Gypsy Life Update: Seven-ish Month Mark

I'm sitting on an incredibly comfortable bed in my friend's adorable Los Feliz house, which is filled with paintings and mismatched furniture and shag carpets and strange artwork and fake mustaches stuck to the walls. My new glasses are on the bed... along with pretty much everything else I threw out of my suitcase when I arrived here almost a week ago: clothes, socks, underwear, receipts, a hair clip, a wallet, a handbag, my metro card from the NYC subway, a keychain, USB cables, iPod, a headband, sunglasses, receipts, chapstick, to-do lists, and a sparkly ring that I carry around but never actually wear. There's a polaroid that makes me smile, and a gigantic hardcover book that I'll be taking on the road with me to read--

--oh yeah, that's right: by the way, I'm going back on the road.

Ten months ago, right at the turn of the new year, I reached a breaking point in my life. I had been unhappy in my life for many years, despite having experienced a lot of things I never thought I'd even have the chance to witness, let alone work on or become permanentaly associated with. Even though so many wonderful things had happened in my life over those six years, I found myself at the end of 2009 in a terrible metaphysical, spiritual, and emotional rut. I had spent three months of '09 on the road, on the first two tours I had booked since my old band's final tour in 2003. The tours were rusty, to say the least, but at least I was picking myself up and getting G,NA off the ground. But I was caught between two worlds: the world in which I was an entrepreneur, with a small company that was making websites and picking up whatever internet/marketing-related work I could find for us; and the world in which I was an artist, with an album I had invested thousands of dollars into and twelve songs I was prouder of than almost anything else I had created in my life (musically or otherwise).

I had been walking a tightrope between these two halves of myself for quite some time, possibly the entire time between when I ran out of money and quit my entire life in '04 to take a job in California, and when I ran out of money and quit my entire life in '09 to start playing music full-time again.

Money puts an interesting filter on one's perspective. Before I got the job offer with the secretary's salary in 2004, I was living off of ramen noodles and animal crackers, and had just moved back in to my parents' house to try to save some money. I was 23, and I had forgotten what it was like to go out to dinner, buy new clothes, or not have to obsessively check my bank account every single day. During my time in California, I went from thinking my secretary's salary was a gold mine, to snickering at the fact that I had ever gotten such a small paycheck, to having more money in my bank account than I knew what to do with, to slowly bleeding money out of the wounds from running a small business during a recession, until I had spent $20,000 trying to keep my company afloat. I was 29 years old, and I had completely forgotten what it was like to not be able to go out to dinner, to not be able to buy myself new clothes, or to only have to check my bank account every couple weeks.



By the time I got back from touring and traveling and losing my mind, at the beginning of 2010, my bank account was in bad shape. I was having to make some tough decisions, and was scrambling to find a solution to my impending doom.

I was also doing a lot of soul-searching at the start of the year, and the stuff I was finding wasn't very pleasant. I called in the troops (otherwise known as an amazing therapist, my mother, my friends, and some books on spirituality and meditation) and focused all my energy on three things only: getting out of my current situation, making money to pay for food and the most important bills, and fixing my shattered core.

It took me about a month to take a wrecking ball to my entire world, so that I was left with rubble and forced to rebuild. I handed over my company to my friend, I gave notice that I was moving out of my house, I basically stopped hanging out with almost everyone I knew, and I began selling and giving away everything I owned. What I couldn't sell or give away went out on the curb in front of my house. Things I had spent my hard-earned money on, that I thought I would love forever, suddenly made me sick to my stomach. I couldn't get rid of it fast enough -- the possessions or the memories they contained.

Meanwhile, I had come up with a Plan. Having a Plan has always been my go-to coping mechanism. Whenever things have gotten out of control in my life, I've instinctively turned to problem-solving to keep myself from totally falling apart. As long as I'm focused on creating or finding the solution to a problem, I can avoid thinking about how scary the problem might actually be. And by the time I create or find the solution, the problem has usually gotten better (or if it hasn't, I solve it and make it better). I guarantee you that if, when something terrible happens, whether it's a glass breaking on the floor or losing your job, you immediately focus all your energy on figuring out how to fix the situation and what your next move will be to make things right again, you'll feel instantly better. Or at least, hopeful.

So I had a Plan, and I posted this Plan online in mid-February, and it went something like this:

- Move into a storage space and PO box and become 'homeless'.
- Go on first Canadian tour booked by Canadian booking agent.
- Work at Coachella and Stagecoach for two weeks to make some money.
- Play some one-offs or a small tour in May.
- Go out on Warped Tour all summer.
- Figure out what to do from August 15 to the end of the year (and beyond).

I posted my first update from my new "gypsy life" after a couple months. Everything was pretty much on target then, and I'm happy to report that everything is very much on target now, five months later.

Being able to participate in Coachella, Stagecoach, AND Warped Tour in one year, from both the perspective of working and the perspective of playing, was fascinating and inspiring. Working behind the scenes in the California desert for two weeks at two incredibly different festivals gave me a new appreciation for just how much work goes in to providing entertainment to music lovers. And then, going out on the Warped Tour as an artist performing on one of the stages, instead of a production or sponsorship assistant like I had been years before, was a whole new world that I never expected to discover.

August 15th came rushing towards me much faster than I anticipated it would. Luckily, I had planned for this, by making a checklist for my future self:

I hope that by [August 15th], I will (A) still be sane, (B) have saved some money, (C) have had an insane six months of experiences that I will never forget, and (D) know what my plan is for G,NA and EIY for the rest of the year, and beyond.

Well, let's see, now:
(A) Still sane? Actually, yes. In some ways, I'm more sane than I've ever been. I still make seemingly crazy decisions on an almost daily basis, but inside my head (where it counts) I am more balanced, confident, and satisfied than I've ever been... in my life.

(B) Have saved some money? Ouch. I guess I was being optimistic. While I did make enough money over the summer to pay down some of my debts, I got off the road with not much more than I had when I went on the road. But it was some, so I will still give myself a silver star for that.

(C) Have had an insane six months of experiences that I will never forget? Yes, oh yes, yes and yes and yes again. It was one intense moment after another, the entire time leading up to mid-August, to say the least.

(D) Know what my plan is for G,NA and EIY for the rest of the year, and beyond? Well, self, it's funny you should ask my self that, since that's the reason we are (both) here...

MY PLAN FOR G,NA AND EIY FOR THE REST OF THE YEAR (AND BEYOND)

When August 15th hit -- and it did hit... HARD -- I realized I was nowhere near ready or able to take time off. G,NA and EIY had successfully merged into one general idea that I was personally promoting, and the response I had gotten from people all over the continent to both halves of the idea was so strong that I knew I needed to stay on the wave as long as I could. So before I was even done with Warped Tour, I was already talking to my dear friend and Canadian booking agent Adam, at UO Booking Agency, about bringing his little operation State-side, and helping me book a massive two-month long, Warped Tour follow-up fall tour. (It was all his idea, I swear.) And just like that, a friendship that started with two people discussing ideas and shared values, which had resulted in one successful Canadian tour so far, suddenly exploded into a full-blown official agent-artist business relationship, and Adam and I began sending out emails and making calls about my 2010 North American solo tour.

Now, two months later, we have the most solidly-booked tour I have ever done, with not just shows in every city but fans in every city, and with not just good clubs in every city but interested press in every city, and with not just G,NA support in every city but EIY support in every city. It's really an incredible sight to see, and I suggest you do that RIGHT NOW,

by

clicking

here ---> http://gardeningnotarchitecture.com/shows.

It all starts this Friday, October 1st, and ends November 27th, with only THREE intentionally-scheduled days off. Is that totally insane? Maybe. Am I balanced, confident, and satisfied about it? Absolutely.

You can RSVP for all the tour dates on Facebook, by clicking the "Get Info/RSVP" link next to each tour date on my website, or by going to the Gardening, Not Architecture Facebook page and clicking the "Events" tab there.

There are all kinds of exciting events on this tour, including a couple of shows with my friends Kinch, an Official Slot at CMJ, an EIY Guest Speaker and G,NA performing slot at the Halifax Pop Explosion Festival, lots of EIY workshops and meet-ups before the shows, and of course... my favorite... LOTS OF HOUSE SHOWS!

To help cover the costs and investments for this tour, I launched a Fundraiser last week, mostly to raise money for a used car for the tour (and thank goodness I did, because after I bought said car, I took it in to the mechanic and found out it was going to cost me more than I paid for the car itself to fix everything that's terribly wrong with it). But I didn't just want the fundraiser to be about me, and I wanted to honor the memory of one of my best friends in the entire universe, who died this summer in a car accident outside Seattle, so I decided that from now on I will donate 10% of the donations I get through my Sponsor page or fundraisers to a non-profit organization in my friend's name. She was always a huge supporter of me playing music, and I want to make sure she is always woven in to the reasoning for my continuing to do it.

Beyond raising money and going on tour, I have also started to think about the Plan for 2011. I know I'll take the rest of this year off (what's left of it) after my tour ends, and I know that I'll need to start writing songs for the next G,NA album during that time. I know I'd like to play at SXSW next year, and record an album, and try to do a tour or two overseas. I know that I'd like to spend some down time with my dog. I know that I'd like to get a part-time job that I don't hate, to help get me even further out of debt. I know that I'd like to live somewhere for a while, since I will have been homeless for almost a year by then. And I know that I have a few other little dreams and ideas for the immediate future that I'm excited about. But I don't know for sure what is actually going to happen.

The beautiful thing about goals is that you don't necessarily know exactly how you are going to reach them, but they are accessible from every angle, so you can get to them no matter how long it might take. I have learned that it's best not to get too upset when you feel like you are being thrown off-course, or when you feel like the universe is trying to prevent you from reaching your goal. Neither of these things is true! Those curve balls and detours are important sub-plots in the story of your life, and you should pay attention and look for the life lessons or the anecdotes in those seemingly-discouraging twists and turns. The characters you will meet and the scenes you will have a part in along the way are the real guts and beauty of life. Those moments have such a raw poignancy about them that a person could write a hundred novels or a thousand songs inspired by one hour of one specific day during which they overheard a conversation between two old friends, one the mentor and one the student, now reversed in their roles as the mentor is aging, about the good old days when they were first starting out in that repair shop, just the two of them, and what an honor it was for the young student to work for such a master of his craft as the mentor was, and how proud the mentor was of the student when he left to start his own business using the skills he had learned from his teacher -- these two people who would never have crossed paths in any other life, but were here sharing laughs over coffee in the office of an auto repair shop, impossibly and honestly, without a second thought about it.

“To die is nothing; but it is terrible not to live.”

Here's to the next three months...
Sarah