This year has been our best one yet and the worst year ever.
The year is almost over and we've got one more song to do for Double Americana before we say to 2017, "good riddance, we'll miss you all the same." We're not going to take much time here to reminisce and look back on all the ups and downs except to say, we've come a long way since we got our camper stuck in the mud and started this long tour of a year. We've learned a lot, especially about mud season.
Today we cleaned out the camper in a bit of a yearly ritual involving bleach and lots of scrubbing and the new Kesha record. As we were cleaning out our closets and caulking the places where the moisture get in, we were reminded of the poem that hangs on Scott's side of the bed in Mallory's handwriting that we hung at the beginning of 2017. It's called "One Art" and was written by Elizabeth Bishop and is a meditation on losing those we love. Her advice? Start small and learn to lose something everyday. Become okay with the little, plentiful losses and work your way up to the big losing of everything. "The art of losing isn’t hard to master; so many things seem filled with the intent to be lost that their loss is no disaster." In 2017 we've learned a bit what it means to have to keep a loose grip on those we love as we lost our dog and tour buddy, Butter, in what Rolling Stone is calling "the biggest loss for this little folk band yet." As we cleaned the camper, Mallory saw the poem and asked, "Are you going to keep that poem up? Do you remember what it cost us?"
The art of losing isn't hard to master. It just hurts like hell sometimes.
We chose the classic song by Stephen Foster, "Hard Times Come Again No More" to close out the year. The first verse goes as follows:
"Let us pause in life's pleasures and count its many tears
While we all sup sorrow with the poor
There's a song that will linger forever in our ears
Oh Hard times come again no more"
It's a song of hope and acceptance, not only that there are good days ahead still, but also, that the more we lose and can acknowledge how much it hurts, the more we're participating in this life and experiencing something wonderful, even in the hard times. This is a song of determination. As we poorly march into 2018, some of our feet dragging a little, the drummer a bit unsteady, let's do our best to be good to one another. Let's do our best to be better than we were last year. There's still time.
We want to say thank you, from the bottom of our hearts for all your support this year. From watching us every week on Double Americana, to donating to our Kickstarter Campaign, to buying an album at a show or just coming to our show, all those messages and comments and emails you've sent that just said "keep on keeping on," you have been with us through the thick and thin. Thank you! We love our fans and can't wait until the road or next week's episode brings us out to meet you once again in 2018.
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