I feel a little conflicted. A little weary and a little snowblind.

 

On the last day of 2016 I know it’s been a brutal one for a lot of people’s hopes. Loved ones close and distant lost. Inspiring stories ended abruptly, dreaded ones begun. And all the while, I have been wondering what comes next for my family, and for me. There is a blank page to fill. And a hill to climb.

It was a turning point year for the lovely first lady of Momo and I, 2016. One to make count in a positive new direction. So we put things in the diary and went out and did them. To create a little momentum. Not believing the global backdrop would be so contrasting with our hopes and determination. Through all of it, I have been writing and pondering and chewing my pencil end and feeling as increasingly useless as increasingly excited. And not playing a note of live music. And somehow being okay with this. Just about.

It was a year in which I visited a few far-flung places for the first time, largely for creative projects I have been helping to produce beyond the music studio. And every new land trod and returned from safely seems a lucky experience to me. Perhaps this year more than ever. A year of making new artistic connections and treading the spoken word stage a few more times also. A year of putting things together in my head for what comes next.

And at the end of the year I am asking myself privately: Can I even do this? Well surely, one has to launch out and try whatever it is we personally feel we should be trying. In the face of personal odds or greater ones, what else can we do but start filling in our corner of the blank page? I suspect that is what fills in the bigger picture we’re all searching for.

Excuse me while I attempt to stoke the boiler for a new head of steam. See you in the local for new year.

x.