Dawn Xiana Moon: Melodic folk pop infused with passion and honesty. From Chicago.

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Sunday, August 21, 2005

Embarking

So it begins. In a few hours I'll leave Ann Arbor for my first "real" tour through Chicago, Minneapolis, Oshkosh (WI), and back through Chicago--according to Google Maps, this will entail 25 hours of driving, almost entirely by myself (a friend is going to join me for the return trip from Chicago, so that's four hours of company). Thankfully I'll be staying with friends along the way; actually, a large part of the impetus to tour to Minneapolis was to visit Dave and Emily, the couple I wrote "The Promise" for.

I feel blessed. Last night was a wonderful sendoff for the tour, a birthday concert at Espresso Royale complete with a substitute for birthday cake: homemade chocolate pudding pie-cake, flan, and brownies. Which was excellent, because I'm not a fan of typical cakes anyway. I was joined by Leena Gilbert on violin--it was our first real show together, and unfortunately she's moving to New York (where she will doubtless take the jazz world by storm)--and we had an audience that listened, something you don't always find in a coffee shop. So I've decided that every concert should be a birthday party from now on--that way I'll always have an attentive, full audience.

I'm also thankful for my community, an international assemblage of friends and family that have promised to pray for the trip. So many of them have helped throughout this musical journey of mine: in just a sampling, TB Douce and Alex allowed me to borrow their cars on a consistent basis; Anna, Dan, Brad, Ben, and Bethany devoted hours to recordings both new and old; Tom E., my (now former) pastor gave me free reign to steal his guitar almost weekly; my brother likewise let me steal his guitar and car; and Ricke is donating his time to engineering the upcoming full-length and loaning his car and guitar for the duration of the tour, which is the reason I learned to drive a stick shift this week. (If you haven't noticed the trend, I'm usually both car-less and guitar-less, rather a problem when you're a working musician.) It's worthy to note that much has changed in a year--at this point last summer I was dealing with a number of issues, the primary being a loss of community when my closest friends all left town at the same time. But I'm again in a place where I am incredibly grateful for the people in my life, both in Ann Arbor and beyond.

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