2022. Halftime.
It's almost August 2022 and for now I'm almost happy I'm not sitting in a car, driving to a show, praying for a clear road and wondering if I've got everything on me, forgot or lost something yesterday. It's been another challenging year, but fortunately in a different way compared to the last ones. Well, other issues, but still issues.
Life started to feel almost normal in early February when there seemed to be a light at the end of the tunnel. The virus seemed to loosen its grip and giving space for being cautiously optimistic. And Bang - here comes the war.
Authorities around here, long enough busy with making life as complicated as possible for us travelling folk, found a new playground for messing up things, but no point in going into details here. We sure all know the situation, and I got just too tired of thinking about it.
As I wrote in late February somewhere, I wasn't sure at all about starting this year's touring season with a string of shows in Poland. As I also probably mentioned many times, I'm more than happy I've done it anyway. Just to give a little sign. Just to not surrender to a mad world, run by mad people starting mad wars for no reason other than stroking their sick egos. Just to show others, we're not lost as long as there are songs and stories.
I'm still grateful for those evenings we shared in Wroclaw, Krakow, Warsaw and Kazimierz Dolny. Still so grateful I had the chance to give a little bit of myself, and receive so much in return from all of you. The same goes for Prague on that stint and not much later Vienna, Zagreb, Posega and Ljubljana. To name just a few.
If you haven't done it yourself, touring for a couple of months or longer on your own, you probably can't imagine how this feels. Changing places on a daily basis, losing ground both literally and metaphorically. It can feel, or rather, most of the time it does feel, marvellous. Being free to do what you always wanted to do. On your own, walking across the sunny main square of Maribor, having a coffee in one of those unique, renown Kaffeehauses of Vienna, meeting wonderful, interesting people. Sounds great? Oh it is, but there are those other moments or times, the dark ones. When you realize being on your own is not always a walk in the park, when you realize it's just a nicer expression for solitude. Pitch black solitude. When the blessing turns into a curse because you start to understand there is not really a steady place you belong to. The party is over, they're all leaving for their homes, whilst you have to go on and do what you've been doing for way too long. Driving down endless, boring motorways for hours and hours. Worrying if you're still strong enough to raise the energy for that next show, or if it's cancelled, and they just didn't tell you. If there is still enough petrol to make it to the next service station, whether you've done everything right with the purchase of that toll sticker that was just too confusing to understand on the website. Tiny problems that build up into massive issues beyond all reason or rationality. All these things you can't talk to anyone about, and if there'd be someone, would you really? When you realize you're on a good way of losing your basic social skills, your ability to communicate on a normal level, if not losing the plot in general. The mood swings. Dark to bright to dark to bright and back again.
When you have to admit that the only thing solid you can cling to are the songs. The ones you're playing every night, your companions on that road you've chosen. Because they've got the power to save you from your demons, because they keep you alive and going. Because they're the only coordinates you can trust in this strange universe, on this emotional rollercoaster ride. In those dark hours you better be careful, for once you're on that downward spiral you might not be able to stop the descent. A lot of us out here been there, the lucky ones made the jump. Some others didn't.
And then, every once in a while, you'd come to places like Semanovice, the Illuminarium Festival in France, the Scottish Anarcho Folk Festival, Hessenau, Haag, sweet home Feuerwache Hamburg, cake town Kassel, that friendly little birds nest in Lübeck, all those small remote spots. In towns, cities and countryside. You might get to meet them warm-hearted, yet a bit crazy friends in the middle of nowhere in Slovakia or Finland or wherever else. All these important places with people who make you feel home for a day, an evening, a night, to cheer you up, to drag you out of that bottomless pit you'll inevitably, sooner or later, stagger in en route. I owe you guys for that. Without you all, I couldn't do this all.