Month: January 2023

There have been a thousand moments, conversations, serendipities, and realizations that have led me to this point, this precipice where known meets unknown, but perhaps the most crucial one came about a month ago when it dawned on me that, as good as it feels to have someone else recognize your potential, and as alluring as the dream was of having such a person descend to the earth and give me a hot blast of confidence and/or a hundred grand to bring forth whatever it is that’s inside me, no one actually knows my potential nearly as well as I do because no one else can see to the far reaches of my inner landscape, and that therefore I am the most likely and qualified candidate to become that angel in disguise. It’s a pretty good disguise, you have to admit. Certainly fooled me.

Liberation is not always a pleasant experience; I felt my share of sadness when I laid this dream to rest, but doing so set me free because I was no longer waiting around like a goddamn damsel in distress.

A few dozen moments, conversations, serendipities, and realizations later, I found myself applying for a fiscal sponsorship through Fractured Atlas for all of my future creative work, in whatever form it takes. That means that Fractured Atlas will vouch for the fact that my work is bound to have some public benefit and that its purpose is not to make money, thereby allowing me to accept tax-deductible donations and apply for grants that are normally reserved for non-profit organizations. I am calling the work First Creatures. (Perhaps I will say more about the name another time.)

As much as I’m sure you would like to know what First Creatures is, I guarantee you that I want to know even more. Most of my creative work over the years has come as a complete surprise to me. That’s the nature of it, I guess. I saw a need, I was asked to do something, I put two and two together, I needed money, and I made something. The elements which eventually coalesced into the So Hot Right Now concert series had been floating around in my head for years, but if you had asked me to talk about “the idea” a moment sooner than June of 2021, I would have surely said some nonsense to you. With First Creatures, I am banking on my potential to rise to unforeseen occasions, to see something in a unique way, and to have ideas which are now nothing more than hundreds of different strands of experience blowing around my brain like confetti.

This is not my first rodeo, and by rodeo I mean “passion project”, so I am well aware of the pitfalls. That’s why, to avoid certain death by burnout, I am taking a somewhat radical approach this time: from the outset, I am valuing myself and all the work I do, work that “goes without saying”–all the thinking and writing and developing that happens before an idea can even be communicated to another human–as well as all the behind-the-scenes work that happens before an idea can be communicated to the general public. It’s the kind of work that is essential to any worthwhile endeavor but does not attract big funders who are only interested in helping with “project costs”.

I am tracking my hours and trying to build a support system for this work by developing a patronage, 21st century style: monthly donors receive end-of-month emails detailing what I’ve been up to that month, what I’ve got up my sleeve, and what’s on my mind. A number of people have signed up already, which is pretty amazing, considering that they can’t possibly know what it is yet since I don’t. At a time when I am feeling so vulnerable, I am grateful beyond belief for this heavenly host of visionaries.

That brings me to this very moment, the moment when I am jumping out of the nest, when I am placing a bet on myself, when I am bringing all of that confetti into center, when I am breathless in anticipation and queasy with excitement.

It’s been twelve years since I last told you about all the things I tell myself on a regular basis (henceforth casually referred to as “mantras”), unless you count the time I told you about all the things my mother always told me and which I now tell myself. Mantras come and go approximately at the rate of the lunar cycle, which is surely sheer coincidence, so I can only really tell you what’s running on my mantra marquee for the month of January 2023.

1. There are too many wonderful things to do today.

This immediately 1) lets me off the hook from trying to do it all because that is clearly impossible and 2) reframes all the things I have to do as wonderful. They are wonderful because they mean I am connected to others in some way. Wonderful because they directly involve music. Wonderful because I am physically and mentally able to do them. Wonderful because I am alive to do them.

2. Transformation comes by way of attention, not preoccupation.

I am a solver of problems, real and conceptual. If there is any mental real estate available in my brain (e.g. when I’m walking, driving, or playing offbeats), I’m usually gnawing on some juicy puzzle. This is the definition of preoccupation–being occupied by a problem before it is right in front of you. It’s not the same as worrying–preoccupation can be calm or anxious–so this would all be fine and good if I wanted to be the world’s greatest problem solver and not a poet. And I mean “poet” in the loosest possible sense; I want to see the world as it truly is, not as it appears to be. This is my deepest wish. So when I catch myself obsessively problem-solving like an otherwise scrawny kid doing bicep curls, I remind myself that the world will transform itself before my very eyes if I just look at it rather than past it.

3. Live in music. Find the words.

Actually, this is a throwback to the last lunar cycle, but I want it to be my life mantra. To live inside of music is to forsake the music world, in which there is no music. Music is real; the music world is a construct (see above). By living I mean thinking. Music is what I want to think about, not who’s who and who’s good and where I fit into it all. I find the advice “don’t compare yourself to others” to be altogether unhelpful, but if I start thinking about music itself–about the unspeakable beauty of it–and if I sing music in my head (or out loud in emergency situations), everything else fades away without force.

Finding the words to express what’s in my head and my heart is a rare occurrence because I have an exceptionally slow brain, apparently. It almost never happens in conversation (sorry, guys!). But even in the privacy of my own mind, or when writing in my journal, I don’t always take the time to dig deep. I aspire to take the time to Find the Words. I need to remind myself that there is no greater feeling, and that it will be worth it. I need to have faith in what doesn’t exist yet.

“Live in Music, Find the Words” is actually the abbreviated version. The whole thing, as it stands now, is:

Live in Music–only come out to share, never to compare. Find the Words–email is a leash, social media, a cage.