Here goes…

First blog entries are intimidating. First impressions and all, you know. So I’m trying really hard to not feel pressured to craft the perfect first post, whatever that would look like. So this is view from the starting line.

There or Thereabouts has been growing slowly and steadily and I’m looking forward to bringing it out into the daylight soon. There’s this peculiarity about art - even the artist doesn’t know entirely what they have until they share it with others. I don’t ever really hear my songs until I play them for others and with others. They’re always different from I’d imagined, and often better than I’d thought they’d be, with elements emerging that I didn’t have in mind at all. I think a part of that is that I don’t have the whole song. Even when I think I’ve imagined the whole, I haven’t. I wonder if it is that you can’t see what the whole picture could look like until you try to paint it. That’s one of the reasons I’m glad to be collaborating with the musicians I’ll be working with. I’ll write more about them soon enough.

The excitement is just starting to simmer. I don’t allow myself to get excited quickly (I’d love to learn how to do that though). What I’m not as good as keeping down is the terror. Once There or Thereabouts left the protected space of my thoughts and I started to talk about it and gather people together to plan, I realized I was hesitant about doing some of the necessary start-up work because I was afraid. Afraid I wasn’t ready, afraid I need a few more new songs, afraid it’s not going to be good enough, afraid my songs are too simple - musically. Fear easily justifies itself. It was one of my songs that actually helped me to realize what was going on and adjust my posture. It’s funny how that works. I guess there is great value even for me in capturing emotion in song, because I realized I was exactly at the point that I was trying to describe in “All I’ve Hoped For”. This is what I wrote then and it is where I am now.

my fears prepared to ambush me here
they swarm at me with teeth bared, my own creations
infecting expectations

I’m standing over all I’ve hoped for
and I should jump, but I’m floored by doubts and debris
I’ve got to pull my faith free
I’ll hold it up ‘till I see

this is all in my head

So I’m gonna jump. Here goes…