I Marched bravely towards Spring
March has always been one of my favorite months, not only because it’s the month that I was born but it often has the sense that the universe is changing and getting rid of old stagnant energy, sometimes in pretty drastic and violent ways.
But nothing can really prepare us for the craziness that March had brought: I think we can aptly described the weather as no less than schizophrenic, as it freely fluctuated between warmer, almost spring like conditions, and severe winter storms that would unload a couple of feet of snow on us within a matter of hours and completely immobilizing the front range. Then there was also the rockslide that shut down I-70 for weeks.
But let’s be honest here, it wasn’t really the weather that was dogging me, but more the inner turbulence I was feeling and the emotional coaster ride that I was on that made me feel a little melodramatic about my circumstance. In other words, I struggled with climbing out of the “overly crowded room of my head”, and certainly failed at the attempt to “plunge into the vast ocean of my heart”.
I definitely felt that push and pull from the forces of nature, as it tried to decide if it was time yet for Spring or if it might prefer to wallow just a little bit longer in Winter Wonderland (I now understand why it’s called Wonderland, for it makes some of us wonder when Spring is finally going to be hereJ) But mainly, I just felt imprisoned in my own head, for all I could do all day all night was focus on that one lousy fingerprint on my otherwise flawless, pristine and beautiful mirror of life. I was toggling helplessly between feeling immensely grateful for all the wonderful things and people in my life, and rushing back to check every 5 minutes to see if that darn fingerprint was still there. I basically drove myself crazy.
Looking back at the month of March on my calendar, all I see is ABUNDANCE, ABUNDANCE, LOVE, JOY, MORE ABUNDANCE, MORE LOVE, FROM ALL DIRECTIONS! I had the best birthday ever, period. The Peace Project played a concert on my birthday at the Boulder Valley Unitarian Universalist Fellowship to a sold-out crowd and we all sang and danced and clapped and celebrated as if Spring really did arrive earlyJ. What more could I ask? I had some of my favorite people playing music with me and I also had all of my Boulder extended family and friends celebrate with me post-concert, not to mention the tidal wave of birthday greetings I was getting from all over the world on FacebookJ. I was obviously loved. But I was obviously not having any of it, but more choosing to focus on the one little nagging scab that I couldn’t really do much about, which finally came to a resolution a few days ago, and all I had to do was take a deep breath and allow that feeling of hurt to completely course through my entire being, through my heart, through my veins, and watched it dissipate and melt away like the last snowflakes of winter.
So what I learned from that was: you can’t force winter to be done if it hasn’t run its course, neither can you be done with feelings of hurt or disappointment until you can allow yourself to completely “feel the feelings”, and even then, it might still take a while for the storm to pass. The funny thing was that, I started writing all these tunes to welcome Spring in the beginning of March, inspired by the warmer temperatures, right after I was recovering from the nasty bug that I caught in mid-February, but I simply couldn’t get past the first couple of verses; for I was ready for Spring, but Spring wasn’t quite ready for me. So I had to wait and finally got one of the instrumentals done a couple of days before the equinox. The tune is called Spring Steps and I am going to premiere this in a few days with the Peace Project Trio in Lawrence KS (see below for info). Oh, did I mention that the Peace Project is finally getting a chance to get out of state to spread its message of love, peace and friendship. We’re gonna do a short run of Lawrence & Omaha and back and playing two really great house concerts.
Similar to the last few months, April promises to be a potpourri (did you know that the word actually means “rotten pot” in old French) of beautiful and sweet musical blossoms. They are all equally wonderful but I feel like I should at least highlight a few that are not frequent occurrences. The Peace Project Trio and Quartet obviously are not a common happenstance, so be sure to check out the more intimate and personal sounds of the mini peace projects if you are in Lawrence and Omaha, and later in the month in Southern Colorado. On April 10, the Boulder Library presents an afternoon of some of the most talented and prolific songwriters here in the front range. I will be playing host to Melissa Axel, John Common and Megan Burtt as these amazing artists share with us their wisdom of how each one of them crafts their songs in a workshop, followed by a concert. All budding songwriters are encouraged to bring in a tune of theirs to share and to open up for discussion during the workshop.
Still on the topic of songwriting, I am invited to read one of my poems, which I set to music on my album “Bowing With The Flow” in its original Mandarin at a poetry-focused event at the Broomfield Library on the 15th. And on the 16th, I am going to be a guest with the fun and creative Curious Theatre Company for a pre-show discussion series in which I will be talking and fiddling about my history with the whole violin to fiddle crossover experience.
I really could go on and on about all the exciting and fun stuff that I am involved with this month, but I am just going to mention one more thing: on the 20th, I will have the pleasure of working with Mary Wohl Haan, who is a well-respected dancer/choreographer/teacher here in Boulder. We will be presenting a lunchtime program at the Boulder Library called “Feet & Fiddle” which is going to feature Mary’s beautiful, adventurous and quirky choreography set to some of my compositions.
Now that I have completely talked your ear off, I hope to see each one of you in person soon and connect as spirits and most of all, to celebrate the arrival of Spring as one big global family (except for those of you in the southern hemisphereJ)
Peace & Love
Kailin
