Attentive and Participatory

• Friday July 4, Arlington 4th of July Celebration, Arlington KS *

• Thursday July 10, Partridge Community Church, Partridge KS *

• Friday July 25, Allen County Fair, Iola KS *

• Thursday August 7, Pickin in the Park, Paonia CO *

• Friday August 8, TBA

• Saturday August 9, Trade & Post, Del Norte CO *

• Friday August 22, Rowe Sanctuary River Stage, Gibbon NE %

• Saturday August 23, 4th & Main Listening Room, Wray CO %

• Sunday August 24, Aspen Sun Deck, Aspen CO %

• Sunday August 24, TBA, Idaho Springs CO, %

• Monday August 25, Aurora Rhythms Concert Series, Aurora CO %

• Wednesday August 27, House Concert, Salt Lake City UT %

• Friday August 29, Billsville West, Walla Walla WA %

• Saturday August 30, Juniper Jam, Enterprise OR %

• Friday September 5, Scroat Belly w/John Depew, Replay, Lawrence KS *

• Saturday September 6, Depewgrass, Moonrise Bike Ride, Ottawa KS #

• Sunday September 7, TBA, KCMO *

• September 18-21, Walnut Valley Festival, Winfield KS %

• September 28, Arkansaw Travelers Folk Club, Fayetteville AR *

• September 30, Columbia Public Library, Columbia MO *

Well, I’m home for a couple of weeks after a June that was packed to the hilt with travel and music. John Depew Trio played our first few festival gigs of the year, including Pickin on the Plains, Telluride (where we got a quick compliment from none other than Chris Thile; that made my day), Kaw River Roots and Flatwater Festival. We got some good rehearsal time in by the river at Telluride too, which was nice, and got to meet and make music with some great musicians from across the country.

To be honest, I feel scattered, overwhelmed, grateful, joyous, excited and terrified all at once. There are many demands from many angles, and I’m definitely coming up short in some areas in order to put just enough into others. It seems like I need to learn to function on a much higher level of drive and diligence than I’ve ever needed to before in order to meet all the challenges. This is definitely compounded by my tendency toward less productivity when I feel overloaded. I’m sure I’m not alone in feeling this way; it seems like it would be a common if not universal experience for independent musicians, and probably many small business owners.

At the top of my list of questions is how to be the best dad and husband I can manage while also realistically needing to spend a lot of hours working and more days away from home than I might prefer from the family standpoint. The most immediate answer to this would be to set aside certain times of the day or week for dedicated family time, and to be really present in those moments, which is a real challenge with all the things swirling around in my head, but this brings me to what I really want to talk about, which is a conversation I’ve been having with a friend lately.

He recently said,

“I have come to think that there is no "getting it right". We move along through our lives and things happen as they do through some interplay between choice and destiny. What seems important is to be attentive and participatory. Accept that some occurrences appear successful and some appear to be failures with movements that might hold different judgements in between.”

Attentive and participatory. These are things I feel particularly bad at in many ways. Having time to reflect on these questions is helpful though, and I’m glad to have the space. In this spirit, I’m going to go outside for the rest of the afternoon, even if it means being less productive as a business person. I need to re-center on the things that are truly important, a task that’s nearly impossible to accomplish with one’s eyes locked on a screen.