Cantiga: Michelle's Blog

Michelle's On-the-Road Weblog: Reflections of a New Rennie

Four months ago I moved to Eureka Springs, AR-- and I'm loving it! I'm playing with the Maia Archote Band (M.A.B.) and working on their new website: come visit us at ! MaiaArchoteBand.com We were lucky enough to have Cantiga's very own Alex Korolov on electric bass last week...

Blogging Again

I had no plans on continuing my blog after leaving Cantiga, but after revisiting Scarborough faire, I realized that not only would it have been beneficial for me to read the blog I had kept during my adventures in order to better prepare myself, but that my adventures are far from over. Certainly, I feel that my road adventures are only just beginning…

I have been blessed with Rennie visitations to my house in AR as my friends pass through to the next destination…. Its amazing how much better I feel now that my two communities have merged, if only for a few days, in small ways… I feel now that I never really left the Rennie community, and this is very reassuring.

Several people passed through who I did not even know very well at all—but it's amazing how through cooking & cleaning together, rock climbing, hiking, jumping off cliffs into lakes, and confronting a poisonous water snake can really break the ice...

One of my Rennie sisters is a tattoo artist, and I asked her to give me my first tattoo—I now have maple seeds forever painted beautifully on the heel of my left foot, with a small branch curving around my ankle. It will grow into beautiful maple leaves and branches which will intertwine with a spruce tree, representing the two woods my fiddles are made of. They are seeds planted by the Rennie community, that will literally keep me rooted to them…. a seed I will always have with me and which is only the beginning of something beautiful. It took about 3.5 hrs and hurt like hell, but it was an experience like no other…. In my semi-hallucinatory state of pain, listening to fiddle music, smelling the incense of trees and watching the green ink being shot into my foot, I saw, heard, smelled, tasted, and truly LIVED the color green….the color of creativity, growth, and life… I feel now that I have become completely one with my art and my community, and it is a joy like no other I have experienced.

Revisiting the Faire—Scarby III

I returned to my new home in Eureka Springs, AR at 3 AM today after a grueling day of driving from Waxahachie, TX. Comfortably reclined on the couch, with a ceiling fan gently blowing on my face as I wait for water to boil for tea, it’s hard to believe that yesterday I woke up to the smell of my sandals molding. I had been covered in mud up to my knees for the last few days, sleeping on a mat on the floor of Maia’s family’s shop, Hollowearth Swordworks, (also coated in mud), surrounded by some of the people I love most (also covered in mud).

I’ve been away from the faire circuit for almost a year now, living indoors for most of that time—but already the memory of the struggles of daily life on the circuit had faded to such a point that I packed for my trip as if I were off to Spring Break in Florida! Retaining only the good memories of the faire, I had completely forgotten the devastating impact of rain on the Waxahachie fairgrounds— and spent much of the week absolutely filthy, wet, sweaty, and mosquito bitten!

Waxahachie mud is famous for being an industrial lubricant for oil companies; it has the unfortunate quality of being both sticky and slippery, so it is much like walking on ice that piles and piles on your shoes. And if you didn’t think ahead, like me, and didn’t pack boots, you can just forget wearing shoes… you’re better off walking barefoot, because the mud is so slippery that at least this way you can hold on to the ground with your toes… unless of course, you don’t mind falling on your face and being covered in the stuff!

Fortuneately, the kindness and generosity of the Rennie community was every bit as real as I had remembered. During the entire week I visited Scarborough Faire, I was never without a place to sleep. Friends and strangers—who quickly became friends—offered me food, coffee, and alcohol. When Hollowearth ran out of water on a blistering hot day, Martha gave us one of her gallons. When my car was stuck in the mud, Maia’s father and brother pushed it out.

So, you might ask: WHAT ON EARTH WERE YOU THINKING?

Scarborough is, in my experience with Cantiga, one of the two pivotal social gatherings of Rennies (the other being TRF, or Texas Renaissane Festival). I chose to visit not only because of its (relative) close proximity to my house, but because I knew I would be reunited with my Rennie “family”. I took this as an opportunity to heal, recharge, and find inspiration… I returned to AR with all this and also something I did not expect—a renewed appreciation for my lovely house!... Although, I never did find the right words to express to my Rennie family just how much they mean to me-- which I regret even more than not bringing rubber boots!

There is so much to say, so much magic that happened on my visit….the RESCU rally, the phenomenal Chris Puente concert, the spontaneous jamming…. but perhaps most memorable of all was falling asleep to the sounds of crickets, frogs, and owls, and waking up to the smell of grass and leaves wet with dew… and through it all, the soft drone of the creek rushing past rocks and over tree roots… the simple joy of being part of another day, another night…How long had it been since I slept and rose this way? How could I have forgotten this delight?

Now that I’m back home, you’ll find me quite content to have simple amenities like running water and electricity—but I dream of moving my bed outside again!

Creek Poem

standing by the creek
thick branches stretch
out to the heavens
intertwining, indistinguishable
in a great mandala

soft murmuring of leaves in a light
wind over the low
hum of the creek closing
my ears I hear
the hum of my own
blood flowing

above me the moon
below me the earth
through me the water
and all around me
is green

Bite Poetry?

During my first week in Boston, I felt a terrible pain while I was sleeping and dreamed I was bleeding from my side. When I woke up, I reached my hand around my side to feel what it might be. Then I realized:

Whatever it is, it has legs.

How funny that I spent almost two years living in the woods without a single tickbite... why BOSTON?

So of course, I had to draw it and write a poem.

A friend asked, "since you're a poet that plays music, and you wrote about a tick bite, does this make you a BITE poet rather than a BEAT poet?"

So in the new genre of Bite Poetry, here are two poems dated, of all days, on 11/11 (and if you don't get the significance of 11/11, refer to previous blog entries):

Bite Poem

small, silent
you planted your head in my skin
and I plucked you like a tulip bulb
by your bulging fat stem
a tick in a tupperwear
a human in a box
both of us waiting
both of us uncertain

Well, this story does not end so well for the tick, but I am happy to say I do not have Lyme.

Epilogue... Epiblog?

It’s a cold, clear December night in Boston; I’m sitting on the couch in my new living room pouring myself a glass of Shiraz, and I’m having a flashback. I’m imagining that I’m sitting in my treehouse at Scarborough Faire, and the sounds of city cars driving by my window is really the mumble of the creek below, and the scrapings and hammerings of my housemates as they gut the kitchen are really the night sounds of insects and frogs calling to eachother… the street lamps outside my window…. they are just candles….the train horn… is really an owl…

…and as I sip my wine I hear a knock at the door, and I suddenly remember Owain standing outside my treehouse with a bottle of red wine, asking me if I need “ a little nightcap”…

Was it really 8 months ago?

My new home is warm and comfortable, even though at the moment I don’t have a kitchen. I live with 4 other artists, but I have my own room and studio; together, we live on two floors of a beautiful house in Jamaica Plain, which is an artsy fartsy, hip, happenin’ Boston neighborhood.

My housemates are wonderful; I’m so happy to be part of a community again. We are all professional artists in our 20’s and early 30’s, trying to find our place in the world. You can see the local train station from my house, and just a short walk away is the beautiful Arboretum… and at the end of my dead-end street is a historic, extravagant cemetery (no pun intended). This entire area is very green and woodsy even though it’s a thriving, busy city, and my street is surprisingly quiet. I walk down the street to the diner to eat breakfast since I don’t have a kitchen at the moment, and the health food store is a short distance away.

However, even with everything so close-by, I feel like I spend most of my days stuck in traffic and waiting at stoplights… often it takes an hour to drive just 12 miles… I’ve spent so many hours being lost, trying to make sense of all the unmarked streets, and streets that split off a million different ways (no signs), trying to navigate around aggressive drivers and struggling to make my exit off the highway… it’s dizzying, unnerving, and very scary. When I left the faire, I was looking forward to not living out of my car; now I spend more time in my car than ever! In fact, I spend so much time trying to just GET to the gig—and so little time actually playing music-- that I decided, finally, to do what was previously unthinkable, and apply for full-time jobs in the art/music world.

Still, the city has a certain magic… as I drove to the supermarket last week, suddenly it began to rain, and the little raindrops dotted my windshield, pixelating the city lights, buildings, trees, and people walking their dogs; I felt I was driving in and through a Seurat painting. And when the moon is full and the night isn’t too cold, I climb out onto my rooftop and study the sky (like most people here, I have a flat rooftop which is safe to go out and sit on). The Museum of Fine Arts is only a couple T stops away, and there are Early Music concerts happening all the time in Boston… I love being reunited with the Sam Hill Trio (led by Steve Jobe), the Toe Jam Puppet Band, and the Chris Monti Acoustic Trio, and old friends. (Visit www.myspace.com/MichelleLevy for upcoming gigs.)

Of course, I miss the faires, and not a day goes by when I don’t think about going back. In fact, I spent a few days at the Pennsylvania Renaissance Faire in September with Vicki Scuteri, where we debuted our new dueling-fiddle-comedy-sword-fighting-show. In a couple days, I leave for Houston, where I’ll hopefully visit Max… then Nuevo Chile, where I’ll join up with Martha and we’ll drive to New Orleans to meet Helen Guillet and re-unite the Pacem Trio… then I fly to the Ozarks to spend New Year’s on the Archote family farm (home of Hollowearth Swordworks). I can’t wait to ride horses and dance in the moonlight again.