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I haven’t had a voice for almost four months now. I guess I should say I haven’t been able to sing. Because of something called a nodule on my vocal chords, I’ve been unable to push my voice without a good deal of pain. So I’ve kept quiet and tried to let the chords heal up. It has no doubt been a trying lesson in patience. Just days before the bad news from my doctor, I had finished making plans to record a new album, one which has been four years in the making. Months later, my disappointment still lingers.

But this disappointment has quite often led me back to my songbook. In it are words I wrote while working alongside the women of Sari Bari. I didn’t really sit down with the intention to write an album about the ladies. The music that came about is simply reflection, an outflowing of my appreciation for, and struggle with what the women have given me. The lyrics hold in them both the joy and hurt that I have seen in many of their lives. The song paths that I wander down are sometimes somber and angry, reacquainting me with many difficult memories, but they almost always lead me back to a hopeful place. For this musical inclination to hope, I can only thank the women of Sari Bari. I am so inclined because I have seen in their lives that hope is a choice they make each day. Seeing this choice played out in their lives, despite the many hurdles they each face, is as tangible a hope as I’ve ever witnessed.  I’ve been forever changed by the women of Sari Bari, and I remind myself of this each time I pick up my guitar and play these songs.

 

I am nothing more than sandy shores and you the waves…

I am not who went before, by your wounds I was reborn…

She is free, oh the foretaste, wet my tongue and left me wanting…

I swear by those sowing hands my strength is in the way you stand…

Rina, I will hold, like I said before, to see you dance once more…

 

I look forward to singing again sometime in the near future. But until then, being forced to merely sit down with my song book has served as a wonderful reminder of where my hope truly lies.