So much/so little time...

We spend so much time wanting.
We spend so little time appreciating.

We spend so much time seeking.
We spend so little time finding.

We spend so much time comparing.
We spend so little time recognizing.

We spend so much time trying.
We spend so little time failing.

We spend so much time struggling.
We spend so little time releasing.

We spend so much time fighting.
We spend so little time loving.

We spend so much time alone, together.
We spend so little time together, alone.

We spend so much time running.
We spend so little time still.

We spend so much time dying.
We spend so little time living.

I am daydreaming of Spring
But too early, I'm afraid.
And a thick blanket of snow stands
Between me and the renewal I am looking for.
It is as if the world is reborn
Through an old black-and-white television set,
But the dinner table is empty
And Jackie Gleason isn't here to make me laugh.
It's all just static,
White noise...
Awaiting the technicolor sunshine
That only comes with the passage of time.
I forget, for now, the blue of sky
And wonder if ever
I will feel warm again.
Alas, the second hand moves too slowly
For me to count, as I wait
Impatiently
For the first signs of life
From this frozen ground.

Two Words

...I'm moments from crumbling
I'm steps from the fall
I'm breaths from remembering
Or forgetting it all
I'm one hope from hiding
The truth that I know
I'm two words from letting you go...

And sometimes life gives you lemonade...

...it's just up to you to drink it. 

This year so far has granted me several opportunities to go back and reconcile with people, issues, and or conflicts from my past. These opportunities are gifts; life-changing moments that have given me the chance to say and feel and connect and do something about the stresses these memories have bound me to for so long. 

It's funny, because I typically deal with conflict through writing and through my music. It's what has kept me from going crazy all these years, especially as a young woman. But I've realized that working through these issues in music is a very solitary, cyclical solution. You write what you feel, tweak it so it sounds right, play it until it feels right, but the message is never really delivered to the person you're writing about. And you end up reliving that pain over and over again each time you get on stage. 

What I've been blessed with recently are second chances to actually connect with people who've wronged me, or whom I've wronged.  I've gotten to interact with them in a way that lifts that historical burden...it has liberated me from feelings of guilt, anger, sadness, remorse, regret... And it has me taking an active role in connecting with the past that has held me down so. 

Now these chances have not come easily - they have been nervous and gut-wrenching and troublesome at times - but they are chances nonetheless. And I've needed courage to take them. But once I have, I feel like I've been rewarded for putting myself out there for those chances to take hold of that emotional ballast and relieve my shoulders of its weight, like air bubbles underwater, expanding as they rise...until they reach the surface and disappear into the great atmosphere above. 

And here's the thing...once out from under the issues, these snippets of 'past', the ghosts that have haunted me all these years, my visions for myself and for what I want are finally coming into view. Clear as day. The energy I have been putting into pain is exponentially better spent on myself and the incredible things I am capable of doing. The world I am capable of actively participating in. The people I am capable of loving...including myself.  Actively letting that pain go by confronting it isn't just good for looking back, but also for looking ahead. Because there are miracles that are happening every day - we just need to be able to recognize them. 

So grab a straw, and drink up. Your life is waiting. 

Stop! Think! Lift!

When I was a kid, I used to get the biggest kick out of this saying that was on a handful of old moving boxes perpetually quarantined to our basement.  They had three words on them, each followed by an exclamation mark and all in capital type.  They simply said:

STOP!  THINK!  LIFT!

I found the phrase unreasonably funny, but could never quite describe exactly why I laughed out loud every time I looked at them, despite the frequency at which I saw the expression.  Looking back at the phrase and the humor I found in it, I am inclined to believe the reason I found the whole situation so funny was due to two main reasons:

1. Grammatically, the sentence was sound (although I think a simple comma could have sufficed); it was the exclamation points that really conveyed the emotion and urgency with which the statement was intended.  That and the capital letters.  It was so important, I imagine there is a man in a factory somewhere whose sole job it is to ensure there are no misspellings or omissions, that all the letters are legible and the exclamation points hovering precisely over the dots below.  That all spacing, opacity and hue are accurate, and that the ink is properly applied so as not to diminish the necessity of the cardboard communication.
2. The boxes were small.  I believe they were old AVON cosmetic boxes, meant to hold only an unequivocally small amount of product.  They even had lids that separated easily from the containers themselves to as to provide you the convenience and confirmation of inspecting the contents of the box and appropriately preparing your heaving muscles for the task ahead.
   
   (You know, in case it was just a box of bricks.)

Being a young, inquisitive, creative, mildly self-sufficient and frequently impulsive individual (who was also not short on self confidence when it came to problem solving skills), I think I found the message hilarious because I simply couldn't understand why you wouldn't just pick up (or attempt to pick up) the box first in order to determine its weight.  In my eleven-year-old mind, this plan was flawless when it came time to help move the boxes; in looking back on my early years as a developing human being, I now realize this was not a method of trial-and-error I reserved exclusively for picking up an object or two.

I believe I applied this rationale to many areas of my life, throwing caution to the wind and learning through doing in order to determine not the risk of something, no...but instead, only the result of the attempt to heave: often in one awkward, Olympic, dead-lift of a motion that typically began with a confident grip of the roughly cut hole-handles of the box, a quick and dramatic gesture of vertical effort, a 'harumph' upon the disappointing discovery of the unforeseen ballast, and finally, a reversal of heft, resulting in a graceless thump of the cardboard to an unforgiving linoleum floor, no doubt jostling if not outright breaking the contents of the box I so quickly underestimated based on solely its stature I could so effortlessly transport, as if it were filled with feathers.

Alas...bricks.

Blinded by confidence and immune to the worded warning so clearly and carefully printed in sky-blue ink on the boxes (as if to maximize the contrast against the warm, coffee-colored brown surface of the corrugated cardboard), my embarrassment and dismay at the physical failure of my attempt are only slightly outweighed by the new and numbing pain that is now tickling a nerve in my lower back in rhythmic unison to my racing heartbeat.  My ignorance of the simple, three-word message is responsible for not only a rash of hasty decisions (boxed and otherwise), but also a sore lumbar region.

The story could stop there, only I'm not entirely sure I've learned from my mistakes.

21 years later, I am still rushing to lift boxes, sometimes even two or three at once, without so much as a pause or a deep breath to consider the 'stop'.  Now the second part of the message, I've never taken issue with.  That is most definitely the exception.  But a mile-a-minute inner monologue often leaves me assuming I've already moved all the boxes to their new locations when really, I haven't even taken a moment to confirm how far I'll need to carry them.

I suppose for now, this story is my attempt to stop - to first take a moment, a breath, a page (or three) to identify the shortcomings of my confidence and excitement (which, for the record, I am amazed and delighted I still possess); and to think - not with the reckless abandon of youth or the rapidity of a hamster's stationary wheel, but with focus, intent and purpose about what I really want from this life.

The lifting is last...

I just need to figure out where all these boxes go.

Getting the Brand back together...

It's been way too long since I feel like I created something new.  Something really new.  Like, going on 8 years too long.  Now I've written songs...poems...made a pretty awesome sandwich or two in the past 8 years...but I'm talking about something bigger, more creative, more life-changing, more tangible.

A project.  An album.  A product.

And 8 years in the music world is pretty much a lifetime to have not released anything really new.  At least that's how it feels.

If my last album was a child, he would be in 3rd grade right now...

Which brings me to my goal: to actually release something new.  But you can't just write and record some new songs and call it a release...  What does that look like?  What does it sound like?  What does it feel like?  How am I going to present that something new to the world?  How can I make sure that people will connect emotionally to it?  And hell, how can I get them to buy it?  Something is telling me that now is the time to go big with this.  So here it is...the biggest idea of all:

I am re-branding myself as a musician.

What does that even mean?  Well...

It means that I am doing more than just throwing together previously unreleased songs and posting them on iTunes.  It includes a new identity, so to speak, for Laura Glyda.  It entails coordinating everything from a new website to new press photos to a new album to new logos and artwork to new songs and most likely a new haircut.  I will need to promote and promote and promote some more, and create and incorporate everything I have ever wanted to do with my music up to this point that I haven't done.  It means exploring my voice and my strengths and my weaknesses.  It could even mean new styles, new instruments, and even a band.  Yep.  I said it.  A band.  All for the sake of that product.  It is not just a CD with a barcode and a sticker that is impossible to remove.  (Although that does make it feel much more legit...)  It is my life's work in the palm of someone's hand.  On their playlist.  In their headphones.

For a girl with motivational ADD, this is a very overwhelming challenge.

At the same time, it's a refreshing and exciting revival of my passion.  My identity as an artist.  My contribution to the world in general.  And it's going to require focus, resourcefulness, persistence, creativity, patience, imagination, selfishness, determination, fearlessness, independence, discipline, courage, and love.

I guess I'm writing all this down and sharing it for two reasons.  For one, I am holding myself accountable for this goal by putting it in writing.  And two, because at some point, I may look to any given person in my life for any or all of the aforementioned things if I need help finding them.  (I might also need a good drummer...those are pretty hard to find...)

So here goes nothing.  Whether or not music is done with me, I am not done with music.







And I'm serious about the drummer...

New Post

So there's this little button on the Blogger website that you click when you want to write stuff.  It says new post.  What a concept.  And I clicked it.  You bet I did.

Why don't I write more often?  I'm a writer.  A thinker.  (An over-thinker, even.)  And yet I still haven't felt like writing in a while.  That is, until now.

I've been all of a sudden writing up a storm this week.  Turns out that revisiting things that pissed you off or made you cry years ago can still work a little magic.  And why am I surprised?  All these things leave traces in us...in our minds and hearts...  Is it any wonder that when we remember, we feel those things again?  Those sentiments are reawakened in us, and we are reminded of something we loved...hated...lost...found...  We are transported to that state of mind of our former selves.

For me, it's usually music that does it...whether it's a lyric, a song, an artist, or an album...hearing something you haven't heard in years can bring you right back.  And BAM...that pit in your stomach might as well be the very one that was there years ago from whatever angst you were stressing about to begin with.  For some reason, I've been recently drawn to music that I listened to - or wrote - quite some time ago, hence this post.

Maybe it's our subconscious way of staying connected to the past.  We romanticize the drama that kept us thinking, writing, lying awake at night and pondering our existence.  When you felt that pain, you felt alive, didn't you?  Didn't it make you want to run screaming down the street?  And didn't that elation do the same thing?  Made you want to jump up onto a park bench and shout at the top of your lungs?  As artists, we look back on those times and remember how vivid life was, in all its beauty and disappointment, and we remember with fondness those times of struggle because of what we were able to turn that struggle into.  From chaos, somehow art.  From indecision, somehow action.  From pain, somehow beauty. 

I hate to admit it, but there's not much that makes me feel that way anymore.  That's not necessarily a bad thing...I mean, there's a comfort that comes with happiness, a stillness in routine, a familiarity with your surroundings that settles you as you get older, I think. That is what makes it hard to write...hard to react...hard to really feel things.  That comfort and belief in everything you've worked so hard to surround yourself with.  That's my definition of writer's block.


Am I saying I want all the uncertainty and craziness of my 20s back?  No.

Nor am I looking to change anything that has happened in my life.  These things are all part of what make me who I am, good or bad.

I am saying, however, that some of that angst still lingers somewhere in me, and I'd be lying if I said I didn't go looking for it sometimes for inspiration.  I'd also be lying if I said I didn't want to reconnect and reconcile some of those issues.  Only some of them. 

The ones that still hurt when I look back on them...

The ones that make me feel like I did back then...

The ones that remind me of how vivid my world was, if only for a short time...

The ones that carry with them sorrow and sweetness all at once...

The ones that make me write...