Kiku Collins: New Blog

I haven't been to a proper beach in probably years.  And I have no plans to be at one soon.  This makes me sad. Forget the hourglass, I need sands in my toes, on my beach towel, and in my hair.

I haven't had a proper vacation in a Very Long Time. I think the last time I went somewhere for an extensive period of discovery and relaxation without a gig attached was when I went to France with my daughter before she started preschool. Yeah. I remember not knowing how to pack, because I hadn't started my touring life yet. I had pathetically heavy suitcases for us, but we ran through the streets of Paris, waving croissants and smiles.  We swam in the ocean in the South, and yes, that sand was in our hair.

I've made mini getaways for the next 2 weeks, 2 days up in Boston, 3 days in Colorado. No gigs, just giggles. But it's kind of long enough to be annoyed that I have to run right home and Get To Work.  I need a break.  I'm exhausted.  I love that I'm blessed with work all around me, but I miss breathing.

Sometimes it's hard to turn a page in a book, especially when it's the end. You know you want to know what happens, whodunit, and you're pretty much over it and ready for the next book.  But will the next one be a bomb or The Bomb?  There's only one way to find out.

As we get older, not that I'm implying that I'm old... it becomes both easier and harder to change. Harder because we get set in our ways. Easier because we begin to realize how flexible life truly is, how we morph every few years and how if we don't allow the cocoon to open up and reveal what's next, how we can get stuck in a rut and become "those people"; the ones who make meatloaf every Sunday, who play the same notes over and over, who lose their very essence to someone else. The ones who put the same exact eye shadow on daily, who drive or walk the same route to work, who take a lunch break at the same time daily, like in the Flinstones when the whistle blows and they slide down the dino necks.  Or whatever they did. 

I sometimes wonder how people get into Ruts. And then I see myself Rutting along in ways. I see youth clamoring for my Ruts. It's a dream, what I do. I admit it. But what I do is not exclusive. It's unique, and it's unique to each person who has the same dream. I get asked how I got to do what I do, I was just interviewed again last night and was asked how it all started. And I laugh at how it did. It was fate. No matter what channels were open at that time, it was what I do and what I would do.

I love performing. I love creating. I love being a great mom and baking chocolate cake, and then sharing a naughty moment as my daughter and I eat a slice Before Dinner.  It's ours, our moment, and it breaks our rut of dinner first. It lets her know that it's good to mix it up, to do the right things even when they're wrong. 

I think it's time for my rut to un-rut a little.  How? We'll just see... but I hope it's more than cake before dinner. 

Did you ever do something so you could say "I can cross this off my list now?" Something totally out of the ordinary for you? Or maybe not, but something slightly taboo?  Do it now. Do it in the next 5 days. Do something zany (safe, please!), if it's cake for dinner and dinner for dessert, fine. If it's taking a Saturday and NOT working at all, only laying in bed reading all day, getting up to snack on fresh fruit and coffee laced with cinnamon and an ice cube... going for a run even if you DON'T run, and you only make it 10 blocks... cleaning out your closet honestly, and anything not worn in the past year gets donated - without exception... getting out your Flashdance soundtrack and Going For It in your livingroom (you KNOW the moves!)... singing childhood songs into a video camera and watching yourself recall simple lyrics you knew at age 3... looking up a recipe you've never tried, going to the grocery store and buying every ingredient, and going for it no matter how scary it may turn out... clean your dvd and cd collection out, realize that most of them are available on the Netflix instant downloads and donating them to the local library... clean your bookshelves while you're at it! You can visit them at the library too!... if you're an amateur, professional or has been musician, practice something you can remember from your youth, pluck it out of your brain and do your best... 

There's so much we don't do. Fear? Of what? Time wasted? Failure? Success? Making an *ss of oneself? 

Heck, that last one's part of my gig. And it rocks.

Close your eyes and think. Open them and make a list of things you are afraid of trying, things you think you may fail at, things that go bump in the night. Once you write them down, make them your list.  And try each one, if just to say "Well, that's off my list now".

xo,

NP