UPCOMING GIGS

  • June 10'20 Nice Bistro Whitby, ON
  • Apr.15'20 Princess M Hospital Atrium
  • Apr.11'20 HIRUT 2050 Danforth Toronto
  • Dec.14 '19 HIRUT 2050 Danforth Toronto
  • July 26 2019 Gull River, Minden ON
  • June 19, 2019 The Nice Bistro, Whitby
  • Sun.May5, 2019 Hugh's Room, Toronto
  • Sat.April 6, 2019 The Old Mill, Toronto
  • 15 marzo 2019, el gallo restaurant, san pancho, mexico
  • Feb. 26, 2019 Relish Bar/Grill, Toronto
  • Jan.23,2019 Nice Bistro, Whitby
  • Sept.29,'18 12:30-3:30pm; Glass Eagle Studio, Haliburton
  • Sept.19, 2018 Private Function, Toronto
  • July 27&28, Haliburton Arts&Crafts2-4pm
  • June 6, 2018 The Nice Bistro, Whitby, ON
  • Feb.23,2018 San Pancho Music Festival, Mexico
  • Jan.20,2018 The Old Mill Toronto, Home Smith Bar
  • Sept.30,2017 All That Jazz & More, at the Minden Legion
  • Aug. 5, 2017 Private Party, Carnarvon, ON
  • Aug. 4, 2017 Music by the Gull, Minden, ON
  • Aug. 2, 2017 The Nice Bistro, Whitby ON
  • May 17, 2017 The Nice Bistro, Whitby, ON
  • April 29, 2017 Minden Cultural Centre, Minden, ON
  • March 24,2017 The Old Mill Toronto, Home Smith Bar
  • Feb.26,2017 San Pancho Music Fest. Mexico
  • Nov.5, 2016 Radio Hall, CanoeFM, Haliburton, ON
  • Nov. 2, 2016 le Nice Bistro, Whitby, ON
  • Sept. 4, 2016 The Red Umbrella Inn, Minden, ON
  • July 26, 2016, Head Lake Park, Haliburton, ON
  • Jan. 29, 2016, The Home Smith Bar at the Old Mill, Toronto
  • Oct.23, 2015 Gate 403
  • Sept. 9 The Nice Bistro, Whitby, ON
  • August 22, Gate 403, Toronto
  • August 14, Music by the Gull, Minden, ON
  • July 29 Hugh's Room, Toronto
  • June 13, Gate 403,Toronto

Monday, January 29, 2018

IN HIS MIRROR

On the 25th anniversary of my mother's death, some recent thoughts, and me saying 'don't give up the fight':




 It's a funny thing, perception, so wildly varied, opposing even, depending on the person perceiving, his or her mood, or the people, experience, or stress in one's life. All those factors change what we think we see.
Take me, for example - please! Ha ha. Little joke there, based on that tired old humour that says a wife is a pain in the ass. Not humourous at all. I mean, if you don't like your wife, buddy, then get the f--- out of her life, and give her some peace, not to mention the opportunity to be with someone who appreciates her. What's that? It's just a joke? Yah, you guys are so funny, as you screw around, and dribble around the toilet. As you slaver over degrading porn.
Whoops! Got distracted by rampant attitudes, which are so hard to ignore, because they lessen the quality of the mind, heart, and soul of us all, affecting, and infecting us with spiritual pollution, just as chemical plants, car exhaust, and cigarette smokers pollute the air we have no choice but to breathe. Unthinking men, but greed and unkindness of the many weakens us too; I'll try to stay on track.
It's strange I should sound anti-male; I'm not at all. Why, some of my best friends.....
In fact I know a lot of wonderful men: intelligent, kind, and thoughtful, and able to make me laugh in a good way. But I get angry at the garbage that comes out of the ones who are not like that. So many of them are in positions of power. I'm veering again. It's strange I should sound anti-male because the whole purpose of this little essay was to talk about perception, and how knocked a-kilter my own has become since no longer having a 'significant-other' male in my life.
It ain't easy, I'll give myself that. A relationship of a decade and more, - now, that is significant, and can account for a good deal of your time, energy, and the need to have and express love and affection. I find that lately, and this is aggravated by having dropped out of two professions that would put me in contact with others, and am now working in very solitary fashion with music and writing, that, living singly, I talk to myself a lot. Recently, I have taken to doing it outside too, cursing bad weather or drivers on the streets, or simply having a nice conversation with moi. I figure everybody else is blathering details of their lives, unaware of the whole world, so I'll just look like one of them, headphones hidden. I can even laugh out loud at my own jokes as I go.
In general, however, I'm alone too much, and without the particular companionship that I had, and the common kind that most others have in their daily lives. So I wander in my house, keeping myself busy, talking, and working, but occasionally stopped by a glance at myself in the mirror. I have to say, I'm not inspired by me. Oh, I know I "clean up real good", as they say, but it's the general offering I make to myself that is less than stellar. And one day I realized that I needed to be looking at myself in his mirror, as I did in the past, which is to say, the pull-down mirror on the sun visor of his car, as we went somewhere, and I was in the passenger seat. For some reason, I was always surprised at my image in that mirror. I always seemed to look great; not only attractive, but young too; and happy. It was such an unexpected treat every time.
I guess what I'm saying is that somehow his feelings for me created an environment in which I liked myself, that someone loving you really does affect how you feel and therefore how you perceive. Love actually works. Duh. It helps and improves. Double duh. Maybe I'm double-"o" stoopid when it comes to love. Maybe that's why I am alone, even want to be alone, and ugly. Maybe I absorbed a lot of the misogyny as I grew up; the insistence that women were less and not deserving of being equal. I have always angrily rejected that lie intellectually, but emotionally, maybe it stuck somewhere.

What a dilemma. Where do I buy a mirror that works like the one in his car? Should I just make a vroom vroom sound every time I look in my own mirrors? How do I keep reminding myself that even though we had some lovely times, love seldom lasts forever; even though I wanted to move on, and am content and busy and have friends, and even though I consider my life to be privileged and good... I am simply missing him, and love. How do I remember that love is still there? Love that makes the world go 'round - that creates the world I want - that drives me somewhere instead of just into crazyland - that can surround me even when I'm rambling and echoing back my own drivel. 
You know?

Here's to friends....

Monday, January 8, 2018

EASING INTO THE NEW YEAR

It's been so bloody cold, although don't say it, I know we're better off than a lot of places, but it really has been brutal, and you know how everything slows in the cold. Like molasses in January, that's been me. So, a little catch-up...
Christmas with the fambly. my back window ice crystals, New Years at the good ol' blues bar. Rehearsal last weekend for the upcoming gig at the Old Mill (Jan.20), and just working at home on my novella, re-writing and improving, and to get me through the winter - skating.
Also a pic of me before I knew the world could be so cold, silly girl. I've hardly changed at all. haha
Come out on January 20 - 7:30-10:30pm at the Old Mill Toronto:

https://www.oldmilltoronto.com/event/zoe-chilco-quartet/

HAPPY NEW YEAR!!!