Feeling More Like Myself with Rod Picott

Last night was so special. Honestly, I think all our house concerts are great. It's like having kids....you love them all...but some nights just are special. There are some I get more anxious about, whether it's attendance or cleaning or whatever ridiculous thing I decide to make.... Last night though...there were no worries. Of course, that COULD be because Ernie did the lion's share of the work. Well, more than the lion's share actually. A tip to house concert folks for an easy house concert: schedule it on a day you work and have your spouse do EVERYTHING. Yup.

Really though, there were no worries because I was so looking forward to seeing Rod, I knew his show would be great, and I figured if attendance wasn't great we could blame it on a weeknight---and we'd gotten him a hotel so I figured it would all be o.k. Instead? It was even better. Best crowd we've had in awhile, Rod was spectacular as always, funny as hell, charming, and man can he write the hell out of a song. We had some new faces in the crowd which made us incredibly happy---people brought tons of fantastic Pretend Thanksgiving food. It was pretty damn blissful.

The thing that kept popping into my head as I sat there, grinning like a fool, listening in my couch corner, was that Rod's songs make me feel more like myself. It's funny, because they're not my stories, not my heartbreaks, but they feel so familiar despite that....they just merge into the feelings that come from my own stories and my own heartbreaks. You know how sometimes you hear a song for the first time and it feels familiar? Not that it sounds like something else, but just that it fits together so perfectly that you wonder why it didn't already exist. It was that kind of feeling. Or sometimes you take a sip of red wine and it tastes so perfect that it almost just feels like wetness because it melds with you so perfectly.

I guess that's what all the best music does, it makes you feel more like yourself. And that, I suppose, is why we do these house concerts. They make us feel more like ourselves and they strengthen us to deal with whatever we might have ahead of us. We are so fortunate. Thanks, with all our love, to Rod, and to everyone that came and made the night such a special one.

Happy Pretend Thanksgiving all!