The new CD is done!!

It took 8 years to set aside enough time to record this music.I started it the day after Julia left for University last year. With a few detours for other projects, and requiring more tenacity and fortitude than I ever thought I could muster - The CD IS FINISHED!! YES!!!!! 
It's titled - "Find Our Way", a title which eluded me until the final day of mixing. And though I feel like I've been run over by a truck (with a preemptive apology for my insensitivity to those who actually have been run over by a truck), I am SO THRILLED. Not just to have finally climbed that mountain, but (thankfully) with the finished product as well. (Pride is not one of the 7 deadly sins is it??) It was the hardest and most rewarding thing I've ever done.

Read More
Julia GraffComment
Late Summer check in

My usual groveling apologies for the long silence.  

I FINALLY got around to getting DVD dubs of some archival material and getting it uploaded to YouTube. You can see the 1990 video of Every Road (when I was 5 months pregnant with Julia). Amazing to think that that child now plays the piano on the song when we play it live. Wow. You can see it at 
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HjTad2c6znM

Read More
Julia GraffComment
Car trips and my love / hate relationship with the Internal Combustion Engine

I love tours in the van. I love them primarily because it means I don't have to pack light. Whatever I think I may need in the days or weeks I'm on tour, I can take. Not just the extra guitar to spare me from having to change tunings on stage, sending my left and right brain into a stuttering tug of war as I try to speak engagingly to the audience while I wrestle the frequencies into alignment; but also the extra shoes to spare me the heartache of inappropriate footwear, the extra books, coats, jeans, and snacks I MAY need.  

Read More
Julia GraffComment
May Mumbling

Happy belated Mother’s Day! We’ve all been one or had one, so - pretty universal. I did enjoy it more when I could actually call mine, but it’s sweet to be be celebrated as one (though I still have moments of thinking…”I’m someone’s MOTHER???") Julia and I spent the day together - took the water taxi to Granville Island and rode our bikes around the sea wall. How Vancouver. Son Mike was dutiful to the pattern established last year of forgetting it altogether followed by a highly amusing e-mail. I'm giving him a good 10 years grace period before I expect him to remember the Canadian Mother on the Hallmark appointed day. 

Read More
Julia GraffComment
Notes from Points East

It is no wonder there are so many songs about trains. There is nothing quite like the sense of peace, promise and pondering that is evoked by looking out the window of a moving train. This is one of those things that makes me want to give it all up and just ride the rails. I am such a "Love the one you're with" kind of gal - whether it's musical trios, cities, or adventures - I'm lovin' it and want to keep doing it. 

I'm en route to Ottawa from Montreal, having rendezvoused with Julia after 4 months and helping her move out of her McGill residence and into a classic students' ghetto apartment. Mostly I cleaned 9 months of sticky dust and dirt from - well, everything - and tried not to squeel "ewwwww" at every turn. But I was encouraged that Julia's portion was not as bad as the rest - and that she really didn't need, or necessarily want my help. I spent most of my visit riding a bike around the city and enjoying Spring in Montreal.

Read More
Julia GraffComment
Spring???

Life continues to unfold with lots of challenges and surprises. I can't help but think that much of what I'm experiencing these days is reminiscent of that chapter of our lives when we first broke away from home, our parents, our childhood and embarked on 'life out in the big world'. There is a long hungered for, intoxicating sense of independence and freedom. But moreover, it is a fertile ground for a type of pondering and observation of the world around me that is the life I missed as a writer when my focus shifted to motherhood - that primal, choice-less diversion fueled by such compelling love that we are powerless to even remember what our former focus was. I'm sure it's to ensure the survival of the species. Both Julia and I are getting a kick out of knowing the other is working hard and enjoying our new lives so much. Montreal and McGill definitely suits her. 

Read More
Julia GraffComment