Distant daydream

I have been disconnected with myself the past few days. I guess I have gotten to worried or reserved or something. I haven’t really even seen my guitar as I had wanted. As of Friday, I was going to play @ night and work during the day. Well, life got in the way. I had to do this and had to do that. Next thing I know, it is Tuesday. I have to pack tonight for the trip. I have a load of lyrics to about 3+ songs, but haven’t had a chance to open the guitar case up at all.

I go to slip into a daydream and then something jerks me away from it. My mind will venture to the Boulevard of Day Dreams, but I keep putting my foot on the emergency brake or ripping the transmission out by throwing the gear in Park from drive.

I’m not afraid of my emotions anymore. I’m not afraid of being vulnerable. Actually, I’ve found it is WAY easier than acting like everything is fine. The funny thing is that most people have become so accustomed to hearing the “plastic, Sunday school” answer that they are shocked when you give a real answer. If I am having a crappy day and someone asks me how I’m doin’, they’ll get a “crappy day” answer and not the “everything is fine” answer.

I just hope that my daydreams come back. I mean, I don’t work on them while I am on the clock. I may sketch a phrase down or something, but I don’t sit and write for large chunks at a time. I like to allow my mind to have the freedom to completely explore all of the sensory things in the dream. Color, smells, emotions, sounds…everything. It’s like therapy for my soul. I am learning to forgive and working out my salvation through this process.

Anyway, I have to get back to the uncreative process of past due letters. Woo hoo.

Daydream day two

What keeps me going today: the actual sleep I got last night
What moves my feet today: knowing that tomorrow is another day
I could do without: forgetting my Lexapro today

I had another daydream this morning. I guess I have daydreams because I don’t really sleep enough to have them at night. They are usually either in the shower or walking somewhere on the $62 million campus, by the way, that is just the grass and foliage. Sometimes I have them in the car, but I have to be careful because I might fall asleep at the wheel if I daydream. Most of the time I begin to log these down and the dream will continue. I wish I had done this everyday instead of just starting a few days ago.

I don’t have daydreams of work. I don’t have daydreams of anything other than playing music and being with my wife and kids. I say kids plural because it is still a dream…I wish for the day where we have more children.

Today’s daydream was a little different. Much how my mind works the dream was in flashes…much like a picture show of snapshots. We had three little ones by this point. Little Bear is almost 6 years old. Another around the 3 year mark and yet another around a year old (much like little bear is now). We are in a home that feels like ours. It has been home for at least a couple of years. It is very “70s” with the paneling walls in the family room and we have the tall shag carpet. Naugahyde furniture surrounds the room along with the new kitchen appliances but still in the 1970s avocado green. It doesn’t smell like moth balls. It smells like new construction. Fresh paint, freshly cut wood, and new carpet. The smell is light and refreshing. The kitchen is right next to the family room. It is a source of light and life. The cabinets are white. The walls in the kitchen are a creamy yellowish color, but not so light that it melds into the white cabinets. Lovely is there preparing dinner or lunch, I don’t know which one. There are windows with practically see-through white curtains. We are all in the family room/kitchen downstairs. I have pulled down one of the older guitars from the wall hangers on the wall. The guitar is one of the ones I let the kids play. I have my trusty pen and yellow legal pad. The words are spilling out like a blue and white flood. They are my emotions. [Recently, in real life, my words are dark colors along with blood red…very angry and surrounded by calamity. This peace and freshness is new to the music of my heart.] The little’uns are all busy playing. The youngest is tugging at my right pant leg. Little bear and the middle child are playing joyfully together around the toy box I built for them. It resembles the one I had as a kid. I begin working the chords to the music and adjust the phrasing of the song. The kids draw close. I begin to explain to the rugrats about what I am writing and why I am choosing the words in this order. I am talking over their heads, but they just want to spend time with me under my guard and protection. They have always loved hearing me play and sing. My family is my greatest and most cherished audience. Lovely, my wife, stands over the spring onions (which I don’t like, but they are good for us) and weeps. Her tears are not from the produce, but from the production God is showing in my heart. I wink at her. She smiles with the nose-crinkling smile she does when she blushes. The youngest begins to try to strum the guitar. I allow it. Maybe the little one has ideas for this song that I should apply. I weep because I have turned over the control…I have turned over the process. After all of the fighting with myself…after all of the war I have waged on my body…after all of the emotions I locked away and suppressed, I have now been broken. My youngest child to date is picking up the legacy. I place the legal pad on the round side table beside my big “writing chair.” I ease the guitar away from the baby. I clap for the baby and cheer to encourage. I return the guitar to its resting place on the wall hanger, which is at arm’s length from a sitting position in “the chair.” I laugh out loud from the bottom of my belly. I boisterously call everyone over to sit in my lap. Lovely and the three little’uns run over. Lovely and I weep tears of joy for God has blessed us tremendously. We don’t have much as the world looks at us. No $30K cars, no massively impressive home, nothing amazing except for hope in God and the family and talents he has blessed us with. We look at each other and acknowledge that we still miss our second child. It has been just over five years now since the baby died. We smile again knowing God’s goodness. Then a tickle-fight…the songwriting can wait until later…it’s what I do. Write, record, play.

Speak for yourself

What keeps me going today: Daydreams of a better life
What moves my feet today: A progression I wrote in my head while walking down the sidewalk
I could do without: Desensitization of emotions

The crowd was attentive yet pre-occupied. The drone of the lower strings seemed to line up with the heartbeat of everyone near. The melodic lines seemed to control the eye movement and eye brow lifting of the crowd. The room felt responsive while they sipped on their café con leche and dipped their carmel-raspberry biscotti, a special for the evening, all while keeping their pinky fingers high to the sky. The chords came through the speakers.

The sounds of pain and anguish, love and happiness and sorrow were emitted into the near mid-night air all with a hint of barley and hops behind them. The only smoke was coming from the fireplace that was a see-through number that lead into the lobby. The walls ebbed and flowed with the complicated rhythms being demanded from the migration of steel and wood and plastic. The walls were made of rock, the ceiling was a drop ceiling over the performer’s stage, but the floor was tile. Checked tile of an amaretto color mixed with charcoal. The room was intoxicating. Sweat mixed with tears in the beard of the grimaced face of the singer-songwriter. His blue eyes shining bright due to the fresh shipment of tears being delivered over the Fmaj9 (add13) chord. The lights reflecting, seemingly, shining straight from his bald scalp. Shadows cast on his eyes from the sorrows and the overhead lights. He is free…the emotions are not. Three hours of therapy in full view of those more fortunate than he. Dealing with the past. Hoping for the future. Caught up in the moment. Emotions rise to meet flesh where it seems to rip through the thin dermis and leave gapping wounds. The last chord is strummed. Some people sneer at the nonsense that was sung. Some question the warmth of their homes or if they left the iron in the on position. Some wait for their beverage to help them stay awake to tackle another hour and a half.

It’s only 2 a.m. The bars around town are ringing their “last call” bells. The streets are filled with emotion-supressed drunks.

Regardless, the life that was on display has come, set up, held heart wide open, nodded at tippers, and is packing his gear. What is he thinking…

In one breath he critcizes his displayed life and how he was not true to
himself. Then with the next breath he is thinking about the next
stop… 80 miles north and a right off exit number 4. The 4 blocks
down to the ConstellationCowboy. (Don’t
forget to park in the back lot.) Unload the gear, set up, sound-check, and
start the next emotional display @ 4 a.m. He recalls the manager
saying, “You won’t make good money playing that early. All you’ll be
playing to is a bunch of drunks coming off their buzz and coming into their
hangover. They come here for coffee, not some crappy guitar
player.” He thinks to himself…”it is no matter. I’m not here for
them. I am working out my salvation. Learning to forgive.
Making peace with the death I’ve witnessed. Gathering my emotions like oil
and water.” No rest for the weary. No life for the emotionally slain.

He leaves pieces of his heart splattered on the wall…trying to make peace with his inner discord. He does not pack up his emotions. He learned that packing his heart creates a smoldering and eventual charcoal filled creative void. Finally all the amplification and musical equipment has been safely and strategically crammed into the back of the van. Just enough money to cover gas for the “rock star” van and a pack of Ramen noodles. The pay-off? One less sleepless night. One less depression pill to take. One more song for the notebook.

Thoughts on tonight. I think it will be great. I think the music will speak for itself.