Today's Small Steps

i’ve been thinking a lot lately about time, about phrases like “my time” and “wasted time” and “making time.”  truth is we can’t make time.  truth is we only have right now.  truth is i rarely feel that i’m making the most of the time i am given.

i recently started to break down my daily routine and chart how much time i was spending on what.  i wanted to know why day after day after day i was never getting as much work done as i thought i should be, and needed to be.  turns out what i was calling “a whole day to work” in my head was really just the few hours between taking care of other things.  

i have a house and i like to keep it clean.  i have chickens and i like them to be tended to.  i have gardens that need care.  i have a kitchen that i like to use.  and i’m finding that i put way too much pressure on myself to get a million career moves done in a day.  every day i’m disappointed in myself, which then puts more pressure on the next day.  no good.

i waver back and forth about being in a huge hurry to achieve my life goals right now, and being relaxed enough to let myself have any amount of down time that isn’t productivity driven, or guilt infused.  down time is not wasted time.  in fact no time needs to be wasted time, as long as we are centered and present.  i completely zenned out during rush hour the other day and was completely at peace with my life.  how about that for productivity??

am i afraid to get caught up for fear that i will really, truly have nothing left to do and feel devoid of my life’s purpose?  it seems impossible that i will ever have anything less than too much on my plate, though i need to be taking even baby steps in the right direction or it just plain weighs on my soul.  

today is what i made of it, nothing more and nothing less.  just as tomorrow will be what i make of it.  you can’t just take a running leap and get to your dreams (if you can you’re not dreaming big enough! ;)  you have to build the path one step at a time.  

here’s to today’s small steps, even if it’s just one.

My Chickens and a Hard Drive

i’ve definitely thought about it before, i bet most of us have....if your house was going to burn down and you could only grab the essentials, what would you take?  

my house didn’t burn down last night, but it was a very real possibility that it might.  and at 3:00am, with police yelling at us to evacuate and Will instructing me to grab only the essentials, all i remember saying in my stumbling daze was “what does that even mean??...”  my chickens were in the backyard and i couldn't much think of anything else.  i had soaked the area around their coop, for lack of anything more helpful to do, and left the water running to make use of the leak in the connecting joint.  then we had to go. 

i got my laptop, forgot my external hard drive, and stumbled upstairs in pursuit of “irreplaceables” with will’s calm but assertive guidance.  i should know where my birth certificate is, but at the moment i don’t.  passport?  social security card?  purse and phone seemed like good ideas.  it was cold outside; i packed a scarf.  and i was unbelievably thirsty so i filled my water bottle.  the rest?.....?

the threat of losing “everything” came down to a hard drive and my chickens.  Will and i were together and safe, and because of that knew that whatever else happened we would get through it and be ok.

60 firefighters kept our neighborhood from burning down.  the wind was tremendous and they managed to keep even the houses on either side from being completely destroyed.  three of the people made it out of the house; the fourth did not.  

we got to come back home.  and never have i ever been so grateful to walk through my front door.  sleep wasn’t about to happen so we made tea and folded clean clothes.  i washed some dishes.  we curled up on the sofa and watched arrested development, as it seemed the only logical thing we could think of to do.  around 5:30am we finally crawled back in bed, and attempted sleep that wouldn’t come. 

we don’t need all this stuff.  it’s people that matter, and we’ve been humbly inspired to start spending more time with our friends and loved ones.  we’ve been reminded how quickly things can be taken away.  

we’ve also been reminded that we’re not special, that tragedies are happening all the time, all over the world, and that no matter what happens to us we are still incredibly fortunate to be who we are and to live where we live.  as scary as it can be i appreciate real glimpses of what people go through, so that i may feel real empathy, beyond just the textbook version of “i can’t even imagine....”  we don’t want to imagine (and can’t!), because if we could we might explode from comprehending the suffering of the world, the bad things that happen to good people as well as the bad things that happen to "bad" people.      

be kind to strangers.  be mindful of what you don’t know.  be grateful for blessings that surround you every day.

and if you have chickens, for god sakes go and hug them.

A Crooked Crow

standing at the foot of the precipice

both our faces worn

our hearts were rough at the edges

just the passing of a storm

i am no more simple 

than the stars that shine for me

i am just a girl this time

but that’s my poetry

life was born in this valley

with sunlight looking back

over shoulders bare in a big, big sky

the poets taught her that

i am no more simple

than the stars that shine for me

i am just a girl this time

but that’s my poetry

i am only the silence

i am only the space between the words

i am only a story that you’ve heard

‘cause we’re all some kind of creature

with grass under our feet

when life first came it was stars and rain

what chance the two should meet

i am no more simple 

than the stars that shine for me

and i am just a girl this time

but that’s my poetry

i am just a girl in time

but that’s still poetry

*

i spent a long weekend this month in the west texas desert with a whole gaggle of talented songwriters and amazing people.  no phone, no internet, no room to go hide in when i got shy.  it was fantastic.  we cut up old romance novels and sci fi books, we translated poems from languages we didn’t know, we ate delicious food, cheered each other on and talked about what it means to us to be a songwriter.  

we really have to let ourselves go to find ourselves, and our true art.  one thing about art is that we always think we get the idea, rather than the idea getting us.  it just shows up, doesn’t it?  we need to take credit for taking note and persisting until we bring the idea to light, but we also need to be humble enough to know that it came through us from the big, bold, beautiful and mysterious magical energy we’ve come to know as life.  

i was asked to be on a panel about lifestyles and songwriting and what ways we have best learned to mix the two, and really what it came down to for me was that i know my muse.  i know the place where my best songs tend to come from, and that’s both a blessing and a curse.  it’s a blessing in that i know how to keep it alive and tap into it when i need to without letting it take away from or damage the life i’m so madly in love with, but a curse in that anything not coming from that place somehow doesn’t feel genuine or “true.”  it’s very hard for me to write anything that isn’t a direct translation of emotion into song.  

the song above came from a poem translated in terrible fashion from italian into a tale of a snake and the god of disease and all sorts of weird religious stuff.  i was instructed to take my silly poem and go make a song from it.  naturally, the first thing i did was slash out all of the parts that didn’t mean anything to me (i.e. snakes and gods of sickness and weird religious stuff) and suddenly a sweet song, that actually means a great deal to me, wrote itself in precisely the amount of time it took to get the words down on paper.  

i can’t believe i’d never done any of this crazy cut-up shit before.  get out of the way, there’s a whole lot more that’s trying to come through ;)

Make A Wish

Make a wish.  it used to be the most magical thing in the world.  do you remember?  it was the best thing ever.  i mean really, what was better than making a wish that all of your wishes would come true?  Or just making a wish that your heart believed in more than anything else that had ever come before?

for as long as i can remember, when it was 11:11 or finding a dandelion or blowing out birthday candles, i have wished the same thing.  i’m sure there was a time when i wished for a toy (or another toy...), and then for my skin troubles to go away, and then for a certain boy to fall madly in love with me.....the list goes on, but that magic of making a wish and believing in that magic (in one form or another) to make it come true seems not to have followed.  i’m trying to get that back.

i started pretty early on to wish for what seemed like the only logical thing left after those other distractions were laid aside.  i wished to not let fear hold me back from doing the things i wanted to do.  it was that simple.  i’m not one to let myself regret, but if i did it would be just as they say: regretting the things i didn’t do.  i catch glimpses of what i’m truly capable of, firework flashes of what it would feel like.  i’ve lived a long, long time, but still feel like i’m just getting started.  fear will never “go away,” but it is no longer welcome to hold me in my tracks.

our lives are in our hands.  i know it’s hard to believe in magic.  i know it’s hard to believe in a lot of things, but if we stop making wishes then it’s all over.  you don’t need an excuse, though 11:11, dandelions and shooting stars are all rather good ones.

let the universe show you that you’re a part of everything.  let her show you that she’s listening.  let her show you that she can help.

make a wish!

make a wish!

make a wish!

*above photo prints available at https://www.etsy.com/listing/113199205/dandelion-seed-in-red-flowers

The Greatest of Teachers

you can live the life you want if you can love the life you find.

many of us celebrated a holiday of gratitude last week (and many of us are still full!)  any excuse to be grateful is ok by me, though not needing an excuse is good too.  we are, after all, breathing and living on this beautiful planet, warmed by an incredible sun, in a tremendous sea of cosmic expansion.

there’s a book i have called The Untethered Soul (Michael A. Singer), which i reference with some frequency.  there’s a chapter about death that is particularly powerful, and what i have taken most from it is that the best way to appreciate what you have is to imagine that you don’t have it.  

we’ve all heard the term “first world problems” before, and my goodness don’t we have a lot of them!  we’re good at finding all sorts of problems, because most of us (that are reading this at a computer) just don’t have that many.  if there are big ones, then we don’t really get around to the trivial things.

we all take things for granted, that’s just perspective.  no one can keep a clear and appreciative mind all the time, but the ones that come close have learned how to recalibrate and they do it often.  it ain’t no one time thing!  sometimes we don’t realize we’re taking things for granted, but just imagine they aren’t there; you’ll realize pretty quickly if you are!

so how about life?  are you taking that for granted?  that could go away at any second, without warning, without a fair trial, without discrimination and without remorse.  it’s hard to feel entitled to life when death is so clearly the keeper of it!  i’m a believer in the circle of life.  i believe they are one in the same.  death is not our enemy but the greatest of teachers.

so live.  live well.

Our Own River, Our Own Light

slow down my love

this old world she ain’t running out of time

slow down my love

ain’t nobody can write what’s mine

i wrote that song because my love and connection with any music that wasn’t my own was dwindling.  it was forced and skeptical and a lonely place to be.  it was getting harder and harder to find music that touched me, that really struck a chord, that made me feel something.  and the worst part was that i just stopped looking.  i let the heavy weight settle on me that we must be running out.  i felt doomed to continuing disappointment, or if i did find an amazing song then it was just one more song that i could no longer write.  

is there a bigger picture?  ask yourself that all the time.  the world is an expanding universe.  there’s always a bigger picture, every moment.  there’s always an energy on the cutting edge that just isn’t anywhere else.  refocus on it.  it will help you see.

i have taught myself to think of creative energy as a river.  it is always flowing by, it is always accessible to me.  if i let something go by un-captured, it’s ok, because there is always more water flowing and i can’t separate one good idea out from another.  it’s all the same energy, taking on the form of the moment.

why am i afraid to surrender to magic?  why does it so often surprise me?  it’s the essence of life, and i do so love life.  i am life.  i am love.  love is magic.  magic happens.  magic is.  i'm a little ashamed to have thought such limiting things about the universe!

ain’t nobody can write what’s mine, but i can’t write something that’s someone else’s either.  we each have our own river.  we each have our own light.

"About" Me

i just started a business.  i followed the suggestions of some good (and impressed ;) people and i started a photography business.  what else could there be for me to talk about right now?  it was an interesting process writing the “about” section for my shop, and i was a bit surprised by what came out.  truth, of course, but which version?  every word we use has its own input, its own shade of color and as i go about excitedly ironing out wrinkles and overcoming obstacles in this new endeavor i keep coming back to these words that i wrote.

It's the Little Things

After being a song writer for so many years i've learned a few things. With exceptions, of course, when you write a really good song, you know it. You've gotten enough feedback, you've known what it feels like to open up and exhale something as beautiful and as close to truth as you've ever known. I've learned that no one can say exactly the same thing exactly the same way. 

It was a dewey morning in Bellingham, WA, at my then partner's family farmstead, when i noticed a tiny little weed in a dormant barrel planter in the yard. Each one of its tiny little arms had perfect balls of dew at the ends and it was like a magical fairy christmas tree, radiating an unbelievable amount of light and joy and beauty....to no one but me. I pushed a button, and that beauty was captured, my own story added to it, simply by being there, simply by noticing.

The joy of photography is unparalleled for me. I can feel the same kind of rush as i do with song-writing, but photography is somehow more pure. It's far less of a struggle to get to "the heart of the matter." There's no way for ego to really enter into it. The picture was already there. I just took it. 

I don't have a fancy camera. For what i do it hasn't been that important. I work with what i have, and for now enjoy being able to have a camera wherever i go. I do plenty of photographing at music shows and other events, but i shoot when i want to and can put the camera away when i choose. I'm the unexpected photographer, and, for now, prefer it that way.

It's a fine line. If i'm always in photographer mode, sometimes i can miss the experience at hand. I try hard not to regret missing a great shot. I try hard not to let photographing the life around me take the place of living it.

my shop can be found at http://www.etsy.com/shop/LetThatSongbirdGo 

Good Thoughts, Bad Thoughts

it’s interesting that we’re so afraid of our our bad thoughts.  “step on a crack and you’ll break your mother’s back”....yikes!  and there are people who won’t do it, no matter what.  either they’re convinced it will happen, or it’s just not worth the risk.  

these words were written on an airplane, and who hasn’t had the inner dialogue of the devious devil daring the plane to go down an the exhausted angel desperately putting out the fire?  

we’re afraid of the bad thoughts, because we fear they might come true.  why don’t we think the good ones will come true as well?  no one worries that if they hold a positive thought for long enough it will come to fruition.  instead we think the positive thoughts don’t really matter, and won’t let ourselves get duped into believing them, just to be disappointed time and time again.   

you would be impossibly hard pressed to get me to stand in a dark room and say “candyman” three times in the mirror, but there are times when it’s just as difficult to look in the mirror and say good things as well.  sometimes it feels like lying, sometimes it feels like we don’t deserve it, sometimes it feels like we’re being tricked into some sort of woo woo fortune teller stuff.  

i’m just saying, if we think some of our thoughts are powerful but not others, i think that deserves some re-examination....  

don’t you?

Live Forever or Die Trying

live forever or die trying: not sure what this was advertising, but i saw it on a poster in the denver terminal along with a couple of glamourous and dramatically somber models.  

a lot of us do just that.  i mean, not live forever--never once has that been accomplished--but a whole lot of every generation seems to keep thinking they'll be the first to do it, because they'll do it right.  so much time and energy drained into preparing for future life at the cost of the present.  

we think we can store it up.  we think we can deny life now and then have a huge surplus later that will satisfy our every desire and then some (because if it's all scrunched into a smaller time period then it will be super concentrated super life, right??)  we’re working for more than just retirement; we’re working for the very life we're letting slip by.  

unfortunately there are some things you can’t cash out on.  some things are only there for a split second and then they are gone.  be careful.  

take a deep breath and be grateful.  if you aren’t grateful now, you won’t be then.  if you aren't living now, you won't be then.

A Matter of Life and Death

i think most of us have heard many times in our lives to get our priorities straight.  when we’re young it probably has to do with grades in school and partying or figuring out what we want to do with our lives.  when we get older it probably has more to do with money and jobs and family and friends (and figuring out what we want to do with our lives!).  

the month of august shifted a few priorities for me, and as important as it is to be persistent and persevere through hard times, it’s good to recognize when some things just have to be let go of.  

some people have yet to experience the death of someone close to them.  i’ve dealt with it a lot, and as hard as it is there is nothing quite like it to inspire “getting your priorities straight.”  there is a pureness of emotion, a recognition of fragility that is both terrifying and liberating.  when someone is suddenly gone that was just there a minute ago, the things that aren’t really important just fall away and there’s a strange peace that comes with it.

this last month i watched one of my best friends die.  i wasn’t there the moment it happened but i was in the hospital almost every day, and being on tour, was often rushing straight from there to a gig, or to the studio.  mary was the coolest lady.  she was the kind of old person that would complain (grumpily) about how grumpy other old people can be.  she had a memory to challenge an elephant’s and was an amazing story teller even though she was never trying to be.  she was just recalling her life and one memory would lead to three others and i loved to listen.  she loved the doors and thought leonard cohen was the sexiest man ever (it was definitely the voice :), aside from her husband, to whom she was happily married and remained crazy about for 64 years.  they had the kind of marriage everyone dreams about having.  they had a lifetime of working together and appreciating the hell out of each other, and never lost their sense of humor, right up ‘til the end.  ("what was your name again....?" rod would often ask before kissing her hand.)

it’s been said a million times and a million ways, but when it comes down to it you just never know.  i had a realization on this trip, which shouldn’t really have been a realization at all, that every single person that has ever lived on this earth has also died.  every single one.  

“getting priorities straight” for me is asking the simple yet difficult questions, every day, that if today was the day, if this was the moment, could i die happy?  am i doing the things everyday that are true to myself and my soul and my purpose?  what things would i regret not having done?  who do i need to reach out to and tell them i love them?  

we are so afraid of death, and many of us spend our whole lives trying to avoid it.  it’s so interesting to me though, because actual death is a moment.  just a moment.  one moment you’re alive, and the next one you're not.  and regardless of your beliefs, either you’re finally out of this human mind and body and are on to the next leg of the journey, or the lights are out forever and you’re done.  either way, how can either of those things (or any other outcomes i can think of) be nearly as scary as we make them out to be?  

i am beyond certain that most of us live our whole lives without really knowing what incredible miracles we are capable of, without understanding that living in an infinitely expanding universe means that we are infinitely expanding people.  love and creativity are energies powerful beyond belief, and i believe so much that we need to trust them unconditionally.  we can't only trust when we see exactly how things are going to work out.  i believe they are the key to unlocking our full potential and genuine happiness, yet we are so eager to let everything stand in the way of them.  do we think that if it's not our fault we didn't fulfill our potential and lead joyful and creative lives, if we can blame someone else in the end (the world??), then it will make it all easier?  that it will make death easier?  

i don't need to have all my dreams come true in order to die happy.  i do need to know that i was walking in the right direction.  

what if today was the day?  what if this was the moment? 

mary mason :)

Intuition and Mr. Slug

i think sometimes what makes intuition so hard to trust are the times we never really get to know if we made the “right” decision or not.  there’s no follow up, there’s no cosmic camera to flash you the scene of what would or wouldn’t have happened had you taken another path.  and we could really use that couldn’t we??  rarely are we lucky enough to receive a definitive confirmation of making “the right choice.”

no.  trust is trust (is trust is trust is trust is trust).  and the more we trust the easier it will become to trust.  this goes for the whole scale, from “life changing” to mundane.

i was coming home one night and when i pulled into the driveway saw that the recycling bins were still by the curb.  my first instinct was to go and get them, even though it was late and i could think of no earthly reason why they needed to come in then rather than in the morning, but i felt lazy leaving them and managed to let what should have been a split second decision get caught and turn into a conflict.  i grumpily ignored my intuition while i gathered my things and headed towards the house.  

POPSPLAT!!!  

i had stepped down on the concrete and done horrible things to a slug who was previously having what i expected was a pretty peaceful evening.

my mind said to me calmly, “it’s not always about you.” 

my goodness isn’t that a powerful thing to hear!  i certainly wasn’t being selfish that night, or setting out to do anyone (or any thing!) harm, but had i simply gone with my gut instinct without putting it in the Hot Seat of Reason and Rationality, i would have retrieved the recycling bins and taken the side path to the gate instead of the front path to the steps.  and mr. slug would have gone happily on with his peaceful evening.  

trust is trust (is trust is trust is trust is trust).  

Coffee Wisdom: Remain Flexible

i really do feel like i learn a lot from coffee.....from those quiet moments of absolute appreciation and affirmation of the joy it awakens, rather than just the perceived surrender to a bad habit.  if my coffee isn’t so good and strong and delicious that it makes me want to cry a little bit, i would rather do without it, and do.  not to say that i won’t go out of my way when i’m on the road to get a good cup of coffee....‘cause i will....but if it’s not available i have no desire to drink from a pot at the gas station.

this particular moment of wisdom came on a morning commute, like any other morning commute.  my ritual is to drink from my favorite cup in the world as much as possible, a yummy french press brew, and sometimes it makes it into the car with me if i haven’t finished it while getting myself ready.  and i like bringing my coffee in the car.  i feel like i’m drinking in the essence of the day around me with every sip, and when a good cd is in the player (or just good old silence) it can be really magical.  (every morning is, but it often goes unnoticed ;)

so, if one is to carry coffee in the car and not spill it all over themselves, you have to remain flexible.  you can’t hold that cup rigid and attempt to be stronger than the bumps in the highway.  you have to go with the flow, literally!  that is true strength.  the buildings that withstand earthquakes are the ones that can sway with the turbulence, not try to defy it.  

so be strong!  learn to bend and sway when it’s called for (you’ll know when it’s time to stand like a rock! ;) 

Driving Wisdom: Subtle Movements

i don’t know if anyone else had ideas and beliefs about driving before they were too young to understand what was really happening, but i definitely had a few that stand out.  when i was really young i thought that the road was a magic track of sorts and that the person driving was only really there to stop and start the car, not steer it, or anything else for that matter.  (obviously i was too young to know about all of the times that cars go off of the magic track!)

the one i found myself thinking about today came when i was getting to the age where i realized i myself would be driving soon and ought to be paying some sort of attention!  i would watch my mother’s hands, and the subtlety of their movements on the wheel, and waver back and forth wondering if such subtle movements could possibly be deliberate.  no.....i thought......she’s just twitching a little bit or something!

now that i’m a driver i know that indeed, for the most part, even the tiniest movement of hands on the wheel is due to a tremendously sensitive inner calibration, a sense of balance, of center, of the space you fill when you are inside of your vehicle, of boundaries.  i watch my own hands and am truly amazed at the sensitivity of that sense of self.  pretty incredible the power we have behind the wheel, and with such a system of machinery in place we are able to fine tune our pathway and make tremendous moves with the slightest effort.  

all we have to do is to know is where that center is, and, really, if you’re just beginning to drive (or remember that awkward bull-in-a-china-shop phase...) it’s a learn as you go process!  not something you can learn from a book.  get out there and practice! ;)  

(photo sale info in the Photography section of this page :)

A New Perspective

i recently got a new camera, after having a great one for a while and then trying to replace the great one (since three years made it SO obsolete they stopped making it) with a super duper piece of crap camera that i had dreams of throwing from tall buildings or smashing to bits with heavy blunt objects.  christmas was good to me, and i am now properly equipped with a fast-action-make-everything-look-like-a-million-bucks lens through which to see the world.  

i once wrote an email to my good friend, danny schmidt, declaring excitedly that i had finally discovered my life’s purpose.  it was around the time that i decided right before going on stage that i really didn’t enjoy performing....like, at all.  i didn’t like the jitters before playing, i usually felt nervous and clumsy when i was up there, and i didn’t like the part afterwards when i couldn’t talk to anyone without feeling like i was putting them on the spot to tell me it was a great show, and then questioning the truth of the statement and trying like to hell to learn how to take a compliment.

i wrote danny to tell him that i wanted to be a photographer, or more so, that i finally realized that’s what i was.  photography is so innocent and so pure.  photography has naught to do with ego; how could it?  it’s being a witness to life’s miracles, big and small.  nothing more and nothing less, except knowing when you see one and when to click a button.  you’re not creating anything, only sharing.  that was a tremendous relief to me at the time.  it still is.

as dramatic a moment as that was, really i was just feeling shy and scared and uncertain and noticed a whole new bright light that captivated me.  and now instead of leaving the old light behind i’ve learned to see music in much the same way.  we’re really a witness to everything, even ourselves.

a new camera feels like a new skin.  my eyes and my heart are more open.  they see things in a different light.  and they’re seeing that everything is a miracle, really.  everything is amazing. 

there is no other life

we were talking about the new year last night, as people do on new year’s eve and we both acknowledged and agreed fully that it’s just another day.  every day is, though every day a new beginning; every moment a new beginning.  

what i continue to learn is that no matter what transformations i go through, no matter how difficult a thing i conquer, no matter how deeply i learn to love and let go, here i am.  i still see with the same eyes, hear with the same ears, speak with the same voice.  my hands don’t change, my face doesn’t change.  not until i look back, over a lifetime of infinite moments and intangible evolution.

i am a flower in bloom, and as petals grow forth from the center they eventually reach the outer rim, and fall silently to the ground.  new ones push forward, through heartache and joy, through certainty and doubt, through winter and spring, through breath and through song.  

we live here and we live now.  there is no other life.