“But bringing people together is what music has always done best.” -Rob Sheffield, Talking to Girls about Duran Duran: One Young Man's Quest for True Love and a Cooler Haircut
And if this finds you, I hope it finds you well. I hope that your windows are open, and the record player is playing. I hope…oh, how I hope.
As much as things change, they always seem to stay the same. We are a record that just goes round and round and round. We are just a dream of what could be. We are so close, but so far away.
So if you never happen to find me, if this isn’t meant to be, I will always keep us in a special place. I will always know that we really were something. Something great. Something rare. And somewhere in the deepest and quietest corners of my heart will be a place for you and I. It will be a place that will always have hope for us.
But when they persisted in asking Him, He straightened up, and said to them, “He who is without sin among you, let him be the first to throw a stone at her.” -John 8:7
It’s not about your faith. It’s not about your convictions. It’s not about the sanctity of marriage. It’s not about you.
It’s about two people being able to share their lives together and being recognized as equal. It’s about the rights of human beings. It’s about the acceptance that love and family relationships are changing and manifesting into something wonderful; it is new time.
Your love is not better or worse than someone else’s love. Your love is not more valid than theirs. Love is love, and we are all equal in God’s eyes. So if I were you, I’d probably make sure to keep my stones to myself.
“The future belongs to those who believe in the beauty of their dreams.” -Eleanor Roosevelt
It was barely past 8am, and I soaked in the stillness of the morning. The sun snuck in through the crevices of the blinds as I stretched in the bliss of the silence. Thoughts and wishes and early morning daydreams danced around. And I enjoyed every minute of this quiet dreaming. As I always do. But maybe, these daydreams will only ever be daydreams. Or maybe, there will be a day very very soon when words finally become actions, and these daydreams will become reality. And if not, it may be time to dream of something new.
“You own everything that happened to you. Tell your stories. If people wanted you to write warmly about them, they should have behaved better.” -Anne Lamott, Bird by Bird: Some Instructions on Writing and Life
The rain painted my windshield as I slowly made my way down the freeway on the long trek home, and suddenly it hit me. Hard. Just one song. One tiny song and a flood of words hit me harder than the rain drowning me that night. Words and images and conversations and lovely combinations of sentences surrounded me so much that it was almost hard to see. And as soon as I got home, I put paper to pen, and it all poured out of me; words and thoughts that I had held in for so long were finally free.
There are things in life that you desperately want to write about, but you sometimes you have to wait. Sometimes, it takes awhile to be able to formulate the perfect words to attempt to explain an experience, an event, or a person; it takes time. And before you know it, you have the makings of your first novel. Something that you are really excited about. Something that only reminds you of the thing, the person that you end up always writing about. That you never seem to stop missing. Some things are far too precious to simply throw a few sentences together to describe. You are striving for words that resonate and transcend. Sometimes, you have to be really really patient. But sometimes, some things, the best things, are well worth the wait.
“Words are also actions, and actions are a kind of words.” -Ralph Waldo Emerson
I have had a love affair with words for my whole life. Lyrics tumble around my head from years ago. I remember tiny moments of a few words that have stayed with me forever.
Words are dear. They have power. They have give meaning to things that you never knew existed. They can make you float for days or make your week a blurry haze. They can be two small words that mean nothing to anyone else, but to you and another it means everything.
There are words and spaces in time that will resonate with you forever. There are moments that are heavier and more special merely because of the people and the words being spoken.
So, let your words count. Let them be true. And when they are not, I hope silence finds you.
“A warning sign/ It came back to haunt me, and I realized/ That you were an island and I passed you by/ And you were an island to discover…./ When the truth is, I miss you/ Yeah the truth is, that I miss you so” -Coldplay “Warning Sign”
There are times in life when you find yourself searching to fill a space that you never knew was empty before. There are moments when you know that you have found something much bigger and more meaningful than anything before it. It haunts you. You try to move about your life without it, but you always find yourself wandering back to it. Nothing holds a candle to it. It is the ultimate. It may be a place. It may be a person. It may be a passion. Whatever it is, there is a void without it. Don’t think that it will always be there though. Don’t just let it just slip away.
There is power in a name. It changes things. Different names create intense emotions just from them merely being uttered. So it is no surprise that when the band formerly known as Future Ghosts from Greensboro, North Carolina was made to change their name, they chose something that set them apart and propelled them into the future. Allow me to introduce you to Unifier.
With the release of their amazing brand new album “Colorado” only yesterday, it seems that they are quickly forgetting about their recent past and only looking to move forward as they should. From small waves of feelings of Jimmy Eat World to explosions of something not yet experienced, Unifier is quickly making it’s way around and through my house and on repeat in my head. There is something comfortable in their music like I’ve heard this all before, but the more that I listen the more that I discover. And the more that I discover, the more that I want to hear.
So, until they come to the West Coast, I will have to settle for dancing to their album in my living room. But that’s not such a bad thing after all…
“The times you lived through, the people you shared those times with — nothing brings it all to life like an old mix tape. It does a better job of storing up memories than actual brain tissue can do. Every mix tape tells a story. Put them together, and they can add up to the story of a life.” -Rob Sheffield “Love is a Mixtape”
I miss a lot of things lately. I miss L.A. I miss improv. I miss my friends. I miss living ten minutes away from the beach. I miss Friday nights at Kay ‘N Dave’s. I miss lovely distractions from heaping piles of homework. I miss it all.
Change is never easy, and while I am always pushing myself in new ways in order to grow, I am always surprised by how greatly it affects me. Sometimes, I feel that all I do is start over. Sometimes, I am scared that things I love will just slip away because of the timing of my life.
I love a lot of things. Passion fills my life more than I would like to admit, and I never want to lose that. And I have to remind myself that the things that matter, the things that are meant to be will never leave you. They will always find a way to come back to you. Always.
“I hope this song starts a craze/ The kind of song that ignites the airwaves/ The kind of song that makes people glad/ To be where they are/ With whomever they’re there with” -Brand New “Okay I Believe You, But My Tommy Gun Don’t”
There are few nights that I will remember as vividly as when I saw Kevin Devine, Manchester Orchestra and Brand New play at the Warfield in San Francisco in 2007. There are few moments when you witness musicians share a stage and truly enjoy one another. There was not a single moment that night that was wasted. Yes, there was something magical about that night at the Warfield, and it has yet to be recreated.
I have found myself over the years more and more drawn to this collective of musicians, this collective of friends. They are doing what this Project hopes to create someday-a community of friends that collaborate and support one another in their individual projects. Because that’s what this whole thing is all about-supporting one another. It’s about the local bands. It’s about the bands that open for the larger bands that come through town. It’s about you and me.
So when I heard that Kevin Devine had started a Kickstarter to fund his next two albums, I was stoked. Not only could I support someone who I was artistically in awe of, I could be part of the art. And after all, isn’t that what it’s really about? Isn’t that why we go to a show and sing along to our favorite songs with a room of complete strangers because we want to be a part of something bigger than ourselves? So, be bigger and support and share because one day it’ll come around back to you.
“For last year’s words belong to last year’s language/ And next year’s words await another voice.” -T.S. Eliot “Four Quartets”
The bright Wednesday morning bubbled around me in the corner of the cafe. People buzzed by on the street and chatted with one another as they made their way through Lake Merritt. In that moment, I got lost in how much can happen in just a year.
When I moved to Los Angeles, I finally felt at peace. It suited me. And over the past six and half years, I have managed to find a community of wonderfully talented friends in what could be the loneliest city. I have met people and had experiences that are uniquely L.A., and as much as I despise the traffic, I would never trade my time in L.A. for anything in the world.
But just like anything, there is always a moment when you need to open yourself up to new opportunities. So, in the matter of six weeks, I was accepted to a school and found myself packing everything up to move back to the Bay Area. And while I was so excited to go to this amazing school and start something new, a huge part of me was sad to leave my life in L.A. behind.
As I move further and further into this new year, I feel more at ease with letting go. Last year was an obstacle of its own-things that I want to keep and things that I want to leave. Things that I will always remember and things I am trying desperately to forget. Things that brought me so much happiness and things that broke my heart. And while I have no regrets of anything that happened last year, I am ready to hear a new song-a song of 2013 and a better me.
