on stage together and disagreeing about the reasons why it wasn't happening. In classic uncomfortable 180-degree style, rebelling against our own resistance, we threw this not-quite-duet together just minutes before the show was scheduled to start. <a href="http://www.hipharp.com/" target="_blank">DHC</a> showed me the form, the parts she wanted me to play, and areas open for improvisation.</div>
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We are wearing outfits that I don't normally choose for myself and that DHC chooses for herself all the time -- about which she commented a few weeks earlier, "Good thing we don't get tired of seeing each other in the same thing every night..." <br />
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We are tired and had just finished building our own sound system out of equipment we had in the over-packed van, due to miscommunication about what the venue could provide. I had spent many tens of minutes behind the <a href="http://www.theflip.com/en-us/" target="_blank">video camera</a> documenting this process and wondering whether it was for learning purposes or because we were gathering evidence for a Just-in-Case we might file down the road. I had yet to slam together / sacrilegiously transform a sacred platform into our product table in all its glittery well-organized glory. In short, in many ways I was completely unprepared to do this. This is my least favorite way to perform, or really, do anything.<br />
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In high boots and tights that I now see aren't true black, I'm crouching at the harp stand because I frankly had never officially played an <a href="http://www.camac-harps.com/camac-harps-eng/dhcbluelight.html" target="_blank">electric harp</a> before, and playing it at an uncomfortable height was less of a liability than my actually wearing it. Both string tension and the "voice" of the electric harp are unlike that of a pedal harp -- this requires in-the-moment readjustment of technique and reevaluation of engagement with the instrument (think of an acoustic vs. an electric guitar). All this is to say, I had no idea what I was doing, feeling very vulnerable, on an instrument foreign to me, playing music that just barely made sense, as the closing piece for someone else's show.<br />
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Explaining the setup is <i>not</i> to sell you on why you should see this as a remarkable performance. Because in many ways it's not, and while I treasure honesty -- Exhibit A, <a href="http://www.tristahill.blogspot.com/2011/11/night-in-life.html" target="_blank">the last post</a> -- whether it is or isn't is beside the point. <br />
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The point is that it <i>happened,</i> because we grabbed at and stepped into the opportunity to try a Big Something. We could either let that slip by, or seize it in a myriad of semi-reluctant ways. The mere act of doing it became more important than how. That's not to say the "how" didn't in some way matter -- witness the video edit punches where both DHC and I cut out parts we declared were uninteresting or unacceptable and didn't want the rest of the world to have access to indefinitely.<br />
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This was imperfect action. Messy, uncomfortable, and also oddly enlightening, liberating. Two tired harpists unsure of an outcome and going for it anyway. <br />
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This was living out exactly what we were presenting in workshops during the <a href="http://hipharp.com/where_you_goin.html" target="_blank">tour</a>: Navigating the treacherous and oft-visited waters of Perfection and recognizing the futility of expecting, waiting, and striving for it. Exploring how structure frees rather than limits you, musically and beyond. Letting your life experiences show up on stage <i>and</i> disabling the old and out-of-date stories that can otherwise sabotage your experience. Living in the moment and having that be enough. Committing to your authentic self when you feel anything but -- "don't do more, hide less" (<a href="http://www.mimetheatre.com/" target="_blank">Karen Montanaro</a> quote, from the <a href="http://www.hipharp.com/events/celebarn-workshop.htm" target="_blank">Barn experience</a>).<br />
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Would we have done that performance differently? Yes! And! No! The point is we do not even know what Yes and No are until we step into the experience. Live it, in the moment, imperfectly.<br />
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And what happened after? We splayed all the travel food on the table we had thus far hoarded to replicate a massive congratulatory feast, then quickly tired of that and went on a slow search for frozen Snickers bars. DHC edited out parts of the video we didn't like as we randomly commented and cursed about what was and wasn't happening in it. We sat through late night tension about whose computer housed what and the proper way to affix receipts to larger pieces of paper. We wrestled with illogically designed alarm clocks. Real life. The stuff that happens before, after, and <i>during</i> a performance.<br />
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Performance is not about editing life / reality OUT. It's about letting it IN.<br />
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DHC will be in <a href="http://www.hipharp.com/events/2011-Atlanta-Workshop.htm" target="_blank">Atlanta on Sunday, December 4</a> to share with you both the broader and more detailed elements of what we experienced above, using the Blues. I will be there a day later, but that's fodder for another post. Will you step up and into the unknown, to learn about parts of yourself you didn't know were there, and other parts you know damn well you are both aching for, and hiding from? <a href="http://www.hipharp.com/events/2011-Atlanta-Workshop.htm" target="_blank">Click here to learn more and register for the Atlanta workshop.</a> <br />
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Congratulations for the brave yes-and-no way you will choose to hide less today.<br />
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<i>Another imperfect post, accompanied by:</i><br />
<a href="http://pinkmartini.com/discography/joy-to-the-world/" target="_blank">Joy to the World (Pink Martini)</a><br />
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<a href="http://tinyletter.com/tristahill">Trista's newsletter</a><br />
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<a href="http://www.tristahill.com/News.htm" target="_blank">Calendar of December 2011 performances</a><br />
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<i>Other tour posts (in non-chronological order):</i><br />
<a href="http://tristahill.blogspot.com/2011/10/prepared-or-paranoid.html">Prepared or Paranoid?</a><br />
<a href="http://tristahill.blogspot.com/2011/10/how-tour-began.html">Firsts -- How the Tour Began</a><br />
<a href="http://tristahill.blogspot.com/2011/10/sense-of-place.html">Sense of Place</a></div>
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Opportunities to explore who you are, with your music, unconventionally, using principles above, with me -- <a href="http://www.tristahill.com/">visit the website / email.</a></div>
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</div>Trista Hillhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14829996785328454630noreply@blogger.com1