Thanksgiving

This year I’m spending Thanksgiving with my cousin and her family. It’s been a few years since I was in the relative vicinity (you know, since I lived in Texas the last time…) so it’s great to be back.

Adora and I have been reminiscing days with our grandma and grandpa and remembering childhood.  She’s a few years older than I am, so she has better memories of days and people I didn’t have the privilege of experiencing, or was too small to remember well.

Last night she showed me old video footage taken around 1970 – Christmas at my grandma and grandpa’s farm. I got to see the grandparents, aunts, uncles, and even other cousins as children. And my mom? She was approximately 17 in that video. How great is that??

In the spirit of the holiday we attempted my grandma’s famous rolls.

That’s right. We made rolls from scratch.

With real live yeast and everything.

In all reality, we made them for today’s Thanksgiving feast – but as a sneak peak I can tell you we tested them and they taste just like the ones grandma made for us years ago.

I  love celebrating today by remembering my family. I was and am blessed by them. 

Happy Thanksgiving!

Provocation

If you want to build a ship, don’t herd people together to collect wood and don’t assign them tasks and work, but rather teach them to long for the endless immensity of the sea.
- Antoine De Saint-Exupery

Courage, it would seem, is nothing less than the power to overcome danger, misfortune, fear, injustice, while continuing to affirm inwardly that life with all its sorrows is good; that everything is meaningful even if in a sense beyond our understanding; and that there is always tomorrow.
- Dorothy Thompson

Far away there in the sunshine are my highest aspirations. I may not reach them but I can look up and see their beauty, believe in them, and try to follow them.
- Louisa May Alcott 

Repentance is another name for aspiration.
- Henry Ward Beecher

Do not depend on the hope of results. You may have to face the fact that your work will be apparently worthless and even achieve no result at all, if not perhaps results opposite to what you expect. As you get used to this idea, you start more and more to concentrate not on the results, but on the value, the rightness, the truth of the work itself. You gradually struggle less and less for an idea and more and more for specific people. In the end, it is the reality of personal relationship that saves everything.
- Thomas Merton 

A sobering thought: what if, at this very moment, I am living up to my full potential?
- Jane Wagner

Where I Am Now

More often than not these days, I feel the need to recalibrate. I can’t go very long without needing to realign myself with the truth of why I’m exactly where I am. I forget it so easily. I fall into distrust and fear so easily.

Yesterday afternoon I decided to drive to Oklahoma to stay with my cousins – a couple days earlier than I’d been planning to for the Thanksgiving holiday. I listened to an old album, and I was struck at how much the meaning in those songs had changed for me.

Four years ago at this time I was living in Minnesota with my parents, working part time, sporadically spending time with friends, and daily taking walks around the lake near my parents’ house. I was in that ‘in-between’ period: no longer in Dallas, not yet where I’d find myself for the next 4 years. I was a little lost, and at the same time more free than I’d felt in a while. I was certainly unaware of how my life would change in the coming years.

Often on those walks, or while raking leaves, I listened to Jill Paquette. Her songs are honest about questions and doubt. She doesn’t defend her imperfection, but stresses her need for God in the midst of it. I connected with the album four years ago, but I was amazed at how much it meant to me when I listened to it last night. Songs I had overlooked before now flooded me with significance. I realized how much I have really changed in the last four years. I realized how much of God I recognize in my experience. I am more than ever aware of my need for him, and grateful for that need.

There’s no telling what the next four years of my life hold. Or the next four months, for that matter. But I don’t want to lose sight of the ways God speaks to me and draws me to him every day. I hope recognizing my need for realignment on a regular basis doesn’t mean I’m failing at what I’m doing. I think it means I see God at work in my life more than I ever have before.

342 In 365 Or, Something Close…

Today is my 100th post since starting the 365.

100 posts in 123 days.

Not perfect, but let’s be honest…

…we were never sure I’d make it this far.

Kinda feels like it’s my birthday.

This Calls For a Gift Exchange!

Some things in life require second chances.

Relationships

Sports Teams

Hilary Duff

My world is no exception. 

Ladies and gentleman, I told you WEEKS ago that I now have a website. And I do. But my website was like a clunky old car. Functional, necessary, but s l o w, and not that nice to look at. So I took matters into my own hands.

For the second time (because technically ’twas mine own two hands which built the clunker, as well).

As a result, the internets have made way for a newer, sleeker model of marijkejane.com. 

And bonus? I’m giving away a FREE MP3 from my newly released album to anyone who signs up for my email list. (I’ll send a monthly newsletter on how the music “biz” is going, and updates if I’m playing music in your town.) Click on the link above and enter your email address in the left hand bottom corner.

It’s simple. It’s easy. It’s painless. And it’s fraught with benefit.

Numbers Do Not Quantify Love

I left Alaska on October 12th – just 39 days ago.
Since that time I have called my brother roughly 1,000 times, desperate to stay connected with my 2 nieces. And I received 22 mobile photos, lest I not forget how beautiful they are.

I miss them terribly. Can’t wait to hug them at Christmas…

Reflections On Being In Texas: A List

1. I used to think that Dallas was so spread out that it just takes forever to get anywhere. Since being back here, I’ve come to the realization that WHERE I LIVE is just really far from everywhere. Shoot…
2. All I’m saying, is that I have driven next to more semi trailers in the last two weeks than in the last four years combined. And I didn’t miss them.
3. Remember how I used to use this blog as an outlet for my Alaskan Weather Woes? Don’t think for a minute that just because I no longer live in Alaska I’m not still going to point out that it’s still cold there. It’s still cold. As in negative 10. And I think I moved to Texas at the perfect time of year.
4. The journey of this year? The changes I’ve been anticipating and experiencing? All of the unknowns? In case you were wondering? None of that has changed…
5. I love living in a place where everything is so new and yet so familiar. I am in such uncharted territory, and yet I feel so at home. 

Audio Expansion

For a musician, I have a ridiculously small musical library. I listen to what I listen to; I sometimes purchase a random song or album, but I have not traditionally invested in a collection. I don’t know why.

When I was in elementary school, I remember somebody asking me what radio station I listened to, and I told them, 102.9 Lite FM. At which point a friend of mine came to my rescue, said I was joking (which I wasn’t), and promptly told the inquiring individual that I listened to the local pop station.

What? 5th graders aren’t allowed to like easy listening?

Needless to say, I’ve never really been on the forefront of the music scene (which I’ve always found a little ironic, being I’m a songwriter and all). In any case, I am aware of the fact that expanding my musical tastes might be a valuable investment; I find I’m often inspired when I listen to new and different music I enjoy.

Recently I acquired four new albums. The first, recommended to me by my friend, Sally. The latter three, songs and albums I overheard while hanging out with friends. (By the way, two of the artists were lucky recipients of a spot on a recent “Road Trip Mix – 2009,” given to me by my friend Ruthie.)

The lesson here? Be my friend, and I might just listen to the music you like.

Most of this music isn’t new, it’s just new to me. And while I am just learning what these albums are all about, and might not recommend every song as the very best EVER, thus far I have heard beautiful and wonderful things in all of them.

So without further ado (and linked to the requisite iTunes description) I bring you my current playlist:

• Erin McCarley – Love, Save the Empty
  
• Marc Broussard – Carencro
• Imogen Heap – Speak for Yourself
• Eric Hutchinson – Sounds Like This

I can’t wait until I start sounding really keyboardy, bluesy, edgy, folk rocky. You know… when the influence of these albums fuses to how I write.

And as soon as my bank account can accommodate such growth? My next investment will be country. 

 

Epiphany

I’m at the post office so often these days, sometimes I forget I can just put a stamp on a letter and stick it in the mailbox.

Ode To My Show

I started to write a poem about how I’m playing at a coffee shop tonight, but when I was half way through (thinking it was genius at first pen, of course) I realized that it had absolutely no structure. Or rhyme. So basically, it was like:

I like coffee.

I like  music.

Come see me play music and drink coffee.

Alright, so it wasn’t quite that bad. But it was bad enough that it caused me to delete the whole thing and start from scratch.

If by ’start from scratch’ you mean state explicitly what I’d tried to say poetically? Then Yes. That’s what this “from scratch” blog post is.

 

I bet you like music and coffee.

You should come hear me play music while you drink coffee.

The Pearl Cup

Downtown Dallas  

11/12/2009

6:30 pm