just a few words. (Patreon)

hello my dear patrons…

what a brutal day.

it’s past midnight here and i’ve spent the last six days organizing and performing in three fundraiser shows, recording two new songs and simultaneously shooting two music videos, packing up two years of shit, and taking care of ash. i am exhausted. i have also loved working. i would pull photos to post but i am too tired and too sad right now.

we head home in about a week. there is too much to do. i’ve been mostly staying off social media, everything is a painful race to the finish.

but i had to write and say this:

the news from america has broken my heart in places where it has been broken again and again. now it feels like a leaky faucet that will not shut.

it’s such a brutal cocktail of emotions right now, as i stare at this landscape that has held me, and my child, and kept us so safe for two years. it is not a pleasant note to leave on. and yet, the lead news story in NZ today was about a spate of gun violence here last night.

it is everywhere.

meanwhile, abortion probably becoming criminalized in the states.

i saw this today and it resonated.

and if you’d like a less snarky and more mature take on things, i highly recommend you take a moment to digest heather cox richardson’s simple and sobering post today about the history of gun laws in america. it’s short and educational and a necessary read for every american here:

https://heathercoxrichardson.substack.com/p/may-24-2022?r=17pp4&s=r&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web&utm_source=direct

….

a handful of people on social media asked why i am coming back to america.

the question itself stings.

you know why, right?

tonight, i am thinking about all of you and everything you’ve done for me, and for ash.

just as this country has: you have held us. you have kept us safe. you have wrapped your arms around us. my patrons made it possible for us to stay here. full stop. without your support, i could not have afforded it.

i am blessed and i know it.

the althing is coming soon, as is (if we can manage to turn it around in time) a recording of one of the new songs. (probably to be released on the DL just to you all).

…….

i spent a while listening to ash breathe after he fell asleep tonight, unable to imagine the thoughts and feelings of those dozens of parents and grandparents and siblings of those senselessly slaughtered little children.

tonight. tonight they have to try to sleep.

they have to try to sleep knowing they will never hear that little lull of breath again, they will never feel the softness of that hair or the grasp of a little hand.

i look at ash, i listen to his breathing aliveness, and my mind cannot easily go there.

it is too dark a place.

…….

feel free to use this post to share, rage, ask, hold, hug, scream, cry.

sometimes, in moments like this, we just need an outlet.

which reminds me, about 7 people texted me today…apparently this quote was used in the “calm” app today.

may we be this for one another….

right here and right now.

i’ll read the comments in the morning.

hold everything tight, my loves.

it’s all such a bloody blur. but we have here and each other.

xxx

afp