Tour Diary 9.18

Hello everyone, hope you've been well.

We're currently on our way to Seattle for the final show of the "In case I make it," tour, winding our way through the mountains of the top left corner of America. It's such a trip to have made it out past the midwest at all, let alone to have made it about as far away from home as I've ever been, let alone to have done so because I had fans in places like Portland, Spokane, and Seattle. Hell, knowing there were hundreds or thousands of people in Chicago who knew of my work was bizarre and shocking enough of a revelation; the realization that word of my music has traveled all way the way here is beyond comprehension. It's easy to take for granted in the days of social media, but the strangeness is the same - that there are people on the absolute far side of the nation who know my name and want me there badly enough to come by the hundreds to see me. That's incredible. It's been such a thrill.

Last night was yet another fantastic experience. The crowd in Spokane was such a pleasure to connect with. I've mentioned this onstage and most likely in tour diaries already, maybe multiple times now, but I feel I have to say it again. Especially since putting out such a personal record and everything that's happened as of late, I feel more connected with and understood by my audience than ever before. I'm seeing or sensing commonalities between how we work as individuals on a pretty deep level that I previously lacked the perspective or the information necessary to fully appreciate it. 

As we go through the mountains out here, we're passing by some incredible, unreal, otherworldly views. The earth out here looks entirely different from anywhere else, and I keep finding that to be the case. We've passed through alien deserts, flatlands that extend for as far as the eye can see, rolling hills of windmills and foreign flora, and thick verdant mountains that reach for the sky with towering evergreen woods. One of the more fascinating sights I've seen on each of these longer drives, however, has been not the wild countryside but the people.

A deep and wide river valley we passed over on a bridge through the sky was home to a tiny town on the tip of a peninsula, across the from the cliff on the other side. A sculpture stood at the end of the peninsula, something metal and once-modern, and I thought about how strange it was that someone had made it. Someone spent their life all the way out in the proverbial middle of nowhere learning to sculpt and bend metal, and ended up with the immense honor of building something for their community. All the way out here, careers were unfolding, private lives were building and collapsing, ambitions shrinking and growing, and dreams were being gained and lost all day every day. The same incredible microcosm inside your head is happening all over the world, in places you could never know existed, with all the sounds and colors inherent to the human experience and all the same depth as your own. Entire communities of wounded hearts, complex minds, and endless humanity were expressing themselves in the face of spacious skies and infinite anonymity day in and day out, and I was just passing through their galaxy on the way somewhere. They have no idea I was there, and I'll probably never see any of them again. I don't know the town's name, I don't know who the people are, and they continue living and dying in the absence of the rest of the world; sitting beneath the same sun. 

It made me think about how lucky I am and how incredible of an honor it is to travel so far and meet so many people and connect with them in some way. Each night, hundreds of people have come to see my show, each bringing their own microcosm and their enormous lives into the room. They tell me how my work has changed them, what my sort-of presence in their lives has done for them, and things I still am unsure how to respond to. As I make my way to my final show in Seattle tonight, I feel as though I've been able to hike down to that river valley peninsula community and shake hands with everyone there. For weeks now, I've done that, and I am immensely grateful for such an adventure. Thank you everyone.

If I don't get the chance to do another tour diary before the plane ride home, I want to thank you all so much for your continued support and for the opportunity to have such incredible experiences. While I don't know for sure what will happen with my music career, I do hope to see you all somehow again someday. 

Stay tuned everyone, posts with details on the new tiers will be going out to the relevant current tiers soon.

Much love,

-ww