It is astounding to me how much I have grasped at security. I have believed that in order to secure my future, I need to live small and tidy in the present. I have nursed anxieties about “not having enough” and “not being enough” and “not doing enough.” Grasping at security offers the illusion of control. If I can just make everything good enough, if I can settle into something, then I have control over my life, my existence, the lives of my beloveds. But this isn’t true, is it? Why is it that I insist on keeping up this ridiculous charade of control?
We do not know if we will be alive tomorrow. We do not know if we will be alive one minute from now. We do not know if our friends and family will be here, either.
What is “security,” then, really? What does security look like amidst all of these truths?
Perhaps, faced with this question, we are drawn to admit that we know nothing. That we control nothing. That, in fact, security does not exist.
Or, perhaps, we are drawn to redefine security.
Security is possessing the ability to access your core self, maintaining a direct line to your life force.
Security is staying curious, and receptive towards, perspectives on the world that differ from your own.
Security is allowing your desire to shine out of your body, to play, to explore, to keep you safe.
Perhaps, faced with these truths, we are led to a different conclusion entirely: security is surrender. How might we live our lives, love our people, do our work, if we truly believe that to be secure is to be like water, not hard stone? Even hard stone gives way eventually to the current.
Category: Nature
What if it’s okay for me to be exactly who I am?
What if it is okay for me to want exactly what I want? What if it is okay for me to desire many worlds, trailing my fingers in imaginary eddies, forgetting and remembering, forgetting and remembering. What if it is okay to grieve? What if is okay to gather my losses, lifting them one by one to my mouth, tasting the indigo sweetness of each perfect morsel.
What if it is okay to be in a body? What if it is okay to heave and loll in the heat of the day, to follow the creases in my hips, to pluck pleasure from every skin-covered bone, to feel the weight of me falling into the earth. What if it is okay to work? What if it is okay to push myself to exhaustion, to let go of time for longer than expected, silently hoping that what I am doing is worthwhile, somehow.
What if it is okay to rest? What if it is okay to delight in a slow moment with myself, to sink into my soft sheets at 3:00 in the afternoon. What if it is okay to invite uncertainty? What if it is okay to reside in the liminal spaces between knowing and ignorance, allowing confusion to seep into my chest like the ocean washes the clam shell clean.
What if it is okay for me to be exactly who I am?
What if it is okay for me to be exactly who I am?
What if it is okay for me to be exactly who I am?
butterfly
Saw a butterfly today
Could not tell if mating
Or if carrying a dead comrade
The weight and stillness of the other
Made it impossible to tell whether it was sex or death binding them together
What is the difference, really?
To orgasm is to die for a second
To die is pure bliss
Sometimes it is hard to tell if one is being violent
Or protective
Loving or destroying
Who are we responsible for?
“Emotional labor involves modifying our emotional expression – our speech, facial expressions, and body language – to satisfy organizational goals and requirements. For instance, we may need to outwardly express an emotion we aren’t actually feeling inside. Or we may need to suppress an emotion we’re feeling, because it isn’t considered appropriate at work. Emotional labor is common with jobs that require face-to-face or voice-to-voice contact with the public, such as politicians, or require the worker to provoke an emotional state in others, such as teachers, chaplains, therapists, or sex workers.”
-Elizabeth A. Stanley, PH.D., Widen the Window (190)
Let’s add musicians to that list. We arrive onstage with our faces arranged in appropriate ways so that we manage the emotions of our audience.
Onstage, we are responsible for our audience. We are the hosts, filling their cup, managing reactions and conversation. We are the facilitators. A facilitator cannot be lost, or, if they truly are lost, they must be intentionally lost, as if to teach or pass on something important through the act of being lost. Vulnerability cannot show up as a complete breaking-down, but rather a gentle gift given to an audience.
If we feel like we are about to break into a thousand pieces and are completely dissociated from our bodies, we cannot show it.
If we want to run away, hide in a dark, hollow tree trunk for a few days, maybe weeks, away from any members of the human race, we cannot show it.
If we feel intense anxiety, we may show it, but only after we package up our story of anxiety so that it is beneficial to the audience.
We arrive with our mouths turned upwards, or held at a perfectly neutral angle, so as to add to the drama and embrace of the moment. We stand behind our instruments, eyes twinkling with just enough life so as to appear fascinated by the ritual we are performing. We smile as our insides twist with deep discomfort. We suppress joy as we sing songs about suicide. We suppress desolation as we play sweet cascading piano runs in a song about falling in love for the first time.
If we are lucky, we embody our music. We become the mask. It is true, good acting. We no longer exist.
If we are unlucky (perhaps, two hours before walking onstage, we had an unavoidable, exceedingly difficult and draining conversation with a loved one, and now we have nothing left to give), we hide behind our music. We perform the mask. We are crushed under the weight of the mask. We no longer exist.
It is crucial to modify our emotional expression, or perform emotional labor, for the sake of the audience, our career, our musicality. The non-existence is crucial, too. Without it, there would be no good music. Our existence would only get in the way. When we half-croon, half-call into the microphone, “I’m so grateful to be here,” do we mean it? Or, are we simply caring for our audience so deeply that we dis-integrate? In the end, is there nothing left to mask?
attention is
Attention is closeness.
Attention is surrender to the ordinary.
Attention is what happens when God becomes elemental.
Attention is intimacy with mortality.
Attention is freedom.
Attention accepts but does not make excuses for.
Attention is love.
we are the subject, not the object
I was.
I wanted.
I came.
I remember.
I felt.
I wanted.
I needed.
I conducted.
I made.
I wanted.
I knew.
I lived.
I was afraid.
I was listening.
I wanted to be free.
I came across myself many times over.
I remembered.
I felt myself forgetting.
I wanted to be good.
I needed everything.
I conducted ceremonies.
I climbed up, even as I dreaded falling off.
I made myself jump.
I wanted wholeness.
I knew I would always be leaving a version of myself behind.
I lived anyway.
just got home
I just got home from performing on a radio show. My head hurts (for some reason I always get a splitting headache after performing), I’m craving chocolate cake, and I am so grateful for the cathartic experience performing offers me. Often, it’s the intimate shows that are the best: the ones with you and just a few other people in the room, people who really care about you and your music.
The studio was only a six minute drive from my house, located in an ancient, sprawling Rochester 1930s building, resplendent in old brick and numbered doors. Two women wearing eyeliner and jeans met us at Door 3. Their swaying hips sang of multicolored memories and Cleopatra-style voyages as they helped us haul our gear up to the second floor.
Once we arrived, we were welcomed with open arms by the outgoing female sound engineer, and given small bottles of water. We set up our instruments and amps while chatting with the three radio show producers. How many songs should we expect to play? Does this mic go into my amp, or directly into the board? How do you pronounce your last name?
Then, it was showtime. They asked us questions that I found challenging, but fun, to answer. Getting interviewed is such a skill, one I’m still honing.
Who would you collaborate with if you could?
-Brandi Carlille and Lianna La Havas.
Who has been an important teacher and mentor for you?
–Mr. Baker, my 4th grade teacher.
How much do you practice, and what’s your practice routine?
-I try to practice 4-6 days a week for at least 10 minutes. Keeping it doable for myself.
What’s your creative process for writing songs?
-For me, it’s a meditative practice. I usually write songs at night, when I’m tired and feeling a lot of feelings. Then I’ll collapse at the piano and just start playing and recording song ideas.
Then, we played. My collaborator was Kelly Izzo Shapiro, a singer-songwriter who I deeply respect. She and I have been building up our sound over the past year, developing trust and a unique musical style. We played Carol King, a few of our original songs, Alicia Keys, and Jill Scott. I railed on the keyboard, and she played guitar. A few of the songs were the best we’ve ever played them. We listened to each other, got in the flow of it, and never once fell out of “character:” two artists who are very good at what they do.
I love how much I can trust Kelly, and visa versa, while we’re performing together. The radio show producers sat, mesmerized, while we played, and clapped after every song. They were noticing all these lovely, specific things in our music, including how complementary our voices were for each other and how Kelly’s guitar sounded cyclical in one of her original songs.
I’ve done radio shows before, and each one has its own voice. The smell of the studio might be musty or clean or flowery. The questions might be brief or deep. The offer to play might be eager or casual. But the one thing they all share is: genuine care from the producers/hosts. So far, all I know is that’s how it is everywhere.
There were more questions, more music, and then it was over. We unplugged all the quarter inch cables, folded up our mic stands, put our instruments safely in their cases, and dragged it all back down to our cars. We said goodbye about 10 times, and thank you about 100, and then drove off in the rain to our separate houses to do our separate nighttime things.
I feel wrung out, like I am a sopping wet towel, and someone has twisted and squeezed me until the stream of water becomes light drops, and eventually ceases altogether. I feel like this after every performance. It’s an empty feeling, like I have nothing left in my body. There’s no words left, no smiles, no movements. It’s all in the music.
Back when I was in the throes of my PTSD symptoms (they’re still here, but now I have lots of tools to manage them), the emptiness after performing felt infinitely terrifying. I was convinced that, once I emptied out, I would never replenish my resources. I felt that I would be stuck in the wrung-out state forever. Now, though, I recognize this feeling as the mark of a true performance, one that I can stand behind and be proud of. I know that my resources will replenish, and that I will survive the catharsis. All I have to do is take care of myself. The body is a miraculous thing.
So is music.
The radio show tonight was a pearl, a moment. One of many, but truly all its own.
evolving
I say
through saying, I die a little
through dying, I grow a little broader
approaching masculinity and femininity as neutral territories
Feminine is moon, is flower, is twilight.
Masculine is sun, is pollen, is high noon.
Feminine is wisdom, is strength, is color.
Masculine is clarity, is armor, is shape.
all this will be ruins
All this will be ruins someday. The earth re-membering herself, re-calling her own Name. All this will be ruins someday. The bright red METRO MATTRESS DISCOUNT SLEEP SUPERSTORE sign will crack and sink into the soft forgiveness of the mud. Every Grande styrofoam cup will slowly settle beneath the dirt, snap into pieces, become one with bulging roots and galaxies of mycelium. There will be no plastic left, only vivid tangles of roots. Swelling. Sighing. It will all be ruins.
All this will be ruins someday. Every desperate, pavement-sodden parking lot will cry out in relief as burbling streams find their way through the concrete, saplings shove themselves up between tiny crevices, and grass sprouts up, along the perimeter, now in the middle, now in every possible direction. It will all be ruins.
All this will be ruins someday. Ruin, from the Latin word “ruere,” meaning “to fall violently,” turning into an Old English word meaning “act of giving way” and the Italian word “rovina,” meaning “to knock down, tear out, or dig up.” Ruins. What a relief to release the burden of progress and productivity. It will all be ruins.
All this will be ruins someday. A re-in-statement of the natural order of things. A letting-go of the chokehold we have on the world, this dangerous and exhausting myth of control. A digging up of all that we have imposed on Her. All this will be ruins someday.
May that day come sooner, rather than later.
Siena Rose 