Hi Everyone,

I’m sat in my room in Brooklyn. My new pad for the whole of May:

I’m tired. It’s been a busy few days since I arrived in New York. I knew if I didn’t pull back tonight and just have a rest I would be fit for nothing tomorrow. A lot has happened in only a few days. I just wrote a whole different blog post and read it back and it sounded a bit fake and nice and a bit false so I’m starting again.

I’m flippin’ overwhelmed today. I hit the ground running when I arrived on Tuesday and it already feels like a rollercoaster ride. Working out subways and ways of getting around and how this whole thing works. I thought I had some idea but now I’m here and technically ‘living here’ it’s like a whole different ball game.

Where to shop for food, finding my feet in my new place, getting out there to sing and meet people and create opportunities and soak it all up and stay positive and be glad I’m here. It’s like ‘aaaarghhh!!!!!’ Amazing and exhausting at the same time.

I’ve been here, there and everywhere, and

walked 55 miles. Everywhere I go I have to be putting myself out there with enthusiasm and that takes work. I’m not scared about that like I was in November. People can say no if they want. Move on to the next thing. I have no life here and want to build one in 12 weeks and see if anything materialises that then tells me what to do next when the 12 weeks are up. So far I have no idea of what I will do after this. I’m hoping it just works itself out. I feel like I have no real life anywhere. Not here or the UK so that can feel tough at times. This is Plan A and there is no Plan B.

It’s amazing and hard, and overwhelming and amazing again, and I’m like ‘I’m here and I love this place’ but where do I start and then I feel content and ‘this is my place’ but then I go out and chat to someone and realise I know ‘nothing’ about actually being here.

People pay 800 dollars just for healthcare a month (never moan about the NHS people). That’s a months rent in the UK. I don’t know the mentality and hear stuff like ‘if you wanna hang with me sometime give me a call’ or ‘we were shooting the shit together’ and it’s like a whole new language and mentality is around me. These people are really positive too. They have a zest for life. People ‘like’ New York who live here. They like the diversity and the craziness and the ‘anything goes’ kind of attitude. It’s manic and it’s full of vitality and energy, there’s horns honking left right and centre, and music blasting out here, there and everywhere. It’s all fast. Someone asks you to teach their daughter and they want you to go tomorrow. My landladies have a personal trainer who comes to the house once a week. It’s normal to have a therapist. Cockroaches are waiting to pounce as soon as you leave the door open. There’s no little Tesco to pop into on your way home for some veggies. You go to Whole Foods and queue 20 minutes to get to the checkout (I already miss just popping into a shop for a few bits), and you see people dressed in all sorts just going about their day. Everyone is hustling……

I love that I can stop and ask anyone for help and they are up for it and chatty (contrast to London). I love walking through Central Park.

I love that some opportunities have come really easily and I have some things that will bring me some bread and butter but also means I have to get off my butt (sounding American already) and see what else I can create. I can’t do it all at once but I make a little plan per day and do the little I can do and take all leads that people say to me and chase them up. It is seriously about getting myself out there in whatever way I can. I love that when you tell someone what you are doing they love it. They love that you just put yourself out there, that you are chasing your dream, then they give you a list of things you can do. It’s like they want to help you and help you find a way for a visa. Go to this place, contact them, do this….. I feel all I have to do it leave my house every day and show up and something happens from it.

This is what I have so far:

Wednesday and Saturday at 5pm-singing at the Bethesda Fountain Central Park

Singing in a mental health institution, and a soup kitchen for the homeless.

Three schools lined up who want me to go and perform and then do some work with the kids.

An independence day barbecue to sing at

Two gigs in libraries in Brooklyn and Manhattan

A new student who lives in a penthouse on the corner of 71st and Madison Ave.

An interview on Tuesday to teach singing at a music school in Manhattan.

A sublet in Brooklyn for June and July.

I’m only 5 days in. If this is what can happen in 5 days what can happen in 12 weeks I ask myself. I have no idea. This time last week I was in Canada with my friend Joe wondering how it was going to be here, at times having a meltdown from sheer fear. There was one day when I was nearly in tears with coming here and ‘where do I start?’ I needed a week in nature and the mountains with one of my closest friends just to prepare myself for being here.

I arrived on Tuesday not feeling excited but with a massive knot in my tummy just thinking ‘omg, I’m here, but where do I actually begin?’

I’m glad I went to Canada first. Lucky that I even get to live like this. From place to place. Glad I got drunk and said ‘Joe, shall I come to Canada, and then booked a flight straightaway’. I hadn’t been there for 24 hours and even ended up on the news. ha ha.

It’s lovely to just be with someone who knows me so well. I can be whoever I am with Joe. I worry about things and he’s calm and stable. I look after him and he looks after me. I do a million things at speed and he does a few taking his time, but we get each other and it works being together. We are extremes but learn from each other with that. There’s an ease I don’t have with anyone else. He took me to see lakes, mountains, rivers, waterfalls, to hot springs, out on his motorbike (I love being a bike bitch),

 

 

made me saskatoon pie. I shot guns, I threw knives, I spent a day with friends being a red neck country girl, the sky was big and blue and the sun shone and it was just good for my system for a week. I sang a bit too just to say I’ve done it in Canada. It was just a big fat cushion to rest on before I came here.

I read a book by Wayne Dyer that helped too reminding me that when you are following your calling and listening to that and in a place of service to others the universe will bring you everything you need. That helped me really and it’s kept me positive all week about what I am doing. It’s all good really. I have no rug under my feet, I don’t know how it works or what to do but if I just get up and do ‘today’ then that’s all I need to do. It’s got my back and the right people and things will come along. I’m proud that I’m doing this. I’m getting to visit and work in so many places, and yes that means at times it’s going to feel nuts, but Del Boy always said ‘he who dares wins’.

I could have gone to a posh Russian ball with my Russian student here last night. When she told me it was 170 dollars for a ticket I was like ‘errrrr, maybe not’. No long dress, people will be dressed up to the nines and I just didn’t want to go there with my thrift shop long dress I picked up for 20 dollars and have people around me in dresses and jewels worth thousands. I could have gone to a ‘private screening’ tonight of I don’t know what from someone who invited me with them (they’d been waiting for ages for an invite from some rich guys she knows and needed someone to go with her). Also not for me. Does the thought of that ‘tire me’ or ‘inspire me?’ A question I ask myself.

So I’ll carry on this crazy adventure I’m doing and take a day off tomorrow from getting myself ‘out’ there. I’m going to go and hear some gospel singing (let others do the singing) and get some reflexology. Recharge a bit before it all starts again on Monday (must have balance or I’ll burn myself out).  Jim the agent is meant to be calling me to arrange to meet me and listen to me this week. Let’s see if he does (I don’t trust him really and he says a lot more to me than he actually does for me), but all opportunities are welcomed and I have to stay open. These 12 weeks will fly by so I need to make the most of it before it’s over……. I never thought this time last week that I’d be in a penthouse on Madison Avenue. I was all like ‘Pretty Woman, the penthouse is the best, oh my fricking god…..’

For more info look on my website at www.iamnicolamills.com and follow me on Facebook

Thanks,

Nicola xxxx