It is so: released today online

My new album, It is so, is available online today. You can find it here or here.

The San Francisco album release show is on Friday, September 23rd at the Community Music Center in the mission. All the details can be found here. If you're in the bay area, I hope you can make it.

This album is a tribute to the life and spirit of my mother, Karen Imparato Cotton, who passed away in 2009. It is also a tribute to all lives that have been taken too soon.

My hope is that this album will be of service to those who are grieving a loss of some kind in their own lives. In this spirit of service, It is so is being offered for donation rather than for sale, and half of what is raised will be donated to the organization that my mother worked for: The American Bird Conservancy, whose goal is to conserve native birds and their habitats throughout the Americas. The "suggested donation" for the album is $12, but please donate whatever amount you feel most comfortable with.

I am deeply grateful for the generosity of all of the people who funded this project via Kickstarter, whose names are listed in my previous posting.

If you hear the album, and you have any thoughts or reflections to share, I'd love to hear, so please be in touch.

Thank you donors!

Because of your generosity, we were able to make a 9 song album that we are very proud of, and go on tour in the east where we raised over $300 for The American Bird Conservancy, and over $200 for the New England Anti-Vivisection Society! Also, because of you, I will be donating 40 hours of my time to walking dogs at Family Dog Rescue, and singing for patients at the UCSF Medical Center. Thank you:

Maria Imparato, Donna LoBiondo, Matt Gonzalez, Todd Haemmerle, Cathy Greek, Elaine Hathaway, John Cotton, Alexis Byrne, Marissa Vahlsing, Sarah Luick, Mary Ellen Kiehne, Blanche Vilade, Max Scher, Kathy Rose, Sushila & Robert Ravard, Jennifer Hayden, Sarah Ramey, Barbara Vahlsing, Kaitlyn Parsons, Shannon & Ross Evans, Lauren Sanders, JP Jesperson, Kira Dominguez-Hultgren, Jamie Fordyce, Sarah Foster, Candace Lundgren, Ali Budner, Bennett & Kjenstad, Gailen & Les Zody, Dan Sterenchuk, Rachel Golden, Janusz Leszczynski, Cherie Campbell, Vanessa Ta, Mary Jane Kiehne, Matt Trowbridge, Nancy Roth Remington, Blake Henderson, John Lower, Alan Vollweiler, Helene Roos, John Petrocelli, Joan LaCasse Ritz, Paula Zollner, Sarah Glazer Khedouri, Tiffany Cooper, Chris Maher, Greg Kemerer, Becca von Behren, Carolann Kinzel & Ezra Lipp, Chris Maceira, Michael Sieglen, Ako & Ed Swabb, Paul Ferney, Meredith Michaels, Briony Skerjance, Talis Apud, Grant Hultgren, Becca Frank, George Wallace, Tara Blau, Jane Fitzgerald, Megan Kelly, Amy Lee, Jonathan Kirchner & Kelly McFarling, Seth Endo, Francoise Teitelbaum, Jim Powell, India Penney, Alice Nissen, Jacob Berns, Kayte Brown, Kara von Behren, Alexis Brayton, Claire McConnell, Chloe Roth, Annie Bacon, Anne Kaufman, Nate Williams, Matthew Brudner, Tina Benson, Kristen Policy, Jessie Woletz, Liann Seiter, Judy Szczepaniak, Scott McDowell, Barbara Shamblin, Chris Kiehne, Zoe Clara Dutka, Bill Wetzel, Mat Strickland, Evelyn Boyd Schmidt, Anna Perlmutter, Laura Maguire, Kate Sherwood, Jake Friedman, Thom Wong, Staci DeGagne, Stephanie Orion, Jon Brody, Jean Pieper, Jefferson Linck, Heather Beatty Spring, Evan Rutledge, Levi Nies, Eve Hadley, Joshua Stacy, Sophie Pickens, Marlee Sayen, Ben Henretig, Bizzy Bender, Lindsay Clark, Barbara Murphy, Kristi Moos, Taylor King, LA Underground, Jennifer Yamanuha, Alana Stewart, Danny Alexander, Sianna Plavin, Penina Eilberg-Schwartz, Matt Miley, Alexis Barbalinardo, Jessica Geranium, Joey Chang, Christine Rabbath, Amber Feener, David Butler, Camille Robles, Emily Frost, Aaron Wieler, Zoe Rossing, Josey Baker, Neema Moraveji, Aire Redtree, Marietta Skeen, Jonathan DeCoste, Suzie Rose, Paul Freedman, Jonathan Axtell, Chris Sheppard, Jared Keane Feldman, Dave Snyder, Harriet Clark, Amy Benziger, Willa Mamet, Dick Perlmutter, Diane Crowley, Dust City Diner, Molly Bauckham, Kate, Zaria Forman, Lea Grant, Jennifer Day, Allison Cook, Nick Baker, Jess McNally, Ashley Hbert, Sarah Beh,, Patrice Williamson, Jill Kupferberg, Cathy, Deborah Carr, Laura Constantino, Nicholas McElroy, Andrew Brennan, Ayla Nereo, Daniel Steinbock, Rahmin Sarabi, Margaret Gallagher, StickLips, Kimtai, Nathan Blaz, Catherine Goldschmidt, Brian Berberich, Emily Boulton, Debbie & Drew Brennan, Michal Waldfogel, Joe Kille, Alison Hathaway, Natalya Podgorny, Ben Ewen-Campen, JJ Schultz, Anna Soloway, Sandy Sanders, Maria Budner, Lila Cruikshank, Thomas Curry, The Johal-Dominguez family, Elaine Wilson, Beth Fletcher Walden, Dorothea Palsho, Raj & Nina Johal, Howard & Nancy Alter, Dennis Coyle, Anthony Imparato.

Solace

This morning I woke with the familiar ache of missing.

A line from a Hank Williams song brought me some comfort: "When my life here is over I'm going home."

That line was fresh in my mind because I've been listening to Chris Kiehne's new album, A Widower's Kind which is a collection of slightly-to-significantly modified Hank Williams songs. It's beautiful, and you can download it here, for free.

If you are missing someone, it may bring you some solace.

In pursuit of truth and healing

We've completed our 2nd east coast tour! We played 14 shows in 23 days, between Washington D.C. and Boston. A hearty thank you to Gabe and Anna for coming along, to everyone who came to hear us, who hosted us in their homes, and who shared bills with us.

I am sitting with some of the words I've received from people throughout the course of the tour -- re-reading emails, remembering conversations. My goal with this tour was to create space to encourage people to open doors in themselves that they don't normally open, because they are too painful or difficult or inconvenient or simply inaccessible most of the time. The reason that I feel compelled to create this space is because of the times in my life when I have felt this space created for me, and opened these doors in myself. These are the times that I've felt the most profound healing taking place, and these experiences have been very valuable for me. Opening these doors tends to be painful, and it also tends to be truthful, and good, and necessary. I see it as being connected to the deepest truths (I think others would describe this same phenomenon as being connected to "God" or "Spirit".) For me, it often coincides with feeling some of the deepest love I've ever felt.

In revisiting some of the words that people have shared with me, I am aware that this tour was successful: we reached people. Every night, with music as our medium, we reached people. Maybe it was one person, maybe two or three. I know this because people have been kind enough to tell me, either face to face or through email. But it happened every night. It is good to acknowledge this, because the tour wasn't easy -- it was a lot of work, and sometimes the crowd was smaller than we'd hoped, or less attentive. Sometimes I felt like I was sharing things that are too sacred, too personal, to just cast out into a room of mostly strangers. But all of those challenges and frustrations and vulnerabilities are dwarfed when I remember that for at least one person each night, we created that space, and a door was opened. That's all that I had hoped for.

And to all of you who've shared your stories with me, who have let me know how my music has effected you: thank you. Your words have affirmed me, and allowed me to feel good about what I've done with the last month of my life. (Believe me, I've second guessed it a lot.)

A couple of nights ago I was walking around Cambridge with a dear friend of mine, a biologist who is working towards his PhD at Harvard. I told him all about the tour, what was good and what was hard, and his perspective comforted me. Effectively he said that although you may be doing what you love, much of the time you will probably still think "What the hell am I doing? Why the hell am I doing this?" But that's okay. It's not going to make sense most of the time. That's just part of it. But sometimes, maybe rarely, it will make sense. And at those times it is mind-blowing and marvelous.

Here is a video from our tour (thanks to Quinn Miller-Bedell for filming.) We are performing in Zaria Forman's home/studio (see her beautiful drawing in the background.)

"Washington" by Sonya Cotton from Quinn Miller-Bedell on Vimeo.

Red Fox

I have made the decision: we will be traveling by car for the rest of this tour.

I feel that we gave the train/public transportation route a hearty try. We now know what it looks and feels like. But for the sake of convenience, my back, Gabe's knee, my bank account, and our stress levels, I've decided that the car is a better option for us, for our remaining 7 shows. (Of course, if we get in a car wreck, or kill an animal, this may prove to be a worse decision for our bodies, my bank account, or our stress levels.)

Do I see this decision as "unsustainable"? Yes. Driving a car is unsustainable for the planet, and it is also unsustainable for me, as a person. I don't think I can be happy living a life as a person who frequently drives a car, or as a touring musician who tours by car. But I am coming to realize that this touring experience as a whole is not sustainable for me either. Booking a tour, and embarking upon it as an independent musician is so much work, so little pay, and though it's soulfully satisfying in many ways, I'm not getting up in the morning thinking "This is it! This is my calling, and I will do this over and over again!" I've seen this tour as a meaningful experiment. And I think what I'm learning concretely is: yes, I want to make albums and play music for people forever. But no, I don't want to try to make a living as a touring musician.

Yesterday I had a profound experience. I was in my room (the room I grew up in, in Princeton New Jersey,) and I glanced out the window at the very moment that a fox was running through my front yard. I lived in this house for 16 years, I've visited frequently over the last 10 years, and I've never seen a sign of a fox on our property, let along in the neighborhood. It's been raining a lot here, so the grass is a vibrant green. The fox's fur was bright red/orange. The sight was majestic. I felt as though I was watching a fairytale unfold before me. He was enormous, much larger than I imagine a fox to be, and I could see the side of his face as he moved towards the woods, so beautifully, so gracefully. As soon as he was out of view from my upstairs window, I ran downstairs and tried to see him from my back porch. I stood silently, but I imagine that he sighted me, because all of a sudden he ran full speed back into the woods. This sight was both a deeply life-affirming and heartbreaking experience for me. Life-affirming to see such a beautiful creature existing in this world. Heartbreaking because I knew that he was running towards another house, another fence, another road. His habitat is shrinking, his life is being threatened by our civilization. We simply don't leave enough room for his kind to thrive. And in that moment I was shaken with just how valuable his life/his kind is to me.

In this era of thinking, and re-thinking my career path, my career options, I know that whatever I choose to do, I want to be on the side of the fox.

Learning

We are one third of the way through our northeast tour. So far we've met some amazing and generous people, heard many stories, shared our songs, and done a great deal of heavy lifting.

See, the goal for this tour was to travel using public transportation whenever possible. Thus far we've been very successful: the only car rides we've taken since arriving in the east from San Francisco have been to and from train and subway stations. (We are traveling with over 100 pounds of gear - guitar, drum, sound system, etc - so this has been no easy feat!) But it's been challenging, and many times we've commented: "we understand why no one tours this way!!" The infrastructure doesn't really exist at this point to accommodate people like us, traveling with so much stuff. It's possible, but it's far from smooth. And it takes a lot more time, more planning, more sweat, more strength and more smashed fingers/pulled back muscles than driving in a car.

Of course, we have also been very aware of how happy we are to not be driving in a car everyday. Once we lug our stuff and ourselves onto trains, we get to sit and relax rather than worry about hitting a person, an animal, a bicyclist, with our car, or being hit ourselves. Last month I read that the death toll is lower than it's been in years: 90 people die every day in this country on our roadways. That's still 90 people, every day. And this reality came very close to home recently: the day before we left on tour, Gabe and I were asked to sing for a family who just lost their 28 year old daughter in a car wreck. It was tragic. Then of course there is also the environmental toll of cars, and car infrastructure, which is enormous. (Trains take their toll on the environment as well, of course, but it's significantly less, and I think many would agree that the world would be better off if everyone gave up their cars and invested in public transportation. If we relied on it, it would get better/cheaper/more efficient.) Last year when we were on tour, the Gulf oil spill was in full effect. This year there is a heated debate over fracking for natural gas, which apparently is having a devastating impact on the environment as well as human health in the places where these operations are underway. The night we were in Cold Spring, NY, there was a rally taking place nearby to oppose fracking in the area. Walking through Brooklyn we were approached by activists spreading the word, circulating petitions, and after our show I met a man who's studying sustainability at Columbia University, and he shared with me many disturbing details about the repercussions of fracking. He suggested I watch Gasland, a documentary on the topic, which I plan to do once I get home from tour.

This is all to say that these energy issues feel very real, very pertinent, and I like the idea that in some small way we are doing our part to change and challenge our car-centric culture. That said, we are just three people with limited strength and budget. Trains are so expensive! I am worried about my back from all of the lifting. I'm worried about our morale since everything is taking us more than twice as long as it otherwise would (for example, it took us 4.5 hours to get from Brooklyn to Cold Spring, when it should have taken us more like 2.) In sum, I am undecided as to how we will proceed from here, for the last 2/3rds of our tour. We may give in and take my mom's old Volvo down to DC, and up to Boston. It feels sad to say it (it sounds so "business",) but the fact is that it will save us time, money, and effort if we drive. I don't want to give up because it's hard, and because no one else is doing it. But I don't know. (I'll let you know when I decide.)

One of the aspects of performing my songs, which are deeply personal, that I have always enjoyed is that it seems to open doors. In the course of my set, I pour out a good deal of my story, my pain, my struggle in losing my mother to cancer. And often times, afterwards, people tell me their stories, their pain, and their struggles, in a way that isn't standard in our culture (at least not between strangers.) I feel thankful for this. Thankful to have a window into other people's lives and experiences. I admire their courage, and their trust in me. It's a beautiful exchange, and one that I find to be therapeutic for me. I hope it is for them too.

Just last night a man in his late 60s came up to me after the show, and shared with me about the recent loss in his life. He'd lost his mother, his cat, and his nephew, all in the course of a year. His nephew had committed suicide, which was very painful for his family. He also shared that he and his wife didn't have any children. They'd tried, but she had three miscarriages, and they just couldn't try any more after that. The night before, a woman in her late 20s shared with me that she'd had a horrible relationship with her mother ever since she was a child. She and her mother had been estranged for years; they weren't even on speaking terms when we came through New York last year on tour. But hearing my songs about my mother opened her up to looking at her relationship with her mom in a new way. "I felt like such a jerk" she said, "hearing how much you loved and cherished your mother. And you lost her. And mine is still here." It encouraged her to face her mother's mortality, and it encouraged her to try harder, and to start to repair the damage between them. "It's been baby steps since then," she said, "and it's continuing to grow and get better." Hearing this warmed my heart so sincerely!

Last night was our show at "Charlotte's Place," the new community center affiliated with Trinity Church. It's a wonderful new space with a welcoming, "open to everyone" policy. We shared the evening with writer and theologian Lucinda Mosher. I was deeply moved by her readings from her book Faith in the Neighborhood: Loss, which explores how different cultures and faiths deal with death, grief, and memorializing. I feel that I have so much to learn about how to deal with and move through grief. Not only in my personal life, but in the world at large, and in the lives of those around me. I want to be of service; I want to help myself, and I want to help others. To do this, I feel I need to understand more about the way that other people deal with loss in their lives. I see this tour as an opportunity to learn.

Tonight is going to be a very special show. Liz Cutler will be sharing some words on the topic of loss, Matt Trowbridge will be sharing his songs. I hope to see another english teacher of mine from highschool who is now working with hospice patients. I'm looking forward to what I may learn.