Day 2: I’m human, and that’s the fucking point
Today I got off my schedule – which maybe seems absurd since it’s only the second day. But I didn’t get off it due to laziness or self-doubt or fear. It’s easy to make a plan and then, when you leave it, even for a moment and for a good reason, bludgeon yourself because you “didn’t commit.” I guess the learned-brain thinks it takes less energy to keep to the familiar tactic of self-abuse rather than take the time to distinguish between what’s laziness and what’s love. It was good practice for me today to not be a shitty-hearted perfectionist. I got off my schedule because of human interactions with people that I care about and who live in my small circle. I trusted my gut that I was needed elsewhere for small periods of time. While I was doing that, I was up on my roof with our myriad plant babies so my periphery was doused in spring-green and my glance fell across a familiar metal container which, for whatever crazy reason, prompted my autopilot brain to so softly whisper, “You’re being boring.” I caught the thought and responded, “If I can’t allow myself to be human because it’s uninteresting, what the hell am I going to write about?” There were numerous sentences I heard today that were not intellectually dense or tricky or profound but that simply expressed some feeling or moment every human being has experienced and those made me feel so good. One was a Joni Mitchell line from the Dog Eat Dog album, track “The Three Great Stimulants”: “I picked the morning paper / off the floor / It was full of other people’s / little wars.” Another was a description of when you break a chocolate chip cookie just out of the oven in half and the chocolate droops in an arc and a puff of steam clouds into the air. Both of those lines comforted me because I thought, “Hey, yeah, I know that. I’m not that different.”
I often stop myself from expressing because I’m convinced that I don’t know enough – that’s so vague, but, that’s how vague my thinking is. “Well, I don’t know enough about physics or history or political science, so I guess I can’t write a song today.” Really had to fight against that today. My writing time was spotty because I felt keenly aware of how inept at an instrument I am. I was feeling so constrained by my lack of music theory knowledge. But, instead of letting it push me into a dark hole, I just made an adjustment to my morning schedule. Instead of working straight through my music theory textbook as I have been, I am going to focus my attention on learning the main chords and keys, finally cementing the Circle of 5ths in my brain, and memorizing shapes on the piano and guitar. I’m going to also focus on learning Audacity so I can create demo tracks and work out ideas digitally rather than all acoustically.
I did feel really good about my vocal warmups and vocal practice -- been imitating Nina Simone’s “Feeling Good,” trying to imitate her phrasing and wails at the ends of notes. I’ll post a video of a soulful warmup.
It takes so much more energy to pretend to know something I don’t or to be vague about things that are nameable and specific. That’s a lesson I took from today. And that I shouldn’t be surprised that artists I adore write lyrics that I actually can feel in my gut. Why is writing from the heart so fucking hard?
