I’ve played well over 100 house concerts over the past several years and no two are the same. I’ve played to audiences of anywhere from 3 to 80+ people. I’ve played big, lavish, 3-story houses and tiny A frames where I still have no idea how we squeezed in 20 people. Inside, outside, daytime, nighttime, rowdy, reverent… Here’s what they have in common though: there’s something about playing in someone’s home that fosters a deeper connection than a public venue can – both between me and the audience and between audience members themselves. It’s special.
Can a breakup be a gift in disguise? While the wrapping on mine was utter shit, it was still the best gift I ever got. Opening the box was the opposite of fun, but inside was the realization that I didn’t deserve what I’d just been handed. I didn’t know what I’d been putting up with until I wasn’t putting up with it anymore.
This is a hard one, and it takes a while. In fact, it doesn’t just happen one day and then it’s done. You don’t get bonked on the noggin by the forgiveness fairy and immediately commence to feeling groovy. The hurt or betrayal you felt doesn’t just magically dissipate, but you can learn to soften around it rather than letting it fuel your anger and harden your heart. Time really does heal. Not in the same way time allows a physical wound to close. But when it comes to emotional wounds, time allows for some perspective to develop that you couldn’t possibly have when you were still pulling emotional shrapnel out of your tender places.
It would be understandable to not trust again, not love again – decide the whole thing was for suckers. Who wants to risk getting hurt again, right? That’d be a valid choice. But that would mean the heartbreak won. The darkness won. The one who left won. Fuck. That.
"When someone shows you who they are, believe them the first time." - Maya Angelou
That’s hard to do, especially if you tend toward Sister Mary Sunshineness like I do, giving everyone the benefit of the doubt. There’s something to be said for seeing the good in people or the potential in people even when they don’t necessarily see it themselves. But there’s just as much to be said for trusting your gut, drawing healthy boundaries, and recognizing that while something may be shiny and pretty if it’s concurrently really hot and hurty it probably burns BECAUSE IT’S PROBABLY FIRE.
There’s a marked and crucial distinction between not liking something and dismissing it as lesser art. Yet I’ve heard SO many musicians put down music they don’t like. That gets under my skin like a frickin’ chigger.
Shit will remind you of shit when you’re not expecting it. Road signs, pens, TV commercials, photos, songs, air…and don’t go into the greeting card aisle at Walgreens, whatever you do. Gah! That place is a damn mine field.
Getting left behind is a deep, jagged cut. When someone decides “I’d rather be without you than with you,” there is a deafening loneliness and bone-chilling sadness left in the wake. It’s really hard not to believe you must have failed somehow for someone to be making that decision. But it’s not necessarily so. Sometimes people just can’t see past what they think they need and it’s actually not about you at all. It’s far easier to see that in hindsight than while you’re still icing the bruise of being dropped like a hot potato, but hang in there. Hindsight WILL come. You just gotta get to the hind first.
"I think I'm angry....is that OK?"
That was me on the phone with my therapist a few days after the bomb dropped. The dust had settled, the initial shock had worn off and suddenly something welled up inside me like “wait just a fucking minute….oh HELL no.” Since anger is not something that had ever come naturally to me, I wasn’t sure what to think. Hence the call to my therapist, who laughed heartily and said “Yes – you should be angry right now. It’s healthy and appropriate. If you weren’t angry I’d be worried.” So I ran with it.
Have you ever heard someone refer to singers as “not real musicians”? Yeah me too. Grrr. While it’s possible that someone was an asshat, it’s also possible they were simply ill-informed. So in the interest of diplomacy, let me ‘splain a little bit about the aspects of music mastery that make a professional singer.
When we made the video for 3 AM, the title track of my new record, we decided to use the imagery of memories as an inescapable prison – which is pretty much what that feels like at 3 in the fucking morning.
Break-up stage 1: the rug you were standing on has just been pulled out from under you. As you’re tumbling toward the floor, you think: “What the fuck just happened? Who are you and what have you done with my person?”
I just got married. So naturally now is the perfect time to launch a blog series about getting over a break up, right? To be clear – things between me and my über-wonderful new husband are solid as Ashford & Simpson’s rock (if you’re too young to get that reference, here – you’re welcome... ).
But a few years ago I went through a whopper of a break-up that spun me around.
MY NEW ALBUM, "3 AM", IS DONE. WILL YOU JOIN ME IN BRINGING IT TO LIFE??
I've waited a long time to type that sentence at you. Most of you have been right there with me, along for the ride that led up to me writing and making this album - I can't type THANK YOU in capital enough letters. Now we get to celebrate and make this sucker go BOOM. (If you've just recently joined us, have no fear - you can come to the party too!)
Sometimes ghosts sneak up on you. You don't see them coming but out of nowhere they have their hands around your throat and you find yourself surprised by tears...tears you thought were long dry. But then you walk out onto your front porch and the cold air hits your face and the sight of a gentle blanket of snow covering your front yard (and its 9-foot robot guarding a Texas flag like the centurion...yeah I've been on a Dr. Who binge) stops those tears in their tracks and restores your soul.
What do I cry for?
I cry for you. I cry that I had you and lost you. I cry that you lost you...and I lost me. I cry to think maybe I never knew you. Maybe you never meant it. I cry at surrender lost to fear...blown away in an afternoon storm. Vows and tears flowing down the edge of the street mixed with rain and oil and brake fluid...dying love clinging to dead leaves, gasping for breath it can't find.
