a long limerick love letter. (warning: includes a real limerick by neil gaiman) (Patreon)

{patron-only post, and please respect the privacy of this one.}

dear loves.

greetings from a cold coffee shop in york (bison coffee. it's cold, but goddam this place is amazng and the coffee is real good).

this is a very emotional post, before you head in. it contains some heavy images. so, self care first, maybe only read this one when you have a quiet moment and space.

....................

i'm a few days behind on blogging but i'm working hard to keep up. 

gabrielle is taking so many beautiful photos on the road it's hard - so much beauty, so little time for words. shows every night. exhaustion.

i just posted this photo of gaby's, from glasgow:

almost every night after the show, after i spill my own soul, people quietly tell me their own stories. 

this woman i met two nights ago in glasgow is fighting to keep her 17-year old son alive. he has a rare disease. 

she told me that nobody sees her pain or struggle right now.
sometimes all we need is a witness.

i love my job.

i wouldn't drop her name in public, but this is trisha, and she's a patron.

trisha: i love you.

i hope everything is okay and even if it's note, we're here for you. 

........

i don't take gaby, our foreign tour correspondent photographer, for granted. the kinds of images she's been able to capture of this community while i tour are a musicians' dream. she has captured so much of what this tour has felt like, and that's no easy task. she's a pro. and she's patron-funded, so pat yourselves on the back. we are all armed with iphones, but gaby wanders the venue armed with her three massive cameras and her light touch....knowing exactly when to snap. she's a real artist and i am so fucking proud that we were able to give her this job so she could fucking shine the way she does. when i saw this photo (i was in my tour bus bunk, and she texted it from the lounge) i burst into tears again. i fucking love this job. i really do. i love all of us. i am so proud of this whole crew.

we've been through a lot. 

jack and gaby are hard at work on their full-time project: the tour reportage piece that they were hired to do, and i've seen the early draft. it's a real work of art, and i can't wait to share it with you.

so you know, i keep shifting how i'm doing things (posting the show photos and group-patron photos a few days after the fact, not uploading a virtual sign-in every night) just because our energy levels on the road are petering out and i'm also actually signing after some shows...but just bear with me. i'm trying to not do so much that i kill myself but enough so that i don't wind up with a massive back-log of images and stories with no place to put them.

and with all that bing said...i'm catching up.

here is a photo-journey of limerick: photos by gaby, words by me.

let's begin with bus parking, and a lovely autumnal day.

i actually haven't toured in a bus since the grand theft tour in 2012. it's like living in a ship with everyone, and it makes everybody close. i love it. 

here's subul...

and the frost on the ground...

me, david, subul, jack (and gaby, photo'ing) heading off to do our morning shintaido, even though it was fucking freezing...

our taxi driver into town. she is not a fan of boris johnson.

me and michael, who's been killing it on tour....

at the venue: this is subul setting up the piano light for "drowning in the sound"...

.................

i told the shorter version of this story the other day.

we had an email from a hospice nurse who had a patient named sinéad, who couldn't make it to the show because she is at the end of her life. 

we went to visit....not really sure what to expect. i wrote a little about what happened here on this post....but here are some more photos. they're just beautiful.

having gaby with me has been like having a magic-feather-friend.

she makes me braver.

i made a half-hearted joke about how my ukulele resembled a black doctor's bag....

and i'll just let these photos tell their own story, for the most part.

this is sinéad's sister, niamh.

someone in dublin (or was it belfast?) gave me a ring.

it was a silver ring with a celtic design all around it.

i gave it to sinéad. 

she is wearing it on her right hand...it fit perfectly.

whoever gave me that ring, you married the world.

thank you.

this is an irish nurse angel.

i talked with her about how much i loved and appreciated the nurses who took care of anthony day in and out when he was dying.

these people marry the world every day. they are so incredible, unsung heroes of the universe.

this life.

i love my crew, so much.

so much.

................

the venue that night:

these are the powerful women behind "in her shoes", erin and cara.

they came to the show to keep doing their incredible work, but you should read this:

https://www.her.ie/news/in-her-shoes-the-powerful-new-platform-for-women-brutally-impacted-by-the-8th-393655

they started a platform that spread like wildfire during the repeal effort, a way for women to anonymously share their abortion stories. the irish times started running them. it was a feat of using the internet for good. here's the facebook page:

https://www.facebook.com/InHerIrishShoes/

........

the show.

here's the video of us singing "happy birthday" and screaming we love you to sinéad at the venue that night....

https://youtu.be/718LcOhsxlU

breath in, breath out.

sinéad is still hanging in there. i will let you know how she goes.

send your love and light to the family.

and...THE PATRON PHOTO.

i missed the group shintaido in limerick, so we did a shintaido-group photo at the venue....

after the show with erin and cara...

this is emma langford, a great local musician, and me by the "limerick station" we set up at the top of the night for people to share their political limericks:

this was neil gaiman's submission:

There once was a dame named Amanda, 

whose husband did not understand her, 

so to make her heart whole 

she unburdened her soul 

to a wombat three goats and a panda.

this person took my advice and read the sleep book.

THE SLEEP BOOK IS AMAZING EVERYBODY RAED IT PLEASE IT WILL CHANGE YOUR LIFE. 

subul loading up the trailer because she is a fucking pro

merch queen alex and sub

michael, sub, alex, david and gaby (in mirror) and jack....getting ready for david's birthday whiskey....

that's jody, who was traveling on the bus with jack....i already miss her....

i just love this man.

the end.

wait not the end. this is dirk, our bus driver. i love him, too.

really the end.

and

gaby: thank you. you are a treasure.

i love you all more than i can say right now.

thank you for being my patrons.

this world, this life, this everything.

off to play york.

xxx

AFP

------THE NEVER-ENDING AS ALWAYS---------

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