As You Are

I opened my notebook tonight and found two words inside the cover, with a familiar voice speaking them in my mind.

Begin again.

I woke up my iPod and chose the song I wanted to start writing to, and the voice of a great musician - a guy I met named Ziv - spoke to me:

Forgive everyone you know...'cause they were once a child too.
Forgive yourself and love again.
You've been waiting for it.

C: Welcome back to the right side of your brain.

S: Ahh, is that where my heart was all along?

C: So how have you been? Has work been that good, to take you away from doing all of this creative stuff?

S: You know what...I feel like I sold out. I let it become the main thing, and then writing and playing music became a distraction.

C: Who the hell is that person? I mean, okay, the job is great and all, but I seriously don't care about the fun stuff you get to do. You live when you write. If you don't get that out of your system, there goes a year with nothing to show for it.

S: I...you know, I get it, and for many reasons I've...been given a little clarity right now. But don't think I lost anything, because I haven't

C: I know. I can see that. I watched you lost in thought for two hours. I recognize that person.

S: It's a little scary.

C: Why?

S: When I get an idea like this, it turns and evolves, it needs to live and come into focus. There is a crazy need to get it out of me so I can start working with it. (pause) You know what? It's kind of like the guy from Close Encounters.

C: Is there a huge sculpture made of garbage in your living room? Tell me honestly if you're going insane because...well, wait a minute...this conversation is taking place, so....

S: No, I just always have it in the back of my mind. I'm fully inspired and filled with urgency. I'm writing notes on napkins and jumping from one medium to another. I'm a total freak at work, but people seem to enjoy seeing my brain fire up like this.

C: Okay....

S: Okay...what?

C: So I don't get it. What's the problem?

S: I don't have a problem.

C: I look over your head and I see a cloud of...I don't know, everything. It's hard to describe. There's more going on than this new project you're working on.

S: Really?

C: Do you remember the first time we talked?

S: Ohhh crap. That was a long time ago. It was...1987, right?

C: On a grassy hill, with the sun and wind tossing clouds across the sky. I remember how you had some distance from the thing you were dealing with and were trying to reconcile the lingering thoughts, the stuff that just wouldn't tie up neatly.

S: Yeah. It's weird to think about what it meant then.

C: So listen, I have known the intimate workings of your beating heart for a very long time, and I have seen every accomplishment you've had since what feels like the beginning of time. I know when you're afraid to ask for something and when you're taking a jump in evolution. This project is symptomatic of something else.

S: I don't like that you know this much about me.

C: So?

S: There are some things that I keep to myself.

C: Yeah, I know. But I do want to tell you something. (pause) It is altogether okay to have something other than...an invention completely of your own doing.

And there's no response. The song playing over the speakers by Jenny Owen Youngs - I shit you not - says:

I'll draw up the blue prints but i'll never use them.
Now i've only ever offered you myself and you always say it's not enough.

S: That's an old voice talking.

C: Isn't it weird to think about what it meant back then?

S: Oh, God. I hate it when things fall into place and you say something with such...fucking clarity that I can't explain it away. I like my struggle...sometimes.

C: Yeah, I know that one. You don't always have to earn things you get. Sometimes you get rewarded for good things you've done without realizing you've done them. Just take it. Ask for it. Whatever it is you don't want to talk about, take a step back and look, okay? It's easier than you sometimes make it out to be.

S: I'm a complicated person.

C: Not from where I'm standing.

S: Yeah. Thanks.

C: Okay...empty now?

S: It's good enough.

John Mayer now keeps asking me - and he's being persistent:

Do i have to fall asleep with roses in my hand?

The answer might have been an obvious denial for a long time, but it's pretty clear that the simple truth is that right now it doesn't feel anything like it used to. Right now, the Law of Proximity is pretty much in full effect.

Defying Gravity

In 2008 I took a lot of shots straight at the heart and spent my year's allotment of optimism. It was like finding the surface of water on your last breath, and here I am standing just inside 2009 on a quiet, fertile ground that denies the turbulence of the path that led to it. It's quiet, hesitant as if waiting for me to collect myself, and I've brought some of 2008 with me into the new year. I shed some of it already, scattered on the days behind me, and today, I reached another breaking point where I let go yet again. I'm determined to see change. I've got pockets full of optimism again and a heart intact, and no room for excuses.

With few events at work for a month or two, I've got some time to grab some growth, to find that inspiration I've lost, and reconnect with people. I've got to sort out a few things, and I say this not putting that task first but rather with intention to make it all inclusive. This won't be a year with one silly resolution, or two to five goals to achieve. It won't be an opportunity to assign blame or to define myself in relation to anyone else.

Something snapped inside my brain, after which I immediately grabbed my guitar. That's how I knew I had to write before going to bed. Well, that's the way it usually happens with me, doesn't it? I think it means that both my left and right sides of my brain are agreeing on the state of my self, and that calls for me using some of this frustration and anxious optimism to stand right here, throw down a spike and signpost, and say that I deserve, as good as it already is, a better life than the one I have now. I've had it with expectations, I'm done with anything but truth, and I know it's time to embrace the creative life I should be living.

I've got a mixed bag of feelings right now, but I feel like I'm already burning it for fuel. I want to be busy. I want to do my job and then come home to work on something else. I want to look back on each week and have something to show for it. And then I want to have people to share it with. People here, right in the now, who are present in the present. That does require that I stop thinking about the past, and even the recent past, which will be hard, but easier if I stay busy.

So that's the beginning, the first brick on the road to Oz. What will I find when I get there?