Beauty Restored

MeRa is like a voice i knew when i was a kid. she called me today, just to say hi. i was taken back. it felt good. i began to remember who i am. who i want to be. who i've always been. with such unfamiliar territory i am navigating, a familiar voice is good for the soul. thanks Mera.
j.

Hard Times

like many of you out there, i pay a guy to sit and listen to my past and present and to help me make some sense of it all. i like him . . . as much as you can like a guy you pay to listen to you. anyway, he has recently given me an assignment to write about my parents. and whereas this may be easy for some of you, i've created an art out of fudging my own story (in song). writing things that are somewhat true; but hopefully more true for you than for me. i found some inspiration last night; writing both words and music (rare these days) and decided to let you in on the creativity. maybe it's nothing; maybe it's something. we'll see. i will hopefully learn how to attatch audio files soon enough, but for now, here's the lyrics: it's called Hard Times

Hard Times
wish you were there
i danced like lightning
i looked for you
but you got tied up at work . . . or something

wish you were there
my last day of school
i worked so hard
(to make you) proud of me

Hard times keep falling
On the good and the bad
Hard times they keep falling
Making everyone sad
Hard times they keep falling

you held my hand
when i was a babe
then you let go
that was the last time . . .

i've been hoping (hope on)
for so long
i 've been holding (hold on)
for some sign of you . . .

when i grow up
you will be there
or at least in my mind
and photographs i've carried (from year to year)

Hard times keep falling
On the good and the bad
Hard times keep falling
Making me sad
Hard times keep falling

i'm still thinking about revisions to the chorus (try to give it a little cheer; if at least not from a slight angle). but for now . . . here ya go.

j. louviere

Songwriting

ellis paul has a website (ellispaul.com) with a function "raidio free ellis" - just a constant stream of music (his own). he's a great songwriter and has been around for a long while. this is a picture of him that i found on flickr. (btw, so easy to upload pics to this site. cool.)

songwriting. i'm always getting back around to it. seasons of lift "off the ground"; seasons (like now) of drudgery and feeling too busy. but i've always lived by a little mantra : just keep investing. it's not the song itself. it's the collection. it's what the collection does to you. who you become because of it, through it, despite it. the larger themes that only a broad span of work can show.

writing a song comes quite natural to me and, being a bit of a work-aholic and perfectionist, it can feel like i'm not putting in the effort that i should. i put plenty of effort in a lot of the songs i've written. i guess it's just different effort than the effort i expend at "work". with writing, you can be forever kicking something around in your head; singing in the shower. trying new lines, new verses, a whole new thought for a bridge. only to decide to keep what you had before. familiar themes. familiar vocal stylings. sting (of the band . . . sting (weird) - formerly of the best band ever; the Police [can you believe their reuniting!?) - anyway, sting said in some video i saw that he doesn't like to play the same song the same way twice. 'has a real value in trying to continue to shape and keep it creative. i took hold of this thought many years ago. for better or for worse. but it gave me a love for interpretation, spontaneity, and the "live" performance. there are pluses and minuses of every approach. if you're hold to "change" and you insist on spontaneous and inventive over a long period of time, then possibly "change" is same o'' thing you've always known. i love johnny cash for the very opposite reason; because with his themes, some things just never change. and i like it that way. but something else calls in me. and for this reason, on the 18th day, God created jazz. to me, the value is in taking something old and making it new, in this moment. a perpetual sense of taking what was and what could be and making it new, right now. i love that too.

i feel like i belong with songwriting more than i belong to anything else in this world. well, maybe a close second to just sitting and sharing thoughts with a friend or two. that's good stuff too.

j.

Lost Soul

Life has thrown me a number of curves lately (in addition to the many previous pitches i have swung at and whiffed), and i cannot bring my head/heart back around to understand or rest with it. and this has all lead me to a pretty scary place. a place of uncharterd territory. but i have to be honest when i say, i don't know where i am going in life (or after). i wrote a friend the other day and found myself telling him that i feel like a genuine "lost soul". i identify with this phrase lately. my whole way of thinking and approach to life has been turned upside down and shaken. i don't know where to turn. i think, in part, this is why i began this blog.

when i was younger, my early twenties, i knew exactly where i was going, what i was doing, and especially, what i was supposed to be doing. i took many risks in the name of what i felt was "right" and what brought "libery" (to others and myself). and as broken as i may feel i can sense Life asking me to continue risking. doesn't Life understand that i'm tired?! that i want some sympathy right about now and not a lesson on how to get back up? a little cuddle time with Life itself? Life seems deaf to this request. no, to me, Life is an animal with an animal instinct. i used to think that Life was compassionate. but i'm pretty sure i was quoting what i wanted to believe rather than what i truly believed. i am starting to believe that Life says, "wrestle Me! and if you die in the process, i will pour you a beer in the afterlife and share with you my thoughts.

i loved wrestling when i was kid.

j. louviere

Tired

i know i won't have time in the AM to write again, so i am writing in my tired stupor before my bath and a late diner.
i'm tired. damn tired. i'm a god damn perfectionist and it's wearing me out. i'm about done being a perfectionist. just about.
j.

God, the Universe, Whatever

when i was young i wanted to be a minister. yeah, i thought i knew what that was and what that looked like; what i was supposed to do and say, etc. much as changed since then. i found far too many discrepancies with it all. not so much with the Bible or the origins of faith, etc; more with what the whole thing does to humans trying to find their way through the maze of living. seems to turn people into their worst selves. it's crazy. you'd think otherwise, but it just is the case. sadly.

i s'pose i spend more time, these days, "kindly offending" the religious and looking for a place among the "heathen." caught somewhere in between the two. i hate it. the struggle. but if i'm honest, it's constant. i wasn't raised with a sense of "belonging". so i wrestle on. and that's alright.

i spent a long while saying, "screw You, "God", or whatever You are. i'm done. D - U - N. done." but it just never rung as "true" to be done. i still have fight within me. fight to believe that, even if Life wasn't like others were toting, teaching, preaching, Life is real, Life is among us; it's just too assinine to say that Life does not exist. and that i am a product of Life and his/her inventiveness. it rings as a deeply true reality dispite writing all of this before having my first cup of coffee this morning.

and dipsite what you wish you believed, i wonder what many of you actually believe about Life (or God, The Universe, The Holy Spirit, Divine or whatever you wish to call such a presence). i think many of us live lives in pursuit of something rather than in the actual presence of it. just wondering.