priorities

Whatever I am doing lately, I feel like I should be doing something else.  Everything feels important.  I find myself unable to actually give specific weightings to my priorities ‘cause I want everything all the time at the same time.  Everything.  I want to be able to travel and buy clothes and go to concerts and be able to clear my debts.  I want to eat healthy and learn how to cook, be able to socialise every night of the week and also give myself space to write music and be creative.  I want to sleep in and lounge around the house all weekend with my boyfriend and also get up early and see and experience the world.  How the crapballs does anyone have time for everything.  I want it all and I want it all now and I can’t figure out what the fuck is most important to me.

Living in this state is the worst because it makes it really hard to enjoy the great things that you are actually experiencing.  I feel like I am perpetually living in fear of running out of time, this fear causes anxiety and anxiety causes depression and to cope with depression I sleep, which leads me straight back to the fear of running out of time cause I keep sleeping instead of doing things.  Talk about a vicious cycle.  I also sleep because I am afraid of being shit at everything I want to do although I will probably only admit that to your face after a few drinks or if you are part of the rare few who get to experience the sleeping-pill-drugged-up-Rhiain (she is quite entertaining and far too revealing so I have been told). 

Another downside to this inability to prioritise and the fear it induces is that you never think you are achieving anything either.  Mainly because you are always thinking far too far ahead to look at what it is you are actually doing.  So l decided to think about what it is that I have actually done this year and the list is pretty good. 

I almost died in January, gots me a good bout of septicaemia, which is pretty much a great way to start the year – especially because it coincided with the beginnings of a flourishing romance.  Luckily I didn’t die, and the romance has lingered.  I then also got to play at my first music festival which was an incredible experience.  So I guess one can say it was a busy January.  February was the first anniversary month for a couple of tragic things that occurred in my family last year, so that was a tough wee time, not to mention my dad was in a motorcycle crash that was pretty serious to say the least, but it also was the first valentine’s day ever that I haven’t been alone, and was in fact given one of the sweetest and most romantic gifts I have ever been given.  It was also a month where long-time friends and I got to retreat to the beach for some much needed bonding time as well as a month where I got to witness the union of two close friends and officially be welcomed as god-mum for their beautiful daughter.  March I had a paid gig to play and brunches to go to but mostly I think I spent it going on various dates with the bf and slowly becoming acquainted with his family and friends.  I also spent a crap load of time slacking off at work by shooting people with my dart gun and jumping out of bins to scare them.  This was in preparation of also having to farewell two workmates, the two who encouraged my playfulness (I in fact have had only one excuse to shoot my gun since they left).   In April I managed to source and play another paid gig, go to Melbourne for a friend’s wedding, tour a brewery and be promoted into a flash new role at work while also beginning a creative venture with the boyfriend in the form of an online zine called Venn (first issue in the making).  This brings us on to May which we are only half way through, but I have already endured the dreaded visit to the parentals to introduce them to the boyfriend, managed to keep my five month old goddaughter alive whilst being her sole carer for a few hours, and witnessed my older sister graduate her well-earned degree.

So…maybe I haven’t been doing nothing after all.

I guess I need to chill out a little bit.  After writing this list I can see that life has been lived and really that is my main priority.   I just want to be happy and live life.

Perhaps I just have to remind myself of that.  Often.

roadys, festys, lol'ing and the joy of abbreviating

I’m on to my tenth day in a row of sunshine.  TENTH PEOPLE!  This, being summer, may not seem like a bizarre and special find to you. But it is.  It is rare.  I feel like I’ve won lotto and slash or found out I have superpowers, it’s that exciting for me.  Obviously I’m not exaggerating at all.  See this is the longest streak of sunlight I have had since I can remember sunlight.  Ok that’s a lie.  But definitely true when I think of my summers here in the capital.  I think January is finally showing off and I like it.  Hopefully February will feel competitive and try and outdo him. 

Not only have I had a 10 day run of sun, but just a kind of general awesomeness as well.  And I use awesomeness not lightly.  Ok let’s be honest, I use it all the time.  Willy nilly some might say. BUT I mean it.  I have had a great couple of weeks.

Perhaps it’s because January didn’t start so well for me, as in I was unwell.  As in hospitalised.  As in sick.  So a lot of January for me was just feeling like I was dying, lying in bed, watching Downton Abbey and missing the sunlight.  In fact, when I finally was well enough and started back at work it was the 17^th already. And I was like, oh hells no! That be the date? Sheet.  The year had well and truly begun without me. 

Starting back at work was a painful excursion.  In fact, I still feel like I’m ‘play working’ a little.  As in, I’m just here, hanging with my peeps, typing some stuff, but really I’m still on holiday, like, I only have to do this for a day right?  But no.  Its real.  I guess that feeling of play working was only heightened by the fact that after two days back we had a public holiday and then I had to only work three days before I was off on holiday again.  It’s always weird taking annual leave after you’ve just taken so much time off even though you booked it ages ago.  But there was no way I wasn’t going away.  Why you ask? Oh yeah, cause I be playing my first music festival. Oh hells yeah I did.  And yep, I will say it unashamedly, it was Parachute Music Festival.  Or as a friend calls it, the chute. 

I didn’t have too many expectations from the weekend actually, just that it was a great opportunity to play for people who wouldn’t normally hear my music, and hopefully more than that it would be a fun time away with the strangers aka my band.  And indeed it was.  Like so fun.  I’d forgotten how much I love road trips and sleeping in dorm rooms with five other people.  In fact I think I probably had the most fun with the sharing room scenario.  I have issues sleeping so its delightful for me to have people around to annoy and talk to while waiting for sleep to come (plus I take sleeping medication so I get super loopy at night).  I think the person who least enjoyed it was Matt Potts aka the log (seriously, he’s a log, like once he’s in bed he’s just there and still and doesn’t move.  It’s pretty hilarious).  But like all roadies we had our hilarious moments and our lulls and that’s what I enjoy; how the journey develops.  The hilarity and the seriousness.  The silence and the noise.  The nicknames.  The new perspective of people.  The zone of comfy-ness with each other you don’t tend to find in day to day life.  I mean we all loved loved playing at Parachute, it was a blast, but possibly my fav part of the weekend was just the hanging out part.

It was strange being a the chute, strange but fun.  I hadn’t been since I was 17, so as scary as this sounds it has been over (just) a decade since I was last there.  Yes I am that old.  I think most of us were in the same boat actually.  But it was cool.  There were still a lot of the old time bands that I remember from back in the day, but there was also quite a surge of rad under the radar bands from Australia or the US and even here in little New Zealand.  In fact, a gorgeous band called Paper Cranes stole two of our members, the tater-tots (Andy & Nina) for an evening and had them play their set with them.  It was stunning.  The last song in their set, All My Life, is such a lush deliciousness and the tater-tots guest starred on their EP (which can be found here: http://lovepapercranes.bandcamp.com/album/oh-love) so I’m thankful they were able to play it with them live, cause the cello and mandolin sound freaking sweet.  I love having band friendships.  It’s the best.  And Paper Cranes were certainly a highlight from the chute venture.

Another one actually is this Auckland band called Great North.  Seriously, out of all the bands I saw at the chute, they were one of my favs.  I think they just have that something you know.  Awkward in-between song banter and all.  I seriously like them.

So the chute was ace.  But the ace-ness of life didn’t stop there.  Oh no no no. Think again my pretties.  I then ditched my band leaving them to drive the 7 or so hours back to Wellywood whilst and I bussed up to Auckland to see some friends and go to Laneway where I gorged myself on music glory and friend loving.  Yeah it was pretty sweet.  Two of my best friends as well as my sister all live in Auckland so it’s kind of a place for me with a lot of love.  My two friends I’ve known since I was well young (one since 10, the other 12) so their souls are a sort of home to me.  I get to spend far few minutes with them so I enjoyed more than anything staring into their beautiful faces and talking their mouths off.  Not to mention grooving our sticky beer laden feet off come the end of the night to Tame Impala.  My highlight of Laneway however was Bat for Lashes. Oh god she was amazing.  I was in awe. I may even be in love.  From the second she walked on stage she owned it.  Clothed in a metallic red wonder of a dress I was giddy and faint hearted from the first glimpse of her.  She was amazing.  She may have changed my life a little.  She hells as inspired me.  Other great sets of the day were Alt-J and Polica. 

Still with one day of holiday left and sunshine to spare I spent the next day catching up with people and just being generally happy.  Now whilst back in Wellington (and back at work which is entirely lame), the sunshine seems to be prolonging the happy feeling as evenings feel early and extended and therefore are being utilised and well spent and enjoyed.  Not to mention the weekend seemed to quickly approach which was good because my lovely friend and keyboardist/backing vocalist, Sarah Colman, (an amazing solo artist in her own right not to mention) held a house gig party last night which was the best of fun.  There was a diverse and interesting line up with solo artists, spoken word poets, and Rhiain and the Utter Strangers on the bill.  Perhaps inspired by my new love, Bat for Lashes, I actually feel like I owned the stage a little more than I usually do.  So that was fun.  But let’s be honest the highlight of the evening was at the end of the night when we tried to light a flying lantern.  You know, those massive paper lanterns that you light the bottom of and they fill up like a hot air balloon and float dreamily into the air.  Yes, well, this lantern lighting exercise became the most hilarious slash dangerous thing in the world.  Someone almost died and slash or we almost burnt down Petone.  If only I was kidding.  All was going well; the lantern was lit and we were just waiting for it to fill up enough to take off,  but we live in Wellington people.  Windy Wellington.  So it was a pretty rocky take off.  Sarah kept trying to grab it to straighten it up and I am surprised her hands are now not cinders.  Eventually she thought it was safe and let it go.  It wasn’t safe, it didn’t float up into the air just over and down towards a bunch of my friends sitting on the lawn.  My other friend, B-Ho, stepped in now, thankfully saving the onlookers and the grass from destruction and again we waited for the lantern to fill up a bit more so to achieve lift off.  And then once again we let it go, hoping to stare with magical feelings in our hearts as it floated away.  We didn’t.  Take two of too much wind and desperately trying to steady it and then trying to get it away from the grass and the shrubs so we didn’t burn everything down was more like how it went.  I had thought then we were going to give up on it.  Too many almost burns had occurred.  I thought we were dragging the fireball, I mean lantern, over to the concrete in order to stamp the shit out of it.  When all of a sudden it is back in the air and is actually floating up up and away, albeit at not a very steep climb.  A friend who was not paying attention literally, literally, almost got the fireball in his face.  He thankfully ducked last moment due to excessive yelling of his name by his lady and I tell you it missed him by millimetres.  But then, this tricky fireball lantern actually began its climb to greatness.  Soaring into the sky.  We all ooooooo’d and aahhhh’d and every now and then panicked when the wind picked up and it rocked around.  I am sure my words have not even begun to articulately describe how awesome and dangerous and fucking hilarious that was but honestly I am not sure I have laughed so hard in a while.

Anyway, I guess this is just an update on life, a “what’s new with me” sort of blog entry.  One which I’ve rambled on a bit for! Sorry.  I guess right now I just feel excited about things (even taking into account the rose tinted glow everything has due to the thrill of a budding romance), but yes, I feel quite excited about things.  Everything.  Life, friends, music, all of it.  Like I said, I may just be a bit gushy these days, but hells, if I’m feeling happy, and enjoying things, and excited about life why try and diminish that?  Sometimes I feel I don’t acknowledge the good as often, so here it is.  An acknowledgement.  So I don’t forget the goodness there is. Cause there is.  There is goodness.

so this is the new year...

Happy New Years!! (she says as she high fives herself and continues marathon-ing it through Downton Abbey season one).  Due to an unfortunate timing of a silly procedure, Miss Rhiain, aka me, is at home alone on New Year’s eve.  As I cannot be around people I am going to talk my mouth off to all you online folk about new years and resolutions and making years count.

Last year, just prior to the turn of 2012, one of my close friends invited me around for an afternoon of lavish kindness together with another close friend.  With food and wine we sat around and chatted until a home visiting beautician showed up and surprised us with delicious facial treatments.  It was divine.  After the facial we returned to my friend’s lounge where she had laid out blank canvases for each of us surrounded by stacks of magazines and other “scrapbooking” materials.  “We’re making dream boards” she said.  I know, the words scrapbooking and dream boards kind of make my skin crawl a little too, they’re just sort of naff words.  But in all honesty it has been one of the best things I have done leading into a new year.  Beats the crap out of any new year’s resolutions I have tried to make and inevitably never stuck to, or any other sort of evaluation mechanism I have tried to implement.

I always spend either side of the cusp of the year panicking basically.  Worried I have wasted it, and fretful over how to make the next one count and I know I am not alone in this sort of behaviour.  So like most I have spent years making lists and resolutions and instead of said lists and resolutions providing me with freedom and inspiration and resolve, I have more or less felt like I am just putting off the inevitable disappointment that I will be to myself, as I know I will fail.  Like I have a brick in my hand and I’m falling to the bottom of the ocean.  Yes, I am nothing if not dramatic.  So I know not how to express how magical it was to spend a crafty afternoon with two of my favourite ladies, finding pictures and pretty images and statements and words that created my dream year for 2012 in the form of a collage.  We spent quite a few hours cutting and pasting and thinking about what actually we wanted from the year to be and then we walked each other through our dreams.

The exciting thing now is that pretty much everything on my board has happened.  Well, that’s hard to say really, as a lot of the things are progressive in nature, so the end result should not have occurred yet anyway, but the bulk of things represented by the imagery on my board, well, it has at least begun.  I had some simple things on there, like growing my hair.  Who knew you had to look after your hair to grow it right?  I didn’t.  But now I do.  And I’ve grown the crap outta my hair this year. And I love it (I’ve wanted long hair ever since I went to Scandinavia where the guys are beautiful but the girls even better). The rest on the board, not so simple.  Like one of my goals was to let go of the idea that I am unmemorable.  I’ve had that belief for most of my life and it has only been compounded by the fact that I am constantly encountering people who cannot seem to remember my name, let alone my face.  But I’ve learnt that this says very little about me and more about them.  See, I am a name person.  98% of the time I will remember someone’s name and face, even if I have only met them once.  It’s just a thing I can do.  Others can’t.  So this year I let that belief go.  That was much harder than growing my hair.  But I can actually say I did it.  It was on my board, and it is now done. 

Probably the biggest chunk of my board dedicated to one thing was covered in music related imagery, and boy did I chase that this year.  It’s exciting to think that within one year I have recorded and released an EP, had my song played on national radio, and shot a music video together with a bunch of other very cool things.  Its totes cray cray.  Kind of unbelievable, for me anyway.   It been hard work, but I’d be lying if I said I didn’t enjoy it.  I’m still just an unknown, just a girl pursuing a career in music, but hey, that’s hells as better than where I was a year ago.

Other things I’ve managed to do that were weaved into the imagery on my board is travel (Bali & Thailand), put myself out there in terms of boys and romance and whatnot and also wear togs without boardshorts (because let’s be honest ladies, it just looks better).  So yes, I think it has been a successful year and it is so nice to be able to look at the canvas that I plastered only but a year ago and see that I really did what I wanted. 

I don’t think I am going to return to resolutions.  Whilst I haven’t made another board this year (yet) I am going to figure out a way to creatively highlight my hopes for 2013.  I think the difference is, instead of resolving to go to the gym three times a week from now on, or something of the sort, I’ve decided it’s better to say saying something like, I will pursue health this year.  Give yourself room to grow into it I reckon, otherwise you always feel like too much of a failure to continue trying.  That’s what I’ve noticed anyways.

So yeah. This is the new year.  And I’m excited.

(this was my dream board for 2012)

survive and live!

Salemat Pagi! (Indonesian)

Sawadee kha! (Thai)

or in our language, Hello! 

Today I find myself in a very creative space.  A room that is lush with inspiration that on entering I began itching to create.  And seeing I am instrument-less, the art of forming words is what I have chosen.   

I am in Chiang Mai, Thailand at the moment with my friend Pash.  She works as a graphic designer for an NGO called Partners.  They provide aid and relief for Burmese refugees.  I am here in her office space and it is just gorgeous.  Massive wooden white tables, perspex with chalk pens, arty gadgets and dowhackys lying around, pens, pencils, paper.  Divine.  Whilst I will not pretend that I have the kahones for the intensity of the work they manage to do over here, I do crave to have a creative space like this.  Oh I am imagining right now the beauty of coming into work everyday to a space that is inspirational and lush, littered with friends and colleagues and creative projects and just getting my hands and head and heart in there.  I feel like right now I am getting a glimpse of something I want.  I will now have to start thinking on the how. 

But enough of that!  One must back the truck up a bit and catch you all up on the last 10 days.  The days of Bali.  Ten doesn't seem like a big number but I can report with a pleasant happiness that the days seemed long and full which often doesn't happen on holiday.  I went to Bali with five of my friends to celebrate one pretty lady's 30th birthday.  We spent the first three days in Sanur on the east coast, then up to Ubud which is in land for three days, and lastly Kuta for three days.   We decided collectively if we were to change anything from the trip it would be to start with Kuta and end with Ubud; for all its popularity, Kuta is anything but my favourite thing.  However I decided that whilst I lacked the love for Kuta I think it was essential to experience.  Every time we went somewhere new in Bali we saw something we hadn't seen before.  Bali has many facets and its extremes somehow create the balance that it is known for.  I think one of the most interesting things I learnt while in Bali was about the balance.  For me, as you will know if you have read my other posts, I think in seasons.  Our external world is affected and altered by physical literal seasons, and in life I often use the concept of seasons to explain my thoughts on the world and my position in life.  Whereas in Bali they don't have seasons.  They have dry and wet.  Male and female.  Ying and yang.  Good and bad.  Balance.  And I think it has given me a new perspective.  I guess perhaps naively I have considered balance to be the middle place between good and evil or the middle between busy and bored and so on and so forth.  But I think now it is having equal parts of both.  

And I think as a group we found that balance in Bali.  We had lots of laughter and lots of silence.  Lots of rest and lots of busyness.  We did a heck load of stuff actually.  We went for explorations on bikes and negotiated our way through a ruleless roundabout, we went to a silversmith class and I have a gorgeous silver ring inscribed with the memory of Bali, went to the markets and bartered it up, we lay on the beach and I fortunately avoided the burn, we experienced a Balinese Kecuk dance, we visited rice terraces and coffee plantations and saw pineapples growing "in the wild" (who knew pineapples didn't grow on trees?), we saw a temple, we saw the last of the sunlight setting over Jimbaran beach, I mean yeah, we did a lot.  But yet it was laced with relaxation and rest.  I think the only thing I didn't manage to do which I said I wanted to do was yoga, but hey, I can do that in Wellington :).

At the first resort we stayed at in Sanur we had a romantic dinner as we all honeymoon packaged it up, and it was lovely.  The hotel staff spent all day preparing the area we were to sit in, decorating it with flowers and woven flax and they left us a letter on the table which I picked up and read out loud to the group as we sat down.  Because we had already experienced some hilarious menu reading like corn plakes instead of flakes and cheese and ram pizza instead of cheese and ham pizza, I mis-read the word live (sounds like give).  I read it as live (as in jive).  Five or more times throughout the letter they said, 'Survive and live happy life!' which is lovely if you read it as live/give however every time I read it I used the live/jive sound and I was completely oblivious to my mistake.  My friends graciously didn't correct my mispronunciation until afterwards when we all gaffawed over my silliness.  In fact, it soon became the motto of the trip and we had to convince ourselves it was a bad idea to all get matching tattoos with that inscription.  

So to you all, I hope you are well and and happy and survive and live (jive) happy life!

I’m getting on a plane motherfu*kers

There is 30’s swing playing in the next room right now.  There are three people around me who a week ago I did not know.  I am in a new house; a new room.  I have packed and unpacked everything I own.  I now have four flatmates as opposed to one.  I walk a different route home.  And I have said goodbye to what housed my last year.

After packing and unpacking, I have packed again, only on a far smaller scale.  I have skin that has been tanned by a spray.  My toenails match my fingernails.  I have seen the last of my office for the next 19 days.  I have saved all my good underwear.  And I am indeed on the cusp of holiday. 

Bali and Thailand baby.  Bali and fucking Thailand.  10 days with delightful friends in Bali celebrating a fabulous lady’s impending 30^th, followed by a visit to a love of mine in Chiang Mai with a brief liaison with the sister and brother-in-law in Bangkok.  Hello.  Could life be sweeter?  Oh yes it could.   Let’s add the warm-weather-reliability factor.  I’m having difficulty convincing myself that I don’t need to pack a bag of sweaters.  My mind can’t compute.  Summer in this country is not absent of a need for stockings and sweaters, but supposedly, the land of the Thai and the Balinese find these items in their unnecessary piles, or perhaps don’t find them at all.

I have BIG plans for this holiday.  Big.  In Bali I plan to sleep, read, drink, attend yoga, have many a massage, troll the markets, swim, be generally warm, and most importantly, laugh my freaking ass off.  This final point I am guaranteed of, for the mix of people I am going to travel with never seem to disappoint me on that front.  I think we are a sitcom waiting to happen.    

Then Thailand.  Realistically what is going to happen there is that I will chatter till my voice box and lungs go on strike.  I mean it, like proper strike with pickets and signs and slogans and general masterful protesting.  For I plan on chattering, nattering, squealing, yelling and laughing at various quantities within the albeit too brief time I will spend with my friend Pash who lives in Chiang Mai.

THEN (as if things couldn’t get any better) I get to spend one magical day in Bangkok with the two most precious people known to my existence.  I am not sure what we will do but I doubt we will sleep.  At least I certainly won’t.  I’ve missed them too desperately for the past six months as they have been travelling the world, so I will probably resort to watching them sleep and sniffing them occasionally so I can absorb their presence back into my bones.

This holiday honestly could not have come at a better time.  Almost as if it weren’t on the horizon my body might have given up some time ago.  I guess I feel just a bit burnt out (as you would have probably gauged from my last post).  I’ve been in survival mode a bit; a bit just make it to the holiday Rhiain.  I’ve actually only just realised how much this is true for I have barely made any plans post-holiday.  For the first time in ages it feels like a bit of space might be allowed into my life, for the lack of post-holiday plans actually means I haven’t crammed my life full of too much stuff like I usually do.  This is not to say I won’t yet do that.  I can only promise myself so much.

I don’t know about you, but sometimes the anticipation of things is almost better than the thing.  Like waiting for this holiday has been such a drawn out and stretched process but the anticipation has been heartbreakingly fantastic; waves of joy and excitement have smacked my face and washed over my body every now and then for the past, well, two years.  Yeah.  Two years.  I’m pretty sure it was my friend’s 28^th birthday when she tabled this idea initially.  But sometimes being on this side of the adventure is more fun, for on the other side it is simply over.  I know that is a slightly fatalistic outlook, but it is my general outlook nonetheless.  So for this holiday my biggest goal is to be in the moment.  Breathe it in.  Experience it.  Not rush through the good parts with premature sadness of their impending end, but appreciate what time I have and that I have it as opposed to not.  Knowing me I will not achieve this goal entirely, but heck, I am going to try my darnedest. 

What I will say though is that whilst I have barely any “plans” post-holiday at the moment, I do plan on devoting a load of time to thinking on this trip.  I am hoping to get the creative juices flowing and begin crafting some new lyrics and new songs and new ideas, so keeps your eyes peeled and your ears open. Now, I will hopefully update you all from Bali with some glorious photos of sun and beaches or stories of happy happenings, but until then…love to you all.

the lament of foolishness

There are days where I am astounded by my own stupidity.  You know that ill feeling that weaves its way through your veins so that every part of yourself feels aware of how royally you messed up.  I find it incredibly difficult to process the feeling, the awareness of one’s foolishness.  I feel it sits in my skin and stains all my thoughts and I can’t escape it.

Even when a stitch-up-solution is found, you know a solution that whilst “solves” things is not ideal and should never have had to have been broached, well even when that patch is found I can’t help but feel the echos of stupidity reverberating in my hollows. 

I have faced a lot of conflict and challenges in the last year and whilst I know I am learning and I know I am growing and I know I’m building my strength and thickening my fighter blood, I don’t understand why these situations cannot be a little bit more spaced out?  Cannot the respite period be longer in order to solidify these so called lessons?  It’s like for the last year I’ve been stuck on a ‘rapid fire’ level in some playstation game.  

I know things have seasons.  We have literal seasons in our year and we have figurative seasons in our life.  I get that.  I accept that.  I can deal with that.  But the thing about seasons is that, for example, Spring always comes just in time; it flashes its shades, tantalises you with its pockets of warmth, and helps you make your way through to the show-stopping heart lifting song of summer; the actual light at the end of the tunnel.  Especially here in Wellington, Spring is renowned for its thrashing wind and its fickle days but yet it manages to give you hope of what lies ahead.  It shows you there is going to be an end to this stagnant cold and darkness.  And if I’m honest I just feel like I am in an incredibly long and drawn out winter and I am desperately awaiting the arrival of Spring in my life. 

Well that’s not entirely true I suppose.  I’m such a verbal processor that now that I have written that down I guess I realise that perhaps I have had a few flashes of Spring as of late.  Releasing my EP being one of them.   My impending trip to Bali another.  So maybe my Spring is starting to stretch itself across my life.  As I said Spring is known for its horrendous winds so maybe I will just be thrashed about for a tad longer, but then I will get to move into a sunny calm period.  I honestly hope so. 

I’m not suggesting my struggles are the worst of their kind, although I have to say I have had a few experiences this year that would probably rate high on the scale of nasty.  But that’s the thing isn’t it.  It doesn’t really matter what it is.  This year I have dealt with things, and am dealing with things I have never had to deal with before.  It has been the fullest year, good and bad, that I have ever had.  And I think it is a fruitless exercise to compare tragedies and wounds.   All I know is I am getting tired from dancing quickstep style, one step forward and far too many back.

I’m not really sure much of this has a point apart from it being thoughts and words I am sure most of you have thought at some point.  But I know talking about things always helps me to better deal with them and to ground myself as well.  The reality is what really can I do but hope that this is the transition from winter to spring and that the evidence of summer will soon be on the horizon. 

I think I just have to make it through these next few weeks and then it will be all sunshine, sleep, cocktails and yoga as I fun it up in Bali.  Bring it on.

on thursdays in spring and releasing eps

As it has been a long while since my last post I am fearful this might get long and wordy (as I am surely known for editing in words as opposed to out), but then again, there is a lot to catch up on!  Since we last spoke I have been busy as a bee working on a variety of things all culminating in my EP release ‘tour’ (yes two cities constitutes a tour methinks!).  I’m not gonna lie, it has been a heck load of work, and being the sort who is naturally of the anxious persuasion, it also had moments which were overwhelmed by stress.  But really, it’s been the best and most rewarding thing I have done even though its been quite a long voyage just to get this far. 

Almost 3 years ago, in September 2009 actually, I was just hanging out in Houston, Texas with one of my closest friends, and we were sitting and chatting on her bathroom floor, which might I just say seems to be a setting which throughout life has proven to be the place in which life changing scenes play out for me.  Some of my most memorable moments include friends, bathrooms, and plum wine (and if your mind just went to the gutter,  get.it.out!).  My friend and I were sitting on the cold tiles talking about love and life and goals and dreams.  I was 25 at the time and I exclaimed that that was it; I had had enough of not chasing my dreams.  I declared that when I returned to New Zealand I was going to make an EP and it was going to be called heartplusmelody.  At that time I didn’t even know what songs would be on it, and in fact it turns out I hadn’t written any of them, but I just knew it was to be called heartplusmelody.  And so to cement this plan, this goal, my friend and I traipsed on down to the local tattoo salon and inscribed those exact words on the inside of my foot. 

So yes, it has taken three years for the initial gumption to be followed up by results.  But I consider myself a late bloomer, someone who takes her time with things, and definitely with the tortoise approach to life.  But I think that is ok.  It is ok to be 28 and only just releasing your first EP.  The EP release ‘tour’ was actually at a perfect time for me; it was at the end of the week that I turned 28.  I feel like I’ve started my year with a bang.  I don’t know about you, but I always give myself two new years, each year.  There’s the proper new year, at the start of the year, where you make your resolutions and you refocus yourself.  But then sometimes the year disappears before you have a chance to catch your breath, so I have my second new year on my birthday, cause technically it is also the start of a new year for me.  And as I said, I couldn’t be more pleased with how my second new year has begun.  We did our Wellington show at a cafe/bar called MEOW and  I love it there.  Mainly because if my lounge could look like anything, I wish it would look like MEOW.  All 70s decor, Lynch prints, people serving me food and wine.  I was nervous as the night started out because there were only a few people dotted around the place.  I was worried that despite all the work in promotion and advertising my audience might still be slight.  But as time wore on people flowed through the door till, from my on-stage perspective at least, it was full to the brim.  Standing room only styles.  Perhaps it was due to the fact that this time round I was hemmed in by 6 other people on stage with me (as I got on board some fantastic and new ‘utter strangers’ for these shows) or whether it was the few reds I skulled back beforehand, but my nerves slowly peeled off as we made our way through the soundscapes of Lontalius and Our Wild Lies to the point that when it came time for us to take the stage I claimed it and indeed set up home there.  I felt comfortable, at peace, and I had the best time I have had in ages.  I love performing.  I love singing.  I feel like things make sense when I do it.  At least to me.  The night almost feels like a dream now; a happy blur of goodness. (I have put some photos of the MEOW show below).

The next day however, when we realised we had to drive to Palmerston North, set up and then do it all again, our tiredness overtook any feelings of happy.  But then that’s the reality.  Like all things it’s part desperate hard work and exhaustion and part joyus fulfilling activity.  And of course, once the hard work was done, once we made it to Palmy and set up, that night too was a blast.

When I arrived home on Sunday I patted myself on the back, acknowledging to myself, I did it.  And then I collapsed in a ball of tiredness and watched ‘So you think you can dance’ till I fell asleep.

It’s funny though, all this work, all this energy, all this time, all these emotions, to get me here, at what I hope simply to be the beginning of my venture into music.  Now especially that I have a taste of it my mind is alight with notions and ideas all the time, and I am already dreaming about my follow up EP.

There is still a lot of work to be done.  Gigs is numero uno on the list of priorities.  I will surely notify you all as soon as I know of any on the horizon.  But also I just wanted to take this moment to thank the many many people who have been part of this with me.  I initially thought I was going to do this alone, as in make and release a CD under my name as a solo musician.  How thankfully wrong I was.  The name Rhiain and the Utter Strangers embodies how collaborative this whole thing is.  This EP and its release can be directly attributed to the likes of Oli Wilson, Nadine McGrath, Emma Tate, Tim Kelly, Chris Butchard, Rob Burns, Paul Gauvin, Alex Vaatstra, Dale Cotton, Jon Screech, Iain Dangerfield, Sarah Colman, Nina Tate, Monique Harlen, Andrew Tate and Brooke Singer.  But beyond that there have been people setting the stage for me for some time.  My family who have been physically, emotionally and financially supportive since, well, forever, and my close friends who have always encouraged me to chase rainbows and at times dragged me by the hand in order to do so.   I may be the face and the name, but I am certainly nothing without these peeps. 

Eeeugh I know.  That was a bit mushy ay.  Sometimes my heart is full of gushiness and a lush appreciation that I get a bit romantic in my expression.  But I think rolling with that is a good thing, I don’t think people tire of being thanked or appreciated.  And I hope all the abovementioned people know how thankful I am for their contributions.

So now it is September 2012.  Spring is upon us and my second new year has begun.   And I have hope it will be a good one.