Deliberately Random, Post number 35
(Listen to this song while you read this, I listened to it when I wrote it.)
I am sitting at the exact same keyboard I was staring at five years ago when I started this deliberately random effort to understand my weird. That weird, is the ability to become wired emotionally to a particular song. Some would call it obsessed; I am calling it one of my superpowers.
it’s my weird…
I have walked through life thinking that everyone gets it, and wondering, what is wrong with all these people? It wasn’t that long ago that I figured out that the “rest of the world” doesn’t hear music the same way I do.
My weird has brought me so much joy and I am so grateful for all the random things that brought me to this day. Embracing the idea that I can listen to a song on repeat, hundreds and hundreds of times and it ends up a thing I write about and then grow from. My weird makes me cool, and I am going to celebrate myself for a minute. I have been listening and I have been learning and I have grown, I have grown so much… so yeah, I am okay.
That second line, “I was alone ’til I found myself”, burst into my soul and spun around and around until I noticed it, and then so many things came flooding back. I left Rusty in the back seat a long time ago. Rusty is the one who believes the world is a beautiful place, and without him it’s not. If you have ever set a part of yourself aside, for whatever reason, you’ve been walking alone. I am no expert in the complexity of personalities, but once I invited that part of myself back in, I believed again. I believe that I have value, I believe I have something to give, and I believe that the universe is a better place because I am in it. So yes, I grew up to be a man more or less, but it took a lot of time and a lot of words.
I have written at length about my battles with the entanglement of religion within my spirit, first as a child and then again as I raised my children. When I finally left the church… I exploded away, I couldn’t get away fast enough, nor hard enough. For a time, everything “Christian” evoked a vehement reaction from me, very much like I reacted to unchristian things as a church goer. But as I worked very hard at being honest about who I am, the pendulum has found rhythm. It doesn’t mean my opinion of “church” has changed. If anything, I am more certain than ever that there is nothing for me within the walls of organized religion, Christian or otherwise. But I don’t need to be an ass about it.
There is something wondrous in the universe. I am not sure what they look like, but they know who we are. They are singing and awaiting the energy we will burn into the universe.
The understanding of what is next is the greatest mystery. Some choose to see heaven, and yet, some choose to see nothing at all. In my sixty-three turns around the sun I have only found one thing that has the power to persist, and it is music.
Music is the constant in everyone.
The small and the proud, all have a song…
Music is pervasive, it is magic.
Music can take you to the ledge…. and then ask you to just sit and listen.
When I started this blog, I was unraveling a career that was seeing its sun set. I struggled to say out loud what I knew in my soul… so I wrote. When a song embraces me, I spend time with it and I listen, I look for the wonder that a song is revealing to me, and I write about it. It might be about a friend that I knew a long time ago or something I see swirling about me today. Sometimes, it is what I see from my side of the cash register, but whatever it is, music helps me walk through it, layer by layer and find nothing to prove.
Where do you want to go and what is it you want to accomplish? Are you just focusing on tomorrow or has the past paralyzed your ability to walk? Did your plans go to shit; did you get hurt? Have you tried focusing on just today? It is the hardest thing you will ever do because staying in the now requires trust. Trust that the past is just that. and the future will unfold when it should. Trust in the now and find what is there for you to see, right inside this moment.
Everything else will come, all in good time.
“Throw your bread to falling birds
Buried friends and wasted words
Something wants to eat us all
Alive”
It is your responsibility to get to know who you are and then embrace that. Let whatever you have inside you burn, let it fly and do the thing that makes you smile. There are so many things in this life that want to eat us alive. They scream at you, in hopes that you’ll shrink from them. Don’t shrink away, you do not have to please anyone except you. Go, create…
You are a creative person! Every human with breath has the breath to create. All of us…
Creating is the act of burning a piece of you into the universe, no one can burn the same signature of energy that you can. You are the most precious of creations because you are you and there is nothing more beautiful than what you created. Go create and burn that piece of you into the stars and let it’s joy lift you up. It all comes in the good and right time.
Loving what you create is the most empowering feeling you will ever experience. I love what I write, I am so proud of where I have arrived. Writing and obsessing over music has set me free. I am giving into the wonder when I create.
Creating is yours to decide upon, trusting in the now and finding that thing inside you that makes your heart sing. It doesn’t matter how hard you have to work on it, and it doesn’t matter how much time it takes. It will make you feel like a star and the very best thing in the universe, because you are a star. You will see it, all in good time.
I believe there are many reasons to have hope. I see them every day, in each of you. Life means so much. Do not squander what each day means… Look everything in the eye and challenge it, make sure it is what you should be paying attention to. Look into your deepest self and see if you find joy. Are you listening, have you grown? We are not here to generate income, we are here to create, and you are here because no other person, can create what you can. I desperately want you to find your joy and create. This is why I have hope and why I will always have hope, if humanity is creating then there is reason to have hope.
Iron and Wine i.e. Sam Bean, has been a favorite of mine for the last fifteen years, and Fiona Apple is, well, Fiona Apple… do yourself a favor and go listen to “When The Pawn…” right now. What Sam and Fiona have done together is doubly magic. A song that grabs the perfection in each of their voices, and winds around your heart like a scarf…. It makes me a smile every single time I hear them. This is what collaboration looks like.
I could huff and puff and make many proclamations, but I will simply ask all of you to listen, a lot. Thank you, Sam and Fiona, for taking us down this road with you. I will just stay in the now and keep soaking this in…
I am trusting my eyes, and I am writing my fantastical biography, savoring every moment of the process. It reminds me of the joy I found when I was in the studio. I loved every moment I played my bass in the studio… It was magical. Writing this book feels something like that, but so much more. I finally picked on someone my own size and found the joy of creating. I have given in to the wonder and I’ll shine as bright as I can.
Should you come through my line at our neighborhood grocery store… or maybe, you just found yourself reading this. I hope you find some of my hope, but mostly, I hope you find joy. It is a beautiful balm for all the things that are otherwise, shit.
To the weirdo’s and freaks I work with, you give me joy every day and I am blessed get to laugh with you while we feed our community. Working alongside you is fuel for my creative fire.
You have no idea how powerful the people are that stock your shelves and bag your groceries. They are magical. So many of them called off their logical life and chased their creative fire and I love them very much.
Find your weird. It is anything that leaves your beautiful mark on the universe. Don’t put conditions around it, just let it be you and listen especially close to that four-year-old you and that thirteen-year-old in you. Say hellos again and be the you that we all need you to be.
I don’t know when I will finish my book or how many more of these posts I will write. None of us can know when we get to fly into the next thing… But while I am here, I will huff, and I will puff all of my findings as I wander and shuffle through all of the music. I will keep the fires of my hope glowing and I will give you my joy.
Learning, listening and growing…
A Connoisseur's Lullaby 