Pickin' in the Pines

 I can still remember it so vividly.....my favorite weekend of the summer.  How is it possible that this was my favorite?  With all the traveling, and family, and scenery, and music, and festivating....as I've said, the entire summer was so lovely.  I feel like we squeezed all the life and love and beauty and magic that we could out of this summer.  And yet...

This simple, unplanned, last-minute, rainy weekend was my very favorite.

And what made it so?

• beautiful, interesting, free-spirited children
• good friends
• like-minded parents
• unhurried, open ended conversations
• long, chilly mornings spent snuggled in the Scamp reading
• more mandolin playing in one weekend than I've quite possibly every partaken in
• more confidence and shedding-of-hang-ups about my mandolin playing than I've ever experienced
• a wide open meadow with plenty of space for our babies to run and play without our constant hovering
• late night campfires
• the best starry night of the summer
• hot tea and cold beers, at all the right times
• simple meals....just enough to keep us satisfied
• the feeling that I had all I needed or wanted right there in that peaceful meadow, that I didn't want it to end, and that I wanted to do it all over again the minute I got home.

 

Summer Vacation: Part 2, Matrimony

On June 23, 2013, my cousin Haley married her best friend, Greg.  It was perhaps the loveliest, most fun wedding celebration I've ever attended or been a part of.  I love Haley and Greg dearly, I look up to them in so many ways, and I was so honored to be involved in some very special aspects of this wedding.

 The festivities and celebrating started here....

I am so thankful that I was asked to join Haley at the Mayyim Hayyim Living Waters Community Mikvah as she prepared for her wedding.  (Fun Fact...Anita Diamant, the author of the Red Tent, is the founding president of this beautiful facility).  Ritual immersion in a mikvah is a long held tradition in Judaism and is a requirement under Jewish law for brides.  After Haley emerged from the mikvah, the afternoon was spent celebrating Haley.  We talked about family, women, our ancestors, and the hard and joyous work of marriage that lies ahead for her.  Women from Haley's family and Greg's family were both present at this peaceful, small, gathering, and I will always treasure that I was able to join her. 

As people started coming into Boston from all over the country for the weekend, the celebrating really got up to speed.  Manicures and pedicures for friends and cousins...and my little flower girl too!  She felt very special to get to join the big girls (and her favorite cousin Michael) for this event. 

The rehearsal dinner was a perfectly lovely evening.  Great food, funny and touching speeches, family slideshows, and a very special challah made by my Great Aunt Sylvia, my grandmother's sister. 

Sunday morning was a whirlwind of getting ready to head to Camp Kiwanee, about an hour outside of Boston, for the ceremony and reception.

There's always a fair amount of anticipation, excitement, and even nervousness when someone near and dear to your heart walks down the aisle.  But those emotions were a bit (who I am kidding...a LOT) amped up this time around.  I had some big jobs associated with this particular wedding.  Jobs I was BEYOND honored to be asked to do.  But I was a bit nervous....

First, my little Sadie was asked to be the flower girl.  She was so excited about this role; she loved her dress, her pretty shoes, her new haircut, and the fact that she'd be walking down the aisle with her cousin Chloe by her side.  But she'd also been dropping comments fairly regularly about how she didn't want everyone looking at her, and she didn't like having her picture taken.  And I was having nightmarish flashbacks about the last time she was a flower girl.  She and I walked down the aisle, hand in hand, at my brother and sister-in-law's wedding.  All eyes were on us...and then people started oohing and aahing and taking pictures.  And Sadie couldn't handle it.  She dropped to the ground and tried to disappear.  And I somehow bent down in a short dress and very high heels and proceeded to carry her down the aisle, all the while whispering reassuring comments in her ear and telling her to just close her eyes and hold onto Mama.  Not so smooth.  Needless to say, I was the teeny tiniest bit nervous this second time around.  And I wouldn't be holding her hand this time.  But she's two years older, so I kept telling myself she'd be fine.


Then there was the chuppah.  I think once upon a time I sewed an apron for Haley on my 100-year old sewing machine.  And my mom and I, of course, have gifted her with plenty of handknit items.  But we are not, by any stretch of the imagination, seamstresses.  But despite that small fact, when she asked us last November to create a chuppah for her wedding ceremony, we leapt at the chance.  I'll do anything for this girl.


Well, that sent Mom and me down a long, winding, sometimes stressful path to the final product....this patchwork chuppah, assembled from panels contributed by members of both Haley's and Greg's families....

It's clearly handmade....I didn't want anyone looking too closely.  But I do feel immensely proud of what my mom and I accomplished with this chuppah, and I hope that Haley and Greg can feel all the love and well wishes that went into it. 

But all this really felt like small potatoes when up against what was really making me nervous.  Haley had asked my dad, my husband, and I to play music during and after the wedding ceremony.  As in....during the processional and recessional!  Like....as a beautiful bride was walking down the aisle on her wedding day, I would be playing my mandolin.  WHAT???  I'm the mandolin picker who won't even play in front of other people in the comforts of my own home.  I prefer to hide in a dark closet where no one can hear me.  But again, I'd do anything for this girl.  So I have been practicing my ASS off!  I have played more mandolin in the past 6 months than ever in my life.  There's nothing like the looming threat of having to play your instrument in front of more than 100 silent and listening friends, family, and strangers, on your dear cousin's most important day, to put the pressure on you to pick up your instrument and practice.  So that's what we've been doing.  And I was sweating, and fidgety, and feeling a bit panicked until the moment I got the thumbs up from the wedding planner to strike those first notes.

And we pulled it all off just fine.  Nothing was flawless.  I hit some weird notes, Sadie walked down the aisle looking at the ground, and the chuppah certainly has a few (more than a few) "oops" spots.

But it was all perfect for the occasion.  All this work and effort was worth it.  We succeeded in helping Haley celebrate her marriage in the way she wanted to.  It was personal, and intimate, and all about family and friends and love.  And although professional musicians certainly would have sounded better...no one other than her Uncle Jon (my dad) could have written a song, Haley's Waltz, JUST FOR THIS OCCASION.


And obviously, playing music alongside my two favorite pickin' buddies, but husband and my dad, made it that much less scary, and that much more fun.  And it was all about the giant love I have for these two beautiful people, Haley and Greg, as they start their married lives together.

The wedding reception was one of the more fun that I have been to.  They had a great live band, that played songs that filled the dance floor the entire night.  I danced with my husband, my mom and dad, my daughter, my brother and sister-in-law, and the rest of my extended family.  Such fun...

 

And it was SO cool that after the wedding festivities were over we stayed the night in summer camp cabins, after continuing the party around a bonfire and skinny dipping in the lake.

It was such a joyous celebration and I felt so thankful and blessed to be able to celebrate the marriage of Haley and Greg. 

Honey Don't

On Saturday, October 9, we hosted a house concert that I have been looking forward to for so long. One of my favorite Colorado bands, Honey Don't, traveled from Paonia to play for us on a beautiful fall night.

This was one of those experiences where I just had to really concentrate on holding it together so I didn't start crying...I was that happy! Honey Don't's (two apostrophes? hmmm...) music was SO good, and the excited positive energy in our small living room was so palpable. I had such a big smile on my face all night and felt so lucky to be able to be a part of this musical moment.

I'm really proud that Brian and I can play a small part in making this magic happen. When you bring good people, acoustic instruments and beautiful voices, delicious homemade food, locally brewed beer (courtesy of our friend Lachlan at Dry Dock Brewery), and a lot of love into a small space like that, great things are bound to happen.

And they did! It was a night I will never forget. Bill, Shelley, Greg, and Ryan are some of the most talented musicians I know, and it was such an honor to have them play in our home. And it was overly gracious of them to stick around for a pick after the show. I vowed that I WOULD NOT UNDER ANY CIRCUMSTANCES take my mandolin out of its case while Greg Schochet was in the house (he's probably one of my favorite mandolin players ever....). Well, he got around that by having me play his mandolin while he played bass. Shoot.... But it was so fun to pick with some real musicians...I can't complain.

And we had dancers! Yeah for the dancers!

Here are some of my favorites from the night....

A Typical Night in the Peterson House

Trying to make time for some pickin' these days, no matter what it takes. And Sadie's loving it!

She'll be picking up a fiddle in no time...

My New Toy

Well, I finally took the plunge and bought myself a new mandolin. It's a Weber Bitterroot F-Style mandolin and I bought it at the Denver Folklore Center...my favorite acoustic instrument shop, and a Denver institution since 1962.

In 1998, when I moved to Alaska, I recognized the need for some new hobbies to keep me busy during the long, dark Alaskan winters. I started knitting, and, inspired by the multitude of bluegrass pickers in Fairbanks, decided that I wanted to start playing an acoustic instrument. I decided that a mandolin was just my size, and nice and portable to match my roving lifestyle at the time.

My dad bought me a great little Epiphone mandolin that I have been very happy with for over ten years. That mandolin served me well....and has been all over the country with me. One of my favorite memories with it was my last night in Alaska, just before crossing the Alaska/Canada border. Rachel, Alan, and I camped out in a beautiful, remote spot. We sat around a campfire in the cool fall air, and I played that mandolin as some of the most amazing northern lights I'd ever seen danced overhead, bidding us goodbye.

My mandolin playing has always been sporadic, at best. The problem for me is that mandolin playing is not the only hobby I love. So, when I have some spare time, it's hard for me to decide between picking, reading, and/or knitting. And I'll be honest, for most of the past decade, reading and knitting usually win.

But lately, things have changed a bit. Brian is a dedicated banjo picker and is always encouraging me to play more often. We've tried off and on to make music together, but until recently we just couldn't make it happen.

And then....we found what we've always needed...a guitar player!!! Right across the street! And we've known him all along, but he just didn't know he was a guitar player until about 9 months ago.

And now...the neighborhood band is in full swing!Since Brian, Ryan and I have started playing together, I've found a renewed sense of excitement about my musical ambitions. I've been having so much fun making music in my living room with our good friends. I love that Sadie is growing up, just like I did, surrounded by live acoustic music in her home.

And then a little voice inside me told me that I might be ready to upgrade my instrument. Well, once that voice spoke up, there was no ignoring it.

Over the past few months, I've visited every acoustic instrument dealer along the Front Range, and one in Durango, CO. I narrowed down the sound I was looking for in a new mandolin. And then I found the one. It all came down to look, and feel, and emotions. As Harry Tuft at the Folklore Center told me...it's usually the one you find yourself thinking about. And boy, have I been thinking about this instrument.

This mandolin was an investment (ie: it wasn't cheap), but it's something I will have for the rest of my life, and will be able to pass down to Sadie. And in my opinion, there aren't many better things in life to spend money on than beautiful, handmade acoustic instruments.

Now I just have to name it....