Song Block!

I guess it's a good sign when you wake up with a song in your head, day after day, and it's especially cool if it's your own... Personally I am almost driving myself crazy with it on repeat, replay, repeat and again! Waaaaaaaaaaaa! This melody has been with me for a week now as well as most of the lyrics, but I just can't seem to find the missing puzzle pieces!  I wanted to post it today, to actually present some MUSIC for a change (after all, it is what I have this website for.)  But it isn't always easy to finish something (there are over six hours of unfinished songs in my Iphone!! What am I like??) Sometimes I wish I wasn't so finicky (okay, SOMEtimes I am not! But in most cases, when you are writing a song, every word counts. I remember doing a songwriter's workshop with Singer Songwriter extra-ordinaire Lynn Miles a few years back and she made a point to remind us that every lyric she places in a song has it's own important place. Each "The" and every "and" are intricately considered. Some songs just flow on out, effortlessly, but not today.

So I thought to go out for a hike, to see if the lyrics would reveal themselves. Maybe the creeks and rivers would spark something in me...

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And now I have a bunch more words to consider. But not quite the perfect fit! 

HOPEfully I will be able to share with you some NEW MUSIC next week, or maybe even in the next few days? Gotta dream big... ! I have pages and pages of "brainstorming" happening... The living room's a mess!! Yes,  song writer lives here..... 

A Path, A Road, A Way

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I wanted to be Madonna. It's true, also, I wanted to be Cyndi Lauper, and Janet Jackson. It was hard, not being them, growing up. I was SO into stars, and music, and clearly, dreaming big, my favourite night of the week was Friday so I could watch "Friday Night Videos" and don't get me started on "Intimate & Interactive" on Canada's music TV station "Much Music." I wanted to be a "Mini Pop" and on Saturday mornings my favourite show was "Kids Incorporated." Don't get me started on Musical Youth or Olivia Newton John, either. I had a tickle trunk which I would pore over regularly, so I could find something to make me look the part of who I wanted to be so badly; a musician, a singer, a star.

I was thirteen years old when I sang the first song I ever sang, on stage. It was a piece from the musical "Annie" you may remember called "Tomorrow." I was thrilled with the reaction from the people but still, it would be a few more years until the next live 'on stage' performance. Where I would sing Sinead O'Connor's "Black Boys on Mopeds." I didn't sing again until a few more years, this time the lead in our high school musical "Anything Goes" my name was Reno Sweeney. It was a blast, but I would go onto the University of Ottawa, finish school, and move to Newfoundland before my first solo "Singer Songwriter" gig.

I had big dreams that LUCK would come in and steal me away from my mundane bartending/washroom cleaning/dish scrubbing/serving jobs. But life continued on and things just worked out the way they worked out. There was hope that I would "make it" and it wasn't for years, almost ten years in, that I realized I have made it. Not in the same way that I thought when I was a kid, dreaming about Prince and Annie Lennox, dance moves, costumes, wigs and make-up (which come into play, at times, to be sure, but there is no eighteen wheeler carting my stuff around!)

The most important thing I learned (actually, words of wisdom from Keith Urban, no less!) was that we all have our own path. We forge our own way, and there is value to being an individual, not trying to be someone else.

Keith_Urban_and_I

It took me years for those words to finally sink in, but thankfully they have and I am very okay with the path that I am on. I wrote this piece today, as a healthy reminder to myself to lessen the self-imposed pressure!  Things get bad sometimes, and I lose a little faith in myself and the path I am on. This is also okay, we all falter and get "lost" at times and we don't feel like we are ever doing enough. Another important thing I found out (through life experience itself) is that life is complex and incredibly intricate. There are HUGE amounts of things that fill up a life, and every single one can have it's own importance... Smell the roses, polish your boots, hug a friend, call your Mother, pay the bills, go for a walk, drink water, cook something healthy, dance to your favourite song, make it happen, work hard, hang your laundry in the sun, soak in a bath, savour chocolate, road-trip, read, paint, Love, laugh, cry, ponder, wander, leave, stay.....

No one is ever any ONE thing.

We are an abundance, and so very lucky to be here, carving out our very own way. 

Travel In Time

Travel has always been something that I have longed to do. When I was seven years old, we (my family; Mum, Dad, brother and I) flew back to Bermuda. My brother and I were both born there, but I returned to Canada when I was around four years old, which leaves a lot to be imagined and much less to be remembered. That flight back to my first home felt like my first time in an airplane; the feel of the smooth seat covers, the glide of the window shades; up, down, up, down, the neatly bundled airline branded silver cutlery, the tidy meal tray, the metal/canvas/bizarre liquid smell of the plane, the discovery of how to balance ear pressure with a simple yawn, and the view! The view out the window, seeing the world from above; the tiny cars, the plots of land, the lakes, the bizarrely beautiful cloud formations....

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I have always wondered, what is it that makes people want to stay in one place? MONEY problems aside (because there is always a way to get what you want i.e Cigarettes and alcohol come to mind.. where there is a will, there is a way!) I am guessing the main reason people tend to 'stay put' is fear. Fear of the new, fear of change and fear of the unknown. You would be surprised at how YOU you still are in other countries. You do learn new things (language, geography) meet new people (keep in mind there are all kinds everywhere; energy stealers, bartenders, constructions workers, writers, dancers, dunces, artists, arses, buskers, bakers, jokers, joggers, liars, looters, snobs and stars: just like at home!! You will be introduced to some local culinary deliciousness', you will be in awe of new (and very old) architecture and you'll feel SOMEwhat different in a new country but that is likely due to the THRILL of being somewhere new and far away from home. To be sure, however, you will always be YOU, wherever you may be.

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People who don't tend to travel, romanticize travel. Folks tell me how they long to see the Louvre, or the dreamy Eiffel Tower (neither of which I have seen, yet) I hear about all these fantastic fantasies of wine-tasting in the South of France, or inhaling the salty beach air of the Bahamas (also things I have yet to do.) There are an incredibly and over-whelming amount of destinations out there to discover. You can not know the feeling of walking the length of the Berlin wall in the rain or the enormous orchestra of sound from tree frogs at night in the tropics, or the taste of freshly caught Digby scallops pan-fried in butter, or the feel of the slippery rocks of the Giant's Causeway underfoot, or the immense magic behind the walls of a an eight hundred year old castle, or that satisfaction of seeing an entire train shooting across the fields of the Canadian prairies. You will, most definitely FEEL a great many things when you leave the comfort of your own home, but least of all fear. And, if you are lucky, those romantic notions you dream up might actually be real, somewhere, out there.

Me_and_a_massively_huge_Douglas_Fir_in_Cathedral_Grove

Nothing Then Something

I considered not posting today. It has been a bit of an emotional week and I can't quite put my finger on it, but to be sure there were no exciting EUROVISON moments or GREAT BIG party stories that I had to share, no new recipes, no crazy pertinent, profound, monumental occasions and therefore not too much to share. Kind of a dull (and dark) week so I thought maybe I wouldn't write at all. But then I thought, what about my readers? Maybe they (you,) like me, look forward to something on a Wednesday. I look forward to reading FREE WILL ASTROLOGY Horoscopes on Wednesday's. I read them all, and if I see something that works for a friend, I will share it with them. My husband is NOT into Horoscopes at all, and part of me understands why (he feels that if you read something someone else writes about your fortune, is will sway you into making decisions -you might not make- because of it) but I like it. Some form of guidance that I can either take, or leave.

So what does ours say about we Scorpios for the week??

“Scorpio (October 23-November 21)
Author Rebecca Solnit offers some tough advice that I think you could use. “Pain serves a purpose,” she says. “Without it you are in danger. What you cannot feel you cannot take care of.” With that in mind, Scorpio, I urge you to take full advantage of the suffering you’re experiencing. Treat it as a gift that will motivate you to transform the situation that’s causing you to hurt. Honor it as a blessing you can use to rise above the mediocre or abusive circumstances you have been tolerating. ”

Wow. There you go. Funny timing for such words, and this is why I look forward to reading these things, as superficial as some might think they are, sometimes they really are spot on. These words remind me of when I was at a Healing Ceremony a few months ago, drinking plant-based medicine with a Shaman, medicine that would make me barf over and over and over again. I was feeling sorry for myself and could not quiet my mind nor my stomach. One of the 'helpers' looked at me in the eyes and asked me the morning after, (after I had shared with her that I must leave and can not participate in another evening of torture) she asked me why I have to eradicate the pain, and suffering but instead welcome it and feel it and accept that it is an okay part to life, to go through it, to feel it, to experience it, why the need to hate it, to disregard it, to repel it? I never questioned it before, always trying to ignore pain and/or sweep it under the rug, as if it has no place in my life. But since she spoke those words to me, I have looked at it differently, for sure. It is true, without darkness how can you know light?

Anyway, now that I think of it, I DID do something different this week. I painted a painting for the second time in my life. The first time, I was living in Ireland working at Renvyle House Hotel, on the shores of West Coast Ireland, when a painter came to teach a painting workshop. There were not enough attendees to the course, so he invited me to go along with them, to an old haunted shipyard, with all the necessary materials for painting these old rusty, history-filled boats. I spent most of my time working on one ships hull and it was looking alright, until he told us we had forty minutes left.. I scrambled, trying to find ways to fill up 3/4 of my canvas in forty minutes. Needless to say, I left the painting in Ireland. This past weekend I spent some time with a friend who decided to pull out her paint supplies, and we sat at her little wooden kitchen table under a skylight beside the River Aare in Bern and took to creating. Here is what I came up with!

A_painting_by_Lindsay_called_GLOBITOS

I guess, when looking back on the week nothing obviously BAD happened, thankfully, and I am also reminded that I did an interview with Sean Kelly from MIX 97 as part of "Weekend Magazine" which you can listen to right now by clicking on this link. I am also updating my TOUR section, for some anticipated Canadian shows!!!! Canada; I am coming home soon.