We lived in Ottawa for eight months. I was rarely home for that. It was the busiest time.
I can still feel the elation of those tours and the agony of anticipation and experiencing change. That whole year was like a drug.
I remember breaking down after a show in Philadelphia. I did not yet have the maturity to deal.
During the Ottawa year we lived above a great café and a ten minute walk over the bridge to a rehearsal spot where I wrote most of Hope Is Made Of Steel. I discovered the song One True Vine on a Mavis Staples record with the same title. There were many nights where I lied awake in bed listening to music and looking out the window of our one bedroom condo into the alley behind the café.
A couple years have passed and the song reminds me of that alley, that café, the rehearsal spot, the bridge, and that time in life.