thesilverjay

Me and my sibs

As I write this, I am laying in the sun, wearing a white bikini, feeling a perfect breeze through the trees, in a beautiful park by a river, after a morning of yoga and meditation, having just eaten a Salad Nicoise, enjoying a much needed and well-deserved repose. I feel happy. Mostly happy.

Me and the sibs again

Since I last posted here, my essays and exams and the third year of my degree has been completed. In the midst of that I’ve somehow managed to: organise a sit-down dinner and Spring Fling Teen Scream American High School Prom Midnight Steakout for 172 people with accompanying festivities, rehearse and perform a concert as The Silver Jay, do the Bikram yoga 30-day challenge, and apply for the MA that I am eagerly hopeful to take the year after next. I have also managed to: upset my best friend to the point that we haven’t spoken in weeks by getting stuck in traffic behind a demonstration and missing her wedding ceremony (I was the maid of honour), be rendered almost unable to get out of bed for an entire week due to extreme exhaustion after the Steakout, not get accepted onto the MA programme this time around (although I was encouraged to apply again next year), and sabotage the springtime romance I was enjoying immensely, and that currently looks as though it is fated to be as brief as was the beautiful early spring.

Dave Noble, Zeben Jameson and me at the Prom by Jamie Daniel Winter. We’re getting the band back together.

I have been imagining happiness as being like a butterfly; simply awe-inspiring when it comes along, but the life span can often be too brief, especially after the spell in darkness awaiting the moment of emergence from the cocoon. What is there to do? You could play the role of a Victorian butterfly catcher, visiting tropical climes with a long-handled net in tow, pinning specimens under glass, securing fleeting moments of happiness to be referenced or used at some later date. This really will not do somehow; the colours may maintain their hue but the lifeless forms somehow lose their magic when viewed through the frame of nostalgia. There really is only one way to truly feel and appreciate happiness: to be present in the moment and recognise it for what it is when it flits by; to realise that everything in life is transient and that the only certainty is change. There is no use clinging or grasping or trying to save some for later; this will lead you to become like that old butterfly catcher, cataloguing and analysing, always looking back at those little moments of happiness you had captured sometime before. But, look (!), if you go out today you will see that spring is having an unexpected resurgence late in the season, new buds have opened into a flood of leaf and flower, and there are glorious butterflies almost everywhere you look.

Still, it is worth considering that, external factors, though they can be exciting and sometimes practically euphoria inducing, should not be relied upon for a steady source of happiness. In fact, I often wonder if happiness is not largely a physiological phenomenon. Hormonal balance, affected by diet and exercise (and sex or attraction) no doubt plays a role. Despite your best efforts, sometimes, without knowing why, you will still feel low no matter how well you take care of yourself. And sometimes taking care of yourself (or, indeed, doing something nice for someone else) will miraculously make you feel great, despite your best efforts to wallow in the mire of your own misery.

My cousins and sister and I at my fifth birthday party. I am the one third from right. Even for all the cake, balloons and ponies in the world…

A couple of years ago, I actually was deeply sad for a while: unshakably, depressingly, heartbreakingly, achingly sad. One day I was walking by Trafalgar Square when I noticed there was someone throwing things off of a plinth for an art piece by Anthony Gormley. I caught one. It was a bright yellow paper plane with something printed on one side. It read: ‘No one is in charge of your happiness but you’ (Regina Brett from Ohio- 91 years old). So true, Regina, so true. Now, I cannot say that this immediately snapped me out of it, but it did serve to offer some comfort and encouragement. It reminded me to pull myself up by my bootstraps and get back out there to enjoy life’s rich tapestry of pain and pleasure. This reminder is framed and hangs in my sitting room (alongside a long-dead butterfly) where I see it daily.

My family. Apples do not fall far from the trees.

There is no disputing that what brings one happiness is different for everyone. My gorgeous sister Hayley (who is today celebrating her 32^nd birthday), has found a life that brings her delight and pleasure. She has two sons, Cain and Aiden, and with her fiancée Carmen and his two children, they all live in a big house together like the Brady Bunch (American sitcom from the 70s). Hayley has a business degree and works a job involving a lot of numbers and spends many evenings driving fast between kid’s basketball and football matches. Carmen loves Hayley deeply and has recently proposed marriage. They will wed in a waterfront garden in Florida this September.

Cain, Aiden and Hayley

Long have I been searching the world trying to find something, to figure out what makes me happy. I want to live life to the fullest and burn with the brightest flame; I want to make something truly beautiful; I want to know love of the highest order; I want to be interested and interesting and never be bored or boring; I want to say and do and write something great and leave something meaningful behind, or at least not leave things worse than how I found them. I want to be a great friend, daughter, sister and, perhaps someday, wife and mother.

I have come to the realisation that the things which I seek are already inside of me: there is no one man, there is no set of circumstances, there is no thing I can do or buy or even create that will suddenly and permanently ‘make me happy’. Understand, I am not saying that I am incapable of being happy. On the contrary, I am regularly and definitely brought happiness by these and many other things, particularly as I learn to be happy just for the sake of being alive. Sometimes the simplest thing (a song, a seedling, light reflected on the water, a hilarious thought, a properly cooked egg) can bring so much immeasurable joy. Not to mention the happiness derived from all the great and wonderful that life has to offer: friendship, nature, true love, gratitude for life itself!!! But happiness, like everything in life, can sometimes be as fleeting as a butterfly in love on a sunny day in early spring. Enjoy it while it lasts. ‘Remember: Be here now!’

Yep. This is my folks on their wedding day.

Happy Birthday to my beloved little sister, Hayley Alexandria Johnson (soon to be Treffeletti). I love you sis. You are a wonderful woman and I am so pleased that you have made a life filled with so much happiness.

Florida, Florida, Florida (shakes head): land of palm trees and strip malls and oranges outside abandoned homes with bank foreclosure signs and southern fried chicken and pick-up trucks with gun racks flying confederate flags outside strip malls and old people driving Cadillacs in black out shades past amusement parks and Spanish moss on ancient oaks and child obesity and neighborhoods where no English is spoken and thunderstorms followed by heat-waves and remains of fortresses protecting white sandy beaches and rednecks and poisonous snakes and alligators and mosquitoes within gated communities where people feel safe from the world outside but forget to notice the rot creeping from within through their huge, flat-screened TVs.

My long lost home. Where my family repeatedly returns after every attempt at escape. A while ago they moved back into the house of my childhood memories. As I look around the property, in my mind’s eye I can see myself as a child, now sitting in the Magnolia tree, now climbing to the top of that old creaky pine, some other time getting my fill of mulberries or eating oranges until my face was sore and raw; Those days of summer that seemed to last an eternity. And would go on forever if only I could stay. Florida, you welcome me home upon your peninsula to bask in the sun again, no matter what state I come a-crawling back. Constant, steady and true. You smell the same every time no matter how long I stay away. I may run far away but for long as I live may I always keep coming back home.

So divorced is this reality from the one I normally live, this old life lived perpetually through memory, that I can barely connect it with the present. Having left home at such a young age, my relationship with my mother seems doomed to make me regress to being 14 again, at least for a period of adjustment whenever we reconnect.  I look around me and everything seems to have moved on in my absence, babies have been born and have somehow grown up or hit puberty, my elders are going grey or balding or put on an extra 20 or so, my kitten Elvis, now old and bloated, has entered the Vegas years; time has not stood still without me. Yet I still feel as if my whole life is ahead of me. Like a sort of Rip Van Winkle waking up after 20 years to find that everything is different without feeling any older. But I know that I am also not unchanged, that I have not single-handedly managed to escape the ravages of time unscathed.

My Aunt Carole has been suffering with cancer, stage 4. Not long after arriving home, I was told that the port in her chest through which she is receiving nutrition had become infected. The only option remaining would be to disconnect the tubes. What would happen after that? All we could do is… to hope for the best. Go home. Go home and in to hospice care and hope to not grow weaker by the day. Carole and my dad’s brother Sam, have not given up hope. I must admit that when I heard that news, I did not feel overly optimistic. My family and I all gathered in Carole’s hospital room. The hospital looks more like a Mediterranean resort hotel than what it is. When we reach her room I kiss Carole and say, ‘If you wanted an oceanview room with your whole family there, you could’ve just asked.’ (You may choose your friends but your family keeps loving you regardless of what you say or how badly behaved you are.) After a while, at my father’s suggestion, we all: siblings, cousins, uncles, grandparents, extended family, put our hands on Carole and try to send her some healing energy or some positive vibes I guess until we are interrupted by a nurse and told that the room is too full. We disperse and the entire extended family (bar Carole and Sam of course) head out to dinner at Aunt Catfish on the river for a slap-up southern surf and turf meal. The following week we are informed that the hospital made a mistake and there was no infection present. To be clear, she had not miraculously recovered from cancer but could continue to be fed through the port. Hope springs eternal.

Not long after this day I am awoken in the night by my mother. She has just received the news that Carole passed away in her bed at home, with her high-school sweetheart Sam holding her hand. Later that day, Sam told me that he was concerned that he had not had the chance to tell Carole that he loved her just before she passed as he believed so strongly that she would make a recovery. I assured Sam that telling Carole he loved her at that moment would have been arbitrary- that a lifetime of loving her had let her know this. Sam smiled and nodded and said that he guessed that was true. Everyone agreed that at least Carole was no longer in suffering pain.

The funereal was a typical southern Protestant affair with lots of ‘he died for our sins’ and the like, but this is not what moved me. I was moved to tears by the way my family, not only Carole and Sam’s four children and three grandchildren but also the entire tribe, banded together and were truly there for each other and showed me what it means to be a family. The love and selflessness were overwhelming, inspiring and beautiful.

This phenomenon is something that I suspect you experience less in a big city, (at least one that is so far away from home), but perhaps it is also partially a southern thing. I have been fortunate enough to have made some incredibly special friends during the course of my 16 years in England. But as I continue to live this life so far away from home, I hope I can remember to always nurture those family ties. No matter how far I roam, may I always be welcomed home to Florida with open arms.

In loving memory of

Carole Louise Cushman Johnson 1957-2012

Happy New Year!

Will be posting a new piece very soon that I have already half-written. Between being distracted in my family home during the holidays and trying to write two essays, I hope the lag is understandable. In the meantime, thought you might like a little peek behind the screen at who has been reading from where. There are quite a few folks reading in Lebanon and France, though I could not tell you why or how. I cannot help feeling extremely flattered that in this day and age anyone at all is reading what I write, let alone coming back for more. There really is no higher compliment for a writer than to be read. This year I hope to begin to get my work published, so wish me lots of luck- I will need it.

I am sending massive amounts of love to you all, wherever you are and whoever you may be. Until next time.

xx

The WordPress.com stats helper monkeys prepared a 2011 annual report for this blog.

Here’s an excerpt:

A San Francisco cable car holds 60 people. This blog was viewed about 2,700 times in 2011. If it were a cable car, it would take about 45 trips to carry that many people.

Click here to see the complete report.

When I was a child, my mother once told me, that when she was young, she dreamt only of getting married, having children, and devoting herself to her family. I can recall thinking, even at that time, that the life my mother dreamt of for herself would never be enough for me. From as far back as I can remember, I dreamt of hopping on the first train out of the one-horse town I grew up in. I would be the small-town girl who went to the big city to make good. First there was the modeling and then the acting. It would not be long before I tired of these, there wasn’t much substance there. Music came into focus not long after, probably around the age of 15 or 16. And all along I have been writing, always writing. My mind has long been set on making something beautiful, making something that means something, making something of myself. This is not to say that I have never thought of having a child of my own; many people have told me that a child is without a doubt the most meaningful thing they have ever created. I have been fortunate enough to witness both my mother giving birth to my brother Adam, and my sister Hayley giving birth to her son Cain. My father, who is an incredibly talented musician, once told me that my siblings and I are undoubtedly the most amazing creations he has ever had a hand in shaping. This is the single-most meaningful thing anyone has ever said to me.

The men I have loved, and have been loved by, have over the years inspired me to nurture thoughts of babies that would, so far, live only in my dreams. There was my first love, Love 1, the beautiful, skateboarding, guitar-playing fishmonger with the Ramone’s style bowl haircut and the golden streak in one eye who sold his car so he could leave Seattle and come live with me. Initially I harboured fantasies that we would make a baby together and live happily ever after. Once, in my dreams, I even met a baby boy with a golden streak in one eye. But, Love 1 found pregnant woman repugnant and disgusting. Eventually, we parted anyway… when Love 2 came along.  Love 2, when we met, was a Pre-Raphelite painting come to life, with a cutting, sardonic wit that would mock, like the eyes of a painting following you down the hall in an old house. Just 17, all black hair and eyes, with rosebud lips and porcelain skin, he was Spring’s bud, fresh plucked anew. I was intrigued from the start and was desperate for him to look at me the way he looked at his guitar. And boy could he play that guitar. The day came when I had to decide whether I wanted to have this baby boy’s baby. We were 21 at the time. Love 2 supported my right to choose and offered his support in whatever I chose. This confusingly joyous moment became simply confusing when his elder sister offered the sage crumbs of wisdom which she had collected while being led astray by the hand of motherhood. I chose to continue following those crumbs of wisdom deeper into the woods, my dreams playing the role of the starving Hansel and Gretel, still searching for home or at least somewhere warm. So far, there has never been a moment that I have regretted this decision. Nonetheless, the desire to have a baby resurfaced the next time I fell in love. This love was true and deep and all-consuming. He was Love 3 and I would have thrown everything away in a heartbeat, given him a baby and shared my life with him. Love 3 was the brightest spark. His flame could burn if you stood too close; but once you had gotten close enough to feel that heat there was no way you could go back out into the cold. He had it all: Roman nose, ice-blue eyes and expressively articulate hands. A gorgeous writer from the North of England with a passion for everything. An intricately intertwined intellect, laugh-out-loud, howling sense of humour and a poet’s sensitivity. Love 3 had the beauty, the brains and talent literally dripping from his fingertips. I longed for our young love to culminate in the most wonderful of all physical manifestations. I would have forgotten whatever I was doing just to run away to the country with him and grow vegetables and babies. But alas, it was not to be. Perhaps the flame that burns so intensely is doomed to consume itself. Or, perhaps your dreams have self-protective instincts of their own. May be there is an infinite wisdom that organises the universe that knew the time had not come for me to give up on what I had long hoped for. Only time will tell.

As I sit writing, at this very moment, my best friend, Jesse MacDonald, is going into labour and preparing to give birth to her first child. I am so amazingly happy for her, and, am hopefully being named godmother of what will be a perfect baby girl. Jesse is the earth mother in full bloom and looks as if her reason for being here is about to be discovered. Although I expect there will be some excruciating moments in this next harrowing night of agony, when morning breaks and Jesse stares into the eyes of her new baby, I suspect she will know the answer to the question of why she is here on earth. However, seeing this look in the eyes of my best friend makes me believe even more strongly in my conviction that I am here to make something that must be made in a womb that is more metaphorical than literal. Maybe it is just greedy to ask of life to fulfill this expectation and to dare to hope for the actual womb to bear fruit as well. To tell you the truth, I am terrified of getting pregnant (even with that fundamental ingredient missing) before somehow managing to make something I am truly proud of. And equally humbled by the notion that cruel old mother nature may have deemed me past my sell by date by the time I get around to committing myself to the tasks that nature possibly intended. Sometimes I want to throw my hands up in the air in a gesture of surrender. To baby or not to baby, that is the question.

It may have happened because I put the pillow in the middle of the floor to meditate and never got around to it, yet still managed to trip over it every time I walked through the sitting room. It may be because all I managed to eat all day was a mushroom omelette. I have a feeling that these things were not cause, but yet another effect of the overall manic atmosphere of stress pervading my life recently. Why in the world I would choose to host and organise a little gathering of 50 friends and strangers friends, a simple 3-course meal with drinks, in an outdoor covered courtyard, where there is no kitchen and everything must be brought it… and then get up to sing my new songs. There really has not been time to stop to ask myself, ‘I mean, really, what were you thinking, exactly?’ If I had stopped to think I believe the answer may be beyond me. There is definitely a reason people do not do this more often. Anyway, I digress. I was trying to tell you what happened yesterday. So, I’m on my way to do a couple things in the East End before band rehearsal. After recording earlier this month I ended up with Jasper’s bass drum pedal and also a bag of efx pedals belonging to Owen, plus a couple bags of assorted items for Midnight Steak-Out that needed to be carried over. I board the bus on Waterloo Bridge and place my heavy bags in the luggage racks and sit down nearby. As the bus starts to fill up, I offer my seat to a couple who want to sit together and find a seat in the back. My phone rings and I become engrossed in the conversation.  Its only when the bus turns unexpectedly do I realise I am not on the bus I need to continue my journey on. I hop off one stop late. I happen to be in front of The Grocery where Nancy is preparing the food for the night. She has been baking meringues and we admire her work and the sheer quantity of that many meringues on mass. We walk out together towards another bus stop. I begin to mention that I have found the napkins we need when suddenly I remember where I have left them and can feel all the colour drain from my face. Oh no! no no no. No!!! The bags. On the bus. With all of that expensive music equipment. The boys are going to kill me. The bus we are waiting for arrives. We get on it and I ask the driver what would happen in such a case. He tells me the name of the bus company and I go online to try to contact them. When I do get through I am told by a machine to call during office hours. I am really starting to panic. Some women on the bus tell me there is a bus depot at the end of the line and maybe the driver will leave it in lost property, if its even still there. I decide this is my only hope of recovering the bags in time for rehearsal and gig, long shot though it may be. I pawn my errands off on Hannah and furiously try to scramble into a black taxi. The first two refuse me, they are heading home. Third time lucky, I find a willing cohort for this madcap journey, and we set off to Wood Green bus depot. This is very far from where our journey commences. And black cabs are incredibly expensive. I call the boys to tell them I will be late for rehearsal. They ask where I am going. I say I will explain it all late. No point in worrying them as well. In between stressfully organising things for tomorrow on my phone with the rapidly depleted battery, I tell the taxi driver about what we are putting on the next day. He is a kindred spirit and declares that he is ‘optimistic’ I am going to get those bags back. We finally arrive at Wood Green to discover that the 243 bus terminates there, but it lands at Tottenham (yes, land of looting, riots and fire) bus depot. This is only half as far as we have driven already and I am starting to really worry about the meter as I see its red digit constantly climb higher. Any anxiety I am feeling about the taxi fare though is compensated by the fact I could do this journey in no other way that would not be a complete pain in the neck. Finally we arrive in Tottenham. I run up to the guys standing in yellow and orange reflective jackets. I explain the situation. They go inside to lost property. Nothing has been handed in. They radio through to the drivers. There is a shopping bag one of the drivers of a 243 has spotted. Could it be mine? He has begun his trip back south already but he might be passing down the road in a minute. I say thank you so much to the guys. They look perplexed. The bus had apparently passed by minutes earlier. My taxi driver shouts ‘come on’ and we leg it back to his car. I am struggling to keep up in sandals with my bad ankle but he is running full speed ahead of me. We know the registration number of the bus and we know the route. We high tail it in the bus lane for some time. Every time we spot a bus my heart somersaults. The taxi driver offers me some hot tea from his flask. Finally we spot the bus. The bus. The bus 243 with the 44xl tag. We overtake him. I catch the bus driver’s eye and shout something that somehow works. He gestures to pull over. We stop ahead and I jump out and run back. When I board the bus and see my two red bags still sitting there so innocently, my face crinkles and I am flooded with emotion. The bus driver seems to get quite emotional too. I get back in the taxi. My taxi driver asks me if I am crying. I reply that I am just so tired. And so happy to get the bags back. We drive back to the rehearsal studio. The meter reads sixty something pounds (over 100 dollars US). I suggest to the driver that perhaps he would like to come for dinner and music in lieu of taxi payment. He says he would like to see me play. A deal is made. I hand over a MSO ticket and a tenner and make my way inside to band practice. Sometimes things happen that instill you with great faith in humankind. John Oakley, I salute you.

Oh, birthday birthday. Day of sweet joy and bliss and friends and, and, and self-doubt and confusion. This day, not unlike the turn of every year, gives us a chance to pause for a moment of personal reflection to assess how far we have come and how far we still have yet to go. And least we could do that. Or, it could be an excuse to lose your mind on alcohol and try to forget that every moment we are edging closer to the precipice at the end of this mortal coil.

Last year I spent my birthday much closer to the latter example. If you promise not to judge I will tell you the entire, gory story. If you have a weak constitution, please turn away now. The day began happily enough. A handsome young math genius that I happen to share a birthday with, and who I had been dating, had come by the evening before and spent the night. We woke up, had breakfast and he went off to meet his father for the first time since the recent and sudden death of his mother. I went to meet a good friend who was taking me out for an extravagant oyster and champagne lunch in a fantastic restaurant in Borough Market. Other than this indulgence, I had resolved not to celebrate and to do my best to ignore the passing of another year; after all, past thirty you really shouldn’t care about your birthday any more, right? Well, lunch went on for several hours and really was amazing and perhaps I should have cut my losses right then and there and walked home and had a nap to sleep it off. But, by now I had a head full of champagne and was beginning to feel like celebrating. Apparently, it is not the done thing to ring people up, drunk, on the afternoon of your birthday to make plans. Luckily, out of the blue, another friend did ring up to see what I was doing and invited me for a drink on the Embankment. My lunch friend informed me that he had to get to a meeting, but he would drop me on his way. I found my friend and she and I sat through the afternoon and into the dwindling evening drinking Prosecco and were eventually joined by a couple of her friends. Eventually, it started to become obvious that the oysters were not substantial enough to line the old stomach against such an assault of booze. The beast started to emerge and the change began to be discernible. I recall asking things of people that they really were not prepared to fulfill, the details of which it is just too embarrassing to recount here. My friend had to get home as she had to work the next day and left me in the charge of her two friends. We decided to walk out of there, they were going to go to a gay club in Soho, I had made arrangements to meet my birthday sharing lover back at my place. As we began to walk up the hill away from the river, they wanted to stop at a pub to use the toilet. Once they had come back outside, I decided I needed the loo too. Well, I was wearing a silk, all-in-one romper suit and a short kimono and high-heels, and may have taken some time to emerge again, but by the time I did make it out again, my new ‘friends’ were gone. Pretty cold, ditching someone on their birthday. Maybe this is the reason you should spend it with friends, as no one else will want to put up with you when you get so annoyingly drunk. Anyway, no matter, I continue my climb up and over Waterloo Bridge, full champagne glass in hand. Everyone I passed who looked at me strangely was greeted with a tip of my glass and a, ‘Its my birthday’. Made it safely over the bridge but, as drunk and ravenous as I was, couldn’t make it past a certain burger joint in Waterloo Station without picking up a disgusting late-night snack. This was where I was stood when the call came from the lover saying he was outside my house and where was I. As I was wearing heels and crawling at a snails pace it was decided that the quickest path of least resistance would be for him to come to collect me in a black cab. Next scene, back at mine, burger in hand, look of horror on his face; having thought about it, I believe it was the first (and last) time he had ever met the beast. He had spent the evening having a somber and sober meal with his dad, sadly musing over his mother’s recent death. The beast was just too much for him to bear at this point and he made his apologies and left. What happens next is more than a little hazy. The next thing I know I am waking up, with the lights on, face down on my bed, still wearing all my clothes that are now covered all down the front in mustard. The strongest emotion in the mix of many conflicting tides at that moment: deep relief that is wasn’t my birthday anymore.

This year’s birthday (thankfully) turned out a little differently. I spent the week recording the songs that I had begun to write the preceding summer whilst in so much suffering misery. This process had brought those things that were gathered from the darkest depths out into the brightest light. Having been let down by someone who mad a lot of promises but obviously never intended to deliver on them, me and the guys found a way to record these precious gems carefully gathered from those diamond mines. We begged and borrowed all the necessary bits of  equipment, dragged it to the countryside in every available inch of, even on the roof rack of Owen’s car, and cobbled it all together a make-shift studio. Somehow by day three we were, as Dave said, ‘cooking with gas’, and managed to get seven songs recorded in the remaining three days. The day of my actual birthday, I was treated to a special breakfast, complete with smoked salmon and buck’s fizz, and a happy birthday sing song cake time with friends at the end of the day. Birthdays still bring up all sorts of conflicting emotions, as does live recording. The real birthday moment time for me was the Saturday after we had finished recording. It was a buck full moon with accompanying meteor shower. Some good friends had gathered around a fire in a beautiful garden in the countryside. A wonderful cake had been baked by two of my oldest and loveliest friends and happy birthday was sung, not once, but five times, to each of the birthday people. My band was jamming sing-songs. My friends asked if I would sing some of my new songs. I stood up and belted my heart out to my beloved friends. I basked in their love and shared my stories of love and heartbreak with them. In between songs a note was hand delivered to me. It was from the little girls, playing in the upstairs room above the garden. It read simply: keep on singing, keep on singing, Love Sofia and Lucy. I am holding out hope that this note, and the memory of my friends going to the ends of the earth to help me to record my songs, will rouse me from the depths of self-doubt and confusion on my darkest days, perhaps even save me from acting like a baby on my birthday.