Why Can't I Speak?

...still

Coordinates: back in my familiar duvet cover after nearly a week in CDMX sorting out the paperwork for temporary residency here in Mexico. This was a huge step forward. I big-giggled at the universe for granting this on the 4th of July, the Independence Day of my birthplace. It for sure-sies felt like a new birth in a new land.

I took the big step of recording some vocal performances on my live looping rig. Usually, the music is gone as soon as the sound dissipates into the air and returns to silence. Three weeks ago I encoded it into ones and zeros so that today I might listen back to what I had done.

Nearly no one likes listening to their voice at first.

I have to say this is one of the hardest obstacles to get through. When I started doing video blogging in 2017 I thought I would die of nausea before I’d be able to, but there was no way for me to edit them without it. I got ok with my speaking voice, and in time truly came to appreciate it.

Now I’m going to one more level of intimacy deep. Many people hear me speak, but few have heard me sing. The most common reaction is delighted shock. I hear “I had no idea you could sing like that, you have a voice like an angel!” or “why have you been keeping your voice from us?”

The latter comment makes me laugh. If only they knew how desperately (and I truly do mean desperate) I am working to liberate my voice.

Today I listened to the track I made, and I heard every missed note. I heard every moment where I lost confidence and flubbed. I wasn’t sure what my voice was about to do and it didn’t know either.

I’m trying to collaborate with my voice. I don’t want my mind to sing a technically perfect song, I want my heart to cry out to yours in a way that scratches some existential itch in us all. Well, I’m not there yet.

I’ll have to go back and rerecord the track. It will have to be totally redone.

I and the masters I’m apprenticing with can hear my potential, but my work is not ready to go out to the world. The output isn’t good enough yet to be ready to walk into a studio and start working with a producer. My live shows are a small shadow of what I know I’m capable of.

I can’t though, confuse that sense of “good enough” with my worth though. *I* am good enough even though *my work* isn’t good enough yet to meet the bar I’m aiming for. This is hard to swallow. It’s a paradox of a pickle.

I can tell I lose a lot of energy here. I get exhasted when I’m in this place, and sometimes I’ve been caught here for years, actual years if I’m honest.

My doubts creep in and steal the joy of my unfolding practice.

The top ten things/thinks we aren’t speaking, according to Brother Google

Why can’t I speak? Why can’t I express?

It’s hard for me to sit down in the seat and sing. The pressure I’m putting on myself to GET IT RIGHT is keeping me from doing the very thing needed to get it right.

I’m prying the lid off this catch-22 sabotage pattern. It may take a whole lot longer than I want it to. It already has. BUT! But, I will keep going. I now have the faith in myself that I will not give up, and that feels amazing.

I cannot promise that one day I’ll be courageous enough to send you songs, but please know that I dream of it every day. I strategize and analyze and plead with the heavens to give me the courage to keep going. I ask them to straighten my path and to give grace when life throws me a hard corner.

I keep going.
I keep going.
I keep going.

This is all there is to faith, I really do know that. How? I don’t know, I just know. Faith is like that.

I also know that sometimes when I listen back to my voice it makes me cry white-hot tears of relief and gratitude.

I want that for you. I want that for our children and old ones. I want it for every soul on this planet, and I pray that something I might do in this lifetime might make that more possible.

I want to know you.

I realized how much it meant to me to start to connect to this loyal tribe of dragons here at the newsletter. Your presence has meant everything to me. I wouldn’t be still writing if it weren’t for you. So… thanks.

On some dark days though, it can be hard to keep the faith. As with many things on the internet, it can easily feel like I’m shouting into a void despite the fact that if the 250 to 300 of you who read this missive each week were to show up in person, you’d fill a huge event hall.

I want to know you.
Even more so,
I want us to know us.

I ask this favor, s'il vous plaît – please put in the comments a little hello and anything you’d like me to know about yourself. If you see someone you have a resonance with, reply to their comment with a howdy and some love. 🙏🏻