Patterns and Pushing

As the miles pass beneath our bus wheels, I usually have one song playing on loop. This morning (as it has been the past few days) I've been listening to Bastille's Pompeii.

It's a catchy song; the beat isn't very hard, but it just keeps you going like a relentless march. Like the miles. So many of them. 21,915 so far to be exact.

We've visited 29 states, played  29 venues with  57 shows total. Sung to 51,886 people. In just two months. And we've still got one more to go...Did I mention that we've extended another week?

This past week we traveled from upstate New York all the way down to south Florida, and now we're headed all the way back up to Baltimore. Sometimes it feels like our booker just wants to torture us. How could we be making enough money on ONE performance to justify 4 days of travel up and down the entire east coast of the United States? Needless to say, the days have been weary.

But something keeps me going. I love being out on the road. I've been so fortunate to travel as I do for a living. On our way down to Florida, we actually got to stop in my hometown for an hour for our lunch break. Needless to say, I hopped on the phone and Facebook as soon as I found out. My mother, sister, and an old friend from high school were able to meet me at the Indian River Mall. Even though it was a short time, it was worth every minute. I've seen my mother three times in the past year. It's more than I've seen her in the last nine. I don't travel home often - for many reasons - so being able to see my family this many times has been one of the best things about this tour.

And my friends. So many of them. Coming out just to see me. It still shocks me that people will actually spend money on a night of theater to see me perform, driving so many miles themselves. People who I haven't seen in 10-15 years, but who I consider my family as well; my "band family" from high school, my SAI sisters and other friends from college. It seems like such a big deal to them, but really, it's not. It's just another day in the office for me. I am not famous. I am still a nobody in this business. Especially in this business. I still have so far to go before I reach my goals. But I'm getting there, one small step at a time.

We left our hotel in Sumter, South Carolina at six this morning. We've just begun hitting the DC traffic now at 3 pm. I think I just passed my best friend's apartment. Soon we'll be at the hotel in Baltimore. We leave there at 5:30 to make it to our 6 pm sound check. We have a show at 7:30 pm and then a bunch of us are performing a cabaret show around 10:30 pm, after our La Mancha performance. What were we thinking? Then a two show day tomorrow. I've got friends coming all weekend. Which means another song on repeat for this afternoon. I'm learning something new for the cabaret tonight. I'm so thankful that I have an amazing coach in New York who gave this song to me. It's perfection.

So I've got some business to finish up. Music to learn. An application for the Amtrak Residency to complete. Poetry to keep writing. And somewhere in all of this I need to find time to rest. But that can come later...in a month or so. Because as soon as I'm back in New York, I'll be hitting the audition circuit again. And the hours we put into that are just as hard. It's a never-ending wheel. And I'm not getting off any time soon.

It's surprising the things I find myself missing;
there isn't as much as you'd think.
Maybe the things that disappeared
are the ones that I wanted to sink.
Strange losing everything,
and leaving my home by boat.
But one thing I've found in this world without ground,
it's amazing the things that float.