Y Not?

9 years ago I released a suicide note of a song called “Y”.  It really was too, I was suffering so much delusion and ideation, like a constant ringing in the ears and my sense was that one way or another I would not survive the release of that music. In reality I wasn’t surviving the creation of the music, I had no chill whatsoever, no tools (yet) to heal and relax and it’s truly my own survival that leads me to the belief in G*d’s grace. It’s hard to see that grace. Looking around, so much of my despair is existential, just not being able to reconcile the gross suffering of our species, our dedicated destruction of our own habitat, how hard it is to get by without causing harm.  I am celebrating today, the release of “Y Not”, the first single off an album of healing my own tunes. I’ve found some refuge over the years but still lived with the big question “Y?!!!?” tumbling around in my brain and draining the joy out of many of my precious moments.  Maybe I don’t know is the best answer after all.  Last year the noise hit a boiling point and I walked into a mental health clinic called Here Tomorrow. Finally finding the bottom and admitting I can’t go on like this was a major turning point. I think, all too often, that I shouldn’t share anything until I’m fully healed and have my “life together” and yada yada yada but I feel (and I’m learning for the first time to lead with feelings) that sharing is a major part of my healing.  So if you’re here (and I know at least my Mom, my wife, and my best bud Levi are) thanks for taking a second to be with this outpouring.

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I recorded this song in September after attending an “out of the darkness” walk for suicide prevention.  I invited friends and even my larger local community to come and walk with me.  It was sweet, and sad, and honestly really weird (as most big events are). There were booths and one of them had different color beads to wear representing different orientations to the cause (red if you lost someone to suicide, yellow for loss of a military veteran etc.). Green beads were for if you yourself struggled.  There were probably close to 1500 people there in the pavilion and someone got on the microphone (with that whole pumped up MC WHAT UP JACKSONVILLE) tone… ok maybe not that bad but still, calm isn’t popular.  One color at a time we were asked to hold up our beads for why we were there.  I sheepishly help up my green beads, trying to feel something like proud of being willing to stand there. I looked through the crowd and I guess shouldn’t have been too surprised to see only a handful of other fellow ideators with the confidence to say so.  Oh well, I get it, the world is noisy and most days I try not to interface with big crowds too.

The walk itself was supremely healing, I brought a guitar and sang songs that have comforted me over the years. I particularly remember enjoying “somewhere along the way” by Dawes with my sister singing her perfect harmonies.  There wasn’t a clearly marked turn around spot and our group kind of dissolved into a bunch of smaller groups.  I guess maybe I was hoping this walk would feel “final” in some way like… ok I held up my beads and did this thing so I won’t struggle anymore…. Womp.

I got home and crashed on the floor of my little music room, if I remember correctly, for a few hours.  Every album worth its salt has its long hours of laying there looking at the gear and the guitars and thinking what the heck am I supposed to do with all these songs and feelings. It’s all way too much. That’s why, even though I am deeply desiring to collaborate more and jam (we jammin’ ooooo yahhhhh) much of this project was also done alone in my room.  Every once in a a while I got in something like an efficient rhythm but most of this project was wandering with no clear signs. Kind of relearning how to walk.  This song was the first I recorded, I set up a simple drum loop on garage band, propped up my mics in front of the window, and tried a few live passes standing up.  I felt the energy of the friends who had supported me, and though I still couldn’t fully feel the hope in my bones,  I decided to just keep going.  After years of tinkering with tape machines and forcing myself to find “perfect” takes, I really learned to love recording with more options (computers are ultimately pretty freaking awesome right?).

The main gig I’ve had the last year is playing in the corner of a groovy little Kava bar.  Through this gig I became great pals with John Jones who drums on this song (and many more on the album).  Finding someone to have easy musical conversations with has been one of the most hopeful things of my life.  Words (even though I’m spilling so many right now) pale in comparison to the way music can communicate what really matters (feelings).   Thanks John Donkey Kong jam juice Jonesin’ for that easy breezy rhythm. I played pretty much everything else but the saxophone, I also reconnected with a friend from highschool named Josh Guadino who came over and laid down those incredible parts.  This album has a deep vein of grief on it,  it’s been ten years now since my cousin passed away and every time I get to work with the saxophone I am given a great opportunity to feel the immensity of his absence. It’s a kind of presence too.  Patrick Taylor mixed and mastered what I was able to put together on garage band (oh and I think he added a shamanic shaker vibe to one of those little psychedelic interludes) the group vocals is a bunch of the folks from that day of walking, and a stranger or two from the internet (if you’re reading this and you’d like to be named hmu but I’m assuming otherwise for some reason right now?).

It’s ok to feel like dying, it’s ok to wonder Y?

But just because it’s ok (and you have to start there, that it is ok to feel anything) doesn’t really make it useful to dwell on.  Why not is maybe a better question and equally hard to answer, so as the great poet Rilke says why don’t we just love the questions themselves.  “Why not” feels like it has some levity to it,  resilience and at least enough understanding to know that the challenges deepen the roots.  I’ve felt for the last year like a tiny sprout that’s just poked through the ground after a long hard winter.  I’ve felt fragile, and afraid, but I’m finding faith that things are going to… well maybe not get better right away but they will carry on? Life is resilient and I’m learning to be too. I hope this share, and this song, bring you some comfort.  I’m learning to measure success by very different metrics, I already know one story of this recording helping someone down from the ledge (metaphorically but also kind of literally) and I pray that it’s able to maybe help a few more people.  Suicide is the second leading cause of death age 10-34 and particularly in men.  I don’t know how we solve so many of our worlds problems, I don’t know how we release our anger, I don’t know how we even pay our freaking bills in this late stage capitalism fall out. Maybe we can’t, maybe we won’t.  For some reason, for no reason (why not?) I’m starting to really retrain my brain into dwelling on how worth it this all is. I’m hearing the spring birds sing their song as I sit by a smoldering camp fire, for just right now… I don’t need to know why.

If ur reading this and u have them kinda thoughts and don’t know where to start, or who to talk to, I can’t promise much of anything helpful but sometimes it’s really nice just to share with someone who also gets it. I’ll listen/read etc.