Sometimes I just want to cry. In fact, I’ve been doing it a lot the last couple weeks. Twice it was Alanis’s fault. I recently downloaded her new album, and that bitch sure knows how to make me cry. (Don’t worry, my friends and I call her “bitch” affectionately). First it was her uber-emotional breakup song Torch. Now, I’m not mourning any breakups right now, but the intensity of her pain just reached through my white earbuds and pulled me into her dumbfounded loss. Then it was a bonus track called Limbo No More, a song which feels like she reached into my brain and scribbled down my inner insecurities. Lines ring so true to my nomad life, like “Nowhere’s been home, and I’m ready to be limbo no more.”
Other times, I cry because I’m afraid of not having a place to stay in the next city, or sad that I just left behind a wonderful boy connection in the last city.
On Sunday at my Brainwash show in San Francisco, I nearly cried during the set when I played Sunshine. For the past few months, I’ve been mentally directing that song to Samuel, whom I wrote it for, or anyone in the audience who needed the support. But that evening before the show, I decided I would consciously direct the song towards myself. And whaddya know… I felt the message so deeply, I nearly lost it.
I wonder what the audience would have thought if I let myself go there. Would they have felt uncomfortable? Or more connected?
Sometimes I cry because I’m so happy too. I think about how grateful I am that I’m living my dream. I remind myself that I’m somehow plodding through life as a fulltime musician (I still don’t know how) and that overflowing gratitude just brings me to tears.
I think it’s just an emotional time right now.
It’s getting to that point in the tour where the magic shiny newness of it has worn off, and the transition between cities is becoming a little harder on me. How can I be present in Seattle when I’m still dreaming of San Francisco, and fretting about Vancouver? Moving through such different cities is a drain on energy, because “every city has a soul” as Namoli Brennet sings on my new favourite CD. It takes work to adapt to the soul of the new place… and I have to do that on a weekly basis.
“These are not times for the weak of heart” I’m hearing Alanis tell me through my iPod right now.
I know I’ll move through this. I know it’s just a temporary blip on this adventure I call life. And so here at Kinko’s at 1am, I let myself have a tearful moment. And then I get back to work, and keep moving forward…
Peace, love, and music…
Ry
“Maybe I wrote in invisible ink
Oh, I’ve tried to think how I could have made it appear” - Aimee Mann
“These are not times for the weak of heart”
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