Onward

I'm in a better place than when I last blogged.

I went home for a few days. Guilderland is still home, even though I haven't actually lived there for nine years now. As a former coworker of mine once said, "Wherever your mom is, is home."

I've been thinking a lot about home lately. Probably because of my multiple moves in a short time span. Like animals, we want a little space where we feel safe, where we feel we are supposed to be. My car is a nuisance to still own, but I cling to it, perhaps for its familiarity, my little chunk of space where I can be.

Or that it could take me somewhere I can be. Or away from somewhere I can't be anymore.

Mostly I keep it because I have this idea that when my album comes out, I will drive around the country in it, playing music and selling CDs. Maybe I can get the car company to sponsor me and make it " Honda Civic's Casey Dinkin National Tour."

But paying for the car until the hypothetical tour commences might have my negative impact on my ability to tour at all.

Ahhh, life's conundrums.

When I was home I was once again blown away by my mother's ability to get more done in a day than I do in three days. She is just go go go all the time. It makes my head spin. I can learn songs and write songs quickly and that's about it for my "quick" repertoire.

"How do you do so much?" I ask her. She replies (without looking at me, of course, because she is in the middle of doing something), "I just do things. I don't spend lots of time thinking about them; I just do them."

I will never be like that. It used to make me feel like a failure at life, because I couldn't check check check off the to-do list like my mom, because I agonized over arguably small decisions, and sat on tasks that could be completed in a relatively short amount of time.

But I realize now that this is connected to the rest of me. My head is frequently in the clouds, but the clouds are the studio space where I write my songs and work on music. Like yesterday, I was walking to B & H photo in midtown, to bring my malfunctioning video recorder in for a check-up. Instead of paying attention to where I was going, or even taking a minute to look up the address of the place, I walked around in my cloud studio space, learning the new Joni Mitchell song I've decided to cover, and by the time I finally got to B & H, the place was closed.

I know a lot of songs, though. And I've written a lot of songs. (Of course, I could share more of them with you if I had a working video recorder!)

Maybe I'm not as bad as I make myself out to be. I mean, I function. I have had jobs and been productive in endeavors unrelated to learning and writing songs. I get through life. But like everyone else, I suppose, I'm better at some things than others. And some things, often things that seem like they should be very simple, are a real struggle.

So I will spend months and months thinking about selling my car, pro and conning myself in circles, while paying State Farm in case of any accident which occurs while my car spends 98% of its time in a fenced lot down in yonder Brooklyn.

I should probably just sell it. But then there would be no Honda Civic tour.

Sigh.

I can't do it at the moment, anyway, because the car currently contains almost all of the possessions I will be moving tomorrow to my new closet apartment in Greenwich Village.

And I'm almost done learning that Joni Mitchell song. It's beautiful.

The Days I Wandered

I got together with a singer/songwriter friend of mine last week and confessed to her that the shiny glow of my initial months in New York had faded. "I'm starting to feel like I'm just wandering around, with no idea what I'm doing, kind of lost," I said.

"Welcome," she said. "You've now joined the rest of us."

Perhaps I feel lost because I keep moving. I spent my first four months in Jersey City. After that, I moved to the East Village, where I have lived for five months. Now, I am moving to what could be considered a closet but in Greenwich Village qualifies as a bedroom. It's another temporary living situation. I'll have to move again in July. I don't know where I'll go then. It's hard to know where to live when you don't know what you're doing.

Thing is, I thought I did know what I was doing when I moved to New York. I had a clear plan of action. Find music gigs, find yoga teaching gigs. In a matter of months, support myself by doing the things I love.

But the music gigs pay tip jar, even the good ones. And the venues expect you to bring a crowd with you, which isn't realistic as an every day sort of thing. I inquired about a few cover band situations, even had an audition with one. I half-heartedly learned some Lady Gaga, Rihanna, and Katy Perry songs. By the end of the audition, I knew that I could not put my musical energies into a cover band. I came to New York because I had my own songs inside of me, and I needed to do something with them.

I am doing something with them! I'm making an album. It is absolutely the core of what I wanted to do here, and for this I am beyond grateful. I found an incredibly talented producer, who is making my songs come to life. I raised over $10,000 for the album on Kickstarter, because I have the most amazing people in my life who support me and believe in my music. I am more than halfway finished with the album, and have set a release date of June 2, 2012.

Honestly, as far as music goes, things could not be going any better. I'm so happy with the progress I have made. It is not, however, a sustainable enterprise, at this point. I am praying, visioning, hoping, dreaming, that it becomes one in time. But, what I have settled into accepting--because it just seems to be the only way of maintaining sanity--is that I cannot judge the worth of my art by what it does or doesn't reap financially. My goal remains to eventually make a living from writing and performing music. But if I don't ever achieve this, I am still doing something valuable with my life by bringing this music into the world. I truly believe this, and therefore, it has to be okay no matter what.

I knew it was going to be tough. I guess I just didn't know exactly what that meant. Wandering and lost don't necessarily seem all that bad. But somehow they are taking their toll. I find myself yearning for home, and I somehow think I can find it here, if I keep walking. A place to live, a place to work, a network of people to be the various things I need people to be. I have already worn out my boots, but I have to keep walking.

And when I find it, this home I seek, will I look back fondly on these days when I wandered?