Little Leaps

"The moment I jumped off of it was

the moment I touched down"

- from Thank You by Glen Ballard and Alanis Morissette

Listen. I want to tell you something. I want to talk about leaping. I have been thinking about it a lot this month because, of course, it's Leap Year and this is the month with one extra day. I want to talk about it because I’m not as brave as I’d like to be. But let’s just talk about it. We don't have to do anything drastic. Let’s get some coffee and discuss:     

The concept of leaping - making the leap, taking the chance - is something that sounds soo noble. So worthy. Soo…….I wanna do it.


After Steve Jobs passed away, I started reading all these great, inspiring quotes of things he had said - about just this sort of thing.

Your time is limited, so don't waste it living someone else's life. Don't be trapped by dogma - which is living with the results of other people's thinking. Don't let the noise of others' opinions drown out your own inner voice. And most important, have the courage to follow your heart and intuition. Steve Jobs

The longer I live, the more I feel a sense of urgency about making those leaps and taking risks.
I aspire to Leap. I want to be a Risk Taker.
But in truth, I am a Dreamer of Leaps.
In these dreams I am brave.  I have vision. I have clarity.


Making a leap sounds like making a big change. A risky, big change. You don’t really know how it’s going to turn out so you have to just go for it. On the other hand, you don’t want to be stupid about it and go off the deep end. Or so the voice in my head keeps telling me. Take for example,  that woman who calls herself the Naked Cowgirl and plays her guitar in Times Square. Now, what happened there? Did she just wake up one day and say, ‘I am CHUCKing it all to become the Naked Cowgirl! I have found my life’s calling!”  

photo by james messerschmidt, ny times

Naked Cowboy vs. Naked Cowgirl in Times Square - NYPOST.com

It would be nice to get some clear signs – like a telephone call or “Leap Notice” but I’m pretty sure it doesn’t work like that. I think the key lies in listening to that inner voice, and really trusting what your heart wants. “Stand in your truth” a friend used to say to me. I guess if that means your truth is becoming a naked cowgirl, then who am I to argue?


In case you – like me - find it hard to make a daring leap, I have devised a compromise.  I take little leaps. Even with little leaps, after a time, I can look back over my shoulder and see that I have put distance between where I was and where I am. And maybe someday, I’ll make the Big One………….
More coffee, please.



Co-Writing: Not For Sissies or Wood-Nymphs

If you hang out with other songwriters, sooner or later the suggestion to co-write will come up. This fascination with co-writing used to completely mystify me, and repel me all at once. My friends would take on a soft, rosy glow as they spoke of it. They would get all dewy-eyed and clutch their hearts and speak of how it changed their lives. But it felt contrary to my process and my instincts. I wanted nothing to do with it!

I’ve co-written a couple of times at workshops, and it was hard for me. I’m stubborn and I always want to use the lines I write. I am not the queen of compromise. But I’ve been feeling like maybe I should try it more, because I think trying things that are outside of my comfort zone can help me grow as an artist.

My process for writing is normally very unstructured.  Picture someone sitting in their jammies, guitar in hand, laptop open. When I’m working on a song lyric, I usually get to a point where I am stuck. I might have to get up and walk around for a while, and disconnect from it until a line mystically travels through several distant galaxies and breaks through the ozone to trickle down into my head. YES!  I have always been willing to wait days, weeks, months – YEARS for the right word or line to take its rightful place in a song.

But when you co-write, such a process will not do. It will not do at all. Instead, one must employ discipline (ugh, hateful word). Discipline! Pah! I am a gypsy! A wood nymph! A forest sprite! I dance through the woods, gathering my words on gossamer pages! I cannot be shackled or fettered, or tied down to such a restricting practice!

Co-writing – I have discovered – is not for sissies. In addition to discipline, it requires immense courage. You’re vulnerable. It’s scary to go out on a limb with a line, knowing that someone can whip out their chainsaw and cut it off, sending you crashing to the ground. And for me, it’s hard to be diplomatic and nice and not grab my own chainsaw too often.

More importantly, it takes practice. If you want to get better at it, you have to keep working at it, keep trying. I just completed a co-write on one of the songs for my CD project.  It didn’t feel natural. I had to struggle. I had to wear my regular clothes and not my pajamas. But I hung in there, and the song is going to be better for it – a stronger song. And THAT is the best reason to consider a co-write.

Love Me, Love My Hair: A Post for Big Hair Lovers Everywhere

Before I even got out of bed this morning, I was thinking about titles for this blog. And the mind - at 6:00 am - is particularly brilliant and inspired – or so it would seem at that moment. Those blog titles were flipping by like flash cards. 

I Belong to the Big Hair Club

Big Guitar, Big Hair

Big Hair is Sexy

Channeling Amy Winehouse

Two hours later, that bubble of brilliance has popped – and almost all of those titles have disappeared. I had planned to fill my blog up with titles, without ever getting into the mentality of someone who espouses the philosophy of “No Hair Too Big.”

A few years ago, my sister and I went to see Art Garfunkel with the KC Symphony. Our seats were pretty far from the stage, and  Art was just a tiny figure far, far below. We couldn’t make out his face at all. What we agreed upon after the show was that all we could see was a giant halo of copper hair! One has to wonder, had he not had big hair, would we have been convinced that he was really there?

Big Hair ensures that you will not be missed, I guess.  

Reasons why. I. Love. Big. Hair:

It’s fluffy.

It gives the illusion of more.

It’s fascinating.

It’s a statement.

It’s sexy. If it isn’t, why do I own hair spray called, “Big Sexy Hair.”

It creates a boundary which should not be crossed.

It distracts attention away from the imperfections of the face.

When Big Hair is not a good idea:

At a job interview.

In a movie theater.

At the pool – if you intend to get it wet.

Near an open flame

Of course I’ve seen people take it too far!

Yes, yes, I realize that huge hair can be an extreme statement. It can be an indication that something’s amiss. ……….Or a-missin’. But judge ye not too harshly, my friends.  You know the old saying: Love me, love my hair......

Minding My Biz

Being a performing songwriter  is more than just a hobby to me. I guess in some ways, it’s a calling. Does that make it a vocation? The truth is, it’s a sideline business, and I’m always striving to be better at taking care of business. To do this, I require focus, energy, time, and a belief in myself.

Taking care of business is an endless task, similar in its perpetual-ness to weeding the garden, doing laundry, tweezing your chin hairs – there is always more that requires care and attention and it’s sooo easy to fall behind. 

I confess that I am often sporadic about taking care of my music biz. If my music biz was a car with a manual transmission, you’d see it shuddering and jerking down the street, as I try to shift gears and keep from killing it all together.  That’s how I drive it sometimes.  And often, I don’t even know for sure which way I’m headed, which can be a problem both in life and in driving.

One thing I have figured out, however, is that I value my talent.  And you know, it’s HARD sometimes to value yourself and what you have to offer. I wasn’t raised that way! Someone was always afraid we might get “the Big Head.”  But how can I expect others to value it if I don’t value it myself?  And  conversely, if EVERYONE values it BUT me – I will never really get the return on the process of creating that I seek.

  

Shoes vs Art

I wouldn't describe myself as a materialistic person. And yet, there are some items that I must purchase and that I must have. Some of these items are not necessarily utilitarian, but they make me happy.

Shoes - new shoes - bring me joy. I don't know why I love 'em, I just do. And I require shoes. Call it addiction, a habit - call it what you want. In my head, I have already planned and plotted what my next pair will be. It's only a matter of time. And I don't just "need" one new pair. I need one in each of the categories I've created in my head.

Lately, I have had to hold off on the shoe buying, because I'm spending it all on recording - saving it all for the studio. So don't anyone try to tell me that I don't suffer for my art. I do. Oh, I do. And it's a worthy reason indeed. If I can just figure out how to record the right kind of song, I suspect that it would bring about some good shoe karma that would perhaps result in a my being inundated with new shoes. So that's the plan. That's the dream.

Letting Go Ain't Easy

Have you ever noticed sometimes, if you stop worrying and fretting about something and just sort of let go and say,

“I’m going to let things progress as they are supposed to – whatever that is. I can’t give so much of my energy to worrying about it.”

Then BAM! -- a big, fat change happens. It’s almost as if YOU were the one who was blocking the whole thing, because you were holding on, holding on, to the old paradigm.  

How is it possible that I could be responsible for preventing the very thing I want to happen from happening?  I don’t know. Go ask Buddha, maybe.  Even though I can be a serious control freak, I have found it to really work to just let go of some things at times.  

But letting go ain’t easy.

It may require courage. Or faith....... and it can take time.
To quote Kate Swoboda, author and life coach (www.yourcourageouslife.com): “You can’t force the release.”  To quote my friend, Rebecca, “When you’re ready, you will.”  In the meantime, you just do all that you can do:

“When you have done all that you can do, give it up to the part of yourself that is divine.” – Oprah Winfrey.

I realize that this is bordering seriously on the woo-woo. Fear not, Dear Bloglodites, I have not yet taken up wearing caftans and letting my armpit hair grow out. I am merely revisiting a treasured truth that I discovered but have apparently forgotten. Letting go is not a recent discovery - not a new idea.  It’s been around a while..... 

Knowledge is learning something every day. Wisdom is letting go of something every day. -Zen proverb

When I let go of what I am, I become what I might be. - Lao Tzu

How deeply did you learn to let go? - the Buddha

     

Torn Between Two Lauras

I’ve been trying to find time to do all of the things I love. I keep thinking that there has to be some way to rearrange the hours of the day, or to divide them up, so as to allow my creative Self to have a life. As it stands now, it’s about 90% Responsible Laura and 10% Creative Laura.

Now there’s an interesting revelation – - the fact that I define the part of me who must go to work and deal with the everyday drudgery as “responsible.” Why can’t Creative Laura be responsible too? She’s certainly not irresponsible. It’s not like she can be found hanging out under an overpass, smoking crack.

There’s a battle happening here, and the two Lauras are at odds. I haven’t figured out how to let them coexist happily within one body. Responsible Laura has fears. She doesn’t want to live in a cardboard box behind Wal-Mart.  She likes to be able to pay for things, like electricity and food  and shoes. And let’s face it – Creative Laura can’t concern herself with things like that, lest she lose inspiration.  

Responsible Laura hears  the insistent little voice of Creative Laura asking for more time, and this unsettles her.  She feels guilty and off center, somehow.  She offers unworkable deals such as “you can have midnight to 2 am.” Creative Laura can’t  stay awake that late these days.