Happy 2002! O wondrous palladromatic year! Already things are looking up. The snow fell here, finally, in western Massachusetts, and everything seems new and gleaming clean, at least for the next five minutes before the snow mobilers plunge into the field across the street and make tracks down to the river. But I won't be crabby about it; instead I'll make use of their tracks and follow with my dog, glad to not have to get my socks too wet.
Katryna and I are pretty psyched for the soon to be released Love and China. We went all glam for the photos and look like virtual movie stars. ("Can't you use the photo I took of you when you were eight and ten?" my father wants to know. "You looked so cute then." )
And I have to admit, I feel a little weird using these gorgeous shots. Aren't I a feminist? Aren't I all about how little appearences ought to matter, how this focus on the outer instead of the inner is the disease eating away at 21st Century Woman? But as Nelson Mandela said in 1994, "Who are you NOT to be gorgeous? You're a child of God."
Yeah, Ok.
Still, I feel the compulsion coming on to utter a disclaimer: just be warned, we're not ALWAYS going to look this pretty. All things must pass, I keep telling myself as I discover a gray hair on my partline. The problem with getting all glammed up is that you raise expectations and I am totally ALLERGIC to high expectations. I'm afraid you'll come to our shows and say, "Where are those models from the photos?" But I don't think that's why you all are in with us anyhow. I think maybe you like to hear us sing. So sing we do, and sing we will, at the Barns of Wolftrap, a magical room in Northern VA right down the road from where we grew up. Sing we will at the Fez in NYC, our new fave room in Manhattan. Sing we will at Sanders Theatre, a room in Cambridge that resembles the inside of Benjamin Franklin's writing desk, according to either Cheryl Wheeler or John Gorka (not sure which one.) And sing we shall all through these snowy months leading up to Love and China. (March 5, March 5!)
Thank you for your letters and thoughts. We are feeling especially blessed in getting to meet more and more of you these days. And please stay warm and hug each other good.
Love, Nerissa
© 2002, reproduced with permission