The Ever-Shifting Horizon

On April 19th, 2015, I sat in a sanctuary in Southwestern Virginia and listened with my whole body and being as singers representing over fifty years of Concert Choirs sang my father's father to Heaven. The tears that erupted from the depths of that music reacting with the depths within me were the most expulsive I had ever known, and they washed me from the inside out, removing all pretenses and limitations I had imposed upon myself up to that point, rinsing out the ears of my intuition that had been stopped up so long by doubt, and fear, and neglect. I sat there on the familiar varnished pew, stripped and raw and clean and perfectly aware that my time living in California needed to end. With pristine clarity, I understood in that moment that I must tend to the music buried within me--there in the ancient mountains where my ancestors had planted it. Within two months, I had packed up my life in Oakland, said my tremendously difficult goodbyes to my Pride of friends who formed a family for me in absence of my own, and flew home to southern Appalachia to my mother's kitchen and my father's voice studio. To the seat of my soul. To start anew.

Studying voice has proven to be the most humbling, dizzyingly vulnerable experience I've ever known. It astonishes the psyche, requiring a level of self-intimacy that is frankly much easier to leave unexplored. It challenges me in ways I didn't know existed. It thrills me on levels nothing else has ever touched. It heals me. It breaks me wide open. It confounds me. It integrates me. It transforms me. It demands that I aspire to it. And now that I've acknowledged its power, it will not let me go. Imagine the depths of my spiritual privilege, being able to explore this realm with my own father as my guide. This has been, far and away, the best time of my life.

What I never could have foreseen on that pew in early Spring was what was in store for me outside the walls of Dad's studio. In concert with my vocal awakening, my move East anointed me with the most profound transfiguration my spirit has yet known: loving, living for, and letting go of Rusty Cline. My champion. My devil. My guide. In him, I found the affirmation I needed to steer me through the perilous waters of enkindling myself as an artist. He gave me the invaluable gift of confidence--he made me feel the worth of my pursuit in ways that I couldn't have found elsewhere. He believed in me more than I did, and he held me to account because of it. Our love transformed my heart forever, and his death permanently altered my soul; but it was his unwavering esteem for my abilities and my significance, and his insistence that I fulfill them, that continue to change my life.

And my life is, indeed, changing once again. Like my intrepid Rusty, I am swimming hard toward an ever-shifting horizon, certain only that I am still chasing my "musts," trusting that the undertaking and the outcome can only be one and the same.

By the time April 19th, 2019 arrives, I will once again call San Francisco my home. The mighty Pacific will again form the horizon for the setting of my sun. I plan to sing into the roar of her waves, and mingle the salt of my waters with her own. It has been a monumentally difficult decision to make, but I am satisfied that in order to reintegrate my own life in the wake of the end of Rusty's, I must make another passage through the Golden Gate. Opportunities await me there that I would not be able to create anywhere else. And so, for a season, I go.

My vocal discipline will continue to intensify, and I will officially inaugurate the project that I hope will become my life's work: a bold new venture that will marry my pursuit of music with my passion for wine. There's no better place on earth for me to develop this dream than in the company of my wine country colleagues, mentors, and friends. My dearest friend Miles has paved the road that will lead me out there, and is flying to Nashville to accompany me on the long drive and the many embarrassingly beautiful American miles to be reckoned with along the way. Our dear friend JuJu has offered to share her peaceful, healing home with me when I arrive: a place that promises to finally provide the space and the stillness that will allow me to fully grieve, and to fully commit to my practice. My old restaurant home in Oakland, the one I call my soul externalized in restaurant form, will once again uncork for me a flood of relationships with the most passionate makers, importers, and stewards in the whole wide world of wine. And the universe will continue to unfold.

I can't wait to be reunited with my Pride. My friends, I have missed you so.

But I am terrified--terrified and freshly heartbroken to travel so far away from everyone who knows and loves Rusty. Everyone I know and love because of Rusty. So very far away from his art, his mother, his bed, and his grave.

And far from my few and fierce friends on this side of the continent who have made the hardest parts of this wonderful time in my life so bearable, and the easy parts so damn fun.

I shall miss you all terribly. Thank you so much for your encouragement, and for filling this new chapter with excitement on my behalf even before I could muster it myself. I'm beginning to welcome it in now...now that it's nearly time to go.

"The universe is unfolding exactly as it should. You are a part of it. And everything is going to be OK."