Deliberation

I haven't written in awhile for so many reasons, none of them containing apologies, shame, or guilt for my break from blogging. I have been contemplative, busy, also sadly on auto-pilot for the past few months, enabling me to survive in my chaotic world but not allowing for much contact. I feel confident I have not burned any bridges, save for one that is to remain nameless, and I feel empowered to re-enter the blogosphere (which is a word that is marked as misspelled - why has Google overlooked this?) as a result. Distance and perspective are beautiful motivators.

I have been touring extensively for the past 6 months which has, needless to say, improved my monetary situation drastically. I am currently a positive contributor to society if you can ignore for a second the basic negative fundamentals of my job - I mean, I'm not curing cancer but I'm also not spreading it. I feel pretty even-steven, really. It has left me with little time to write - a practice that, to be honest, I've never been terribly disciplined to do even with all the time in the world. But I have been able to contemplate a lot about the world of real-life documentation. Blogs. Twitters or whatever they're called.

For me, writing necessitates a certain distance from the event and a certain desire to be able to re-tell something that is normally kind of mundane, infusing the event with a romance that may or may not have been there to begin with. The fact is that I am not really good at this - or at least I don't feel like it. I'll let you be the judge. I admire the people who can blog on tour. The nature of my job does not allow much time for showers, let alone time to take in my day, contemplate it, and then transcribe it to the outside world in a way that feels authentic and entertaining. I mean, isn't this why we do this? To entertain, to make our lives appear more interesting to others, to feel understood? If it isn't, then why do we put so many personal feelings and secrets in such a public forum? I'll admit it. It is fun to think that people read about my life and feel connected to it or are maybe even envious or whatever. It's validating and I think there is a real level of connectedness when we feel like we can share and others in our lives glean something from that experience. It is not entirely selfish but there are selfish aspects to any exchange and any relationship.

Now I don't want to make you feel like a chump for reading this - that is not the idea at all. I am sort of rambling on because (1) I haven't rambled in awhile and (2) I want to flesh out some thoughts that I have about how it is that everyone finds time to maintain a Facebook page or a blog on a consistent basis. I can barely find time to call my mom. Is it because I'm not making this a priority (I hear you can do anything if you put your mind to it or make the time for it) or is there really actually not enough time to stay as connected as we would like? I would love to be able to inundate you all with photos all the time, email blasts about what I've been up to, and still remember to send you a Christmas/Anniversary/Birthday card with a little well-thought-out handmade gift inside that happens to be exactly what you have been missing all these years! But the fact is I like taking quiet baths, reading an enormous amount of fiction, and cooking.

I am a Gemini which, if you believe in this sort of thing, basically states that I will spend my whole life feeling like I don't have enough time to do everything I want to do. I feel as though I spend a lot of my time trying to stay afloat with all the stuff (cleaning the house, organizing my photos and books, oh yeah, shaving my legs - all of it) and all of my friends. I seem to have only 2 weeks left of being at home before my next tour and I can't figure out how to fit it all in. I exert a lot of brain power guilting myself about this and subsequently making myself anxious about not keeping up.

It makes me want to get rid of it all and keep the friends, of course. While I was on this last tour, my computer crashed and I lost everything, including most of the documents from the tour I was on as well as the notes from the tour I was advancing that was to start in 2 days. At that point, I was working 16 hours a day in front of my computer for an extra $1200... What do you ultimately pay once you factor in the stress of that kind of lifestyle and the realization that you're missing the lightness and great experiences of the world right in front of you? Was that $1200 worth it? The world has a funny way of making you press the reset button when you're too far in it to save yourself. In my case, it was my computer dying. Before that, it was my computer getting stolen. Some might think that I just have bad luck with technology but I don't think so. I think the universe is trying to remind me to get outside while there is still summer and to live my life while I still have it - it just does it in particularly violent ways (my computer being the ultimate victim). The truth is, I probably would not listen if the universe spoke to me in any other way.

I feel a hole in the place where deliberate action and positivity used to reside. I have been surveying myself through the eyes of my relationships with others as well as my relationship with myself. I see a person who is compulsive in action, kind of lazy, and has a reflex for negativity and acid before being convinced to the positive side. Why am I sharing all of this? I need to vent and I need to be honest, despite if no one or everyone reads this. I had a great discussion with my friend Natasha over lunch today and she really helped me see how negativity does more destruction personally than it does protect. And I can't help but appreciate her honesty, no matter how easy it is to be defensive about these traits in my personality that I dislike - and then again when someone actually recognizes it and calls me on it. I want to be more positive, more deliberate, and maybe a little sunnier as a reflex rather than a trained behavior. I want a little more sugar in my personality. I am not quite sure how to do this but the seed is planted. Oh, and just because I recently finished a tour with Jack Johnson for a month and had a great time, this does not mean that I am a hippie by proxy. This has been a long time coming and Super Mellow August Tour 2008 has helped this along but is by no means the catalyst. And I'm not wearing flip flops right now so you can just forget it.

Anyway, I want less compulsion and more strategy. I want to be able to make a promise to myself and keep it. I want to be less of a talker and more of a doer. I really want to take more pictures and have a way to share them all with the few people that care to see them. In short, I want to make more time to be connected to this funny internet community, though it isn't my first choice in the many ways you can connect with people. I would love to have you all over for dinner because I can cook you up something real nice-like and we can play Trivial Pursuit. But until you come to Portland (at a time when I am actually there), this will have to do.

Good to see you all again.
Rachel