Messages From Carrie
A note from Carrie
April 27th, 2005
Dear Friends,
In the last three weeks I've loved spending time in the beautiful Shenandoah valley, upper and central Michigan, Wisconsin and Washington DC area! Spring seems to be particularly welcome everywhere I go this year. I've been performing many of the new "Diner People" songs at recent shows and it's been wonderful to get your feedback!
The "Regulars and Refugees" project is where I've been spending a good deal of my creative time and I'm so excited to have it out and available in August. I believe this project has been a way of processing so many years of traveling and seeing the country and encountering human stories so close up and personally. I have never met a person yet without a story to tell. I have never been to a place that didn't have a hometown heart to it somewhere. Sometimes you have to dig past the McDonald's and strip malls, but once the local heart is tapped there is usually a wealth of history, language, food, custom and natural beauty. This is an amazing planet on which we live, with countless stories of truth, sorrow, beauty, nobility, grief, loyalty, betrayal, unexpected grace and forgiveness. . . redemption everywhere I look. I've grown to expect that I will be humbled and awed daily on my travels. The regulars of Betty's Diner are not fancy or pretentious people. They've been delighted by love and silenced by grief, they have struggled with the depths of despair and risen to greet their best selves, they have been awed by mystery and ached for something beyond their reach, they have been accepted for who they are and they've been misjudged when they were doing just about the best they could. They are beautiful and human, bewildering, glorious and ragged. They are a lot like you and I really.
So in this era of too much, too fast, too busy, take a moment to breathe deeply of this world. Take a long walk out of doors. Ask people sincere questions and you might be surprised by what they tell you. This is not a dress rehearsal my friends. Engage the world, and it will engage you.
Until later,
Carrie