5th Annual Pennybrook Festival Report

The 5th Annual.

It sounds so official, doesn't it?

But this year's festival was the least official yet, I think.

With a busy summer (and a little bit of volunteer burnout) happening, we decided to be very casual in our organization of the Pennybrook Festival this year. With the stage already built, the preparations were not as physically demanding, which was good.

There was still a lot to do – site and food preparation mostly – getting the field bush-hogged, raking, setting up the tents, making food for the musicians and for the potluck. Sadly one of our three core volunteer organizers had to be away for work during the festival itself, so there was lots of multi-tasking going on. Fortunately, a few good friends volunteered to give us a hand on Friday night and Saturday.

Despite the generally lackadaisical approach to the festival, we had a stellar line-up: Sahara Jane and Daunt Lee came back for a second year. Steve Keith participated in a set of smoking hot bluegrass with Kevin Roach and Jude Pelley and then came back up on stage again for a set of smoking hot jazz. John Muller cracked us up with this awesome anti-Harper song:

Even I played a set – a rare occurence for me these days.

Half of the audience consisted of super-talented musicians themselves and once the stage wound down, there were two separate after-hours jams – the folkies sang around the campfire while the bluegrassers tore it up in the green room (which was not located in my house this year). As usual, I collapsed way before the festivities ended, but once again I had the joy of listening to the fun as I drifted off to sleep in my Tiny Home, comfortably situated about 40 feet away from the bonfire with all of its windows open to the warm evening air.

Sunday morning was all chat and bacon and caffeine. After we got the cobwebs shaken out, we settled in for more tunes – well, I say "we" but I'm afraid I was mostly listening from my house while I plowed away on some desk work to meet an unfortunately-timed deadline that I had committed to months ago. I had begged the client to try to steer work away from this past weekend, but to no avail.

Oh well. Sometimes it goes that way. I was feeling a bit emotionally shaky on Sunday anyway, for one reason and another, so it was kind of soothing to sit and zen out with my work, with an amazing soundtrack unfolding in my front yard.

We're not sure if we have another festival in us, but if this was the last Pennybrook Festival, we ended on a high note. And it certainly has been an amazing, fully-alive five years.

I always have a favourite moment in each festival. This year it was listening to Sahara Jane recite an English translation of a Rumi poem right before she sang it the poem as a song in Dari. The tears streamed down my face as I listened to her speak Rumi's words: so thoughtful, thought-provoking, complex and unexpected.

I can't find the exact translation that Sahara recited online, but here is a link with several translations of the same Ghazal: http://sunlightgroup.blogspot.ca/2010/06/sunlight-i-was-dead-i-became-alive.html

It was a truly beautiful weekend – so many big warm hearts and hugs. Songs of truth, heartbreak, hope, giddy joy.

I came away filled to the brim and utterly exhausted. My heart is full of gratitude and love – for my fellow organizers, our volunteers, musicians and audience.

We made something beautiful happen.

Depression Part 2: What do I need to do for myself right now?

It's November 1st and Salinger and I are in our new winter accomodations.

Salinger, our yoga mat and all of the boxes that still need to be unpacked...

This is about a fresh-start-y as it gets, I think. And I need a fresh start.

I've really let myself sink down into the depths over the past year and more. The depression I've been evading most of my life has caught up with me. I've been looking at everything through ugly lenses, seeing the worst in myself, in my life, in the culture/society and world in which I live. What a downer I've been on!

I feel like I needed to go down this rabbit hole. I needed to finally admit to my struggles with depression. Once I realized I was depressed, I decided to give myself two weeks to wallow with all my might. I cried whenever I felt like it. I slept during the day. I thought dark thoughts about things and people. I ate tons of sugar and junk food.

It felt good. But partly it felt good because I knew it was for just a little longer. I knew that a change and a fresh start were ahead of me. I knew I was moving and I knew I had a plan for what this move is going to mean for me.

Basically, I have decided to take better care of myself. The depression that I grew up with and denied and defied, was always telling me the same things: You're not important. Other people's feelings are more important that your feelings. Other people's needs are more important than your needs.

Indeed, other people's feelings/needs might well be more important than my feelings and needs TO THOSE OTHER PEOPLE – fair enough. My problem was that I came to believe that other people's feelings and needs should more important than mine TO ME. Essentially, this means that I haven't been able to focus on taking good care of myself. Even if I was depleted or hurting, I would try to find a way to keep giving other people what I thought (and/or what they were telling me) they needed.

Sugar has been my best helper — and my worst saboteur...

I've really leaned on sugar to help me live my life. Whenever I was sad, angry or upset, a little sugar would numb those emotions and enable me to act cheerful. I thought that was a good thing because I thought other people needed/wanted me to act cheerful. Maybe they did and maybe they didn't, but that's what I believed.

The trouble is that the amount of sugar I was consuming was really unhealthy. I've watched myself gain a few pounds every year and it's getting to a critical point where I don't feel healthy in my body anymore. I don't like the place I'm in emotionally, either. All the sugar in the world can't get me out of the spot I find myself in now – in fact, I think all of the sugar highs and lows and all of the denial sugar lets me do has been making everything worse.

In order to spare myself and others from having to accept/witness some of my emotions, I have been hurting myself.

It stops here.

I have a new mantra: Sugar is a flavouring, not a food (and I'm counting alcohol as a form of sugar). I'm still going to have some sugar-containing foods – as condiments, as seasoning, as very occasional treats, but no more sugar as food. No more sugar as emotional refuge. No more resorting on a daily basis to chocolate bars and soda pop and cake and cookies and ice cream. I'm not doing this to myself anymore.

Self-care begins here

Yes, I have a plan to take better care of myself. It starts today and it goes like this:

• Change the sugar thing;
• Check for food sensitivities: today I'm starting two weeks of no gluten, dairy, soy or corn and then will introduce them back one at a time to see if I'm sensitive to any of those foods. I've been suspicious of dairy for a while and I'm curious about the others. Here was breakfast:
  

  

  Yes, that's brown rice, pickled ginger and avocado. It was delicious!

• Implement some of the other strategies from the Tranform Your Relationship with Food course that I took in the spring, especially slowing down and relaxing my eating and preparing healthy snacks so I always have some on hand;
• Shop for local, sustainable food at the local farmers' markets;
• Use my awesome adjustable desk in the standing position more of the time;
• Use fitbolt.com to make sure that I take regular breaks for movement when I am working/playing at the computer;
• Practice yoga regularly – I'm shooting for half an hour a day (I'm doing the 15-day free trial at yogaglo.com) with one 60 or 90 minute session on the weekend. Salinger was a fan of and active participant in our first yoga practice this morning;
• Dance Nia once a week – one of the benefits in living near Mahone Bay is being close to Kathleen Naylor's awesome Nia class at the Mahone Bay centre;
• Do something fun and frivolous at least once a week – a concert, movie, play, coffee date or meal out;
• Simplify: my life, my eating, my schedule, my volunteer commitments, my stuff;
• Try to put some boundaries around work – this is going to be a toughy. As I head into my busy season and think about what I can do, I no I can't take a day off or limit my number of hours per week for the jobs that I commit to. But I can limit the number of jobs I accept and I plan to;
• Walk: I am in the heart of Rails-to-Trails country here in Martin's River. I've downloaded the map and I intend to explore;
• Allow myself to feel my feelings;
• Allow myself to express my feelings;
• Think positively whenever possible (yes, Stuart Smiley fans, I am indulging in daily affirmations :-);
• Allow myself to be imperfect at all of this, keep feeling my feelings and keep trying again (or tweaking) whenever something doesn't work for me.