October 19, 2004
Hello, Nields fans,
Last year, Katryna had this huge insight: she was driving down the highway to pick me up so we could go to a weekend full of gigs, and she noticed the red and orange leaves had entirely left the trees. All that was left were the brown oaks and some fiery brush, the gold of the dead grass. "And I breathed a sigh of relief," she said. "I no longer had to work so hard to appreciate the prime peak season. And I realized, I am a person who actually prefers Past Peak to Prime Peak."
It's exhausting, sometimes, to pay so much attention, even though we all know paying attention is what it's all about. Present Peak is probably some New Age concept waiting to happen: "hey, everybody, let's realize that EVERY MOMENT IS PRESENT PEAK!" I can just hear a cheerful New Age guru chanting that now.
My hard drive crashed last week, obliterating a year's worth of writings and songs, plus all my digital photos, except for a precious few that I managed to back up. That same day, a friend called with the exact same catastrophe, except she is a visual artist and lost the equivalent of visual art. Then, on Sunday, I found out a family at our church lost 18 years worth of memories in a house fire. This put my loss in some perspective, though I still indulged in some gratifying self pity.
There is a place for fires, for floods, for hurricanes, for losses of all kinds, and it does kind of make you breathe a sigh of relief to become unattached, even from those things we love most.
All that being said, I CAN'T WAIT for Katryna to give birth already to this little critter in her belly so we can go back on the road and sing for you, because that is one of those things I love most. And it's a loss I will not suffer long. Until that happens—the birth thing, that is—you are going to have to deal with me alone, because even though I lost all my lyrics to
my new songs, I happen to remember them all. And if you come to any of my four solo shows, you will hear these new songs. You will also hear me prattle about my novels (The Big Idea, the one I've been working on since January of 2001, is almost done!) and probably my wedding dress and other
things I can't get out of my head. I am doing two shows for Folk The Vote this Monday, October 25 in St. Louis, and on Tuesday Oct. 26 in Cincinnati, with Lisa Loeb and Carrie Newcomer. Then, I am doing a house concert at Naykid Tim's in Billerica, MA on Sunday, November 14; and a house concert at
Meredith's (Hear at the Home) in New Haven, CT on Saturday, Dec. 11. [ed. note: please note the revised date for this show!]
What else? I am teaching weekly workshops on weekdays and nights; I am having bimonthly retreats (November's is full and January's is still taking spots; it's Jan. 7-9). I am trying to knit Tom an engagement scarf (it will eventually have a diamond in it) and I am going for lots of long walks with
Cody The Great Barking Aussie. Plastic Angel is coming out May of 2005 and I'll be going on a West Coast book tour right after that. More info about most things is on the Web site, which now includes a Blog which we contribute to about twice a week.
Happy Present Peak! Love, love, love,
Nerissa
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