2017 and 2018

In the blink of an eye, we are in the May of 2018 - almost halfway through the year.

I never did a 2017 retrospective, but I have a much better view of 2017 from here.

2017 was when I got serious about music. I went back to Carnegie Hall with SoundCrowd, and finally got my fiddle after two years of back and forth.

In 2017, my mentor Jim Wong-Chu passed away after a stroke and a long recovery. It was just after my trip to Chicago. When I returned to Toronto, it was to the news that he had gone.

He added to my life, and thinking back, there weren't many people who had faith in me like he did.

Now that he's gone, and I'm grown up, I have to have faith in myself in everything that I do. I need to have so much faith that it overflows so I can invest in others just like he did in me.

I'm starting to realise that more and more now. I am the present generation, and it's up to me to carry things forward to the next generation.

At the turn of the year, I started writing more regularly in my music / fiddling blog: http://musiceveryday.ca

It's very different content, with much more stream of consciousness and much less editing.

2018 is challenging for me. Musically, it's the most intense period of my life so far.

Old Time at Ashokan is a big game changer. I crave that music, need it, my life isn't the same without it and it sustains me.

Romantically, not much has changed. I'm still single. Haven't gone on a date in about two years.

Hope for the future. I feel ready for a relationship, I wonder who I'll be with.