FULL MOONS OVER MIAMI

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. Large doses of cortisol-inducing anxiety, heartbreaking murders and human abuses, loving interactions with crowds, snacking and laughing with the mighty Des Demonas, new, unexpected ways to lose my voice, outrunning insane winter weather, deep band and crew love, and a week without sleep due to the waxing of the moon. (The moon has always had it in for me…)

All around I hear people say, and I read people’s writing talking about how important the arts are at this time. I believe it and amplify that notion as well, however, I am never one to assign any kind of importance to myself, so I don’t exactly have a pin of myself on the map of this whole thing? I’m kind of a migrating bird passing in and out of its traditional range. I think it has to do with the old notions of my powerlessness as a “girl” and also the fact that I have no idea what the moment of expansion and recharge that I myself have experienced as a concert goer, an art show attender, a movie watcher, a protestor, etc., is supposed to feel/look like as a performer/cheerleader? It is something I am trying to understand and be present for. I can say I have never felt so connected to the audience before, which is saying a lot as I have had a lasting love affair with you all for so long. Thank you for showing up. Thank you for giving of yourselves with open hearts. The band and crew and I are humbled by you every night.

The feeling or outcome I am trying to understand is not a “reward” or a “validation,” it is more like looking for some kind of a litmus test for efficacy; “Is this helping?” One thing I did not expect, is that with every show I am less afraid. The anxiety’s voice is tinier and tinier. I am hoping like crazy that translates to you in the audience. I have the privilege of visiting all the places we see on the news in real life and talking to people. We, the people who want peace and justice are the majority. This nation is not some divided grid of violence, it is a country where the violence is being done to us systematically. We are the majority, and not a homogeneous one either! We are varied and complicated and unique and all the more powerful for it. When we shake the fog of fear and hopelessness the administration is cultivating in our souls like black mold, we can see ourselves in our actual vastness again. We can then grab the hands next to us which make us invincible. Fuck state lines, fuck political parties, fuck regional stereotypes, fuck “otherness.” We are “our people.” I think this is maybe what the arts, organizing and protest help us do; to burn off the poison fog and remember our real, powerful selves. Arts remind us to act, because hope is not a weather system that comes and goes or an entity that visits deserving people. You can’t just sit there and wait for it hoping it will come. Hope is something we make, and have to practice at, just like all good things. Let yourself rejoice and feel good that you can make it from scratch at home! There can be no shortage if we ourselves are the source.

Thank you for coming out to see us all play for you. Thank you for your love and participation. XO

ManFriend packs it up post Miami love-fest.