http://kristinastykos.com/blog.html Kristina Stykos: Blog Jannis' PHPRss class - http://www.jannis.to/ Wed, 30 Jun 2010 05:28:11 -0700 http://kristinastykos.com/blog.html/hoping_the_ride_home_wiil_be_a_little_faster
These solitary summer days punctuated by one off social swirls of music or visiting - they drift, fall back towards long hot days leaning into gardens. In Vermont one never forgets the season is short. Almost oppressive by mid-summer all shades of green begin to merge and the distinctions between plants so pleasing in spring are gone. Sightings of Dionysus walk among us, begin to fatigue us, make us long for cool water.

I’m in the Ford truck driving with my mother, having steadied her up into the cab earlier with promises of a typical landscaper’s adventure. We’re idling in a construction zone miles from town to the point of turning off the engine. It’s a slim road aiming south just past Ward’s Garage and I’m glad to see he still waves to me even as he’s made enemies in town. As near as five years ago I would’ve been eager to share some of those rural politics with my mom, seeing as there’s little else to do sitting here stopped in our tracks. But today I’m silent and uninterested in my own stories, equally uncertain that my words would have any entertainment value, much less staying power.

“You don’t have to get out when we get there, if you don’t want to” I say. “After he loads the mulch, I just have to grab nine daylilies and a Japanese willow. But it is a fun place to look around if you’re up for it”.

“That’s fine, whatever you want to do is fine”, she says.

“I played music over there once,” I say, pointing vaguely towards the hills. “A trail-ride. It was fun. ” I don’t mention to my mother about the brain tumor our fiddler Tom developed after that gig or about the cider makers up the road whose son tattooed her own grandson’s arm with the symbol of Ceres, goddess of the harvest - using a ballpoint pen.

Finally the three cars that have been backed up behind the flagman for twenty minutes are allowed to move past and we continue south along the river, another twenty minutes to the nursery. I roll down the window as we turn up the steep drive because Chris is right there holding a clipboard and has spotted me; he’s wearing his signature lederhosen which is somehow so reassuring.

“Hey buddy, I got something for you.” I say, picking up the CDs, held with a rubber band and with the post-it note “CHRIS” on them, from off the bench seat of the Ford, where between me and my mother it seems like there’s a mile of empty space. “You got mulch today?”

He looks down at the package and he’s smiling to see a picture of me with a guitar - he had no idea. Somehow now I’m a little different from what I was last time I shopped for mulch. “What do I owe you for these? I can write you a check right away — I’ll meet you up there with the tractor in a minute”. He’s almost skipping up the drive towards the outbuilding that doubles as his office. I’m not sure if my mother is impressed.

But she’s definitely impressed as his tractor bucket hovers over the back of the truck she’s sitting in. The mulch is positively steaming, makes a mighty “whumph” as it hits the bed and jolts the suspension against the steady emergency brake. My hands are elbow deep in the hot material as I spread it to the sides and I can see her hands still gripping the door panel. It’s her first time.

Later we carry plants to the truck, my four to her two, making several trips and throwing them in the back. I pay Chris and he pays me and she’s getting ready to tackle the climb in again but she’s got it pretty well figured out now so before long we’re easing the Ford down the nursery driveway nice and slow - she asks me what was the joke — she heard Chris laughing, saying something to me about his ex-wife.

“It’s her birthday. And it’s also Flag Day. We were just wondering what the appropriate flag might be”.

“Oh”, she says. “He’s a nice fellow - I hope the ride home will be a little faster”.]]> http://kristinastykos.com/blog.html/hoping_the_ride_home_wiil_be_a_little_faster Sun, 20 Jun 2010 05:28:10 -0700 Vermont Songwriter / Pepperbox Studio - Kristina Stykos - Blog http://kristinastykos.com/blog.html/start_to_carry_your_weight
But the days roll on, they always do. Armed with an instrument, I’m jumping out of my skin into the car for a drive down the muddy road towards musical communion. I’ll have to drive at least an hour to find a musician or a good cup of coffee but soon enough I’m on the country highway hypnotized by a verdant world of hills and sparkling snowmelt rivers, a sight that cuts to the quick of my malaise with it’s soothing balm. A conspiracy of turkeys appears from nowhere and walks in front of my car as I slam on the brakes, catching sight of their brown plumage in full display, thanking my reflexes. Their skillful jumping over the ditch, under sagging barbed wire and onto a hillside pasture reminds me to stay in my body. I resume my course more slowly past quiet old valley farms while spring rages towards the surface of the land through every pore. I feel the presence of the elderly people in these houses breathing slowly ready to leave but savoring this one last extravagant spring. Navigating the moody first branch of the mighty White River, my life seems part quicksilver, part ancient oak tree rooted for eternity. This inherent contradiction, that of existence, never leaves me but occasionally I leave it through journeys of the heart and the realm of music. There lie the dreaming, the vision, the expression and the peaceful village of compassionate souls living as one. There lies rest for the weary, the removal of despair.

My wandering mind is colored with images from a week in the life of myself: The small block of kindling wood with a message written on it in pencil: “Kristina, the floor looks great!” set on end so I would see it coming in the front door. The full moon framed in the bedroom window being erased by moving clouds and the gaze of my distracted lover. The half-eaten chocolate bar accidentally abandoned in the dark of night in the back of my car, left there by the father of my youngest child. The unexpectedly terse email saying “ ”¦never again ”¦” followed by a silence. The blue jeans knees soaked by the wet earth under the apple tree so I can get a better look at blooms of ruffled bloodroot. The almost physical words: “Why don’t you start carrying your own weight” that strike my stomach and cause me to consider putting an end to my creative endeavors once and for all. The smiles: one from a man walking down the road as I drive to the post office and the other from a bartender serving coffee to me in the pink light and noise of a rock show. And of course the beatific vision of the lithe photographer sent to us on assignment, hoisting herself onto the workbench to shoot the guys in the shop who pretend to work. Finally at nightfall the calloused fingertips I love to rub and push together, remembering fondly my guitars.]]> http://kristinastykos.com/blog.html/start_to_carry_your_weight Fri, 30 Apr 2010 10:07:59 -0700 Vermont Songwriter / Pepperbox Studio - Kristina Stykos - Blog http://kristinastykos.com/blog.html/long_way_to_find_sadness http://kristinastykos.com/blog.html/long_way_to_find_sadness Sat, 17 Apr 2010 13:36:23 -0700 Vermont Songwriter / Pepperbox Studio - Kristina Stykos - Blog http://kristinastykos.com/blog.html/tangled_up_and_blue
“Hey k, Lou here. I’d really like to help you set up those speakers. Give me a call when you get a chance. All the best, l”

My elbows on the console, I twirled a long tendril of hair around my finger and while continuing to stare blankly at the screen considered pulling it and for that matter all my hair out in one smooth, well defined motion. That would be the truest expression of how I was feeling on this bleak day in February, sitting alone in my studio, surrounded by knobs and wires. How had I gotten into this technological nightmare of always needing to know more than I did and having to be smarter than my clients at every turn? Had I strapped on my skis even once this winter or tuned into nature? The answer was clearly “No” because I’d been too busy trying to convince myself of my qualifications to be the professional that I am and tormenting myself to keep way ahead of myself as if running a marathon. I was about to crack.

Lou’s speakers in handmade walnut cabinets had arrived months ago and after an initial set up to the right and left of the console, I’d been advised to try them on the opposite side of the room. Sounds simple enough, but for me as head bottle washer, electrical engineer and C.E.O. of Pepperbox Studio, the implications were oppressive. Making the shift would require not only new, longer cables, but a renewed analysis of every other piece of related gear and how it would be affected. Pausing to reflect for a moment, I thought fondly of how my repeat visits to buy extension cords at the local hardware store had practically made me “family” or at the least conversant with every brand, style, rating, color and length; there was an upside. But then there was the issue of my studio circuits being on different inverters, only one of them a true sine wave. This was the real cause of my wiring woes. And why I was feeling more of a sinking feeling than an elated feeling as I gazed upon these two superbly gorgeous monitoring devices and contemplated the devious path I would have to follow to get them up and running in their new position.

My father was a renowned sociologist whose biggest technological achievements in life had been to put buckets under the eaves to catch rainwater, shoot at deer in the yard with an old Beebe gun and select “random” on the CD player. I can’t say I wasn’t a little worried about the gene pool when I decided to become a recording engineer. But my brother egged me on, gently but firmly. He was defying the odds himself and climbing the corporate ladder at Guitar Center in leaps and bounds, leading teams of pro audio sales personnel all over the country into higher levels of tech-nirvana. He arrived to my house one day, the back of his white van filled with boxes. After enlisting my son Wilder to be his number two, the boxes made their way up the three flights of stairs to my studio and a long unpacking session began. I was not allowed in — it was clearly guy time. And when they were done, before my very eyes and ears, Chapter Two of Pepperbox Studio began to unfold.

So it wasn’t really my fault that I was in this predicament today. The conspiracy to support my desire to record my own music in a self propelled manner had been driven by a pesky younger brother who was too smart and too nice for his own good. Knowing that I had little to do with the whole thing was somehow comforting. And because I love my little brother, it seemed to make sense to keep forging on, out of homage to him and his pesky persistent ways. I would show him - that I appreciated his help and belief in me. I would go on to tackle two winters of audio engineering courses and start entertaining clients in my refurbished studio. I would complete my first solo CD and move onto a second. I would start to network with the world, from my outpost in the middle of rural Vermont, through the magical medium of recorded music. And I would always, always, especially in times of technological defeat, find a way to pull myself up by my own boot straps and do him proud, remembering that it’s about the music first and foremost. His memory of being eight years old and my teaching him his first Beatles songs on guitar was that kind of milestone for him — and he never lets me forget it.]]> http://kristinastykos.com/blog.html/tangled_up_and_blue Thu, 18 Feb 2010 10:52:07 -0800 Vermont Songwriter / Pepperbox Studio - Kristina Stykos - Blog http://kristinastykos.com/blog.html/the_last_drop
The show had included a smoke machine and an army of technicians, ghostly men lit by glowing dials surrounded by towers of gear and the theater itself under renovation - a confounding blend of makeshift ramps and corridors, dimly lit construction zones with what looked like gaping holes in the floor just beyond flimsy surveyors tape barriers. Jimmy had offered me a shot of Scotch in a styrofoam cup and that seemed about right as I fumbled with my cables and guitar picks, trying to assemble a corner of organization around my guitar. There was a set list somewhere, I had seen it flash by earlier, and I was probably going on after the opening set and six songs in. Patrick had appeared with his fiddle and left again, promising to return in time to go on with us assuming his calculations were correct. Then the little detail of a sound check at which I had been unable to hear myself so there was no telling what being on stage later would bring. Perhaps, I would tell myself for the hundredth time, it’s a fool’s errand to gamble with so much unpredictability. But what a lovely exercise in trust.

So much to think about for all of two songs. My time on that big, beautiful Chandler stage had a fuse about as long as a candle’s wick. But in those ten minutes the much improved monitor mix let us know that arrangements we’d so lovingly crafted in the studio were flying free at last in the hall, flying with energy and happiness like birds released, the guitar circling around and around sparkling and deep, the pulse of the banjo and the fiddle dancing, and everything rising out of the darkness, dipped in colored lights. Didn’t matter really now the insecurity about anything not being good enough. More like: here’s the surfboard and oh by the way here’s the wave. What are you going to do? You get on and ride as if your life depended on it. You steal the moment and to hell with the rest. And the best part is, at least with music, most likely someone’s going to come along with you.

Falling into the heavy door after midnight, cousin Steve and I lug our amps across the threshold of a sleeping house, unbundle and uncork a bottle on the floor by the wood stove. “ You didn’t have room to say what you wanted to say, “ I venture, leaning into the warmth and pouring him another glass, “right?” He slowly nods, the small explosions of dry ebony scraps igniting like starbursts. I’m glad to be in the company of a fellow traveler in life who grapples with some of the same issues I do - this music business is way more complicated for some of us, I think to myself. “Look,” he says, “ You have to get out of it something for yourself and make it work for you. Otherwise it’s an exercise in generosity towards others. You and I have done enough of that in our lives without balancing it with what we need.” As he pauses to slice a piece of French Comte cheese for me, the silver whiskered golden retriever laying flat on his side between the stove and the cracker bowl lets out a lengthy, barrel-chested sigh. “He knows we’ve waited a long time,” I say. Steve, who works in a wine shop, raises the bottle to the fire’s light, turning it ever so slowly. “Yes” he says, nimbly twisting the final drop into my empty cup.]]> http://kristinastykos.com/blog.html/the_last_drop Mon, 01 Feb 2010 08:00:39 -0800 Vermont Songwriter / Pepperbox Studio - Kristina Stykos - Blog http://kristinastykos.com/blog.html/one_more_layer
A rosier pink on the edge of the cold blue sky this morning as I wake and rejoin the cog wheel of winter whiteness. Gone is my “summer-colored skin” as Joni Mitchell so aptly put it. I’m layered and hidden in flannel and wool and my introspective tendencies need tending like the woodstove fires I build and feed. The wide oak floor of the downstairs is covered with shredded bark and stray pieces of kindling, and so I sweep, the slow, methodical movement soothing my brain. I wish I could always be sweeping like this, using only my intention and one simple tool to care and care again - without effort, needing little, unfettered. Somehow sweeping unlocks the realization that I miss my children and their unconscious collaboration that had, over the years, allowed me to meet my need for sweeping fully, unabashedly. I miss their tumbling young voices and footsteps and the wake and flotsam of their sometimes joyful, sometimes jagged but always passionate games. In the depth of that memory, I miss myself.

Enormous snow flakes are flying through the sky, crowding my window, obscuring the darting jays of my yard. All it would take to tip the balance is to lean into it like I do the broom. A small act, to pick up a guitar. On an ordinary day like any other it could bring some relief but now I'm reluctant to let go of this paralysis of spirit like a petulant child. On a better day with a guitar under my arms, I might walking backwards (as usual) bump into myself, turn and be glad.]]> http://kristinastykos.com/blog.html/one_more_layer Thu, 21 Jan 2010 18:21:24 -0800 Vermont Songwriter / Pepperbox Studio - Kristina Stykos - Blog http://kristinastykos.com/blog.html/a_question_for_love
The jays pretend not to see me because they own the place. They believe the feeders strung all around this huge wooden house are their right, not their privilege. My husband plays into this by chastising himself should any of the stations be forgotten, even for a day, and the seed receptacles gone empty. He tells me no one likes blue jays, and so my secret love of them must go unnamed as I watch them move with the determination of kings from branch to sky, seemingly impervious to the gusts of intoxicating mountain wind. Not like the little chickadees my husband favors, their reliable songs coming from everywhere, unseen and delicate, like clockwork, their small bodies working with.

And so I got a letter from an old friend with whom I’d worked for many years in musical collaboration. Out of the blue these things can come, on a seemingly random day or despite mercury in retrograde. People have free will that defies all restriction and at any moment an impulse can turn the status quo on its head. Her message stepped outside into the wilderness of the future, to create it, to embrace it and take me along. It was a gift of heart and these are the steppingstones of our lives.

Same day a family member didn’t call or finally did, too late. My tender regard for her already hardening off, like sap on the outside of a pine tree. Just a different manifestation of love, not as warm or flowing, a kind of protective device that forms when something is cut. The body memory of supporting this person, solid like the thick trunk of that pine, ever present as the ache of denied history. For now, her youth buying a kind of latitude that would come due later, her arrogance and acquired sophistication filling the void where self-esteem should be. Me standing at the sink as always, washing her dish as she looks down her nose, laughs and moves away.

Now through the green forest I see the red of Dave’s truck as it bumps along the hard-packed snow road to the back pasture’s summer kitchen. Smoke will start to rise from behind the sheltering evergreens soon and the friendly squeal of the chop saw start to punctuate this quiet morning. The hard-working husband will head out to his workbench across the dooryard and take the dog, throwing a ball or two along the way, with the consistency of rain. And most likely I’ll push off from the desk after writing, take up the bitter with the sweet as I always do, but on this day settle deeper into life without a question for love, just a prayer.]]> http://kristinastykos.com/blog.html/a_question_for_love Wed, 06 Jan 2010 06:23:50 -0800 Vermont Songwriter / Pepperbox Studio - Kristina Stykos - Blog http://kristinastykos.com/blog.html/the_situation
How keenly overdue my freedom to find love exactly in the hearts center and a welcome within. Half creature, half spirit, on a flight across no-man's land. How sweet to linger in motion here like a star, next to so much water running strong and swift and pure. To crack a window and breathe in the cool out-breath of wilderness, the flood of love to soul, the animal vitality of sense memory rubbing out complexity, what has gone before - in one arresting torrent.

Another night on the road again, driving away with my guitar in the back of the car and a glow in my being for our lives in Vermont, connected sometimes like rusted bridges on crumbling pavement but holding to a sure and trusted pathway. In a swirl of recollection I climb the stairs of chiseled dirt again where I've been tonight and for pleasure retake the steps of scrapped spruce timbers, the slippery snow dusted roots - hole up there like a winter mouse hidden under towering firs, surrounded by snow melt descending off crags - and as the rivulets freeze to ice I reenter the bone dry logs crackling hot in the barrel stove and that god given warmth rising up through old, ornate cast iron vents to the place where we've stolen time together. This is how my life is now and so people make their choices, part and go their own ways. It’s always about looking for the distant shining of open doors - the light of your people, where dinner is cooking, where they know you and want you to come in for eternity.]]> http://kristinastykos.com/blog.html/the_situation Tue, 15 Dec 2009 05:25:31 -0800 Vermont Songwriter / Pepperbox Studio - Kristina Stykos - Blog http://kristinastykos.com/blog.html/ear_plugged
A little depressed by my condition, I turned to bookkeeping for consolation. The rain had returned and as I sat hunched over my computer, I listened absent-mindedly with my good ear to the slow and steady plopping drops. “You used to play your guitar”, I thought wistfully, condescending to myself in the usual way. “Now you run to your desk and flip on the power strip when the chips are down. Wouldn’t be surprised if the next time you unlatch your case you find something missing. Remember them? The ”˜56 Martin D-28, the Froggy K guitar? Those old friends who never gave up on you even when you were hopelessly disheveled and unfit for social interaction? When no one else cared or noticed that you were about to fall into an abyss?” Just at that moment, QuickBooks went “ding”, as another thousand-dollar credit card bill checked off as “paid”. I settled deeper into my chair, somewhat comforted by the reassuring sound of an orderly world where there was a place for me, punching numbers with no real end in sight. A “guitar” — is that what you called it?

I remembered then my reaction many years ago, upon hearing the rumor that my old guitar teacher, Jon Miller, had moved to the west coast and become an insurance salesman. Whether or not it was true was not important; the mere idea of his defection gave me the opportunity to be self-righteous, indignant and aghast. To think he would do this shamelessly practical thing, and, because it was done by white men in suits, an undeniably unethical thing. Why would he want a steady income for god’s sake? What did he think he was doing, selling some piece of paper to people, instead of playing a-tonal guitar instrumentals based on Emily Dickinson poems? How dare he!

How far the distance. Now, almost twenty years later, in the humming light of a sleek, silver, MacBook Pro, I was hanging with The Man, readying like a nubile bride for her perfect day - with the IRS. My pride at having mastered the financials of the guitar shop (to a point), able to generate profit and loss statements at a moment’s notice — it made me puff up and swivel in my chair when any mere guitar maker craftsman walked near my desk. My filing skills were at an all time high; I was surrounded by an army of fresh, colorful post-it notes and high-lighter pens. All the warranty cards had a proper position in the file box and it was because of me. I deserved another cup of coffee right now and maybe it wouldn’t be so bad to take that accounting class after all.

On the other hand, the accumulated years of wrapping myself around guitars and my picking up along the way a guitar maker husband did have its payoffs, I had to admit. It was a secret guilty pleasure of mine, nay just fun, to walk around town, most recently my old hometown Ithaca NY, as a returning ambassador-ress from the Northern Kingdom of Acoustic Guitar Paradise. Strolling the concourse of an indoor café, just a few doors from the famous Moosewood Restaurant, I had literally bumped into my old, childhood friend Charlie Shew talking on his cell phone. He motioned me to return with him to his table; “I want you to meet my friend Sherman”, he said and here was Sherman with a nice smile, a psycho-therapist evidently with some kind of past in music. ”What’s going on in town this weekend, guys” I said, “are there any good bands playing?” They reviewed their mental calendars and mentioned a CD release at a scummy bar that in my day had been called “The Salty Dog”. “I used to go there all the time as a teenager, it was one of my hang-outs”, I said nostalgically, “when the house band was “Orleans” — before they got famous, of course.” Charlie looked over at Sherman. “Sherman wrote “Dancing in the Moonlight”, he said.

So it was okay to play guitar. Yeah, it’s better than okay. Why couldn’t I turn off the computer and look for one of my pink flat-picks, this being Sunday and all. And the next time one of my guitar—playing buddies like Bow Thayer asks me to pull the thing out — assuming it’s still there — to go play a gig (like he did yesterday), well”¦I think I’ll say yes.]]> http://kristinastykos.com/blog.html/ear_plugged Sun, 15 Nov 2009 05:56:05 -0800 Vermont Songwriter / Pepperbox Studio - Kristina Stykos - Blog http://kristinastykos.com/blog.html/full_circle

Now weeks later the hills outside my window are bare and the luminous days of Tunbridge World’s Fair time have gone by. Once brilliant and extraordinary, the leaves of autumn lie browning and shunted to wayside places. The feeling of sap slowing in the veins of trees is palpable and so my life should be winding into a lower gear, but this November seems to be thriving on chaos and my desk is a mess. I’m wrestling already though I’ve hardly finished my first cup of coffee: with bills I can’t pay and salaries I have to, and a certain creditor who’s been calling three of our phones five times a day. By noon I’ve moved upstairs to the studio, and I’m setting up microphones to record narration under skylights where cluster flies procreate by the thousands; while down at the console error messages are flying from what had been the only sane computer in the house. By four p.m. I’m in conference with Amelia, my new guitar student, who vividly describes what it’s like to be considered a freak and an oddball in her 7th grade class in a conservative village school not well suited to her wildly original way of thinking or dressing; in the spirit of the day, I’m enthusiastically rallying to support her rebellion and ignoring the ringing phone which is my husband trying to reach me from the auto repair shop because my car’s rear end is about to fall off. A fitting conclusion to this awkward day, as my cats circle the house, pilot-less little drones trying to get in and pee on anything that looks halfway decent.


The months certainly have flown by since last spring when Bow first chugged up the road and we stumbled into what was to become a series of recording sessions. My habit has been rapid motion, my lack of stillness leaving me hardly aware that the months moved with me. Part restless soul lamenting and dwelling in unrequited desires and efforts to drive myself harder; part simple laborer working gardens in rain and sun. Months of whole days spent staring at computer screens, brain tethered like an ox to red pens, pencils, Sharpies and dry erase markers, manic perhaps but always able to keep a step ahead of an unwieldy creativity. Striding and tossing like a horse, the moments and steps of each day going east down the road, scanning ecstatic ridges of sunrise through maple trees, washing clear the grooves of the mind’s dark alleys, sometimes depression or exaggerated fears for the futures of my children and the world. Months of sometimes happiness and complete fulfillment of my dreams.]]> http://kristinastykos.com/blog.html/full_circle Wed, 04 Nov 2009 05:57:33 -0800 Vermont Songwriter / Pepperbox Studio - Kristina Stykos - Blog