Hello Songbirds!

This past Friday, I went down to the nation's capital to do a show at Ebenezer's Coffeehouse, right behind Capitol Hill.  It was a wonderful venue and we had a great turnout. 

I had my trusty little recorder with me and since the sound system was great there, I was able to capture a few of the songs that I can share with the world & beyond! 

I've uploaded 2 of them to the bottom of my music player - "Invisible (Live)" and "The Well (Live)" - enjoy!!  These songs are NOT on the album and are relatively new songs I've written in the last few months.  You'll see the progression in my songwriting.

Thanks for your support always!!!  And if you're in the NYC area, please come out to the Sullivan Hall show this Wednesday~  it's gonna be a rockin' good time!!

love,
cate

Hello Songbirds!
I had the rare privilege of randomly meeting someone at an open-mic event a few months back, which led to a cool friendship of sorts where he volunteered to promote me on the web to build up his resume (while I reap all the benefits), which then led to the meeting of a multi-talented, try-her-hand-at-anything-artsy journalist of sorts, who happens to feature various local artists on her blog called “You Is Awesome.”  
So she did one on me.  Lucky me.    It was really fun to just chill and talk about random stuff.  Please go check it out for a quick read, and if you wanna go all out, forward the link to some of your friends that might be interested! (www.youisawesome.wordpress.com)
Long live music….
Chirping away,
cate

I tend to think that I have pretty good control over my life, but sometimes I just don't know what to do with myself. Like when I fall. On the streets of NYC. On my face. It happened twice this week.

The first time was on Wednesday. I was walking back from the dentist office and I was wearing these boots that have terrible traction. Fine, I'll take the blame for buying them, wearing them. Whatever. So I was walking down a street by Grand Central and I passed the subway entrance too quickly. So I turned my head as I was walking to see that it was indeed the entrance. While I did that, my feet slipped on the concrete (it wasn't even icy there!) and I fell flat on my face, toppled onto the chalkboard that outlined the specials of the day of the cute little deli that I happened to fall next to. My hands were covered in the chalk and I remember a voice saying to me, Are you ok? My bag was still intact, right on my left shoulder. Earbuds to my iPod still in place. Except I was now on the floor. I picked myself back up and walked slowly down the stairs of that subway, pretty much laughing to myself that I just fell for no apparent reason.

The second time was last night. I was meeting my friend for dinner on the Lower East Side, at this cute little Latin place called Boca Chica. I was a little early so I thought I'd take a walk around. I crossed the street as the signal turned and as I stepped onto the curb, my right foot got caught on the step and I toppled forward, hard on my knees, then onto the ground. Scratched up my palms. This time my knees actually hurt. I was in pain. There were plenty of people around. I felt so embarrassed... as I heard someone say, Are you okay? I remember thinking at that moment that the phrase seemed all to familiar. I got up, told the person I was ok, then I continued walking.

I laughed at myself the rest of the way around and back to the restaurant. What is my problem? Why am I falling on my face twice in one week? Not to mention when I fell hard on my butt on New Year's Day going down the icy stairs in front of our apartment. I never fall. So I just didn't know how strange it feels and how uncontrollable the situation is when it does happen.

I have these bruises on my knees today. And they hurt. In a strange way, they remind me that sometimes life is not under my control. Life hurts sometimes. Shows bruising. But I guess I'll keep getting back up, as long as I still can, and keep walking on that concrete, even with the possibility that I might fall sometimes. Or even twice in one week.

Every day when I sit down on my toilet my eyes catch the phrase, Did you know that $1 can provide clean water to an African for one year? It's hard to ignore. I put up the poster there at eye-level a few months ago. Presumably anyone who has sat down on our toilet has seen this poster.

I've been thinking about water more and more lately. Maybe cuz of our cracked kitchen faucet and how it now spews water from its spout as a combination of a steady stream, shower and projectile all at once. It makes for an interesting dishwashing time. Water seems to be one of those natural resources that has multiple functions. It hydrates my body as my drink of choice. It helps plants to grow (our three plants have been growing insanely well, I might add). It cleans my car, my clothes, my body and just about anything else that needs cleansing. It's recreational - we swim in it, make a sport out of it. It is home to a vast array of creatures, like Nemo and Willy and Flotsam and Jetsam.

Today I boiled some water to make tea. There happened to be some water in the kettle already, and not knowing when that was from, I poured it out into the sink. For some reason when I did that, everything started going slow-mo. I watched the clear stream of water hit the sink and slowly seep down the drain. A thought slowly entered my mind, something along the lines of, Why are you letting this water go down the drain when it can be used for something else? I didn't stop though, and just stood there watching.

There's plenty of water to go around here in the states. Seems like it'll never run out. I can't fathom what it would be like if it ever did. And it probably won't. Not in my lifetime anyways. The thing is, there are places in this world where water is not bountiful. Where water... clean water does not flow. At all. There are people who suffer because they have no access to clean water. In fact, they die. Every day.

I can't save the world - obviously, in any way, shape or form. But I can do a little something about someone getting some clean water. Just to drink. Just to sip on some clean water that I throw away every day in some capacity. To have a chance at life. To have a chance at life.

I watched The Thin Red Line for the second time today.

I didn't realize how much I missed the first time around. I'm sure I missed some things the second time too... but the parts that I did catch and the lines that I heard, they were profound. When I saw something or heard something that spoke to me, I kept thinking about it after the scene passed, so I would miss some subsequent scenes.

The film does an incredible job of capturing the tension between the light and darkness of life... how these two coexist and they do not favor one person over another. How they are both in all people. And how they make us all intrinsically the same. Whether or not the world calls us good or bad. No one is exempt from suffering... or joy. It seems that some people experience more of one and less of the other that it tends to get mistaken for entitlement or deservedness.

I missed an intense scene with a man's face in the ground the first time I watched the film. Are you compassionate? Are you kind? Are you loved by all? Know that I was too. Do you imagine that you will suffer less because you loved goodness and truth? This line was so memorable, I rewound and watched the scene again, and then somehow the line stayed with me throughout the film. I started tearing up from that point on.... pretty much until the end of the movie.

That part then flows into a scene of gunfire and a chaos of killing... This great evil. Where does it come from? How'd it steal into the world? What seed, what root did it grow from? Who's doin' this? Who's killin' us? Robbing us of life and light. Mockin' us with the sight of what we might've known. Does our ruin benefit the earth? Does it help the grass to grow, the sun to shine? Is this darkness in you, too? Have you passed to this night? This line, this scene... reminded me - it's in all of us. And we try to hide it. Avoid it. Put it out of our minds. We try to pretend it's not in us. Not ME. I don't kill. I don't destroy. I don't rape.

But if I am the same... this great evil. It's in me. This whole thing, it started to sink in when I realized I am just as capable of killing a human being as that murderer in prison. I was violated on the train a few months back. It wasn't the first time, but in the past I was too afraid to say anything. Didn't want to cause a scene. But this time, when he continued to touch me, I tried to grab his hand and started to run after him. I gave up after a second or two because I was tired. Of dealing with this shit. I felt so violated. I wanted to give up. Just cry. I did. I was angry. That day as I couldn't get the situation out of my mind, I realized, if I had a weapon, I would not have hesitated to use it against him. And I realized at that moment, I am capable of killing. That violator and I... at the end of the day, the same depravity is in all of us. We are the same.

Everything, a lie. Everything you hear, everything you see. So much to spew out. They just keep coming, one after another. You're in a box. A moving box. They want you dead, or in their lie... There's only one thing a man can do - find something that's his, and make an island for himself. If I never meet you in this life, let me feel the lack; a glance from your eyes, and my life will be yours.

(all italicized quotes above from "The Thin Red Line")

The holidays seem to create an extra frenzy of picture-taking and documenting by photograph all the quality time spent with family and friends. Meals, get togethers, parties and other events usually bring forth many photograph opportunities. Xanga, Myspace, Facebook, Flickr... they all have a healthy (or an over) dose of pictures that we can view and catch up on each others' lives without even really communicating. I, too, like the rest of the world, have a digital camera and try to bring it around as much as I can, especially if I know there will be fun moments to capture. Concerts, birthdays, weddings... I want to remember these times and be able to look back on them someday. I come home after an event and almost like real-time, upload all my pics onto Facebook and hope that people see the good times that are ongoing.

The other day, while uploading some pictures online, a thought dawned on me. If someone formulates views of me by the pictures that I have posted, then he/she cannot possibly be getting the whole of who I am. Because all of the pictures that I have up for the public to see... they're all "happy" moments. Occasions that bring forth smiles and silly-ness and laughter. It's true, life consists of a lot of these moments and we should celebrate them. But life also consists of a lot of moments when I'm not smiling. I might be crying. Or angered. Or annoyed. But these moments never get captured by the camera and never get posted anywhere for anyone to see. It makes a lot of sense. Why would I want to remember the sad, incomplete, joyless moments of life? Why would I try to capture these moments for memory's sake? And why would I ever want to share that with the world? Certainly, "Kodak" moments aren't meant to depict such darkness in life.

But I think my view is changing. It is valuable to remember the good times. But also the dark times. Because usually for me, the dark times make me more pointedly reflect on God, love, life and death. And as painful as some of those dark experiences are, it's just as much a part of who I am as the good experiences. And to leave the dark experiences to the fading memory that I have... well, I don't want them to just be distant occurences that I once wanted to completely erase from my memory. I now want to remember them. And grab onto the fact that they have also shaped me. And in some instances, in much more of a defining way than other less painful experiences.

I suppose I'm not exactly saying, 'let's take pictures of sad and depressing times of life,' but I am saying that maybe I should give it another thought and see how even through picture-taking and posting, I have tried to paint a veneer of a perfect life and tried so desperately to hide the brokenness that is so inherently a part of me. From others. And more so from myself.

Pictures and a faulty memory are all I have to remember the past. And when I'm going Home, I don't want to look at an album full of photographs that portray a successful, happy, perfect little life. Because life is not that. Life is much more than Kodak moments.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d1u5I6EgvyU

Live @ Drom NYC - Album Release Show!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nU53BmoFhCY

Live @ Drom NYC - Album Release Show!