A couple of weekends back, I had the pleasure to accompany my friend and musical compadré, RYKKA to the Swiss Eurovision Finals. It was very exciting for me to see my good friend up there on stage looking like a million bucks and singing for Switzerland. She composed the song "The Last of Our Kind" specifically for the Eurovision Song Contest, and it won for Switzerland. You can see her fabulous performance "here." Rykka (Christina Rieder) and I have been friends for a long time, we met almost a decade ago at a music conference around 5am singing together in a circle of music makers of all kinds, instruments jamming along spontaneously on the penthouse floor of a hotel filled with music industry people from all over. We were friends from the moment our voices melded!! Little did I know that our future lives would parallel each other as she too would be spending her time between Canada (B.C) and Switzerland (Zurich.)

Some of you may be wondering why I am writing about Rykka's performance and not my own? That is a fair question, seeing as I am also a Singer and Song-writer. I have, in the past auditioned for Ireland's Eurovision (did not make it, obviously) and a couple of years ago, I auditioned for Canada's Got Talent. A few years back, I even auditioned for Cirque De Soleil. So I have been down those "audtition" roads and am clearly not cut out for such things. People ask me if I get nervous, well the most nervous I have ever been is during the auditioning process. I can sing for a crowd made up of hundreds, even thousands, but when four people are there, judging me, I clam up. Anyway, more RYKKA!!! My friend has been VERY busy since winning for Switzerland, but she managed to answer a few questions I had... So here they are!

1) What are your hobbies?

R: Whenever I am not making music, I am making something. If it's not one thing, it's another. I Love to make costumes, if it's like Christmas holidays, I Love to bake. I'm in Love with making! Haha.

2) How do you find happiness?

R: I think that being in nature is a great way to find happiness. My favourite place is in the mountains, or in the forest near my house. I relate happiness to being centered and at peace. A few nights ago, I couldn't sleep because my head was buzzing and I pictured myself floating over a blue lake. It totally worked and I could clear my mind and I fell asleep.

3) What was the name of the first song you ever wrote and what was the chorus?

R: When I was 16 my boyfriend was 21 haha...my parents were cool with it actually. But anyway, he was so lazy. I wrote a song called Runaway for him, telling him that he is missing out on life by just sleeping and being lazy all the time.

4) What would you do if you saw someone litter?

R: When I see someone litter I'm like "Hello! It's 2016 not the '80's!" Who didn't get the memo? I just can't get into the mind frame of not caring about abruptly littering. Here in Switzerland people are really good about recycling, when I see someone throw a plastic bottle in the garbage, I freak out haha.

5) What is one of the most important things for you to do to prepare for Stockholm?(Stockholm is where the Eurovsion final will take place)

R: I'm mentally preparing myself. I'm also working to make my voice stronger. I'm taking voice lessons for the first time in years and really fine tuning them.

Of course we could go on and on with more questions, and perhaps after Stockholm we will do an update. IN the meantime, keep your eyes and ears open for my girl here, you will be hearing more, for sure!

Thanks for reading,

Love

Lindsay

Were you scared of turning over into the BIG FOUR OH? How did you feel leaving your thirties? Perhaps you are reading this and are nowhere near either age and probably even think that forty is old! Once upon a time, I thought forty was old. But now that I am days away from leaving my thirties forever, I realize I am still me and feel, inside, ageless. I see lines appearing on my face and other various parts of my body, lines that were never there before, and to me, they are just there and nothing more than expressions of life continuing to live.

A decade of living in my thirties has taught me a a lot. From that first night, celebrated in Wakefield, Quebec at Kaffe 1870, (one of the sweetest little pubs in the world) I sang my heart out on that little stage and we made a right 'ole night of it. That night was the catapult into my song-writing adventures as a committed musician. I was moving away from Wakefield to live my life as the Singer I was meant to be. I'd dabbled in music for years before that but by the time I hit thirty, I was ready to take it on, full time. It was my first year as a professional in the industry...I would go on to write enough songs to record my very first full length record "Sound." I had the whole world at my fingertips and I still do. WE still do. Anything is possible.

Forty seemed so far away. How could I ever be ready for such an elephantine age? But somehow, I will ease into it with grace and I am ready. Life is like that, you don't even know it, but it is preparing us, every second for whatever comes our way. If only I knew then what I know now, so many moments of worry and fear would have been non-existent. It IS true, life after thirty changes, something shifts inside and room for wisdom is made. Some things we wish we could UN learn, but the steadfast beat of the ever-thumping time drum keeps on keeping on.

The wheel just doesn't stop so there is no point in fighting it. One thing for sure that I have learned over the course of my life, is that it only gets better. At one point I feared getting older. Now I know that you don't get older, you get wiser! Sure, I mentioned the collection of lines, earlier, but really we just collect knowledge. I Love that. Certainly we don't always use our new-found wisdom, and would rather disregard some things (we are human and occasionally need to drink MORE water on a Sunday morning! When will we ever learn?) I suppose the biggest lessons I learned from my thirties had to with Self. Self Love. Self acceptance. Self awareness. Self respect. Perhaps it sounds Self ISH, but we are only given one life and we have to live with ourselves for the rest of it. I wanted to impart some of the insights I found while living through this last decade, but these words from Herman Hesse sum it up quite nicely.

Owl_on_a_branch_beside_a_quote_by_Herman_Hesse

So, there it is. The next time I write, I will be Forty years and counting. Today, right this second I am the youngest I will ever be and the oldest I have ever been.

Love.

Eurovision, Rykka and Me

Ta-Ta Thirties!!

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