SadSeptemberSongs: September 1st, 2010

I was finishing a shift at Burritoville almost two years ago when I first experienced what I thought were some of the most beautiful songs I'd ever heard . I walked into the main diningroom and began to listen to Tim Crabtree (songwriter/guitarist/vocalist) along with two musicians (cello and I think a small toy piano) about 1/4 of the way through their set. My two good friends were sitting in the corner and I went to sit with them.

Under the name Paper Beat Scissors, they began to play Flicker.
All at once the room became a church...everything was richly covered in a sacred moment of genuinely captured emotion and musical magic. I grabbed a glance at my friend - both our eyes were filled with tears that we physiologically couldn't hold back, we were so moved by this piece of music.

Tim Crabtree's music is such that it MUST be seen live at some point - even if you're already a fan. Brings it to a whole new level. I've seen him twice at Burritoville and it's absolutely inspiring. So - another Canadian to love...Paper Beat Scissors is my first official choice for September 1st, 2010.

This is Flicker - amazingly beautiful and real...such a haunted, nostalgic, heartbreak of a song. A quiet chaos.




for more info:
www.myspace.com/paperbeatscissors

ATTENTION: Sad September is nigh...

And with that said, I've decided to post one song a day to express my melancholy flair and address the beauty of a well-written sad song.

I'll take a moment to remind you that some of my choices will not be available on the internet as a link - and so you might have to search for them yourself (Grooveshark/google search/etc)

however, I will try to post a link to the song when I can.

I can't wait to start - yeah for the end of blinding sunshine.

as a sneak-peak kicker-offer, let me suggest you listen to Canadian Mike Milosh's The City



enjoy, and PLEASE let me know how they make you feel, if you like them...etc.

the canal.

The wind is crazy here.
and I think about things that defined where I was before
and I think about the void of what it all means.
We talked about how your surroundings might not have a thing to do with happiness.

but then "La Vie en Rose" played live outside my window last night - and I thought that I might be in Heaven.

and then I thought that there are so many things that make heaven on earth.

like wind.
or, "La Vie en Rose"
or legs wrapped around legs
rain on the roof-top

so many mantras of what will make you happy
confidence
honesty

"self-help": the most lucrative section in the bookstore.

books. good ones. Long ones that you hope will never end...
not the "self-help" kind.

I do not really have a mantra.

I am one of those who can be anywhere and happy -
that is, if I'm in the right head space.

'don't really matter where I am.'
It can be Heaven in my heart...
it can be...
and the truth about happiness is that, for me,
the hope that I might get it back - or keep it, or eventually learn to sustain it,

is what drives me.

What's with today, today?

There hasn't been a moment where I've felt like getting my thoughts down into a blog. Probably because the past 6 months I've confronted "the demons of my past" so to speak, and I don't like them. It's hard to look back on myself, and my formed self-image as it relates to everything I've said, and all the choices I've made in my twenties thus far. Well, it's hard up until the part where I stop being in shitty, unhealthy relationships, and stop creating drama in every aspect of my life to distract myself from the real deal.

In all honesty, it's embarrasing to reflect on...like the morning after a bender. I have replayed my genuine emotional responses to things in the past, and I've replayed the countless selection of bad choices over and over in my mind, and even though I'm alone, and even though most people might not care or even notice those choices...I'm still embarassed.

I've had a very late start of it, and I am grateful to be here now, but I still mourn the loss of many years of confidence, productivity, and health that I could have cultivated earlier. I know many people learn even later than me, and I know I'm by no means done with learning...but I can't help but feel an enormous amount of guilt for not seeing the patterns sooner...for not hearing myself screaming at me when I was 20, 21, 23, and 26 years old.

Part of my ongoing guilt stems from the massive role my parents play in my becoming. Part of it stems from this new found excitement and love that I have for what I'm trying to do in my life, and the wounds that I've given myself never fully healing...
they are always reminding me of where I've come from...and how I could have prevented them.

If I would have been 21, 23, 26 years old and writing this blog - I would be embarrased to read it now...
The more I read sociological theory, and specifically Symbolic Interaction Theory - the more I reflect on the importance other people have played in my identity. And God knows, my entire life I have been someone who wants to connect...

Maybe this is because I felt so lonely growing up...so strange and so isolated in my head and my heart. My parents did nothing but remind me of how amazing it was to be me...how absolutely special and unique I was...but it didn't take away that feeling that as special as I was, no one was like me...no one felt like me...no one thought like me...

and so I consciously, VERY consciously set out to connect with people...almost like a religious faith. I believed that it was impossible that nobody felt things the way I did, or experienced the world like me, and I was right. I waited my whole childhood to be an adult, and I don't miss my childhood like so many other people do. I wanted freedom of thought, of speech, of action --- I romanticized it so much because I wanted to see the world in the way that I imagined it. I wanted people to be my lovers, my kindred spirits...I wanted to be assured that who I was could be embraced because we are all the same.

and my conclusion up until now is that we are. I'm lucky that I wasn't born with the ability to have much anger or hate or resentment. It's not because my parents didn't have anything to do with it - and it's not to say that I don't feel these things at all...but I can't live in it, and that, I think, is just pure luck. I think it's easy to, from what I've seen in my life and my relationships.
I think it's easy to be so afraid and so alone and so unsure that you end up drowning in it.

I have said before that I'm grateful for what I have...but it's in relations to what I've been through, not just the opportunities and the luck. They play such a huge part in things, but so does my embarrasing past of following around a man that doesn't love me over and over again...ignoring my body and my disease and soaking all my insecurities in bars and drinks and smiles...distracting myself from my own passions, hiding in other people's relationships and feelings and needs...even in their music, punishing myself for being this weak person instead of changing it...and labeling myself as the victim of shitty circumstance instead of realizing that it was all my own doing from the start.

How hard is it to write these feelings down...to own the guilt of your own life...to forgive yourself so that you can love fully and be loved fully...so that your parents might really get to see you happy and healthy and maybe they will even get to see your babies...
I haven't wanted to write because I've been trying to figure out a way to let it go.
but, I think, sitting with Ben in the car on the way to Montreal one beautiful day last year, I finally started to see that you can't really let those things go.

I think it's an ongoing process of forgiving and evolving...to remember that I wasn't the person I wanted to be even a year ago, reminds me of who I am now.
There feelings of guilt and regret are actually feelings that help me make the right decisions and I guess that those things that I felt...the late night under the blankets on the phone with Chris asking him why I can't be happy...the screaming and yelling and door slamming between my bestfriend and I where I felt like my heart was exploding and the whole world would end...the day I couldn't get out of bed, lost time, and woke up with my head on my mother's lap...the moments where I pondered whether or not I would ever be able to be truly independent and alone, the countless pills I took to feel better in a relationship that just needed to end, dropping out of school time and time again, keeping all these things from the people who love me the most and want to help me the most...

I can't be without them. I have to carry them around...and I suppose that it's my own choice how much weight they put on me.

Getting back to sociology - there is this theory that our entire self-awareness comes from the interactions we have socially...and in this respect, I see that the weight is lifted and carried by the people in my life who have decided to know me for all of these things, and who love me anyway...
we do this for each other. This carrying of the burden of wounds, and history, and experience. We do it by constantly confirming to each other that we are the same, and that essentially, we get to the present moment only from the moments of the past.

anyway - there is so much more to be said. But I felt like it was time to get this all out.

The readily available gifts of the everyday

I watch.

It's fascinating what people will do in public.

hold themselves and each other

shamelessly.

tighten their faces and then smile 

blushing.

open their palms, 

take money from me, 

thank me, 

love me, 

or judge me.

Everything becomes personal, 

and lies beautifully revealed. 

There is nothing that is not graphic in nature 

and nothing that does not hold time still, 

while these sounds, visions, and breaths, 

heave and sway, 

and form in the stillness of our one dimension.

and parts that I would like to share are inexplicable.

and parts that I would rather forget come back 

and back again,

to make more space for the texture and taste of 

fine wine,

early morning coffee,

cigarettes,

and you.

My ever extending ego

lives

in this sea of bliss.

and you ask me for time

and ideas

and advice.

you ask me how to find pleasure in such a horrible space.

the continuation of new..

and so - on the day after inspiration, I'm feeling slightly less inspired and writing solely to keep inspiration high.

I'm writing a research midterm tomorrow and that should be at the forefront of my mind but instead I woke up with these super stress pains in my shoulders, made coffee, took an atavan, and decided that even with my studying, today will be a creative day.

Is it too long to write 3000 words on a blog? Is it? Doesn't the meaning behind what you write (despite WHERE it goes and who is reading it ) matter most? I have thought about it long and hard, and my post on body image is something I'm proud of. I'm proud because it took grueling hours to write it, it made me be honest about things that I cover with a veil of strength and defenses. It made me look into myself and try and find the true nature of how I feel in regards to men and women as a heterosexual woman born in the 80's. On top of all of this, my brother helped me to see the objectivity in the subject and bring out an "out of body" Jess to criticize myself and to figure out how to approach such a heated topic in a fair and sympathetic manner. He pushed me to let go of my ego in order to really truly write something that goes beyond just an experience (which is something I hold in high value).

So I lay in bed last night wondering if this was a self-indulgent post. I wondered if maybe this whole topic is too far gone to discuss, or to show, or to have discourse. And I think that maybe a woman's experience with her body is too diseased in a way to really get the right kind of motion forward. My own is pretty scarred and damaged, and I can't imagine why there would be so much need for defenses otherwise.

I think that many women decide that to fight the idea of "body image" in our society, we will adopt another gender's strength in order to fight against our insecure selves. Instead of being vulnerable, de-victimizing by reconstructing, and instead of having conversations we have been avoiding, we would rather just join the club. Laugh when our feelings get hurt, martyr our values and what we know is wrong or unhealthy in order to "keep the peace"....

But just like I said in the 3000 word epic blog posting on CuntLove...I strongly believe that the connections between our so-called polar opposite genders can be found beyond these constructed ideals of what our bodies should be. If we let ourselves be vulnerable, and let ourselves be honest, if we do it without defense and give our stories and our passions to others, there begins a whole new connection that goes beyond difference, or blame, or insecurity. I think that having an imagination to communicate and look beyond what you see infront of you and create a new dialogue with people you are scared to address is a way to connect. If you do this with love, and with personal truth in mind, I don't believe that anything bad can happen.

I don't want to write further on this topic. I think I am at peace with my own beliefs. But I encourage any one of my male and female friends to seriously think about what goes on in the spaces between conversation, between touches, between glances, and try and define it for yourself and communicate it with passion. I think if we can all try and do that thing, that poetic and mysterious in between thing, our connections will get stronger, and much of what has been lost will be regained.

A new (or not so new) idea...

I'm at Shaika today - Naze put on the new Imogen Heap and it's perfect for this morning...

I went to see Natsumi downtown last night and we had the most inspiring conversation. We talked about university, school and learning, teaching, passion, music, sociology...it was really an endless flow of all consuming light and life.

I realize that most of how I describe life seems flaky and "out there". But really, this is how I feel about my interactions. Isn't that amazing? It's so exciting to have conversations with incredible, passionate, and creative people who are equally open to new ideas and seeing the greatness in a array of unconventional possibilities within our limited amount of time in human culture and existence.

The thing that has been all-consuming lately has been this idea that we should be inspiring each other. Helping each other feel and imagine and get excited about our ideas and build on them. Isn't that such a huge part of change and a huge part of growth?
I feel like it ties into the whole Obama deal. This idea that we need something tactile...something material, something produced that we can quantify in order to put value on it, instead of acknowledging the importance and value of inspiration and passion. Instead of acknowledging the value of spreading that all over the place. The way in which we mindlessly put shit into the world - either in thought or in material - seems so easy...so overwhelming to fight against. But then we have this man who has an entire campaign that fights against SHIT...wow, why doesn't he deserve a fucking prize???

because you can't see it with your eyes?
people saw it through tears of joy. and even more importantly than seeing it; they felt it.

and this is what I think is most important right now. Spreading hope, and love, and passion for things that bring out our good nature...things that are earthly - things that extend possibilities. we need to bring out each others sensitivity - bring out each others experiences and value and spread it around like a disease.

It's this ongoing thing that keeps coming up in all these conversations - all year. I am truly inspired by it. We have to keep the ideas coming - we have to encourage each other...

Last night with Natsumi - my cheeks hurt from smiling. I want to keep that feeling going. In a time on the planet where nothing is for sure, stable, and we are losing so much everyday...I'm so grateful to get pieces of someone's SOUL when I speak to them, and to in turn, give them pieces of mine.

It's a gift.