I just got back from California and it feels good to be home. Sure, the no sleep red eye flight mixed with the time change has me up at 4am (you’d think I’d be sleeping forever, but no) for some reason, but all the more eastern dawn for me, I guess. Yay sunshine.
I haven’t written here on the bloggy blog since the beginning of the Kickstarter campaign. Well, gentle reader, allow me to catch you up.
I launched a Kickstarter for $25K on April 28th. It began a 30 day container of living into my future self. (Don’t worry, I can talk like that because I’m a life coach. ) Like lots of independent artists, I want to make a record, I lept and asked my fans and followers to help me out like they have twice before. By May 19th, things were not looking great. I hadn’t even reached the halfway point toward my funding goal and I got on the weekly livestream on Facebook and told everyone as much. I was thinking about my Plan B for when we didn’t get to the finish line that was disappearing slowly in my sightline.
But we got to the finish line and my brain exploded and so did my heart. At the darkest moment, a Light Bringer arrived anonymously and abundantly as a matching donor sparking a wave of new pledges. And then the Light Bringer said, “Let’s just make sure you’ve got the money for the record.”
Not only that, but the campaign clocked in with over 200 backers which I did not think was going to happen had you asked me on May 19th.
So, dear reader, May 28th arrived while I was in California and, from that place, I was able to see the time run out of the campaign’s clock and behold that yes, indeed, I arrived at the goal and yes, indeed, I am making a new record. What does it feel like when a dream comes true? Well, for me, it can feel beautifully emotional AND usher in a whole new timeline that will ask me to go deeper, throw farther, become to version of myself that lives into the dream that is now squarely reality. So it feels like awesome stretching for round two.
This is the part where I tell you that I had been visualizing that moment in my Dad’s backyard surrounded by his beautiful flowers and swooping birds on May 28th since before the kickstarter began and that, along with the daily visualization, I had decided that come what may (in May), I was going to be different after the 30 day journey. I decided ahead of time that this was going to change me and it truly did.
I worked on that thought and that conviction without really knowing how it was going to appear or how it would come into focus, but thankfully, the Good Lord knows exactly how it’s gonna go down so I don’t have to, and what was being offered to me as the lesson and oh so slowly, as the days progressed, was a flashing neon sign reading, “Be Open, Be Vulnerable, Love More.”
Ok so that plan isn’t a new one. It shows up a lot, but truth be told, my brain doesn’t always connect with it in a way where I believe the message and want to participate. Does that make sense? I mean, we can dress “growth” up in all kinds of goodness and practicality, talk numbers and booking emails and minutes on the treadmill and shit like that, but for me? Strip all those action items away and you’ve got one simple message getting whispered in my ear that sounds cool, but scary and it is, “You’re OK. Be here, be yourself and trust your moves are safe and love is real.”
Dude. My whole life is pretty much about hearing the messag, doubting it, doubting it, then seeing that to believe it would be game changer, trying it, believing it, then forgetting again, back into doubt and wash, rinse repeat. Because Love can be a terrifying thing sometimes. Because love can get eclipsed by action items and minutes logged.
Yes, I over-complicate, yes, I forget. Yes, I need reminding and yes, Love is the simple profound, eternal educator of the Over-Thinking, Earn Your Worth Crowd to which I belong.
I don’t wanna belong to that crowd, but I keep getting fooled by the free offer, ya know? It’s like going to a Time Share presentation for the free toaster and then you get “Hotel California-d” and can’t find the exit. That’s me. That’s what I do. And California seems like the appropriate backdrop for getting free again this time for me.
My childhood home, the place where it all began, was the reset center and the fruition of God’s goodness this time around and that’s significant. (First, cuz I’m a life coach and I think like this, it’s totally fine). Significant because all stories are available for makeovers and redirects at any moment. Starting the wayback machine in 2024 with a fresh set of eyes trained on openness, vulnerability and love can recast the light falling on the now, upon what’s come before and the light that will bathes all the hours we’ve yet to live. So my trip to California marked an important moment made ever more amazing with The Songwriter Initiative Songwriting Retreat at Concordia University where I had the pleasure of co-writing three songs with three different co-writing groups that each were beautiful, fun, powerful, unforgettable sessions filled with creativity and connection. Not only do I love the songs I got to help write, but more importantly, I got to be in rooms with other open, vulnerable, loving artists offering their presence for a few hours to see if we could make something cool together. And we did. And knowing what I know, the room, the time, the people in that room? That’s the actual gift. Gravy if you hook a big one. Awesome that you got to make something out of nothing for three hours with other people curious and open enough to try.
My trip to California concluded on Monday. One last lunch with Mom, one last afternoon talking theology and God with Dad, one last walk around the neighborhood, one last cup of morning coffee at the breakfast table, then laundry and packing and the long walk back home (that’s not true. I flew. I took two planes to New Jersey).
Oh what thirty days can do. Oh what wonderful things are waiting for you to venture out in openness and vulnerability and love no matter what. No matter what happens, exercising those muscles is always a good thing. Love, openness and vulnerability have a way of reconnecting the synapses and preparing you for bigger leaps as you go. And here I go. My trip to California placed me squarely in this moment between the past and the future. Heck, every day we’re alive does that for us if we’re willing to acknowledge the crossroads we keep crossing. I’ll never be the same again and I don’t want to be. I’ll be glad for the lesson again and again around love and openness and vulnerability. It’s what shapes so much and clears away so much clutter and dares us to live into each destination, trust our Maker, and start plotting our course toward where we’ll go next. High five.