This is my face. This is my face after playing the first live show in a year. A woman read about me in the newspaper and reached out to host a small and safe gathering once restrictions lifted. Ten ladies. I can't even describe what I feel, but I can tell you that I arrived to find them sitting in formation, and it took exactly half a second to get into Orit-mode: not the one sitting in an apartment fretting about the ills of the world. The other Orit. The Orit I thought was gone. I can't come close to putting it into words. Redemptive comes to mind. There was so much love, a kind of love I faintly remembered, the love between performer and audience, a sacred kind of love that holds everyone in the same magical zone for the duration of the show. Applause (remember that sound?), laughter, smiles, nods of thoughtfulness, joy. Joy. JOY. Energy. Strength. CDs sold. Cash. Remember cash? The offer of more concerts by some of the attendees, wanting to host their own. This is how it all started, and this is how it's all starting again. Maybe. Hopefully. I can't describe how I feel, but I'm gonna hold on to it for a while.

Stranded by a global pandemic in a city I wasn’t familiar with, after eleven years of total nomadism, I was lucky enough to find a quaint little apartment I could afford for a while.  I rode the waves of hope and despair, for my own future and for the future of our world. Hope had been easier when I was on the road, encountering people’s smiles.  Despair, too, was easier, in the company of others and with the balance of the magical experiences that riding trains and performing brings.
On one particular night, feeling particularly anguished by the state of the world, the extreme polarisation, the rising of willful ignorance and hate, it seemed too much to bear. I suddenly remembered a song I had written a few years back but had never recorded.  “You’ve expressed this already,” I thought to myself, and began to remember there were others.  I sat down and made a list of them.  Eleven.  Just seeing the titles brought some relief, as if gathering the loose melodic and textual threads of this pain was already therapeutic.
A failing, noisy laptop, a cheap microphone, and free, basic recording software, it struck me that the barrenness, solitude, and relative impoverishment of my circumstances made the perfect background and story for these songs.   No ornamentation could be appropriate.  No sheen. No sparkle.  Just the bare-naked truth of it.  And when the next wave of despair came, I remembered the list. I knew I had to record all the songs then and there, in one session, and headed into an all-nighter.  I made a record both of the songs, and of the time and place I was in: a solitary night in an apartment in downtown Winnipeg, full of despair, in isolation during a pandemic, knowing that singing and recording were acts of hope and survival.
Lorem Ipsum are the two words you see in graphic design, the textual place-holder so that you can choose the font before you insert your own words.  Textual place-holder was exactly what these songs were: varied written articulations for the same basic feelings.  With some extra digging, I discovered that Lorem Ipsum comes from the Latin Dolorem Ipsum, which means, Pain Itself.   What was a design place-holder as I was figuring out the artwork for the album, became its official title.
It has been my practice for as long as I can remember, to use song-writing as the space for pain and its release, and in sharing songs I have learned how necessary art is as a space-holder for what anguishes us.  A shared space.
In this sharing, there is the antidote to pain itself.
Yours in song and gratitude,
Orit
 

      I bought a mug, a ceramic one, at a small, sunny farmer’s market I wandered my way into.  It’s not that there weren’t plenty of beautiful mugs to choose from where I was staying.  It was that I’d stayed in places where none of the mugs suited me, and I had long-thought about finding one to have as my own and travel with. But of course travelling with a ceramic mug in my suitcase as I clunked it along over long, cobblestone streets and up flights of stairs seemed ridiculous, so I never did get one.  But now I was going to be here for a while.  For the first time in eleven years, I was going to be somewhere for a while.

It was the perfect Orit mug.  Large, robust, but light in weight, earthy and pleasant on the lips, round and shapely for my hand to wrap around and bring closer to me.   The woman I bought it from and I chatted before I selected it from among the others, which were all similar in style, but varied in hue and height, roundness and thickness of body and handle. I asked about her practice as a ceramicist.  And I told her a little of my musical life before everything got stopped.  I told her I hadn’t had a mug of my own in eleven years.   She recommended I perform at the market, and we exchanged contact information.  I sent her a link to my music, and a photo of myself drinking from the mug, the next day.   She replied with great warmth.

And from that day on, I didn’t have to make a choice between all the mugs in the cabinet.  I knew which one was mine. It had a ceremonial solemnity to it.  As if I was silently chanting, “this is my mug,” each morning that I reached for it and filled it with thick, strong coffee, carried it with me from room to room as I flitted between creative tasks, sipped from it as I floated between reflective tasks.  It was my mug.  I had a mug.

In time, though, and not too long, at that, I began noticing that I wanted variety again, and on certain mornings, I would choose a mug not my own, but not without something I can only describe as moral hesitation.   It felt disloyal on some vague and admittedly slightly crazy level.  I mean, it is an inanimate object I was worried I was betraying.  But I also knew that I knew what I wanted each day, and that the morning ‘choosing of the mug’ was part of my nomadic life ritual that used to connect me to myself:   My hand hovering over the choices was like a divining rod, as if I was trying to feel some sacred energy, let pure intuition guide my choice, while my mind offered cerebral justifications.  

There were considerations of feel, touch, mood, colour, style, and sometimes message, if there happened to be writing on it, or a particular image. Sometimes the mugs evoked memories of other mugs from previous life chapters.   It was rarely an immediate choice, or if it was, it was a slow enjoyment of the intentionality of the choice, and the lingering over them was like a meditation on my inner state. 

Now that I had my own mug but still chose another on some days, there was a whole new layer of unfamiliar meaning. Like I was choosing between two philosophies.   Still, there was something in the self-given permission to choose authentically each day, something in the self-forgiveness and the wondering if forgiveness was an appropriate concept here, an acceptance maybe, of my fickleness, or maybe a consideration of celebration of my love for more than one mug.   There was also humour in the ridiculousness of seeing myself put this much thought into the meaning of choosing a drinking vessel.   All I can say is that that mug meant something.  It meant a bunch of things.  It meant choice, ownership, ritual, aesthetic, loyalty, identity.  And the new mug – it meant all those things, but added a new meaning I hadn’t known for so long:  I am staying. There is consistency.  There is stability.

A couple of days ago, the kid who lives where I’ve been staying knocked it over with her elbow while I was standing beside her.  We were cooking supper together, an activity we’ve taken to doing together, which seems to delight us both.  She loves using her creativity by suggesting ingredients. I love seeing her excited creativity, and I love showing her the tips and techniques I’ve learned from my mother and grandmother, and a few really-good-cook boyfriends that I’ve had over the years.  I love feeling like I have acquired wisdom, and a love of teaching.  I love that I’m helping, and not just receiving help.

To be fair, the counter was rather cluttered, and the mug was too close to the edge of it.   When it happened, in my own perception, there wasn’t an iota of drama to it.  There were a million other things happening as it was, pots bubbling on the stove, things to stir, taps to turn on and off, the fan whirring, and it didn’t make a particularly loud noise, though it made enough of one to look down, and there it was.  My mug.  Broken.  And wet coffee grinds splattered out in a star-pattern all around it, next to the blue-sneakered feet of a very sweet kid.

I’ve always said that there are two types of people in this world.  The type that gets mad at you when you break something of theirs, (or at least visibly express their annoyance, disappointment, and disapproval), and there are the types that will go out of their way to make sure you don’t feel bad about it, because they know you already do.   I’ve always said I would never want to have kids with the first type, because kids spill and break things and knowingly making them feel bad for it is terrible.  I remember being a kid and breaking a glass.  It felt terrible.  Even when my mother told me it’s no big deal, I still felt terrible.   So when I saw my broken mug on the floor, my immediate concern and attention was to put my hand on the kid’s arm gently and say, “no big deal,” in a calm, nonchalant and sincere-sounding way, and just get to the mopping of it up.   Not to overplay the “don’t feel bad,” no need for a big educational speech about material things and transitory reality and non-attachment, and certainly not to say, “that was my mug.”  I didn’t know if she knew and I preferred she didn’t.

Those quick calculations of empathy aside, the truth of the matter is that other than recognising that that was the mug that fell and broke – I felt nothing.  It didn’t matter to me at all that it broke.  I had it for a bit, and now I don’t.

And if it symbolised stability, consistency, I am staying, the fact that it now symbolised "ya never know," was fine by me.  It's always been that way.  I have long preferred what comes with the not knowing.   The current global situation has made me consider quitting the road, and if that mug was supposed to be some icon of domesticity, the fact that it broke is more of a reassurance than anything, that I still have plenty of road ahead.   Besides, it was far more interesting, visually, with all its new unpredicted edges.

I’m moving in nine days.  I’ve been here for four months, longer than I’ve stayed anywhere in eleven years of touring full-time. I’m going to be in the new place for a month and a half, and after that, I’m not sure.  I could have brought the mug with me to the new place.  I would have.  And if I really want to have my own mug in the new place, then I can go and buy a new one.  Or maybe I should wait and see what kind of mugs are at the new place.   Maybe they’re all the same in shape and size and colour.  Wouldn’t that be crazy?  Maybe there’ll be all sorts of variety, and I’ll have my top three favourites.   Or maybe instead of buying a mug to bring with me wherever the road will next take me, maybe if my stays are going to be more substantial in length, maybe I should buy a new one each time I arrive somewhere, and leave it behind when I leave, as a gift,  and get another new one for the next place.

I don’t know.  I don’t know anything.  Nobody knows anything anymore.  But I don’t mind that it’s broken. Look. It’s still beautiful.
 
 
 
  

​ 
My dears,

What a strange time.  I oscillate between a sense of defeat and hope, fear and wonder, despair and appreciation of all forms of beauty.  First - I hope you are all safe and healthy and doing your best to be cautious.  
I am doing alright, though I won't pretend that I'm not panic-stricken and grieving for what feels like the scariest crux my road life has ever been in.  There in no road, now, and road is all I've known for such a long time.  There has not been a "home" for me to hunker down in, at least not one of my own, for over a decade now, and that's miraculously not been much of an issue... until now.
As always, I am extremely lucky and grateful to have been taken in - this time by a wonderful retired couple in Winnipeg, where my last show mid-tour was before the trains got canceled and things got serious.  Frustrating to be in a city with fine musicians and not get to meet them for some local collaboration, but perhaps that will come if things start to ease up.
Not being able to perform, not being able to book more shows because it's impossible to know how long this will last, facing the financial consequences of the cancellations of wonderful shows I'd worked so hard to line up for April and May -  including what was to be my first U.S. tour, a follow-up to the Winter tour I got to do with Dan Bern across Canada just over a month ago - it has been devastating.  I am trying not to look too far into the future, and, as I think all of us are trying our best to do, in processing the constantly nerve wracking and all-encompassing adjustments every day, if not every hour, to just stay present and do the best with what we've got.
I have a brand new album, my tenth album, which I was excited to tour with and start mailing out to radio, reviewers and fans - but for now I'm happy to tell you it's out in the great big digital world, and if you're able to buy it, it would help my cause, both pragmatically and spiritually, an awful lot.  It's an album I'm very proud of that took four years to make, and has absolutely killer musicians on it from Toronto (and one from Vancouver!)
I have, as well, a brand new music video for the title track, Strange and Beautiful Things, which I animated myself with very rudimentary skills and resources, as one of the first 'projects' of things I can try to teach myself while stuck. 
And I've been writing. What else does a gal like me do?
A few new songs, 6 or 7 by now, written in the context of this bizarre and astounding isolation and being forced to stay put. I'm including one here for you to hear, and there are more of them posted on facebook, instagram, and youtube.
I'll be releasing them as some kind of album on bandcamp eventually ,as I'm also teaching myself some very basic recording skills with a new microphone for my laptop.
It is a lot to process, for each of us it means something different, but for all of us it's overwhelming to try to understand, in all its implications, and deal with, with no certainty of duration.
But we are strong, us humans - and incredibly creative and resilient and there are examples all around of how people are doing their best to make the best.
And so am I.  And the one thing that's always been there for me is song, so it is song, and more song, that I continue to share with you.
With love and appreciation to you, and with hopes of the good things renewing,
Peace,
- Orit