Travel and Music

Standing with one foot in France and one in Switzerland.

         I have always loved traveling and have managed to travel to all but four of the United States.  They are Lousiana, Alabama, Alaska and Hawaii.  I've also gone to Mexico and Canada.  Then, in 2009, I was lucky enough to be given a trip to Germany for a music event.  Because my flight and lodging was laready paid for, I was able to help my partner at the time pay the extra it would take for him to come, too.  We extended our trip longer than the original portion I was hired for and organized a house concert in Switzerland, driving from Berlin through Bavaria and Western France.  It was a dream come true.  I'd always dreamed about going overseas but had never made that happen and, because I've always been so low-income, I didn't see any possibility of it happening in the future.  Germany would not have been my first choice, but I was very impressed and loved the whole experience.  I really fell in love with the country and the people. 
        It was a total fluke that I got involved with this group and, at the time when the first performances happened in the Woodstock/New Paltz area, I had no idea I would eventually end up in Europe for 12 days.  I recently found my passport and wondered if I should renew it, since it expires in November of this year.  Then, I got an intriguing message through a business related social media group.  Now, before I tell you about the message, let me tell you what I think about social media.
        Like many of you, I've had a love/hate relationship with Facebook.  I've been sucked into it with silly games, memes and (omg) the ads.  However, I've also found long lost friends and family, rekindled friendships and basically stayed closer to many people than I would otherwise have been able to do.  I also realized early on that it was going to be the cutting edge of promotion.  I can easily say that the majority of people who come out to my shows come through Facebook.  The numbers of people who have watched my videos because they found them through Facebook is astounding.  My "In Winter" video views just keep on climbing, and I know many of them have come from social media.
        Because I've had so much success with Facebook, I joined other sites, Linked-In, Alignable and more.  Some are more social and some are purely business sites.  Either way, I keep getting contacted by people looking for what I do and have found me online.  And recently, I got the very intriguing message I referenced earlier.  It read "... have you ever performed outside of the US?"  I replied that I had performed in Germany and Switzerland.  I was then asked if I'd ever performed in China and could this woman come visit one of my classes?  One thing led to another.  She has now visited two very different classes and has asked if I will come to China for two weeks to perform at some daycare centers that she runs with her partners.  My answer was easy.  This is another unimaginable dream come true.  I guess I'd better renew that passport, which has been sitting on my desk insisting that I notice it.
        People often ask how I can have such a positive outlook all the time.  It's because good things happen to me when I least expect them.  I believe that if I think positively, positive things will come my way.  I may not know what they're going to be, and there are always bad things in the mix, but I've been pleasantly surprised more times than I can count.  Like with the trip to Germany, I never even considered the possibility of going to China, but it looks like I'll be going next spring.  And ... how cool is that?