These past few months have been a whirlwind. The excitement of crowdfunding success, the organisation of recording, the excitement of buying a 1966 Bedford Bus, and the reality of living on a bus. All whirling around in my head stretching me from here to there and back again. I have learned so much in these past few months, grown so much as a human being and understand a little bit more about what this greater search of purpose in life might be all about. And thought over a cup of tea it was time to share!
So literally one day I woke up and told my dearest friends that I was buying a bus to live on with me and my 3 divine smallies... Life had brought me to this very point of analysing EVERYTHING and needing to rethink how I much space do I actually need to take up in this world, what mark do I need to make, how do I want my kids to grow up, what experiences do I want them to have, what do I want to feel everyday, how can I travel more and share my music? How can I be freer to be. Just freer to BE!
I had a chorus of questions, doubts, excitements. I had worriers, dreamers, and practical workers all chiming in. Most of them honestly were thinking I was a mad little Irish woman and by next week I would have moved onto wanting to buy a boat perhaps. But no... it happened. I bought a bus ( an ex tour bus from some amazing musician friends). My bus was in service in Tasmania up until 1990. It then had done two tours of Australia with Gleny Rae and her Playboys. My bus engineer, Dougie Bull, put all his heart and soul into making this dream happening. Turning a shell of a bus into a home for 3 smallies equipped with toilet, shower, bunk beds, and monkey bars (they are the highlight... you know it is bad when instead of timeout all you gotta to is take away swinging privelages!!)
But I did it I bought a bus and we are full time bus dwellers. It has been a steep fast learning curve. Learning about drills, rivot guns, LPG, water waste, toilet cassettes, driving this rig, parking this bad boy, engines, filters, gauges, 12v, 240v, batteries, solar panels. It has been dirty. It has been tough. I had a brake failure, I had engine issues, I had a breakdown, I had some tight parking spots, I contended with a Ute Muster. And there were times, where I thought... "What the hell am I doing? What am I living on a bus for? How can I possibly do this?" And after each of those moments the power of dreaming big became very very very clear. If you are going to dare to dream big, you better be prepared to feel small. If you are going to throw your heart and soul and idea up to the universe, you better allow that universe take you on a rollercoaster ride. And in those scary, dark, lonely moments of feeling very very minuscule and small, feeling like your dream isn't worth it, feeling crazy... Remember that it is just you feeling small in the bigness of what you have dared to dream. If you had never dared to dream it, you wouldn't feel small... you would just be keeping on keeping on. If I had never dared to dream about living and touring Australia on my bus, I never would have broke down on the Hume Highway... but in that moment of breaking down on the Hume... I had two choices...
1) panic, give up, cry (which I may have shed one tear) or
2) pick myself up realise this is part of the adventure, put on the kettle, and get out the lego and build some lego planes with my kids (cause who said they ever did that on the side of the Hume Highway), and then wait for 'Wacka' to come in his heavy haulage tow truck and tow us to a random town which happened to be having an Irish festival and get up on stage and sing!!!
So I am now using this very advice to get myself organised to go on the road in 2 1/2 weeks to record this album!! Route planned, Songs planned, Engineer/Producer ready, Video crew ready... all is a go and then out of the blue last week I got a panic... a "No I am not ready, I can't do this". But I now know this little feeling... this one is called feeling small cause I am daring to dream big. I can listen to it for a moment... but then I am going back to my cuppa tea and dreaming big!
Keeping on dreaming!
xo Áine
So literally one day I woke up and told my dearest friends that I was buying a bus to live on with me and my 3 divine smallies... Life had brought me to this very point of analysing EVERYTHING and needing to rethink how I much space do I actually need to take up in this world, what mark do I need to make, how do I want my kids to grow up, what experiences do I want them to have, what do I want to feel everyday, how can I travel more and share my music? How can I be freer to be. Just freer to BE!
I had a chorus of questions, doubts, excitements. I had worriers, dreamers, and practical workers all chiming in. Most of them honestly were thinking I was a mad little Irish woman and by next week I would have moved onto wanting to buy a boat perhaps. But no... it happened. I bought a bus ( an ex tour bus from some amazing musician friends). My bus was in service in Tasmania up until 1990. It then had done two tours of Australia with Gleny Rae and her Playboys. My bus engineer, Dougie Bull, put all his heart and soul into making this dream happening. Turning a shell of a bus into a home for 3 smallies equipped with toilet, shower, bunk beds, and monkey bars (they are the highlight... you know it is bad when instead of timeout all you gotta to is take away swinging privelages!!)
But I did it I bought a bus and we are full time bus dwellers. It has been a steep fast learning curve. Learning about drills, rivot guns, LPG, water waste, toilet cassettes, driving this rig, parking this bad boy, engines, filters, gauges, 12v, 240v, batteries, solar panels. It has been dirty. It has been tough. I had a brake failure, I had engine issues, I had a breakdown, I had some tight parking spots, I contended with a Ute Muster. And there were times, where I thought... "What the hell am I doing? What am I living on a bus for? How can I possibly do this?" And after each of those moments the power of dreaming big became very very very clear. If you are going to dare to dream big, you better be prepared to feel small. If you are going to throw your heart and soul and idea up to the universe, you better allow that universe take you on a rollercoaster ride. And in those scary, dark, lonely moments of feeling very very minuscule and small, feeling like your dream isn't worth it, feeling crazy... Remember that it is just you feeling small in the bigness of what you have dared to dream. If you had never dared to dream it, you wouldn't feel small... you would just be keeping on keeping on. If I had never dared to dream about living and touring Australia on my bus, I never would have broke down on the Hume Highway... but in that moment of breaking down on the Hume... I had two choices...
1) panic, give up, cry (which I may have shed one tear) or
2) pick myself up realise this is part of the adventure, put on the kettle, and get out the lego and build some lego planes with my kids (cause who said they ever did that on the side of the Hume Highway), and then wait for 'Wacka' to come in his heavy haulage tow truck and tow us to a random town which happened to be having an Irish festival and get up on stage and sing!!!
So I am now using this very advice to get myself organised to go on the road in 2 1/2 weeks to record this album!! Route planned, Songs planned, Engineer/Producer ready, Video crew ready... all is a go and then out of the blue last week I got a panic... a "No I am not ready, I can't do this". But I now know this little feeling... this one is called feeling small cause I am daring to dream big. I can listen to it for a moment... but then I am going back to my cuppa tea and dreaming big!
Keeping on dreaming!
xo Áine