Greetings friends,
Happy New Year to you. I hope this January finds you happy and well, with your loved ones nearby. It's been a while since I last wrote as there was a long stint of tours through fall and winter and finally a month of rest. I am so grateful for all the folks that came out to hear music. Words always fall short to express it.
But now Aryeh and I are on our way to Las Vegas where we are connected to their remarkable library and theater system. They will host our concerts and workshops next week that are free to the public. I love working with libraries, there is so much goodness and generosity. We are driving there as I write this, pulling a trailer of 23 harps to share.
Later this year I will turn 60 years old. It feels surreal. That means for 53 years music has been the fabric of my life. Playing guitar got me through my shy early years, then bass made my living in full-time cover bands, on to the harp, street performing, making records, and 20 years of art fair booths playing 8+ hours a day flying every week to all parts of the country. It was decades of uphill to make it to the fancy tour bus, dressing rooms and hotels, people in line for Windham Hill autographs, and getting on the Billboard charts with my recordings. It felt like a dream had finally come true and I had finally reached the mountaintop.
Now that I'm older, I realize what I thought was the mountaintop was just a stop along the way. Everything I could ever hope for is happening now, all these years later. When I wake to the bedroom view in the morning while my kitty cat purrs beside me, when I admire my creative friends and brilliant hubby, and especially when we are out in the world bringing a new experience to those who love music.
Folks don't know me, but come to see the visiting harps and are playing music for the first time. When we bring a concert to an elderly care home or hospital and make those folks smile and laugh, clap their aged hands, and put those hands on a beautiful harp, this feels sacred and is the dream come true.
I can be in no better place and my heart feels the fullest it's ever been.
So if you ever feel you missed out on those fancy dressing rooms or tour buses (or whatever that is for you), those things can be so exciting at first but can be an illusion. You could feel a momentary high but it can also feel lonely and not as connected to humanity and real life. Kind of like having only the frosting of a cake. So tasty at first, but then..not so filling.
If you have loved ones in your life and a soft place to sleep and something you create, give, or warms your heart to offer others, you are living the dream, you have the cake. It's truly as good as it gets.
I am grateful for this life of music, and all those adventures both magical and laborious. It gave me musical muscles that will I will always use to serve. It feels like what a ballet dancer does. You have to be really strong to be that gentle.
60 years old is a good time to be a little gentler. So we are touring a notch less this year. Staying a bit closer to home with a few exceptions, and taking better care of our backs and hands. Doing some community activities and working on the house and barn. In the fall we will tour farther and the holiday season too.
I know there are a lot of folks from the Southeast who are hoping for a return but the flights and moving of instruments is so much harder in the times we live now.
Our home and property have our hands full, and with longer fire seasons we just don't want to be so far that we can't get home if needed. I hope we can always stay connected by these newsletters or social media. I promise there will always be music and adventures to share.
As always, I love to hear from you. I try to write back to each email and am not always successful, but I do get to a lot of them and I read every single one and appreciate it deeply.
My wish for you for 2023 is that you have enough dreams come true, that you don't lament any things that didn't happen, that you have plenty of cake,
and you eat it too.
Yours always, Lisa Lynne
