It’s a gentle night in Gatlinburg, Tennessee. I’m sitting at the kitchen table in the home of my friends Danny & Rebecca Mullikin. If you’re at all familiar with the music of Tuatha Dea- and if you recall our shared project, The Green Album, you certainly are- then you know their names and voices well. We’re embarking on a different kind of shared odyssey this month, making a big drive together up to Canada, where we’ll all appear at PaganFest this weekend, after which Tuatha Dea will all continue on to Kaleidoscope Gathering.
This week has been our first chance to sit and visit like normal people, without also running around to do sound checks and such, barely getting to see each other smile up close, and it feels like such a gift. Our lives are jam packed with joy and hardship in our tiny music scene, and we love almost every part of every day, even when we’re exhausted and overtasked, running at breakneck speed to get the show going on time. Therefore, the so-called slow days are few and far between, and it makes them valuable, at least to me. And that’s not to say that we haven’t all also been multitasking like crazy while we’re together. Being pregnant, I’m the only one who’s really done any sitting still at all. But there’s something about getting to cook dinner with your buddies, when we live and work the way we do, that’s super special. Tomorrow, the whirlwind catches us again.
My whirlwind’s been very gentle this year, out of necessity, so despite the brutal aspects of our long drive and border crossing preparations and logistics, I feel pretty well recharged and prepared for this. To start it off with friends is especially fantastic, and I feel like the luckiest kid on earth.
I’ll try to post more here and share stories as the journey unfolds. Let me know if you’re planning to attend PaganFest this week, or if I’ll see you in Pittsburgh for Confluence next week. Meanwhile, here’s a pic of one of my favorite moments from today, when Danny invited me to run over with him to Music Outlet in Sevierville. 🙂
