Pain

Blog: Life In Repair

I’m not going to spend this blog talking about Harvey, though I could do so indefinitely. I’m not here to talk about my ear or anything regarding the anxiety I have/had around it. Though these things will feature in the blog only in their remnants, what I’d like to talk about today is more in line with what it means & what if feels like to be living life ‘in repair.’

In addition to the two aforementioned events, Evan & I had a tough May 2024. Everything seemed to be perpetually going wrong. Our month started off with me noticing a mealybug infestation on a whole room of my house plants. After failed treatment after failed treatment I finally took them outside, removed the dirt entirely, lightly pressure washed the plants, soaked them & their pots in a water & castile soap mixture for around thirty minutes, rinsed them again, sprayed them down with alcohol, rinsed them again, & repotted them in new soil that was treated with systemic to get rid of any possible eggs which all took about six hours total. (I found more mealybugs back on the same plants yesterday…) Then one of the more expensive pumps on my fish tank went out. Then our dishwasher broke & flooded our kitchen & the cabinets. Then we started to hear birds in our walls which then lead to an infestation of bird mites. Then Max scratched the screen of Evan’s brand new MacBook. Then Harvey passed. Then our AC went out. And while in the grand scheme of things a lot of these items are trivial, they still added up to be major stressors.

Additionally while all of this was happening Evan was departing his old job preparing to turn his other into a full time gig, I was wrapping recording & mixing of my next single, we were shooting & creating content for it, all while trying to maintain the every day day to day events & goings on around the house & within our social lives. We were both getting more & more stretched thin while fighting the anxieties of healing & later to currently the grief of losing a member of our immediate family. We truly began to wonder if were in fact cursed.

I’m not bringing any of this up to gain your pity, I’m not here to say “oh, poor us, look at the shit storm we’ve been navigating.” I understand life comes at you in waves & that sometimes the surf can be treacherous to even drowning. I just needed to outline those events for you so you understand where I’m coming from. I’d be lying to you all if I said I didn’t feel like I had a bit of stress fatigue, I’d be lying if I told you I wasn’t still actively grieving though each day does get easier than the last. But what I want to illustrate to you all if what I am trying to extend to myself & what I recommended extending two weeks ago when I wrote “Healing Doesn’t Happen Overnight.” That it’s okay to give yourself grace & have a little patience as you do your best to reassemble a life.

I am living life in repair, as I know so many of us are right now. What does that look like? What does that mean? It means I’m chugging along but I’m being mindful. I’m keeping stock of the things that still require my attention both within my being as well as in my environment & doing my best to mend & set them properly so that they begin to heal or are easier to pick up & complete along the way. I’m extending the understanding that it’s a long month & that I’ve been through a lot. I’m also keeping vigilant & staying at the ready for the inevitability that more things will come.

I’m allowing myself to say no, I’m conquering projects that I put off, I’m prioritizing my health, my wellbeing, because I cannot properly help & assist anyone else while I am still fractured & neither can you & neither should you. You are worthy of health, you are worthy of peace & the feeling of safety. You are worthy of life as it exists to the fullest extend. And so am I!

I know fixing the problems & sitting off to the side while the world seems to go by can be disheartening, it can feel like you’re wasting away or like you’re being antisocial, a bad friend, a bad family member, but your health, in all aspects, is important. Repairs are worth the time that it takes for them to take hold & be functional again.

I also want you to realize that sometimes things don’t heal in the same way that they originated. Some things wither off & die, but it is only to make room for new growth & new life. In traditional tarot reading there is a card called ‘The Tower.’ The Tower to a lot of people signals doom, & to an extent that’s what the card stands for on the surface. In reality the story behind The Tower is a fire that destroys the building in its entirety. What happens next is a beautiful thing. You sift through the ashes & find what remains. You find the pieces that resisted the fire, the resilient, the gems that were tucked away in the walls, & from the ash & dismay, you build a better tower to stand in the place of that which you thought you wanted but was no longer serving you & was standing in the way of something better.

Be diligent in sifting through your ashes. Notice the messages, the lessons, & once you have everything you need to move forward, plant that first brick, then the next. Build your tower more magnificent & glistening than that which stood before. Repair, remake, & remain resilient.

As always, much love to you all,

-C

Bloglet: It's Okay...

It’s been a very heavy news week. There’s been a lot of news & feelings circulating & I know a lot of people are also under a lot of pressure to say certain things or to take certain sides & I want to encourage you that it is a genuinely okay response to bow your head out of any argument simply because you feel that you are improperly informed, overly conflicted, or because you seek to avoid perpetuating hate, hurt, & conflict. I firmly believe that there is nothing in this wide world that requires every single person’s input, especially if an educated input requires diving deep into unbiased news, history, politics, & other people’s lives.

That is not to say that you shouldn’t decry hate in all of its forms, but where global & political events are concerned, I’m sure the vast majority of us would rather not filter through naive, misinformed, or simply uninformed posts just for the sake of claiming a side or giving in to the pressure of feeling that you need to & I am also certain that the vast majority of those takes you are filtering through are minimally informed, previously cemented opinions that have little, to no desire, to intake new information & seek truth outside of what they were taught or think they already know.

It is okay to say “I don’t understand enough about the issue at hand but will do my best to continue properly educating myself on the topic” & allow those who do have a contextual understanding of an unfolding to share what they know & help those who don’t understand.

I definitely think that is one of the major pitfalls of social media at large, we all feel we need to weigh in on everything that happens & people like to virtue signal to those who don’t feel comfortable doing so & convince them that they are bad people for not aligning with their own understanding of a situation, be it an actually educated unbiased take, or not.

I’m sure I’m going to get kickback on this post simply for telling you that it’s okay to not be unabashed & brazen in your opinions on the internet but it’s something that I think needs to be said more often. You can still stand for humanity & what is right from a base level & still not flood the feed with the first information you come across without fact checking it or looking into its origin. It is okay to say “I see the issue, I stand with the innocent parties involved, & I pray for a peaceful, swift, & just resolution.”

It is okay to say “ I don’t know enough on the topic” & leave it at that.

As always, much love to you all,

-C

Blog: Censoring Myself As An Artist

I think I’ve reached a point as a songwriter where I’m actively censoring myself. It’s not something I intended to do or wanted to happen but alas, that is where I find myself. I don’t think that I was always this way nor do I think a lot of the songs of my past are vague on the details of my personal life but I’ve had events happen in my life where people I’m close to have hurt me deeply & I find myself incapable of putting pen to paper or note to track out of a fear of hurting their feelings.

This is a problem I developed a couple of years ago that I am waking up to. You see, there are times where those in your life who support & cheer you on do the most undeniable damage they can to you & all you feel like you can do is march on & hope that time heals the wound & it doesn’t happen again. A lot of times these people don’t even know that the'y’ve caused you pain or that the things they’ve said or left unsaid made it to your eyes or ears & dug a sharp gash in your heart. I had one of these & while I wrote several songs around the events in question I began to self limit because I felt they were songs I could never share or release because they would upset the people they are about. Here in lies the paradox for me.

The thing that sucks is that I know these are songs that need to see the light of day because the struggles that I went through are not unique to my person & in releasing them to a broader audience they stand a chance of helping someone else out there who is struggling. I also understand that I am doing myself a disservice by locking these songs behind the screen of my iPhone or the hard drive of my computer & that the greatest art often comes from the greatest pain. In all honesty I’m looking at myself going “wtf am I doing,” as I write all of this into a blog even though I’m not specifying anything.

But here’s the problem. Art is expression. It’s meant to evoke an emotion from the listener, viewer, taster, etc. & by cutting myself off from the art that hurts, the art within me that is real, I am censoring myself as an artist & producing blunted content that helps no one & limits my growth both as a human being & as an artist. In shying away into what is safe like a chastised dog I have placed a wall between myself & the true art that lies in wait within me & I’m not sure I know how to tear it down.

The easy answer to that, naturally, is share & release the songs, but they are songs that require difficult conversations & may cause further damage to a wound that has found some form of healing, even if It’s not how I would like. But what must be done to the bone that has been set improperly & healed crooked? It must be unmade to heal properly. It is a redemption that my heart yearns for but that I fear is nothing more than a fantasy, so I sit stuck in indecision & with a great filter hindering my art.

This is true for those of you reading this who may not be artists as well. I think that we often times allow our ache to be swept under the rug so that we can continue to have certain relationships where we feel the connection outweighs our suffering. It’s a hard road to tread & a hard decision to make, especially if the wound is old. But I feel that we limit ourselves entirely by doing so, not just in the artistic sense but in our development as human beings. It’s often said that you can tell when someone experienced unresolved trauma because they often stagnate in their personal growth. People harmed at 25 remain the same mentally emotionally as they move into their 30s because they would rather cover the wound than face it.

I know I am not alone in this &, if this resonates with you, I hope you know that you are not alone. Your reservations are just as valid as your pain but can you imagine just how joyous it will feel the day that pain is set free, the day the conflict that has been eating you up inside is resolved? Maybe it is worth it, maybe it’s not, but in the end, that’s up to you to decide, just as it is for me. I want so badly to lean into the freedom but I’d be lying if I said fear wasn’t holding me back. As my friend Stephen Lovegrove says, “the path that scares you the most is usually the correct one.” Maybe it’s time to take the scary path & step out of the pain that has become comfortable. Maybe it’s time to step on a few toes.

As always, much love to you all,

-C

Blog: You'll Worry Yourself Sick

I think it’s no secret at this point in our society that our emotions & the things that we give “energy” to end up coming to fruition. Call it laws of attraction, quantum physics, etc, we now have fairly solid volumes of evidence to indicate that where we place our minds, especially where our health & wellness are concerned, ends up becoming our reality. I’m a very strong believer in this & so too are many people around the globe, whether they realize it or not.

I’m going to be using the term “energy” quite often in this blog. I don’t necessarily mean a physical voltage or anything of that nature, although that is also part of it to a degree. Instead I tend to mean more about your physical, mental, social, productive, & spiritual energy. The finite amount of internal processing power we have to give in the day to day or the moment to moment.

I want to circle back to something that I said in at the end of the first paragraph before we go any farther. I mentioned that a lot of people, globally, practice & believe in this philosophy, whether or not they realize it. I mean that simply in the context of prayer. Millions, or even billions, of people around the world pray daily, some more than daily. They put thought & energy towards a desired outcome, an aspiration, &/or a need. A lot of the time these come from a place of lack; Lord, keep me safe, heal my father, help me accomplish my goals, etc, etc, etc. & I think the laws of attraction would tell us this behavior only repels our desired outcome. Our prayers are not but energy put towards what we have each decided to call our own creator. I think there’s no denying that this all functions well outside of the religious or spiritual worlds as well.

So why make this the topic of today’s conversation? Why put energy towards it?

Well, it seems over the last week I’ve been running into synchronicities. This topic seems to be popping up left & right. It’s appeared in conversations I’ve had with at least three separate individuals, it’s appeared as one of the primary topics in one of the books that I’m reading, it’s been on the Tik Toks & Instagrams I’ve been receiving. Really the frequency of its occurrence has been startling!

I think it’s also worth mentioning that I’m not here advocating for toxic positivity, which is very much a real thing. I’ve just noticed that when you live believing the worst it tends to come to fruition.

So what is worry? Why do we as a species have it? The simple answer is that is was designed to keep us alive. Worry is what propelled us forwards as a social civilization, worry towards where our next meal is going to come from, whether our kids are safe, whether there’s a predator lurking in the brush that we can’t see, but I personally don’t think it serves us as much in our present society & way of living as it use to. Worry is how we kept ourselves safe & sustained but it can also very easily be debilitating.

Much like almost anything else, too much worry can be incredibly harmful. It locks us down, prevents us from taking risks, I’d even go as far to say that it prevents us from living altogether. But the worst part of worry is that it can literally cause you to worry yourself sick or even dead.

Worry is brought on by adrenaline, it’s a form of anxiety that saps your adrenals & can cause anything from chronic fatigue to anemia. When we force our body into constant survival states of fight or flight, a state we’re only supposed to be in in short bursts to keep us alive, it wears down the body pretty quickly. This, in addition to being bad for the heart, is bad for the immune system at large. There have even been studies of people who have worried themselves into organ failure, tumors, chronic sicknesses, autoimmune diseases, etc.

Again, not harping on exclusive positivity here, I think a little worry is good for you, but as the saying goes “worry is away present energy towards & unknown tomorrow.

What am I advising? How do I recommend you behave? How do you limit your worry?

I, for one, compartmentalize my worry into rational or irrational. Is what I’m afraid of a rational thought or likely to happen? If no, then I do my best to brush it off. If it continues to nag me I sit with it & try to find the reason behind its existence in my brain. Why am I worried about this? What caused me to worry about this? How can I show my body that this is not something worth worrying about?

In the context of prayer or manifestations how do we reframe our wants & navigate away from this place of lack? Always go from a place of gratitude & joy. Instead of “heal my father” think of how joyous the miraculous reparation would feel or how incredibly it would be to reach your goals! Instead of asking for safety be grateful that you have been kept safe thus far! The key to all of this is of course belief & not letting fear, doubt, worry, & suffering embed their hooks into you & literally drag you down into sickness.

I know all of this is easier said than done. I know, especially for those of you with anxiety it’s like you telling me to just be happy as someone with depression or to pay attention as someone with ADHD, but I promise, as someone who literally had shot adrenals, that there is a path forwards that leads to an easier, more worry-free future.

As always, much love to you all,

-C

,

Blog/Object Writing: Grief

,

If you noticed I did not post an outright “Object Writing” post on here on Wednesday, that is because I did a five day series on grief. I was given the grief prompt by a dancer our of University in Canada who asked if I would do an object writing page for her final dance project using the five stages of grief. Naturally I agreed & was delighted, this is that assignment! In my initial writing I did my best to make the stages flow naturally into one another, over the last week I had to figure out ways to segment them out into five one minute posts, they are all attached below. So, what I’m going to do is first post the written form then if you feel so inclined, or if you’d rather, you can go through the individual posts & watch/listen to what I did with them. I can’t wait to share the final dance product as well once it’s presented! Enjoy!

OBJECT WRITING: GRIEF

“This can’t be happening, this can’t be happening, this can’t be happening.” The shock of the news nearly knocks me off my feet as the message the tsunami of information carried echoes endlessly around my brain. I feel faint, detached from the human vessel that tethers my spirit to this earth, adrift in the noise & chaos. My myriad of emotions cause me to question what is real or even possible. Is this? Is it all just a dream, some sick illusion my subconscious has cooked up for some unknown reason or have the unfathomable nightmares of my deepest, darkest dread become reality? At the end of my Rolodex of “no’s” hangs the fixture to which I attach blame. “IF” I am to believe this malicious marquee of misinformation then someone is at fault. Someone or something is the culprit for this misfortune; effect is nothing without cause. My adrenals pump molten rage into my bloodstream, igniting my senses into fiery passion. I am fuming, eyes frantically searching for elucidation & something to pin the focus of my frustration. Then it hits me. It smacks me in the face with the fury of the scorn I’ve irradiated into my atmosphere. What if it’s me? What if it’s my fault? My mind begins to work overtime, clockwork machines come alive & the pressure & steam give way to desperation. I return a call, for the first time since being encumbered by the burden of knowing I reach out to another human being whom I share commonality with. I am insistent, disheartened, “if only I’d done this,” I cry, “if only I’d done that” but my cries are fruitless. What’s done is done. Life has no redo button, it offers no relapse into the undoing of retribution. Maybe an exchange then, something for that which I’ve lost. Maybe the almighty, the cosmos, the powers that be will shine one glint of mercy upon me & offer me a fair trade. Time, money, possessions, health, all are on the line, all viable options for the return. But the universe sits silent, unbothered by the heart-wrenched pleading of a drop in the river, in the grand stream of time. All is silent. The stillness creeps into my being & settles uncomfortably into my bones. The meaning & spirit drains from me like sap oozing softly from a tree into the ground below me. Gravity’s weight is multiplied ten fold & soon the creature comforts that bring me respite begin to do little the fill the void. I am hollow, an empty shell of icy numb hurt as the colors melt inchmeal around me into sickly, sullen shades of grays. It’s pointless, all of it. Pointless. My energy depleted, my hopes scattered, my berth begins to feel more & more like a tomb; a black void of nothingness to which I shall willingly succumb. Little by little I fall further into the pits of my forlorn until, at last, I reach the soft maw of the abyss. Cradled in self pity & affliction I lie there, transfixed by misery until a delicate ember drifts haphazardly into my core. It too rests with me in this eternity, offering a knowing melancholy smile before wrapping me in warmth. The freedom of empathy washed through me & enrobes me in loving light. It does not discount my loss or patronize but instead sits in amiable eloquence carrying me through my despair. It lifts my chin, places a quant reassurance on my forehead, & nudges me affectionately towards tomorrow. “It is time,” it whispers to me. Like a freshly birthed foal I stagger to find my footing; one & then the other. I look up to the mountain that stands proudly aloft before me & I begin the ascent; one foot at a time, one day & then the next. The sun breaks through the morbid gray & for the first time in what feels like an age I am at peace.

OBJECT WRITING: GRIEF PART ONE: DENIAL

OBJECT WRITING: GRIEF PART TWO: ANGER

OBJECT WRITING: GRIEF PART THREE: BARGAINING

OBJECT WRITING: GRIEF PART FOUR: DEPRESSION

OBJECT WRITING: GRIEF PART FIVE: ACCEPTANCE

Blog: Persevere

Hi lovelies, how has your day been?!

I hope you’re having yourself a wonderful August in spite of the garbage can fire that seems to be the world at the moment. There’s a lot of pain & heavy feelings going around & I know that so many of you are feeling them so deeply with every fiber of who you are. In all honesty I started this blog with a completely different intent in mind, I was going to write about something that has nothing to do with any of this but as I’m sat down to write, this is what has come to the surface.

I don’t want to get into the specifics of what is happening locally, nationally, globally, etc., not because I’m afraid to steer into the politics on it (you should know me better than that by now) but because I feel this blog needs more general appeal. It needs to be able to be stumbled upon years from now & spark something in the reader outside of the timeframe of its current intent. I’m not ascribing to this some grand purpose or importance because I know it won’t be that, this is just the thoughts of a late twenty-something with a heavy heart trying to inject the smallest amount of light back into the darkness in the hopes that it ignites something brighter in you that you can pass along.

The world is a dark place but there’s so much beauty to be had in it. I know at times that can be hard to see, we’re blinded by the headlines & the disasters we’re faced with, but I’ve found that humanity thrives best not in the moments of grand retribution & triumph but in the small moments that remind us what it is to be alive. It’s in the moments of soft realization where you are reminded of the things you love & why you love them. It’s in the daily mountains we climb, each looking far different from those of our peers but still often requiring immense effort to best. Humanity is found in the perseverance of life because how else do we define life if not the will to keep going even when everything is screaming at you to give up?

I know I don’t have all the answers, I don’t claim to & there is immeasurable beauty in that, in the mystery. We are amazing, luminous beings who often do such dark things to one another with little to no regard. We pick fights, we subjugate those we deem less than, we rage war, & rip apart our planet but I believe, in the end, the light will prevail. I know it’s hard. I know it is. I know there are days when it feels hopeless, where you feel lost in all the noise, or shoved aside, placed in the background. I know that feeling sucks. I’m not here to say the night is always darkest before the dawn, I’m here to urge you to look for those incredible moments of beauty. I’m also fully aware that this may come across as “fluff” or the drippings of my bleeding heart. I mean it, I do & I believe it myself.

I know things look bleak. I know that brighter tomorrow looks a million miles away & feels like it may never come at all, persevere. Just as Rome wasn’t built in a day, neither will the world or your world change over night, but brighter tomorrows are worth fighting for.

I’d be lying if I said that all of this had a clear end in mind. I just wrote what came up as it happened. These may end up just being the ramblings of the heavy hearted but I hope it ends up being more than that. I hope you get some substance out of it even if it’s the smallest of amounts. I don’t really know what to say to you other than I understand the pain that you feel, I understand the hopelessness, I understand the hurt & the abandonment you feel, I do but these are not the end all, be all. Keep pushing on & finding those moments of life that get peppered into the every day. Treat people with kindness & love unconditionally.

I love you immensely.

Happy Friday.

-C

Cart (0)