Held on the High Wire at CatStrand

New Galloway, Scotland. Sunday 24-November-2024.

We first came across Myshkin as part of the Mike West Band at the New Orleans Jazz and Heritage festival in 2001. We learned that she also performed solo and with her band The Ruby Warblers. She has such a fantastic voice that we followed her from afar and bought a number of her CD’s over the years. We then saw her again in 2013 when she appeared at the Green Note Cafe in Camden.

Little did we know that not long after her return to the hippie town of Joshua Tree, California later that year her partner, Jenny Q, was struck down with sepsis. Jenny then went through a terrible ordeal, suffering a period in a coma, great pain, multiple operations and the amputation of both her legs. 

Her experiences are documented in her book “Held Together”. This performance is based on that book and the music that Myshkin wrote during that period “Trust and the High Wire”. The title of this performance is a portmanteau of the book and album titles.

The performance consisted of narration interspersed with songs recounting that time. This was a harrowing but ultimately uplifting tale of the triumph of the human spirit in the face of adversity: sepsis, terrible pain, sudden disability, PTSD and subsequent addiction and cold turkey withdrawal from all the painkillers. 

It must have taken great courage to lay bare their souls concerning that traumatic period. Jenny explained at the end that she wanted to start a conversation: that amputees should not hide their prosthetics but wear them openly. She has beautifully decorated artificial legs. Also talking about PTSD and addiction should not be taboo but an essential topics. 

To quote Myskin’s website “A candid, spellbinding multimedia performance that tells the story of Jenny's near death experience, sepsis survival, and new life on metal legs.” Read more about this extraordinary collaboration at myshkinwarbler.com.

As we were still a bit tired from a Saturday night birthday party we decided it was too far to drive back in the dark through Scottish country roads so treated ourselves to a stay in the Cross Keys Hotel just a few hundred meters from the venue.