Entering The Lung

Good day, kind readers. This post has been written over the past three weeks. They have been BUSY, and I have missed you. It has been very hard to write lately because of my crazy schedule (as you will see below) and many people have unsubscribed. I am so sorry about this, but I am just a human. I do love writing this newsletter and will continue. (Hopefully with more consistent regularity) It’s 8am on a lovely morning in Vermont.

Good morning! The sun is shining on a melting blanket of snow. Yesterday, all day, it snowed as if it were December. I think of it as the annual “Gateway Snow” to spring. Every year around this time it happens. I take it as permission that I can now sterilize and fill the hummingbird feeders and start cleaning up the porch. We are technically in “Mud season” and people complain, but I love it. As I’ve said before, there is no season I don’t love in Vermont. Pleeeeeeeeeeeze?

Well, it’s been ten years and a great deal of work, but the “Thelma and Louise” musical FINALLY has a run of dates that are open to the public coming up in London! Yay!!! You can buy tickets starting April 23rd, and on the 20th if you have priority booking. It will run Sept 3rd- Oct 24th of this year at The Young Vic Theater. I will be in London most of the summer helping put on the finishing touches and rehearsing.

Hello from home. What a fantastic tour and trip it has been! Having Destroyer along for the last run of shows was such a huge treat. The only bummer was having to cancel my hometown show because I got sick. I’m sorry, Tacoma… BUT! The good news is the show is being rescheduled, as is the Uptown Kansas City show, as we speak! I got word from all the Tacomans who wished me a speedy recovery and I absorbed it. Thank you so much. It really helped! Your love goes a long way.

Hi! How are you? Do you need something gentle yet energizing? I have put together a little list of things to watch or listen to that feel good. A little “inner-scrubby massage” if you will. Let’s get straight to it. Hi! Entering The Lung is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.

Good morning! It’s official, the sap is running in Vermont. Our maple trees are coursing with sweet liquid sugar. People are out in their boots and flannel jackets checking their taps and putting in new ones. It’s very Vermonty around here. I haven’t written in a bit as I came down with a monster cold when I got home from tour (which I then gave to ManFriend…) and have been too foggy to make any kind of sense on paper.

I’m here in Miami (which I have never played before! The crowd was magnificent!) wrapping up this long, rollercoaster of a tour. What a strange, emotional, galvanizing run it has been.

I don’t normally post so late in the day, but sometimes its good to get things out as they happen, so… It’s been a little better this week as far as anxiety goes. It still comes on like a wave of nausea and prickly heat from time to time though. I’m triggered by the smallest things: the trigger reminds me to feel sad, angry and afraid. Then, I find I am more angry that there is fear in my body. My internal toxic masculinity feels ashamed of being afraid.

This week has been no less rough in many ways, but I have been able to see some good as it was happening, which is a small victory for sure. So here are some little things keeping my head from dragging in the dirt… Morning coffee with bandmates. -In the narrow aisle that makes our living room on the bus we sit knees to knees waking up, laughing about things and enjoying each other’s company in a way that somehow feels free of time. It’s the bone broth that props up the day.

Hello from Burlington, Vermont. Tonight we play the Flynn theatre which I am very excited about. For some reason I haven’t felt like venturing outside today, despite it being clear and nearly 40 degrees. I think I’m too close to my own home, which is not on our route to Portland Maine, and so seems heartbreakingly close, but somehow forbidden? My dog, my cats, my neighbors and friends… my bed! SO close it hurts.