What do you do when the fear comes rushing in?
This morning, I got up early - I've been waking up at five or six'o'clock most days over the past week to get a crack on work towards the album, the Kickstarter campaign, the pre-launch to the the Kickstarter campaign... this website... new songs... ALL the things. It's been so much fun and I've been squeezing in two or three hours of work every day before heading off to teach summer day camps with the kids that inspired all of this work in the first place.
But today was the first real day of MY summer break from school. No more summer camps. All of July is dedicated to making progress on this project, and today was the first Monday morning of the first full work week of the only month I have to do as much as I can before August comes and school starts and the Kickstarter launches and all the trains are rolling again and I start to lose control of my calendar.
So having July, this month, feels special and luxurious. And terifying. This morning, the terror was creeping in. What if I don't plan the budget correctly? What if I can't find enough backers? What if all the music is way better in my head than it is in reality?
Sarah is my secret weapon. She's the magic ingredient that makes this all work. When she woke up, she saw me. She saw my eyes. She asked a couple of questions, and I spilled the beans. All the "what ifs" came pouring out and she talked me through my fears. Back on my feet. Ready to work again.
It was only yesterday that I was telling her her how joyful I feel to be working on this. But I also know the fear will come and go. Thank you, Sarah, for being the antidote.
For years, I've dabbled as a singer and songwriter. I helped with a few songs for some plays that I co-wrote back in my Chicago theater days. I often made up silly songs with kids during class as a Preschool and Kindergarten teacher. It's only in the last couple of years that I've bothered to write any of them down. First, in a little notetaking app on my iPad, and only so that I could go back and remember them if the kids happened to ask to hear them again.
But then I came up with a few that I felt a little proud of. "Sharks vs. Cats" was one of those joyful, organic moments in songwriting for kids in which the kids asked for something, I delivered it, and it was so catchy that it continues to be one of their favorites to hear and the first one they request. My confidence grew, and the songs started getting better. Now they shout, "Sing the one about the mouse!" or "Sing the really loud one!" They want to hear more, and they want to hear them again and again.
And then, in November of 2023, a song landed in my head and demanded attention. Not a kids' song. A love song. For Sarah, on our seventeenth anniversary. I wrote it and sang it to her one day early. We both cried. The next day, as we exchanged anniversary cards and gifts, she gave me a simple, functional, utilitarian notebook to capture more songs in. She inscribed it, "To my love for life, when it just pours out of you." It's a simple little object. Now dogeared and ragged, and still only half full of pencil scratches and early drafts of lyrics and chord progressions. But it's one of the most beautiful objects I own. It's endowed with her love and belief. It is a talisman against fear and doubt and screens and distraction. I pick it up, put a pencil behind my ear (the kids I know always think a pencil behind the ear is so weird and hilarious, especially when I pretend I can't find it) grab one of my instruments, and begin creating something new about joy, or courage, or kindness, or love, or self-belief, or nature, or any of the things that are finding their way into songs that are finding their way onto this album.
And the very first song I wrote in the notebook was another love song for Sarah, the antidote to my fear, the provider of talismans against the doubt, and the chorus goes:
You are the reason that I sing
You are the answer to my every single question
I hear your voice and I recover my direction
Songbird, you are the reason
