Oh, my little tapioca pearls of happiness,

Well, isn't this an interesting week.  We had the largest, most never heard of bluest largest moon or whatever, and I just had an unexpectedly fantastic lavender oat milk boba tea, coming to you straight from rainy Eugene, Oregon.  So if I'm a little sugary/sleepy, well, what's new.

Since last Sunday, until the time you read this, I will have been on six flights.  Bananas, right?  That travel schedule was not planned, but different work events - mostly dinners, honestly - had me running all over the west coast. Fortunately, I feel about as exhausted as I look here - a little tired, but actually quite enjoying myself.  

Making Christmas cookies and we had to show how difficult it was on us! I was taught well :)

In 2019, pre-the world shutting down, all I dreamed about was going ON TOUR.  I was convinced that if I could just be ON TOUR, then I would have "made it" and of course, be happy.  I dreamed about it.  Meditated on it.  I don't really do vision boards, but if I did, a picture of me would have been pasted on a festival stage somewhere with some plane tickets sticking out of it.  

Well, it's 2023.  And guess what I'm doing?  I'm on tour.  For my music?  Not really, though I have played a few shows out of town this summer, and I'm playing Las Vegas and Los Angeles in the next 7 days.  Rather, this is for work.  I'm away from my piano, away from practice, not in my studio right now.  Yep, not my favorite.  Didn't I write an email to you just a week or two ago talking about how embracing life means embracing all of it, not just the fun parts?  Well apparently, the teacher has become the student, because that lesson is exactly what I have been learning this week.

As I relaxed into it, I realized this "tour" had a few advantages.  For one, I've been meeting with incredible people.  Deep conversation, including with people so incredible that it's humbling to be in the same room with them, but yet they fit the definition of being interesting and interested (a brilliant phrase I learned from Lorraine Lawson), meaning that they not only had so much to offer, but that they were genuinely interested in learning about the people around them as well. Oh, and for the materially inclined among us, I also am staying in nicer hotels than I otherwise would be.  And I'm wearing new boots, and found a cute outfit at Target when I ran out of clothes.  Really, this tour could be a lot worse.

After dinner with powerful civil rights attorney Ben Crump and Emmy winner and self-made media mogul Cathleen Trigg Jones 

So, I'm taking my own medicine.  Friday night, I'll be playing a secret show at Lost Spirits.  And spending a long weekend catching up on work and hiking and writing and preparing for my show that next week.  And this week is nothing like I planned, and I didn't prepare or do nearly much of the items on my to-do list.  But guess what?  I can't plan everything.  I have a feeling I'm going to keep trying though, until the next lesson gets forced upon me, hehe.

So, I'm sending lots of love to you, your broken plans, your broken schedules, and the crossed and uncrossed items on your to do list.  Life, baby.  

Always, 
XIMXIA

THANKS FOR READING!