Photo by MilliGFunk Photography

Even though it’s beginning to feel like it’s been a long time since I lived in Brooklyn, I still miss the arts scenes there. Taking the photography my husband gave me as a birthday gift through Bemis School of Art challenges me to continue to grow in how I executive my creative ideas.

I may not be exposed (punny, huh?) to the best art in the world in Colorado like I was in New York, but I still strive to live a creatively meaningful life. I wanted that to come through in our elopement ceremony and I want it to be apparent when you enter our home.

Photo by Jon Collins

For the ceremony, I created all of our flowers, made my veil, and wore sparkly white canvas TOMs wedding shoes.

Photo by Jon Collins

One week before our wedding, we were told unexpectedly by our realty management company, Advanced Realty Concepts, that our lease would be terminated early at no cause of our own,  just before my husband’s deployment to Afghanistan. So in the midst of final plans for our ceremony and hosting our families who were visiting from four different states, we had to find a new place to live.

Two weeks later, we’ve moved into our new place, but I’m taking my time and being very intentional about how we decorate and organize our new home. It may not be a brownstone in Brooklyn, but that doesn’t mean we can’t come home at night to a place that inspires us.

I miss my friends who live in other places, but I feel closer to them when we share music and food. So on this lovely Monday morning, I’m listening to music by Portugal, the Man, recommended to me by my friend Factor as I eat breakfast that also reminds me of good friends.

Photo by MilliGFunk Photography - Taken at the Ferry Building in San Francisco, CA

My toast was made of fresh bread from a Colorado Springs bakery called Great Harvest Bread Company with jam I picked up from happy girl kitchen co. on a visit to see my best girls in San Francisco. To top it off, I’m drinking French coffee I bought from Colorado Springs’ Colorado Coffee Merchants, a roaster I took my best friend to when she visited me in Colorado in November.

With the Girls in Napa - Photo by HubbyGFunk

When you cultivate a life in which the little things are meaningful, the big things (like deployments and unexpected moves)  have less power to throw you off course, and geography feels like less of a barrier between you and the people you love.

Whether it’s locally-made bread or wearing TOMs in your wedding; making your own flowers or appreciating the sentiment behind a gift from a friend, I hope you’ll take a moment today to find peace in a little thing or two that make you happy.

Let’s face it – The stress of these super-close World Series games is a lot to handle this week. Wouldn’t it feel good to get out on Friday night for some good, hard, live rock music? If I still lived in Missouri, I’d be at Off Broadway on Friday night to see Kentucky Knife Fight.

I saw the band for the first time at Off Broadway on New Year’s Eve 2010, and I was impressed enough that I immediately emailed friends in Brooklyn and San Francisco, both of whom work professionally in the music industry, to share Kentucky Knife Fight with them.

So…On our off-night from World Series excitement, go check out some local music at a local venue. Namely, check out Kentucky Knife Fight at Off Broadway. While you’re at it, have a Schlafly for me. I’m feeling mighty homesick for the home state this week, and nothing cures the blues like some good live music.

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Who: Kentucky Knife Fight w/the Upright Animals and John Paul Keith & the One, Four, Fives (from Memphis)

When: Friday, October 21,

What Time: Show starts at 9 p.m.

Where: Off Broadway – STL

I’m moving away.

I’ll have 15+ hours in a U-Haul to listen to music while my loyal sidekick (Rosie) sleeps beside me.

I need music for the drive.

This is where you can help.

Leave me a comment with the song or songs that you think I need to have on my playlist for driving across Kansas, starting a new step in my career, leaving family (again), chasing my dreams, facing my fears, and embracing new opportunities.

I’m  sad about leaving ‘home’, excited about my next steps, and nervous about so many changes in my life. Help me build an incredible playlist to capture these moments, these feels, these fears and these dreams.

The tears are welling up as a write this. Make a small town girl smile and leave a comment with a song, will you?

Grace in Small Things

Some of the little things I’m happy are part of my life this week:

1. Friends who hold me accountable for reaching my potential.

2. Running again post-injury, even if I’m still not 100%

3. Hot tea.

4. The music of Nina Simone. And Bob Seger. And so many other artists.

5. Mail. The paper kind that comes via a delivery person. The kind of mail that shows you a person’s handwriting. The kind that isn’t just a bill or an advertisement, but that someone put time into creating, addressing, and taking to the mailbox.

Tonight a friend in New York sent me this link to a live streamed album by a Brooklyn-based band called The National. I happen to be a big fan of The National, and have listened to two of their previous albums (Boxer and Alligator) countless times. I suppose there’s something about this group of NYC-transplanted Ohioans that I can relate to. And their music, well…it just moves me.

This newest album, High Violet, managed in its first two songs to bring me to tears.

“Terrible Love”, the fist song on the album, has background vocals reminiscent of Bon Iver, with grungy, industrial percussion that makes me think of Godspeedyoublackemperor. By the end of that song, The National had my full attention, and my mind had wandered to my ex. He and I split up in January of 2009, but he was my best friend in New York.

As if it had read my mind, the album goes on to a second track called “Sorrow”. With lyrics including, “It’s in my honey it’s in my milk. It’s only about half a heart alone. On the water, Cover me in rag and bones, sympathy. Cause I don’t wanna get over you. I don’t wanna get over you.”

As if their new album weren’t killing me already, The National had to tear my heart out a little bit more with its fourth track, “Little Faith”:

Now I’m stuck in New York
And the rain’s coming down
I don’t feel like we’ll go anywhere
Stuck in New York
And the rain’s coming down
Still in line for the vanity fair

Leave our excellent souls
Head for the coast
Leave our excellent souls
Everything goes

All our lonely kicks are getting harder to find
We’ll play nuns versus priests until somebody cries

So that’s that. I’ve not made it through the rest of the album yet, but so far it’s done exactly what music – in my opinion- is there to do; it’s made me feel. It’s stirred things, raised questions, unearthed emotions, and made me feel, well…alive.

Vintage Vinyl, photo by smalltowngirl

In the days before the internet, when a small town girl was forced to drive 70 miles to buy any album that wasn’t mainstream, Vintage Vinyl was where I went.

In 2009, when a small town girl who’s heart is a Brooklynite is aching for a sense of connection to St. Louis and is longing for some new music, Vintage Vinyl is still where I go.

Listening Station CD Stack, photo by smalltowngirl

I sat at a listening station in Vintage Vinyl, and an employee brought me stacks of CDs to listen to. I came away with a long list of bands to remember on my next trip to a record store. I also left with two new CDs; one by the Fleet Foxes and one by The Felice Brothers.

Vintage Vinyl is proof that you don’t have to be in New York or San Francisco to find great, locally owned independent businesses staffed with people who truly know and love what it is that they sell. I love Vintage Vinyl.

I wandered, taking pictures, allowing my mind to wander, too.

I ate festival foods, and I felt the warm sun bring freckles to the surface of my cheeks. I met with old friends, and I paid way too much for the biggest, fanciest candy apple I’ve ever seen.

I bought gourmet cheese from an organic goat farm in Ste. Genevieve County, Missouri, and I took notes as the farmer talked about what recipes I should try using the cheeses in. I’ll spend my day tomorrow cooking. I also went to a coffee shop, where I read the RFT and blogged and drank coffee.

I wandered across town to my favorite record store, where I listened for hours to CDs by bands I’d never heard of while strangers trickled into and out of the store. Somewhere inside the sounds of the music I recovered something of mine that I didn’t quite realize I’d lost in the first place.

I may blog as smalltowngirl, but this small town girl’s heart belongs in a bigger city.  Even though I miss Brooklyn more than I thought possible, I know that it’s time that I found ways to make St. Louis my home.