Shedding an Old Life

or: I'm not moving this shit again

She didn’t know who she was quite yet, but at least she had chops. Photos by Glade Drake, 1984-ish.

Michael and I spent Christmas clearing out closets.

We celebrate the Solstice, so December 25 is just Isaac Newton’s birthday to us (thanks Jackie Ralston for bringing this to my attention!). It was nice to have a long weekend to really dig in and get some shit done.

We have lived together in this house since 2012, but he moved here in 2006. And when you are our age, people die and you end up with their stuff and somehow it takes over your life. Or your kids decide that they can just leave half their shit at your house and you’ll happily walk around it for the next however many years. And all the shit that you accumulate through the business of being human in a capitalist culture just gets crushed in around all the stuff that doesn’t even belong to you … and eventually you find yourself drowning. I nearly had a meltdown today because there is no “away” in which to put so many things.

Progress has been made. But with progress comes the realization that I have no new music recorded for today because (gestures wildly at clean closets and overflowing trash and recycling bins).

During this closet excavation, I found my earliest headshots, from back when I was probably 17 years old and starting to gig solo. Was I ever really that young? Well, yes, there are some photos proving I was. Ho-lee shit.

She wasn’t Alma yet, and I wish I could go back in time and tell her, we’re gonna be ok.

And there were … other things. Newspaper clippings, magazines with reviews of my records or stories about me, old promo materials, a zillion years of headshots, old contracts, fan mail (from back in the day when people liked you enough to actually sit down and write a letter and mail it to you!), mailing lists (from back in the day when artists would send actual fucking POST CARDS to their fans when they were going to be in town - I mean, actual fucking post cards … I used to hand write them, personalized to each person - was I insane???), grant applications and reports from another century, on and on and on … just … fuckin’ hell. I have been through four different performing names in my life, and none of those names ever fit me right, until this one. I found promo for all three of Alma’s predecessors, posters for gigs I don’t even remember, awards for things I barely remember (I was the Iowa City ICON Best Singer Songwriter of 1999 and Best Musical Act of 2000, dontcha know), brochures with blurbs, just so much shit, and I just looked at it all, stuffed in boxes and an ancient rickety filing cabinet, and I said, “Nope. This isn’t me, and I don’t fucking care anymore,” and I dumped the lion’s share of it into the recycling bin.

Yep, that’s Janis Ian right there, and me way back because that’s how I rolled. At least I’m not as far back as those two tall guys. My dear friends Simon Frost and Jason Dennie are also in this pic. Okay, yeah, I kept this one. Hi, Janis.

It felt fantastic. Freeing, like I didn’t even know the weight of all that past struggling and hustling was pooling like a gravity well in my house. Those days are gone, and I don’t give a fuck. In fact, I’m so glad that shit is over I can’t even express it.

Hi. I’m Alma Drake, a life-long musician and songwriter, who uses music for healing people and planet. I haven’t had a gig in years, and I’m not looking for one - in truth, the idea of loading up a bunch of gear and going out to some stupid bar or restaurant and playing music at people for 3 hours fills me with dread. I don’t know how anybody does it, or how I used to.

Here at the start of 2026, I feel freer and more hopeful than I have in quite a while. I have been getting guidance and impulses to shed, shed, shed, let go, move on, get rid of … what? Well, this. Now I know. And I feel like I can finally step into the life I have chosen with no baggage holding me back. Healer, musician, songwriter, creative mentor and partner; like I’m free to step into a Destiny and leave that old fate at the dump.

My closets can finally breathe, and so can I. Happy New Year, one and all.