LETTERS FROM THE ROAD: Denison Witmer
Guest post this week from a new fave, singer-songwriter Denison Witmer (his 2008 CD Carry the Weight
Dear You, Whoever You Are,
Kate at Outlandos Music sure has been patient with me. After three reminders (and to her credit not a touch of nagging) she is finally getting the guest post blog letter she requested from me months ago. I have always wanted to believe that I could surpass the age-old slacker musician type categorization and get things done promptly when asked. The truth is, I have fallen victim to my lifestyle and put this post until the last minute. I have a lot of surpassing to learn.
My tardiness excuse is lame: I released my new album on November 11, 2008. My promotional tour started on November 5 (one day after our monumental election – which also happens to be my birthday! I got my birthday wish!) and ran through the middle of December. I returned from tour exhausted from the day after day flights and driving to find myself in full holiday preparation. So many things got piled onto my to do list. So many things happened that weren’t even on any type of list. I baked dark chocolate cookies and put sea salt on top of them. I wrapped gifts in the most beautiful houndstooth wrapping paper I could find. I scanned old family photos, reprinted them, and re-framed them ever so gently. I watched my 2 year old nephew cover himself in wrapping paper as he climbed into a empty gift box to play peek-a-boo. I listened to Willie Nelson’s Christmas album “Pretty Paper
It is New Year’s Eve. Here I sit, covered in a blanket and positioned upright on a friend’s fold-out futon. I am in Washington D.C. (well, technically Falls Church). It’s 3:57pm and I can hear my girlfriend’s closest friends downstairs. They are chopping vegetables and boiling noodles for our lasagna dinner tonight. I just woke up from an afternoon nap. I’m still in my black long underwear (I never thought I would type that sentence.. Oh well, here’s to full disclosure!). I still feel groggy and exhausted. We woke up this morning at 5:30am and went to volunteer at a Miriam’s Kitchen. By 8:30am we had helped serve almost 200 of Washington D.C.’s food insecure citizens. By 9:00am, I was finally having my first cup of coffee at Peregrine Espresso. I am somewhat obsessed with coffee (espresso and drinking Americanos). Peregine was nothing shy of amazing.
Tomorrow is the first day of 2009 (and my Grandmother Mary’s 82nd birthday). Today is typically a day of refection and resolutions. Before I sat up to type this post, I took a few minutes to consider the last year. I have been thinking a lot lately about collective consciousness. I once read that schools of fish experience this phenomenon (or maybe it is not a phenomenon at all). Hundreds or perhaps thousands of them form schools and swim in unison; moving seamlessly with one another as if they know what the other is thinking. I sit here hoping that maybe our country is moving toward some type of peaceful and agreeable collective consciousness. I sense this in the cities I travel to and people I have met on tour in the last few years. I feel like people are rebelling against constant technological connection and searching for true face to face relationships. I sense a willingness to get along that I haven’t sensed before in my lifetime. This excites me and fills me with purpose. Who knows, maybe this feeling I have is just a byproduct of my age (now 32) and not what I romanticize it to be. I can’t say for sure. Some days feel like an impending boundary and other days feel like a window to whatever expanding view we wish. I prefer the latter of the two and can say with confidence that most days feel infinite and exciting. Though, keeping your days infinite and exciting can sometimes be the byproduct of a routine that feels like a boundary. That is the conundrum of it all for me. What is the balance?
George Winston’s “December
Happy new year,
Denison
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Tags: CUT THROUGH THE NOISE, Denison Witmer, KATE BRADLEY, LETTERS FROM THE ROAD, OUTLANDOS MUSIC —
1/5/09
Categories: CUT THROUGH THE NOISE • KATE BRADLEY • LETTERS FROM THE ROAD • OUTLANDOS MUSIC
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