tag:licitycollins.com,2005:/blogs/selected-writings?p=1
Selected Writings
2024-10-01T22:55:00-07:00
Licity Collins — Multidimensional Genre-Busting Artist
false
tag:licitycollins.com,2005:Post/6453207
2020-10-10T13:56:09-07:00
2020-10-12T12:30:23-07:00
The Shallow Common Ground
<p><img src="//d10j3mvrs1suex.cloudfront.net/u/175112/5c3eea3e50c4761067b0ad4e46871735552948f4/original/jolly-kone.jpg/!!/b:W10=.jpg" class="size_l justify_center border_" />"If all we have is cheese and pickle, let's start there."</p>
<p>11 min read</p>
<p><strong>The Shallow Common Ground </strong></p>
<p>October 4, 2020 1:42 pm </p>
<p>Now Playing: Parliament Funkadelic “One Nation Under a Groove” from the album <em>One Nation Under a Groove </em>it popped into my head when I was thinking about the word “constriction.” I was thinking that I am ready to expand beyond the constrictions of the past few years of my life. Their lyric goes, “Here’s our chance to dance our way, out of our constrictions.” I’ve always loved that. I love when multi-syllabic unexpected words end up in songs. </p>
<p> </p>
<p> “Can you put only cheese and pickle on it, though?” The man behind me in line at the take-out hamburger place in my neighborhood asked the clerk. </p>
<p>My ears perked up. I have recently fallen in love with the flavors of cheese and pickle together. I ate two cheese and pickle sandwiches last week. </p>
<p>I had decided against talking to this particular man only a minute earlier. For no particular reason that I could identify. Just a strange feeling inside. I felt, cautious. We looked at each other. I wanted to say hello. But I didn’t. We didn’t. </p>
<p>The man was tall, lanky, with a bandana serving as a pandemic face mask wrapped around his yellowing face and hair. He was yellowing, weathered, prematurely aging like a thing that had been left out in the sun too long and had faded to blank, and then started a second stage of taking on the color of toast. His beard, thick, wiry, like combed straw stiffly cascaded out of the denim blue bandana. No, not cascaded, I don’t think something can actually “stiffly cascade.” I guess “jutted” would be the better word. It jutted out from under the bandana which seemed to cuddle the jutting beard close to the man’s face, in kind of a hug. His beard impressed me. It was one of those bird’s nest beards that usually grosses me out thinking of the range of substances from food to bodily fluids that get trapped in there. But for some reason, I felt a kindness in me about his beard. I liked it. </p>
<p>But still even with all the affection I had amassed for this stranger’s beard I had elected not to speak to him. </p>
<p>A minute before, the man who was in line in front of me at the take-out hamburger place had taken the risk and had spoken to me. Nervously, quietly, keeping his head down as his eyes made very brief contact with mine, he said, “I feel like I am in Palm Springs.” </p>
<p>I just looked at him. I didn’t know what he was referring to. What was like Palm Springs? Certainly not this 1950s style Happy Day’s everyman’s corner hamburger stand. I was confused. His nervous delivery made me more confused. He seemed unsure about talking to me. It was awkward. I didn’t know him, who he was, what he stood for. I did not know if I could trust him. He did not know if he had mis-stepped by asking me to trust him. </p>
<p>I feel afraid of everyone. </p>
<p>That’s not my nature. My father says, in a way which I can never figure out if it is a criticism or compliment, “You have a way with strangers.” What is my nature is to make a friend out of nearly every person I see. If we are standing in line at the grocery store or the neighborhood take-out burger place, aka the Jolly Kone, then as far as I am concerned we’ve just had a shared experience and that gives us common ground to relate for the rest of our lives. So I usually say hello, make a joke, give a compliment, or point out the SUV sitting just outside the Jolly Kone which seems to have the word “Satan” encoded into the license plate. Anything to make connection, anything to make a communal experience out of whatever thoughts are running through my mind at the moment. </p>
<p>That’s all the Palm Springs guy was doing with me. But I stood, silent, confused, I wanted us both to be invisible. I am afraid. Why is he talking to me? Isn’t he my enemy? </p>
<p>The world feels scarier to me than it ever has, and I grew up in Washington, DC when it was the murder capitol of the world. My house was only a few blocks from where plenty of those murders took place. I don’t think of myself as someone who has a paralyzing list of fears. I have a short list: puppets, mannequins, praying manti, destitution, homelessness, failing publicly, being thought of as unintelligent, and I am afraid of heights—not when I am by myself, only when another person is standing next to me. I’m not afraid of the height, I’m afraid the person might push me off it. </p>
<p>We all have issues with trust, that’s not what’s at play here. I’ve conquered those to the point of drastically over trusting most people far too soon. Or maybe that’s not conquering it. Maybe that’s just a twisted form of overcompensation for a deeply seeded vacuum of trust which was lodged inside of me I suspect even before I was born. I was, after all, in the womb when my news-obsessed mother watched and read and listened to every minute of President Nixon’s betrayal of the democratic process, and people, and unleashed a devastating secret war on innocent civilians halfway around the globe. I was born suspicious. But that’s not what I’m talking about, not really. I’m not talking about the familiar psychotherapist couch subject of trust which we all need to seriously work on, seriously. Right now I am talking about fear. I felt genuine fear when this man spoke to me. I just wanted the situation to not be happening. </p>
<p>I am afraid of strangers. I am afraid of my neighbors. I am sometimes, lately, afraid of my friends. I suspect their behavior. I wonder where they have been and if their choices during this pandemic have put others at risk. I look for symbols of people’s political parties and values to try to ascertain out if I am safe in their presence. What are they wearing? What do they drive? How do they dress? How are they looking at me? Sometimes the symbols are clear, or are they? Confederate flags outside homes and flapping wildly on trucks seem to have lately been replaced with American flags, bearing the same meaning, right? Now the flag of our country serves as a banner of “Beware, I might hate, hurt, or want to remove you, from what should be my country.” The person in charge of our country, used his access to international television, to issue a command to named organized violent groups as if he were their top general—and, more important than what I heard—is the fact that this was the way they heard his words too. “Yes sir” they replied, “Standing by,” (ostensibly for his next command). </p>
<p>Fear is in the air. It’s more than in the air. Fear is now the way we are being governed. That’s what happens when you live under what I, as a history nerd, can only identify an increasingly totalitarian “regime.” That is the name for a system of leadership of a country that systematically detests, decommissions, and deconstructs the people and policies that seek to uphold the needs of the citizens, while simultaneously systematically crafting and installing individuals and policies that prioritize themselves and a small group who benefit financially. No one would call that a representative government. It chills me to the bone to wake up in this every day. </p>
<p>To be honest, it wasn’t a thought I had spent too much time on until I wandered down one of my many history nerd paths and started to understand the techniques and tactics of dictators. After a learning the foundational tools it takes to install and maintain a dictatorship, it seems, according to some basic facts, that we’re bang on course. </p>
<p>It’s made me stop talking to strangers. </p>
<p>I noticed the Palm Springs guy was wearing a nametag from the local hardware store, which is just across the street from the Jolly Kone. I love that hardware store. The guys who work there are all so kind to me when I come in with strange questions about how to keep mice out of my car engine or repair my purse by using plumbing fixtures. This might have been one of those guys. People are hard to recognize with face masks on, but seeing the nametag shifted my fear. He may be someone I had trusted already, just in a different context. It was only here, where there was no context to deem someone safe, that I found my defenses going up. </p>
<p> “I’ve never been to Palm Springs.” I finally said to the hardware store man after that entire line of mental processing completed itself and my brain concluded and informed me, <em>You should say something back and show him you are nice. </em></p>
<p> “The weather is like this all the time there. Hot and muggy.” His he lifted his head and maintained eye contact showing a sense of relief. </p>
<p> “And we also have the smoke now too.” I referred to the haze from the current round of California wildfires that was hanging low in the air of our small town, making it seem like the sun was setting all day long. </p>
<p> “Right, is that what that is?” He asked. </p>
<p> “Yeah.” I said. </p>
<p> “I like Palm Springs.” The man loosened up, now seeing I was friendly. “There’s nothing to do there so when me and my family were living there we learned how to play water volleyball. We got pretty good at it too. There’s nothing else you can do when the weather is like this.” </p>
<p> Our small town was in day three of yet another heat wave. This one peaked at 105 degrees. The last one peaked at 116 in this neighborhood, and 120 in the hills. “Yeah, that’s true.” I said. </p>
<p> “Can I take your order?” A voice interrupted us from the take-out window encased in an extended plastic and Plexiglas bubble. The voice signaled it was time for me to place my order and for the man to take his seat at one of the concrete picnic tables and wait for his name to be called. We both did what was expected of us. </p>
<p>I told the clerk through the plastic bubble that I was picking up my to-go order—double cheeseburger, onion rings. </p>
<p>No, I am not a vegetarian. Yes, I have been in the past. Yes, I know that factory farming of cows is one of the largest threats to the ozone layer and a massive source of global warming. Nope, I can’t seem to stop eating them. </p>
<p>I compost my own waste and use less than 5 gallons of water a week. Carbon offset? Maybe not, but you can criticize me for eating burgers next time you use a gallon of perfectly drinkable water, which many people in the world are desperate for, as a convenient way of disposing of your poop, which I suspect you do every single day, maybe twice a day. I know lifestyles are not a competition. I just needed to address those questions I suspect you just had, and shame you a little. Shame offset? </p>
<p>On with the story. </p>
<p>Waiting in a line is kind of like being in a relay race. I always want to pass the baton. The hardware store guy was nice enough to talk to me and now it seems my duty to talk to the person next in line, and I hope that he will understand the unspoken rule and pass a kind word along to the person behind him in line. Gosh, I still have some kind of hope for humanity, I suppose. But I had decided against it. The stiffly cascading jutting beard left me uncertain—Which side is this guy on? Is he going to get into a big truck with an American flag painted on it after he orders his food? </p>
<p>I just don’t know who anyone is anymore. </p>
<p> But then he spoke his magical words. “Can you put only cheese and pickle on it, though?” </p>
<p> I turned. Without any long mental processing, I spoke. I spoke to him like someone I had instantly fallen in love with. “Oh, that sounds so good!” My entire demeanor softened. Now I wanted to have lunch with him. </p>
<p>One of the detective characters on a British period television show I watch, eats cheese and pickle sandwiches every Wednesday when his wife packs them in his lunch. I think of it as a British thing, although I suspect England does not corner the market on it, and likely has co-opted it from one of the many places it colonized in its world domination, global empire phase thing. Eating cheese and pickle sandwiches is one of the many ways I pretend that I do not live in this country or in this time or in this particular horrific circumstance. Plus I am a quarter English so it makes me feel connected to a culture I know nothing about, but know that I am. It makes me feel more legitimately me. </p>
<p> “It’s so refreshing in the summer.” The bearded masked man added. </p>
<p>Refreshing isn’t a word I would ever assign to a hamburger, or to cheese. Maybe to a pickle though. I don’t think I replied. I had thoughts about the detective character, my heritage, world domination, the sandwiches I ate last week… none of which this guy probably cared about, and by this time I was lingering. My food had been served up and I had paid for it and what was expected of me at that point was a cheery goodbye and to move on in a timely manner. And so I complied with convention (not a first, it happens). “Have a great lunch!” I said and walked with a skip in my step toward my used Prius (also, helping the environment, and no, I’m not defensive about eating hamburgers at all). </p>
<p>“I love guys like that!” I heard my self laugh and say out loud as I walked with my to-go order to my car. It’s true. I love a regular guy who has adorable regular guy quirks like finding a cheese and pickle dressed burger “refreshing.” I wanted to know more about him, I wanted to spend time with him, I wanted to see what else he thought, knew, believed, and liked. I laughed, because I often get into impractical relationships that never work out, and this shallow common ground echoed of a first step in that direction. </p>
<p>I used to work in a CD store in downtown Chicago. It was on the cutting edge of its time. It was a trend setter in a hands-on customer experience. Customers could open any CD and sit down at a counter and hear everything and anything they wanted before they made a purchase. It was cool, and it made for a lot of customers spending a lot of time in the store and making a lot of small talk while changing from one CD to another of their small gathered stacks of discs waiting eagerly next to the players on the stylish dark wood “listening bars.” </p>
<p>“We both like the same kind of pizza. Ham and Pineapple. And we are both Aquariuses,” one customer declared over the counter to me. He was describing the woman he had recently started dating and had decided was most likely his perfect mate. She was at least the most perfectly matched woman he’d dated so far. I’m pretty attuned to astrology, but I admit I found the pizza thing pretty shallow (typical for an Aquarius, though). I made a note of it, one of those I’m glad I’m so much deeper than this guy kind of mental notes, so that I would never from that point on think that a shared like of pizza toppings or any kind of food would be grounds on which to believe a relationship was headed for success. My standards would simply be higher. </p>
<p>But, as I found myself oddly attracted to the cheese and pickle guy, I saw the beauty in this simple connection. It was this shallow common ground that allowed me to stop wondering if he was someone I should fear. Instead I smiled at him through my pandemic mask. It made me want to get to know him. It made me drop my guard. </p>
<p>It made me see myself in him. </p>
<p>Our country is in dire shape right now. If a person like me who makes a friend out of nearly every stranger I meet, has noticed that fear is the first feeling I have now when I encounter someone new, we’ve got serious problems. If I am afraid, then I can see clearly in the actions of so many people with whom I share these nation-borders, that they are terrified. People are so afraid of each other right now. And it is killing us, quite literally, from the inside out. To be afraid of my neighbors is to diminish my life force. The level of stress that suspicion causes us will surely shorten our lifespans—and that’s actually the least of the damage it will do. </p>
<p>We have to find our way back to a path of connection, away from all this fear that causes us so much separation and so much pain. We have to find some small, tender first step that can bring us into even a minor conversation where we might find a glint of a reflection of ourselves in each other. </p>
<p>If all we have is cheese and pickle, then let’s start there.</p>
<p> </p>
<p> </p>
<p> </p>
<p>@2020 Licity Collins All Rights Reserved. Please ask permission before reprinting or posting.</p>
Licity Collins — Multidimensional Genre-Busting Artist
tag:licitycollins.com,2005:Post/6300903
2020-05-04T23:57:16-07:00
2020-10-10T13:11:55-07:00
The Leaving
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<p>"I'll see you again." —KC </p>
<p>6 min read (8 min video)</p>
<p><strong>The Leaving</strong><br>April 27, 2020<strong> </strong><br>Now Playing: “Always Something There To Remind Me” by Naked Eyes from the album <em>Naked Eyes</em>, streaming on Pandora on my phone by my side as I write this. </p>
<p>People we love are dying. </p>
<p>The small rectangular butcher-block wood table in the basement was set, awaiting baking sheets filled with square-cut homemade pizzas and bowls of dip and vegetables which my hosts had been preparing all during the afternoon. In a small dimly lit area with a low ceiling down the hall past the basement bathroom, early-arrived guests were setting up a chair, covering it with several pillows where arms, legs, and back would go. It awaited a frail woman whose body was in pain. </p>
<p>“She’ll tell you about it when she gets here.” One of the guests said to me as she fluffed a pillow. “She’s not shy about talking about it.” </p>
<p>I set up my guitar, acoustic amplifier, and microphone stand at the corner of the table where the food was. Near a curio of what looked like someone’s grandmom’s dishes, in front of a wall which held a few framed Native American small tapestries, I placed the stool I had toted in my car from 350 miles away. It was a large wooden kitchen stool. I didn’t know at that time that I was supposed to, like a real traveling musician, have a folding stool. (which I still do not have). I was wearing a purple tank top and a black skirt splashed with a brightly colored flower pattern. I have since thrown that away. There were hoop earrings flopping about at the bottom of my ears. My guitar was strung over my shoulder with a strap I had made myself which was embroidered with pink cabbage roses. I sat on the stool. I sang sitting down. I was unrecognizable as the performer I am now. </p>
<p><img src="//d10j3mvrs1suex.cloudfront.net/u/175112/4fc7e4fd89b6ee4a150100b77e5881da911bd850/original/kc-mic-oakland-house-concert.jpg/!!/b:W10=.jpg" class="size_l justify_center border_" /></p>
<p>The summer before, I had emailed a random series of bookstores all over California and this kind pair of owners in Oakland had said, “Yes” and asked me to come play. A year later they invited me into their home to sing for their friends. </p>
<p>It wasn’t planned to be KC’s last concert. </p>
<p>She arrived, externally frail, internally feisty. Long flowing straw-like blonde hair turning grey and getting that old-wise-woman coarse texture that makes people see that all old women are more powerful than we realize. Gingerly supporting her arms and back, her friends helped her move down the stairs and towards the pillow-covered chair in the cave-like basement living room. She expressed thanks even as she showed sparks of independence. It was hard for her to accept their help. She did, it seemed, as a reminder to herself that it was time to accept such things, that the time for being independent was drawing to a close. She had a comforted look in her eye as she sat down in the softness her friends had arranged for her. </p>
<p>She did talk about it. </p>
<p>It was something rare. So rare that she, a nurse who knew about these things, talked through her pain with resigned outrage about a system which had denied her treatment for it. Either it was not widely funded, or very few people qualified for the treatment. I didn’t understand. I remember her saying she had applied and not been accepted. I don’t remember the details. I remember the feeling, the twist in my stomach, and the look in her eyes as she explained that she did not have to die. There was a treatment, it was just that she wasn’t being granted access to it. She did not have to be a person who died, not yet. </p>
<p>Death is a strange thing. I try not to be any one way about it. I have questioned it. I have wailed at it. I have thanked it. I have bargained with it. Eventually I tell it the only thing we can tell it—to do what it will do, since I have no control over it. </p>
<p>The first two weeks of the current Coronavirus stay-home orders, now five weeks on, I spent some time talking with death in this way. One of my two best friends in the world came down with COVID-19. “I have sad news to report.” She wrote in a group text to two of us. “I have a high fever today. It looks like I got the crud.” She calls everything “the crud” but in the twenty years and as many flus as I’ve seen her through, I knew this was different. And so did she. And so did her doctor. We all knew. A test was hard to get in her state. Her doctor couldn’t get one for her but did confirmed the diagnosis, and so she became not a number, because she is not and will not be counted. What she did become was very sick. She is sixty-six so that put her in a high-risk group, and although she had been so careful not to expose herself, she had told me her routines of gloves, washing hands, and caution, it didn’t protect her. </p>
<p>I tried not to be dramatic. I wanted her to have as much peace and space to heal. I decided to send her a photo of a flower every day. She loves to garden and one of my favorite memories is of walking through the Portland rose gardens with her. I asked her how she was every so often, but mostly I was grateful that every day she found the strength and time to return my text, enough that I could breathe knowing, even if it was labored, she was breathing too. </p>
<p>And I dove into work. My income dropped by 80% when the stay-home orders went into effect, and I had to figure out new ways to make a new living. That felt like solid motivation for me to take a hard look at how I had set my life and my business up, so I was at my computer crafting new paths for income non-stop every day from about nine in the morning until two a.m. in the following dark of night. </p>
<p>And I tried not to think about her dying. </p>
<p>But I did. Every few days, the tears would seep through my cracks. And for two minutes at a time I would pause work, grab my head with my hands and speak. “I do not want to lose this person. I don’t want to do my life without her.” I said that out loud. Maybe death was listening and could be swayed. </p>
<p>I don’t call her my best friend. I don’t call anyone my best friend. I have a superstition about it. When I have called someone my best friend things change quickly and they seem to be gone soon after, not dead, just not talking to each other anymore, in a permanent way. It’s happened several times. As a result I have settled on calling her “One of my closest friends in the world.” In truth, she is the most generous person with me that I know. We talk every week and she listens to me ramble through run-on-sentences about my life that last about thirty minutes each—each sentence. I don’t talk to very many people, she is my weekly touch of human voice contact. And she has lovingly consumed every brilliant and shitty work of art I have ever made with kindness and thoughtfulness and support. And she inspires me. She is brilliant of mind, spirit, and talent. I am in awe of her and she is a singularity. I have never met another person like her in the world and I am so amazed to know her. I wish often that could get a reign on my rambling mouth so that one day I will just shut up and ask her questions about her life. She is one of those people who has lived a fascinating life and is quiet about it. She is truly beautiful. </p>
<p>Two and a half weeks later, I finally heard her voice, “You can take me off your worries list.” </p>
<p>It was the sweetest sound I had ever heard. </p>
<p>When we hung up the phone, I broke down in to a day of tears, shaking, shaking with relief. </p>
<p>KC found her way to the corner of the table with the square homemade pizzas diagonally across from where I had set up my microphone. Her friends transferred some of the pillows to her new seating arrangement. They ate. We all talked about baseball for a bit, I don’t remember why, except that I love baseball books and had gotten a book that I really enjoyed at their bookstore a year before. Oh, right it was a gift. I spied it on the shelf and cooed over it because it was written by a knuckleball pitcher I admired. They gifted it to me. I must have told them that night how much I liked it. And I sang, and told stories, slouched over in bad posture sitting on my wooden kitchen stool. </p>
<p>And then it was time for me to sing “Turn.” I had written this song in a time when I was really scared. A doctor had found a bunch of small lumps all over my body and sent me for five ultrasounds and a needle aspiration near my vocal cords. I had just started singing again and was not ready to have it all be taken away. That song came out of that moment, facing my own life and wondering if everything I had just started building was going to be over. </p>
<p>I sang it to KC. </p>
<p>Everyone else in the room seemed to fade into a blur. KC, weak, so frail, held me with strong eyes. At first, I was unsure. I didn’t want to draw attention to her impending death. The room was filled with it, and simultaneously trying to ignore it. But once our eyes connected I knew I had made the right decision. I gave that song to her. Every word took on a new meaning. I sent each word, each phrase into her hoping to replace the medicine she had been denied. And she, so determined in her independence, gave as strongly back to me. I’ve never had anyone hear one of my songs the way KC heard me that day. It was as if she took in every single word and then beamed it right back to me as if she had written the song. And maybe, in some way, she had. If I had even thought or wanted to look at anyone else, It would have been impossible, KC and I were fixed, locked with each other, connected in a way that I will never be disconnected from. There’s not a single time I sing that song that I don’t see KC’s eyes staring back at me. </p>
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<p style="text-align: center;">"Turn" was the song I sang to KC that night.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>The rest of the concert was as fun as it could be. My songs and self-deprecating stories about my spotty love life. Recommendations of other good baseball books. A recognition that the homemade pizza didn’t turn out as great as anyone had hoped. </p>
<p>And then, my songs were over. The dangling conversations ended. And it was time for everyone to leave. </p>
<p>It was the longest concert goodbye I had ever witnessed. KC’s long-term boyfriend came by to pick her up. A motorcycle guy driving a car. They both commented that they’d rather be on his bike. He was a musician, and gave me his CD. I was still in the process of recording my first so couldn’t return the gift. And he stood by KC as she wandered the room saying goodbye to her friends two and three times because no one could bear to see her walk out the door. </p>
<p>And as I watched her, I saw her do something extraordinary. </p>
<p>“I’ll see you again.” </p>
<p>I heard it over my shoulder. </p>
<p>I turned around to see KC taking her friend’s hands in hers. Before her friend could choke out unfathomable words, before they could say “goodbye” KC nodded, took their hands and said, “I’ll see you again.” Over and over and over again, she took her friends’ hands and said, “I’ll see you again.” “I’ll see you again.” “I’ll see you again.” I watched her in awe. KC didn’t let any of her friends speak the word “goodbye” she took that burden off of their shoulders. “I’ll see you again.” When her friends responded in nervous chatter, she just repeated herself, talking over their rambles, “I’ll see you again,” and she nodded, and she left each moment when she chose. </p>
<p>This wasn’t about heaven. Or hell. Or reincarnation. Or turning into a white squirrel who takes up residence in a tree in your backyard. It wasn’t about a myth of what happens after death. KC was simply speaking, teaching, the truth. </p>
<p>She took my hands in hers too, as she left the house that night. I was standing in the front doorway, and KC and her boyfriend were just outside on the front step. I guess I was the last person she said this to. I vaguely remember one of the hosts walking away refusing to say goodbye to her and my stepping into her place in the door jam. I was captivated by KC and I wanted to hold her, to touch her, and to accept her offering and agree with her, “Yes,” I said. “I’ll see you again.” I remember the feeling of the night air on my face, and her motorcycle boyfriend putting his arm around her shoulder, gently turning her body away from the house and leading her down the front stairs. Someone closed the door. </p>
<p>A few months later, I got an email from one of the women who had been around the table with us that night. “KC left us.” It said. I was glad she had been thoughtful enough to tell me. I had only met KC that one night, but this friend of hers knew that was enough for me to have fallen in love with her, to have been touched by her, to have her life so effortlessly have already changed mine. </p>
<p>People I love are losing people they love right now. </p>
<p>If you are one of these people, I am holding your hand. </p>
<p>Your grief is your own, and no one else can manage it, judge it, or even comment on it. Grief is a powerful experience that must be embraced fully— it demands that. I am a big believer in the gifts of grief—the gifts that come in the worst way possible, gifts that only you can decide what they are and if you will accept them or tell them to fuck off—either is entirely your prerogative. That’s the rule of grief. You get to do whatever you need to do. So I offer you no guidance, because no guidance applies. But this one thing I do know does apply, and if it hadn’t come out of the mouth of a dying woman I might dismiss it as new-agey bullshit. Except for the fact that it’s true. </p>
<p>I see KC’s eyes every time I sing “Turn” I think of her often, especially when someone dies. I think of my friend Dwayne whose wise words of wisdom are often quoted to me by someone who doesn’t even know him. I see him in every comic book and cartoon that was ever made. I think about my mother who died the day my first album was finished. I see her in that album cover. I see her in every Zinnia and Geranium, and every yellow rose. I think about the woman who first encouraged me to sing. I see her in every ginkgo leaf. I hear her in every Cat Stevens song. I hear her every time I hear my own voice. </p>
<p>We see those who leave this planet in so many ways all the time even after they are gone. They may come to us in dreams, or in mystical ways that help us to hold on to a sense of something beyond ourselves, and that stuff is great, but when we require a spiritual epiphany in response to a death, we can find ourselves disappointed and feeling abandoned. It helps to be reminded of the small, easy, practical every day ways we see those we love whom we cannot hold tight anymore. Those we lose also come to us in memories, a recollection of the sound of their laughs, in the inside jokes that pop into our heads, or a person whose voice or mannerisms reminds us of them. They show up when we remember how well they loved us. They show up when we remember how deeply they hurt us. They show up in the regret and the rejoice. And so importantly they show up in the lessons they taught us intentionally or unintentionally that now guide the way we live, in the choices we make differently because for better and worse, we knew them. They show up every time we look in the mirror at who we now are. We never stop seeing them. We always see them again. </p>
<p>They are KC’s words, not mine. They come from a wise woman who had the ability to look through the portal before she entered it. May you hear them as the words of those you love and are losing to that same portal. May you hear their voice, and feel their hands take yours and say, "I'll see you again." Those who go in one way stay with us in so many other ways. May we see them again—and again and again.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>© 2020 Licity Collins all rights reserved. Please ask permission to reprint.</p>
Licity Collins — Multidimensional Genre-Busting Artist
tag:licitycollins.com,2005:Post/6229468
2020-02-26T23:07:27-08:00
2020-10-10T13:12:05-07:00
The Kissing
<p><img src="//d10j3mvrs1suex.cloudfront.net/u/175112/9742a66b5b5bdb407158404f54d765b8c4a94f11/original/lc-spoken-1-a-cr-ed.jpg/!!/b:W10=.jpg" class="size_l justify_center border_" /></p>
<p>"We never talked about it again."</p>
<p>11 minute read</p>
<p><strong>The Kissing</strong><br>Wednesday January 7, 2020<br>Now Playing<strong>: </strong>James Taylor “Her Town Too” from the album <em>Dad Loves His Work,</em> on my ipod </p>
<p>“If there was only one part of sex you could do for the rest of your life, what would it be?” I innocently asked my friend Peter, forgetting the devious and brilliant character to whom I had posed this wit-enticing question. </p>
<p>Peter hesitated, only for a split second, only for effect, and then he got that sly, mischievous look in his eye, the look he got when he knew he was about to design a moment of humor perfection that would last forever in the annals of joke history. </p>
<p>“Orgasm.” Peter smiled back at me, knowing he’d nailed it. </p>
<p>Peter was the funniest person I knew. He taught me how to be funny. I was already pretty funny, but hanging around Peter taught me to sharpen my timing. He taught me to trust something inside of me that wasn’t planning or filtering, or questioning, or strategizing—I learned to trust the part of me that just felt it—and go for it. </p>
<p>There are a few truly magical moments in life. Moments designed for a good punch line are one of these. They arrive unexpectedly like a ball thrown from a skilled and savvy baseball pitcher whose hand slips and accidentally tosses you a slow, high, lobbed pitch. It floats high in the air, then deliciously makes its way down, down, down to you transforming into a birthday cake glowing with your lucky number of candles, delivered on a silver platter. You both wait, the pitcher embarrassed, you in excited slow-motion anticipation knowing you’re going to smash that ball out of the park, and leave cake all over his face. </p>
<p>Peter taught me to beat him to the smash. </p>
<p>In his presence, I grew quicker, slyer, and let my dirty side dance. In short order, I was smacking the ball right out of Peter’s hands, with his smiling face delighting in every laugh. Those moments made me proud. That’s when I truly earned the label of “funny”—when I could beat Peter to the punch line, and make him laugh. </p>
<p>At the time I posed that particular philosophical pitch to Peter, my answer to the question “If there was only one part of sex you could do for the rest of your life, what would it be?” was one single word too. It had been my answer since I was a teenager. I think it is still my answer now. </p>
<p>Kissing. </p>
<p>Peter kissed me once. </p>
<p>Actually Peter kissed me twice. But the first time was the special one. It was the wrong thing to do, of course, by all the agreed upon rules. Kissing is so often the wrong thing. Kissing is the line that determines infidelity. You can document months of text messages between you and another person and still claim “nothing happened.” Once you kiss—something has definitely happened. Kissing is the criminal act. </p>
<p>Peter had a long-term girlfriend and did not have her permission to kiss other women, which he did, often. We are supposed to say this is wrong. This is one of the rules humans set up, enforce relentlessly, and rarely reevaluate. Partner means property. Sex is property to be marked, guarded, and possessed. We tag it like a suitcase. </p>
<p>Just to make intimacy even less special, we grade it—is it good? is it bad? We quantify it. How many cars do you have in your driveway? How may times a week do you have sex? You rarely hear someone say, “Is sex with your partner a meaningful exchange which enhances your connection?” Nope. It’s all about numbers, always with humans. And numbers kill everything. Once you are counting how frequently you have sex, learn to count backwards—because you’re pretty much headed towards zero. </p>
<p>A few years after he arrived, Peter fell in love with one of the women he kissed. Love always makes kissing better, so I hope that there was love between them. I truly hope so because when the shit hit the fan, they had to choose each other, if for no other reason, to justify the kissing. Then there’s this—I’m not sure if they fell in love before or after they got pregnant— you can see, choices had to be made. But anyway, when we all found out about this particular woman he had kissed (and clearly, more) it exposed Peter and all of his criminal kissing. </p>
<p>Everything came out. I and three other women in our circle of friends all had to fess up that Peter had kissed us too. I apologized—to everyone. I was friends with his girlfriend. I felt bad for her. We all did. It was embarrassing to her. It was embarrassing and so many other things. It is embarrassing when your property strays. It makes you feel crazy. </p>
<p>It reminds me of a neighbor who got furious to find her cat sitting in my window. The cat liked to visit us, but my neighbor accused us of stealing it. “What is my cat doing in your house?!?!” she wailed at my then boyfriend. </p>
<p>Before the shit hit the fan, there was a period where all of us who had been kissed by Peter realized we were not isolated kisses. “Yeah, he kissed me too,” our confessions to each other went. It didn’t feel like we were a collection of women though. It didn’t feel like we were becoming Peter’s property. Out of the several women I spoke with, not one of us expressed regret. All of us, all of the women Peter had kissed—we each smiled about it. I remember it. We each had a particular smile, unique to us, unique to the feelings Peter had opened in us. </p>
<p>Peter’s kiss was one of the kindest things anyone had done for me. </p>
<p>It was in the stairwell underneath the stage at the children’s theatre. I was designing the set for Our Town, yes, a play which has no set. I had been hired, actually paid, to paint the floor beige and buy the perfect old and worn yet stable wooden ladder and position this singular object in the center of the beige painted stage. I spent two weeks doing that. I think Peter was directing the play, now that I think back on it. And at some point, he and I crossed paths in the stairs under the stage by the orchestra pit. </p>
<p>And there, in a place that was just meant for passing, Peter stopped me. He took my face into his round small hands. I stopped trying to speak. He pulled me into him like a big brother, favorite math teacher, and prince charming combined into one short, doughy, alcoholic, funny joke-mate. And then right then, unprompted, in the middle of just another day, he kissed me on the lips. </p>
<p>I don’t remember exactly how his lips felt on mine. I vaguely remember his soft pudgy hands caressing my face. What I remember is how my shoulders sank in relaxation, how I breathed, how I felt a sense of safety I didn’t feel anywhere in my world, and the look in Peter’s eyes. </p>
<p>Peter and I had a secret now—Our secret was not that we had kissed. Our secret was not that he had committed an act of infidelity. Our secret was not the inappropriateness of this location or time. Our secret—was that I was incredibly alone. I hadn’t said so. Peter just knew. He noticed. All along, through all the jokes we smashed out of the park in front of each other, Peter saw the thing in me that no one had the courage to say, let alone step right up to and walk inside of. Peter stood with me inside my loneliness. It didn’t scare him. It made him want to love me. </p>
<p>Peter’s kiss. We never talked about it again. </p>
<p>Our secret. My secret. Peter kept it. </p>
<p>One dark winter evening, in the midst of the chaos of his criminal kisses being exposed, his relationship breaking up, and our friendship circle disintegrating, Peter stood on the doorstep of a little apartment I had in a one-story brick u-shaped complex. He had a brown paper grocery bag full of random items I had given his new pregnant girlfriend. I had abandoned my things and her soon after a wild phone call where I sat cringed on the other end of a landline hearing her screaming voice, violently, desperately insisting, “It’s love! It’s love!” </p>
<p>The air was crisp, not quite cold and Peter had on his heavy tan canvas coat, but no hat. The night was dark behind him. The light from my front door lamp created a pocket of glow around his round shape. Peter knew I could not let him in, not to my house. But he knew, I hope he knew, that I would never deny his existence on my lips. He held my secret there. And as he looked into my eyes, I saw why he held my secret, why he had seen it in the first place. I can’t believe I never knew it. But standing on my doorstep, with a crumpled bag of goodbye stuff, departing for his not-quite-chosen new life, I could see that Peter was alone too. </p>
<p>Right then, right when he needed it more than ever— I wish I had kissed him.</p>
<p> </p>
<p> </p>
<p>© 2020 Licity Collins all rights reserved. Please ask permission to reprint.</p>
Licity Collins — Multidimensional Genre-Busting Artist
tag:licitycollins.com,2005:Post/6280958
2019-06-08T08:55:00-07:00
2022-01-02T11:44:35-08:00
The Percussionist
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<p><span class="font_regular">"The drummer is supposed to be the most loyal, right?" </span></p>
<p>18 min read </p>
<p><strong>The Percussionist</strong><br>June 8, 2019 Ojai, CA in Libby Park by the Gazebo<br>Now Paying: John Luther Adams “The Mathematics of Resonant Bodies I-VIII” as performed by Steven Schick </p>
<p>In the last five years I have become a devotee of the Ojai Music Festival. Before I moved to Ojai, I actually attended one show of the festival, but I had lawn seats which meant I couldn’t see anything. When I stood up every so often to take a gander at what was happening on stage, I hated what I saw. The concert consisted of a clarinet player wearing some kind of tribal mask while doing some kind of interpretive dance, and by the way, also playing some kind of clarinet. I hated it. A lot. Really, a lot. I still talk about how ridiculous it was and how I never want to see something like that again. BUT I was curious. I love classical music, and I was certain that there must be something in this nutty experience that I would eventually come to love. </p>
<p>And I did come to love it. A lot. </p>
<p>It is my favorite time of the year in Ojai. There is a magic to this town during these four days. I am not shy about saying this—the IQ of Ojai increases significantly during this time. For four glorious intellectually indulgent days I get to nerd out with thirsty audience members, music nerds, and thrilling performers who all meet up here every year, and have conversations about things which some may think don’t matter to the world in any material way—except that they matter to the world in the most important way because we are engaging with art and art is the thing that can change us all profoundly and permanently with or without our permission. It can change our lives and it can save the world. </p>
<p>The festival consists of as many concerts as can be packed into four days of fascinating, innovative, inquisitive and sometimes even beautiful “neo classical” music. The music shared at this festival is often accused of being overly academic, too clever, bordering on arrogant and exclusive. I admit, sometimes it does come across that way. But…every four performances or so, something truly special comes along that transcends all critique because it simply reaches inside of you, shuts off your brain, and changes you. Every so often there is a rare and perfect balance of an exceptional piece, written by a visionary composer, and performed by an artist who knows how to leave their ego in the green room and give the music to the audience. Those are the performances I live to devour. Those moments feed me. Nourish me. They are like a seven course meal of pure heart food. </p>
<p>This year, Steven Schick, a man who has somehow managed to make his living as a solo percussionist. Let’s digest that for a moment—a solo percussionist. Yes, he plays drums, alone, by himself, on stage, with no one else, for long periods of time, like an hour, sometimes five hours. I am not kidding. Yes, he makes a living doing this. And he, as one of the premier solo percussionists performing new music, has had the privilege of having some of the best composers create music that they write just for him. Wouldn’t you? </p>
<p>This year he performed a work that John Luther Adams wrote for him titled “The Mathematics of Resonant Bodies I-VIII.” The eight parts of the work were performed in three concerts over three days, in the gazebo in Libby Park, which is a small family-friendly park with a playground in the center of town. It is the preamble to the Libby Bowl amphitheater where most of the festival concerts are held. These three park concerts were the only free shows of the festival, open to the community, and I was thrilled because of all the shows that could be free—this was truly going to be a gift to the town. I told everyone I knew that they should go. </p>
<p>The first day, I got a seat in the third row with a couple of people I see only once a year at the festival. It was nice to see them, but I hate having other people’s heads in my field of vision when I am trying to watch music being performed. I am a front row girl. I learned to sit in the front row in eleventh grade in high school. I had a very smart math teacher who had observed my habits while I was taking tests, and doing poorly on them. He noticed a couple of things. First, I was great at the complicated calculations but when it came to the simple addition or subtraction, that is were most of my errors occurred. He suggested this was because I got bored, impatient, and sometimes switched my numbers so they were in reverse order. Second he noticed that I spaced out looking at the other people in the room. I got distracted by humans. He told me to either sit in the front row where I couldn’t see anyone, or to sit by a window so when I needed to take a mental breather I could look outside for a moment then refocus on the test. For the rest of my life I took tests in the front row, and did much better. I also watch movies this way, and if I can, see concerts this way too. It’s wonderful. It makes it feel like I am the only person in the room. Since then, tests, movies, and concerts all feel like a private and immersive experience for me. </p>
<p>The second day of the Steven Schick outdoor free performances I got stuck in a conversation before the show and got there just before it began. And so I did not get a seat at all and had to sit in the mulch on the ground leaning against a light post. Although, that was technically on the far side of the front row, Ojai had a flea outbreak last summer, so sitting on the ground was not where I wanted to be as the days started to heat up. So by the third day I was determined to sit in a seat, as close as I could to being in the performer’s lap. Front row center. I got there an hour early and grabbed the bench right up front. There was nothing between me and Steven Schick but a narrow walkway and his instruments. This means I was in my bliss. </p>
<p>Since I was an hour early I had some time to pass. </p>
<p>Two friends took me up on my promotion of the concert and were meeting me there. I was saving most of the rest of the bench for them, but after a while I started to feel like a jerk with my stuff spread out over most of this prime front row space as people started to pour in and look for a seat. I decided I could save the part of the bench to my right, but removed my sweater and bag from the part to my left. </p>
<p>As I was moving my seat-saving flotsam out of the way, a couple noticed the opening I was creating on the bench and inquired about sitting there. I said, yes, it was an open seat and explained that I was just deciding that my skinny-butted friends could fit into the part of the bench on my right and so, yes, there was room for this man and his wife. </p>
<p>They sat down next to me. </p>
<p>The man was round and tall, not quite large, but big enough that I think he felt just a tad self-conscious about the space he consumed on the bench. His wife smaller than him, brown-skinned, maybe Filipino. He was white, grey-haired, and wore white short sleeved collared shirt, and a red baseball cap. He was friendly. They both were. He did the talking. She nodded and I remember her voice saying something, but not words. Or maybe just the recurring “Yes” and a laugh. They told me that they were staying in nearby town for the night because tomorrow they were going on a wildlife cruise around some local islands. They said the rule in their house is that once a month they have to get out of town and do something. Once a week get out of the house. Once a month get out of town. This was their once a month. He said that they just happened to see a sign somewhere that there was going to be a drum concert in this park and so that’s what they were doing there. He looked really excited. </p>
<p>I asked him why a percussion concert would interest him. </p>
<p>He said he had played drums a little in middle school, and high school, and then in his college marching band. But that this was many years ago and he hadn’t played since. He looked in his late fifties, but had that “retirement is soon” tone to his conversation. He had gone to the University of Michigan. Played drums in the marching band there. This caught my attention, because I have been to the University of Michigan and it is huge. It scares me. It is like a city unto itself. I got the feeling, when I was there, that a person going to school, living on that campus could be entirely cut off from the rest of the real world and never even notice. That does not feel healthy. But also, I have an old and personal connection with that school. My high school boyfriend went there, after he graduated, and I was still a senior. Like the dedicated girlfriend I was, I sported a Michigan sweatshirt and a “GO BLUE” bumper sticker which I stapled to the top flap of my green army surplus backpack. I can hum along with the Michigan fight song, really, I can I think. Wait, I just checked. Yep, I can still hum the tune on my own, and just did. </p>
<p>Anyway, I don’t remember his name, not my boyfriend, his name was Ranjiv. I mean the guy in the red hat sitting next to me waiting for the show to begin. It might have been Dave. I think it was. Dave went on for a bit, he was the kind of guy that when you get him talking, he likes to talk. He went on for a bit about the rivalries between the University of Michigan and Michigan State, but how their biggest rivalry is Ohio State. They hate them. Far and wide. He sad that any two University of Michigan people can be bonded through their shared hatred of Ohio State. It runs that deep. He said he went to a bar once and they had an Ohio State doormat at the bar, and a sign that said “Make sure you wipe your feet.” He said that he knew then that this was the bar for him. </p>
<p>My friends arrived, and squeezed their small boney behinds into the space to the right of me, One of them said she didn’t want to interrupt the chat I was having with Dave, and so I turned back to him. Just then Steven Schick came out on stage, and the crowd grew quiet. </p>
<p>On the stage before us there was: A set of four snare drums. A set of three tom-toms. A large bass drum. And on small pedestal, in front of a chair, an industrial seeming tool of some kind. It looked like a round fan, about a foot in diameter, with a crank handle on one side. The second of my two friends, looked at this apparatus, gave a kind of upward nod with his head and said, “Air raid horn.” </p>
<p>You get where this is going, right? </p>
<p>It began. Steven Schick, as he had for the first two of these three concerts (neither of which had used an air raid siren) commenced to play his instruments with precision and a tangible sense of restrained abandon. He plays as if he is drawing the sound out of the instrument. It will sound cliché, but you know that quote from Michelangelo? How he says he looks at a piece of stone and can feel the sculpture already within it, and all he does is cut away what is not needed? Steven Schick’s playing is like that. The music is already in the instrument, it just rises out of it when Steven is near. It is as if his presence brings a kind of desire out of his drums, to please him, and to help him please others. </p>
<p>So he did this, with the snares. He did this with the toms. And then, he sat down on the small black chair, center stage, and ceremoniously placed his hands on the air raid siren. </p>
<p>And to make this image clear, one activates the sound of an air raid siren simply by winding its crank round and round. Faster creates a higher more frenetic pitch. Slower winds the sound down in pitch. That’s it. That’s what he did. That’s what we watched. </p>
<p>It was wonderful. The winding of the crank took on a kind of magical feel. His hand was an expressive art into itself, a dance. It floated up over the handle, bearing down on it as it rounded each turn. Sometimes his hand tensed up, other times it relaxed so much to the point of barely touching the crank handle and letting the momentum of the siren itself allow the tone to rise and fall according to its own volition. I was mesmerized. He wound faster and faster and we all could anticipate the siren getting to a particularly high pitch, something which made it feel fully realized as if the sole living purpose of the siren was to make that recognizable high ear-blinding noise. But Steven pulled it back just before it got there so the anticipation of the audience, or at least within me, was like climbing to the top of a roller coaster only to see just beyond the highest ridge, and fall back down the way you came. It was frustrating to the point of delight. If there had been that high note, if it had been reached, the satisfaction would have released all that building tension, and in some way dissipated the powerful feelings the siren was generating in me. But by not allowing that aural relief, Steven Schick created a perpetual longing inside of me which still aches to be satisfied. As a result, I remember the siren performance more than any of the others—because something in my body feels unresolved. And like anything that feels unresolved, my mind goes back to it over and over again, seeking something, some kind of understanding, some kind of resolution—something which would allow me to be released. </p>
<p>It made the performance absolute genius. </p>
<p>And then he left the air raid siren, and moved on to the bass drum at the back of the stage. And after that, it was over. </p>
<p>Next to me there was a quick jolt of uprightness. Dave was standing up. He started to look as if he was, well, irate. His posture was tense and he tugged at his shirt, pulling it down as if it were the end of a very angry sentence. I looked at him. I might have asked him what he thought. I might not have. </p>
<p>Dave spoke. </p>
<p>“I have been a percussionist my entire life,” he said emphatically, “and I can tell you, that, that—was not music.” And then Dave stormed off, ahead of him I could see fragments of his wife, who seemed to be rushing off even more quickly, already several feet ahead of him. I didn’t see his face. I just saw his red baseball cap and white shirt moving rapidly towards the exit of the park. I wished him fun on his wildlife tour as he hurried down the walkway in a huff. </p>
<p>Huh, I thought to myself. He said he had only played drums in school and college, over forty years ago. Now, only after this performance made him so uncomfortable and angry, did that semi-skilled kid on the drums had become “a percussionist all my life.” </p>
<p>In that moment of his discomfort, Dave decided that he could not handle his inner dissonance, the lack of resolution that got me so attached. He responded to this by deciding he was a better musician, and perhaps better person than Steven Schick. He decided Schick was wrong. He didn’t ask me why I liked it. He didn’t ask anyone of the other 99 people why they were there. He didn’t ask himself any questions in his mind he could not answer. And then he left. </p>
<p>This is not the first time I have seen a Steven Schick performance piss people off to the point of storming out after exclaiming in anger. </p>
<p>in 2015 in another wonderful and free concert at 10:30 at night in the cold desert air of Ojai, he performed Ursonate by Kurt Schwitters. This is a very long spoken word piece. It really is a piece using mouth percussion. When I say spoken “word” I mean sounds and syllables which are unrecognizable as any known language. He spoke these in long unending phrases while he sometimes rolled on the ground and light projections were played behind him—for 40 minutes. </p>
<p>I fell in love with the piece and, that night, with him. </p>
<p>But promptly after his completing the laborious work, members of the audience in front of me, behind me, to my left and to my right, stood up, huffed complaints and stormed out. </p>
<p>This only made me love this work and him more. </p>
<p>Some of those people were like Dave, angry. I have heard that people routinely call the festival and demand a refund of their tickets. But some of the people come back, year after year, after year. After hating works, after being totally disgusted by the music and the performances. Some of them come back because they are adventurous, or dedicated, or invested. Even better, some of them come back because they are in enraptured by the most wonderful question: “Why don’t I like this?” </p>
<p>Many years ago, a friend of mine tried to get me to like the band, The Who. I tried. I couldn’t. I know that sounds surprising coming from a rock-loving girl like me, but they made my head hurt. That’s all I knew. The music gave me a headache. Not metaphorically, either. There was actual pain in my brain. I could not process the sounds. Then years later, I was recovering from a lifetime of disordered eating and found myself captive on my couch as my body recalibrated itself for weeks. With my laptop propped on the table before me, I wandered through all that the heyday of Netflix had to offer. Eventually music documentaries took over. I tore through the “Classic Album Series” (see these if you have not, they are so good), watching every one they had from Cream to Duran Duran. And “Who’s Next” was one of the many dissected albums I digested. I can’t tell you anything I remember about the simple 45 minute documentary, except that afterwards I understood this: </p>
<p>Oh, this music makes my head hurt because—it is genius. </p>
<p>The Who is comprised of four people basically playing their four instruments like soloists all at once. This can even become five soloists, if it’s a song with sequencing tracks, which may be the most or only predictable part of that band. This is a lot for the mind to take in. They came at me all at once like a telepathic onslaught of thoughts, sounds, images, feelings. It overwhelmed my senses, and short-circuited my brain. I didn’t know how to listen to them. I didn’t know how or what to hear. </p>
<p>I had to learn. I had let them teach me. </p>
<p>And so I listened, to each one of them in each song. To all four of them together. To two of them playing off of each other. And to the tiny amount of space left between them. I found myself not observing them, but walking among them on stage, from person to person, as if each one was beckoning to me to come his way. Then another would come and grab my shoulder and insist I listen to him. They brought me into their world and it was so alive. </p>
<p>Once I got it, once I was able to listen—I began to cry. For the next year, every Who song I heard brought tears of wonderment and joy to my eyes. They still can, especially when I open my heart to Keith Moon’s drumming, which I find to be some of the most emotional drumming in rock and roll. That guy gave us everything he had in his body and his self, every time he sat down. He doesn’t seem to think. He plays. He goes. Roger Daltrey described him as the sound of an airplane winding up behind them. He is wound up and then lets go into pure instinct. And he reaches me. He dives directly into my blood cells. He makes my heart ache and I still cannot put words on what it is I feel, I just know that I feel. It is overwhelming and wildly fulfilling. The words are hard to find. It just makes me cry. </p>
<p>It was not long after that that I began writing music of my own. </p>
<p>And when it came time for Steve DiStanislao to record the drums on my One Girl Town album, I made sure, as much as possible, to let him do whatever he wanted. The only direction I gave him was that I believe that the drums are the emotional center of the song. And he watched me. He watched me during our recording sessions to see if I was feeling what he was playing. We took three passes through one of the songs and I just didn’t connect. Then he said, “Let me try this” and as he played he watched the song take over my body, unfurrow my brow, pull me away from staring at the ground to focus, and I moved. At the end of that take, Stevie said, “When I saw you moving, I knew we were good.” And now, when I hear his playing on that album. It makes me cry. </p>
<p>The drummer is the pulsating heart of any music. They are what drives the blood, the notes of the other instruments, through our veins. It is an action which requires both force and restraint, grace and gall. The best drummers are confident in knowing they are the best surgeons in the world, while being unassuming, humbled by being given the access to the human spirit that they are given. They do not take it lightly that they have complete control over us. </p>
<p>And perhaps that is why percussionists can evoke such emotion, rage, anger, tears, and that breaking open feeling I get when I hear a drummer who truly feels it. In fact, when other musicians describe drummers they say, “He has a good feel.” Perhaps that statement is much more than we realize. In reality, that drummer has not just his feel, but access to all of our feelings. </p>
<p>And when we don’t know what to do with the unusual feelings someone creates inside of us. We call those feelings unpleasant, uncomfortable, maybe even wrong. Maybe we don’t even take the time to name them, we just push them away as quickly as we can. Then, do we feel betrayed? Maybe even violated? Is this what Dave felt, when he, a newly claimed “life-long percussionist,” rejected John Luther Adams’ creation for Steven Schick as “not music?” He did not ask, “Why don’t I like this?” I think what his statement was really saying is, “I felt like he hurt me.” </p>
<p>The drummer is supposed to be the most loyal, right? Keep the beat, stay steady, stay in time, and keep us all in time. Keep us all safe in the borders of the song. After all when the heart beats out of rhythm, when it starts doing something it’s not supposed to do, our whole body, our very lives, are put in danger. It is no wonder we get scared when the drummer starts acting unpredictably, which ironically, or perhaps predictably, thankfully, in rock and roll, they are notorious for doing. It just reminds me how desperately humans need to live on the edge. We crave the kind of sensations that makes us feel like we are risking our lives, yet, we curse those experiences in equal measure. This is why we are such avid spectators. We love to watch the athletes over-train and push themselves, we love to watch wild performers, we love to see the dancers on the edge of exhaustion. This is the gift our entertainers give us—vicarious heart palpitations which take us to the edge of death to make us feel alive. </p>
<p>You know that my heart was recently “broken” by an unexpected and short-lived but extremely intense love. And you know, because your heart has also been broken by love and loss, that these extremes of feelings which we call love, is paired inextricably with grief. And when those things happen in our hearts simultaneously or in cascading succession as they often do, it feels unthinkable, wrong. Something that should not be allowed. Painfully euphoric. Life meeting death. I did not like it. It hurt me. And, yet, slowly, as time transforms the pain, I find myself getting ready to come back. </p>
<p>In my music, I bang on my acoustic guitar so much that it sounds like overkill to have the drummer keep time. My favorite, and proudest moments are those that emerged when I gave Stevie D the freedom not to keep time at all. In “These Eyes Don’t Lie” I still can never anticipate what he’s going to play next even though I’ve heard the recording countless times. Every time, I admit, I hold my breath, as if he is not going to show up in the next measure. But he does, and every time, I learn a little more about trust. </p>
<p>I think we need to be brave, so we can let the drummers, as proxy for our hearts, be free to do their work. If we really trust, they can take us places where we may not want to go. We may find ourselves in frustrated delight, or inexplicable cathartic tears. It might even feel painful. When we are afraid, we must ask ourselves “Why don’t I like this?” And come back. Even if we are also saying, “I feel hurt by this.” And come back. We have to allow them to teach us. When they break time, and when they speak words we cannot recognize, and when they wail. That air raid siren piece is called “Wail.” We have but one responsibility to the drummer, and to our hearts—to come back. </p>
<p>—Licity</p>
Licity Collins — Multidimensional Genre-Busting Artist
tag:licitycollins.com,2005:Post/5745542
2019-05-07T14:26:30-07:00
2020-10-13T15:50:28-07:00
The Falling
<p style="text-align: center;"><iframe class="justify_inline" data-video-type="youtube" data-video-id="uFV8Qqlev-g" data-video-thumb-url="https://img.youtube.com/vi/uFV8Qqlev-g/mqdefault.jpg" type="text/html" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/uFV8Qqlev-g?rel=0&wmode=transparent&enablejsapi=1" frameborder="0" height="360" width="640" allowfullscreen="true"></iframe></p>
<p>"Falling in love felt like someone had shot me out of the sky. "</p>
<p><span class="font_small">10 min read / 17 min video</span></p>
<p><strong>The Falling</strong> (Live Version)<br>Sunday April 21, 2019—1:22 pm<br>Now playing Licity Collins, “Scrambled,” running through my head<strong>. </strong>It’s a new song. The first line is “I can’t believe I’m falling in love with you, what a ridiculous thing to do.” </p>
<p>Something ridiculous happened to me recently. —— I fell in love. </p>
<p>Don’t get excited, I got dumped this past Tuesday. </p>
<p>Yesterday, Saturday, was a long day waiting for this love to call, which he did not. He had dumped me on Tuesday with very little warning and I spent the next three days writing twenty-five pages of notes to make some sense of the anguish and confusion so I could be ready for a conversation he had agreed we would have in person. On Tuesday he said three times that said he would call me Saturday morning to set up a time. He did not. I spent the day wailing, weeping, exclaiming shock, intermittently playing bass, and tearing at my chest. I wanted us to stay in love or one day be in love again. At the end of the day I was exhausted, had come up with a pretty good funky bass line, and was facing the reality that I had to let the idea of us go. </p>
<p>I see myself as a bird in the sky. Flying high, effortlessly, like a vulture gliding on thermals—wings spread and soaring. No need to even flap that often. Trusting that the warm air will carry me in the direction I want or adjusting when it doesn’t. </p>
<p>I’m big into vultures, actually. They have an unnecessary bad reputation, which I have never understood. We use the word “vulture” to label opportunistic evil-beings descending on vulnerable situations for self-serving purposes. This cannot be further from the real lives of vultures. They come down to the earth to eat the dead animals that murderous predators have left behind. They are carnivorous, but not predatory in the way their reputation suggests. They are the clean-up crew. They have developed featherless heads and highly acidic stomachs so they can dig into discarded carcasses yet resist infections. One type of vulture is the only vertebrate to specialize in eating bones. They’re fucking brilliant.</p>
<p> </p>
<p style="text-align: center;"> </p>
<p><img src="//d10j3mvrs1suex.cloudfront.net/u/175112/99b7e964ff2dcba25746bddcd863fb38b4172dfa/original/basic-premise-lydia-lunch-2.jpg/!!/undefined/b:W1sic2l6ZSIsImxhcmdlIl1d.jpg" class="size_l justify_center border_none" alt="Licity Collins live at the basic premise gallery reading The Fallng at an event featuring Lydia Lunch" /></p>
<p>I am one of them, except for the bald head part. We both dive into the wreckage of life, and come out with something nutritious. We both defecate the digested entrails out onto our feet as a method of cleaning and protection. We both vomit up the food we have eaten to feed those in need. We find nothing at all in the world to be dirty—we put everything to use. Ask anyone who knows me and they’ll tell you. I can take any situation, digest it, and vomit out something that will feed you. </p>
<p>And I like being high in the sky. I feel safe up there, removed, unassailable, above everyone, offering pearls of understanding and perspective to people in concise little stories and nature metaphors. It’s annoying. It annoys me. I am sure it annoys my friends. I am certain it has annoyed each and every one of my loves. That skill of being able to digest the good out of everything, can make a person into a sidewalk guru. I’ll admit, it’s bullshit. It’s just a defense mechanism I have to make sure no one ever challenges me and I never get close to anyone, not really. It’s not that I am afraid to grow. I work on myself like a full-time job. It’s that I am afraid of anyone else telling me how I need to grow. That scares the shit out of me. A couple of people have called BS on me about it, but some people like it. They compliment me on my wisdom. But now, I am finally calling BS on myself. I don’t want to fly up in the sky where I am alone and untouchable. I am lonely. I long to be touched. </p>
<p>Falling in love felt like someone had shot me out of the sky. </p>
<p>I was a mess. I have very little practice at love and I suck at it. I was overtaken, possessed by it. Completely oriented toward the person and disoriented away from my life, my creative work, what had previously been my somewhat meaningful existence. Before I derailed my life into this person, he and I had had a really fun and easy friendship—playful, full of humor, flirtatious, creative—easy. Once love entered the picture, once the bullet struck me in one of my wings, I fell to the ground crippled. Limping. Useless. Unable to function except for the next word, message, call, visit, touch from him. Until he reaffirmed his love for me daily, I felt lost and that I had lost him. I told myself it was wonderful, because it was love. And I told him I was crippled, and that he should care for my wounds. </p>
<p>None of that is sexy. </p>
<p>And so, for that and a bunch of other much larger reasons which had nothing to do with me in any way, he dumped me on Tuesday. </p>
<p>I went to the beach. I sat on a rock. I tried to let the ocean calm me but it did not. After an hour, believe it or not, a vulture flew down in front of me, about ten feet ahead, and began to eat a dead bird that was on the shore. </p>
<p>I watched. Vultures are nervous on the ground, just like I am, always looking over their shoulders, and so it’s a rare treat to observe one up close for any length of time. I savored it knowing at any moment it could get freaked and fly off. As I watched it stand on top the dead bird holding it down with its feet and wrestle the guts from inside of it I thought about how vultures need to come down to the ground to eat. And, I had been told just earlier that week that birds must also come down to the ground to mate. Who can have a meal or sex mid-flight? I’m sure some bird out there does, but I bet it’s a challenge. </p>
<p>I honestly have to say, I am grieving the loss of the prospect of sex with him. A lot. Really. Just the thought of him would get me wet. That hadn’t happened that much in my life, and I have had a lot of sex with a lot of people. Good sex too. Screaming, cursing, banging on the wall, the neighbors might call the police sex. Until the last few years, when for various reasons, I’ve had none. </p>
<p>I haven’t missed the sex, to be honest. I find sex boring in how predictable and repetitive it is, always rehashing the same ideas to arrive at the same pre-determined conclusion. It’s such a stale plot—a beginning, middle, and <em>voila</em>, the end. Everyone seems so self-satisfied, surprised, even impressed at that end, as if it were a revelation, when to me, it’s just the same thing that happened the last time. Then there are those people who see my orgasm as their accomplishment. It’s all so bizarre. </p>
<p>I need to place sex in a realm of infinite play, not finite strategy. I want someone to write the story of sex with me as if it were to last into an unknown eternity. It’s the same way I feel about gardening, and music. </p>
<p>I have for a very long time said that the one kind of sex I have always wanted to try but never have, the kind that I thought would not bore me—is—the kind of sex where you are actually in love with the person. That would be a new and wonderful adventure for me. I know that real love is infinite—ever changing, new every day. This is the kind of sex I wanted. This is the kind of sex that even when the person touches me in the same place the same way, feels new and exciting because they are, and I am, a new person every day. You only understand that when you are in love with someone. This promised that. I wanted to have sex with him, not for the sex, but to be inside of the love. </p>
<p>But like I said. It’s over. </p>
<p>He forgets the things he says to me. This was something I pointed out very early into our connection. He said I should not put stock in his words. That seemed like such a strange thing to say. Did he want permission to say anything to me and not ever be accountable? I said that words are important to me. I am, after all, a writer of both songs and prose. Words are how I communicate my deepest feelings and most profound thoughts. A friend had cautioned me to pay more attention to his actions, but I didn’t know how to do that. I learned that only yesterday—how to let someone show you, not tell you, how they feel about you. I sat and waited for his call, realizing the not calling was a stronger reality than the three promises to call. <em>The action is always greater than the words. </em>I get that now. But words romance and captivate me. And his words, the words he seems to have forgotten just like his promises to call—words like “I adore you. You are my angel. I’m not giving you up. You are so special to me. I’m going to be so good to you.” Well, they were some of the most beautiful words anyone had ever said to me, ever. </p>
<p>I grew up in a home where no one ever said “I love you.” No one. It was not said. That’s not entirely true. I said it. It would usually come out in one of my family’s semi-platonic awkward hugs, you know the kind with tense pats on the back that never let you get too at ease, never let you relax into the person’s arms, but instead make you feel like their golfing buddy. I would try to infuse those hugs with emotion, the emotion I thought they were meant to express. I’d say, “I love you.” And my family members, every one of them, sisters, father, mother, would give the same response—they would laugh. </p>
<p>I’m not lamenting about my childhood. I know I am an adult and that stuff happens to everyone. But families are where we are forged, like irons in a fire, into permanent shapes. Let’s continue with the extended all-you-can-eat metaphor buffet we’ve got going here. Forged and hammered. That is what my family was like, I don’t know about other people’s, but mine was like a blazing fire and the hammer of a shrewd blacksmith. And I got hammered and bent into a specific shape, which I suppose, if I follow the metaphor, would need something equally hot in order to unbend me. Without that kind of blazing heat I cannot be reshaped out of the tool I was shaped into—perhaps I cannot be reshaped at all, only repurposed, used, hopefully, for something better. </p>
<p>See how annoying my wisdom metaphors are? </p>
<p>I’m just trying to find a use for my broken heart. I am a vulture after all. I have to make use of the dead left behind by others. Even when I am the carcass. </p>
<p>I think that I loved him more than he loved me. I think that’s been the case with nearly everyone I have loved, except maybe for my best friend in high school, who loved me with a resounding reciprocity, until I actually fell in love with her. Then, she too, like the others, found my love overwhelming and backed away. </p>
<p>The capacity to receive love. Maybe that is where I am closed. I suppose anyone who thinks that falling in love feels like being shot out of the sky might be a bit guarded. I guess this is what I need to work on. Receptivity. </p>
<p>When I was in fourth grade my teacher had taken a summer trip to the Philippines. She came back entrenched in everything Filipino, teaching us of culture and customs. It was her theme for quite some time. There is one thing she told us though which I will never forget. For some reason it formed a habit in me I have had tremendous trouble breaking ever since I was in her fourth grade classroom. She told us that in the Philippines, since certain items, like Coca-cola were rare (this was in the eighties), that when someone offers a Coke to you, you should, out of politeness, turn it down the first time. Then the ritual is, they offer it to you again, and then you accept it. What a wonderful dance of graciousness, respect, humility, and gratitude. I fell in love with it immediately.</p>
<p>And it became a habit. </p>
<p>So I am a shitty receiver, because, I turn everything down the first time. The problem is that I am not in the Philippines in 1981, and no one else knows this strange custom I have adopted. When I turn something down, people take me at my word that I don’t want it, and withdraw their offer—and a part of themselves. And I am left longing, waiting for them to re-offer. Meanwhile, I have unintentionally rejected love, and the person. I am left not knowing how to get any of it back. The best I have done is to realize I do this and explain the story about my fourth grade teacher to people by way of an apology and then tell them I really do want the thing they offered. It’s a lot to go through for a soda, or a glass of water—or perhaps, the love of my life. </p>
<p>I blame my impressionable fourth-grade mind, but in truth, I just don’t know how to say yes to love. My new album is called LOVE COURAGE YES. And I have been touting this quote of my own contrivance: “When you come face to face with love, the most courageous thing you can do is say, yes.” It’s a pretty good hook. I believe that love can ask you to do extraordinary things, and we must find the courage to do what love asks. But in truth, perhaps I think it takes courage to say yes to love because love itself scares the crap out of me. </p>
<p>[Sigh.] So where does that leave me, us, you and I, in this rumination I am having with you? </p>
<p>It leaves me to tell you one thing, the one thing I did not tell him. I do not know if it would have made a difference, if it would have made him tell me the truth instead of all the beautiful words which dissipated into thin air. I did not tell him this because I was afraid of it, of how he would react to it, and I, in my strange relationship with receptivity withheld it, so that I could receive it first. And that is not receptivity that is manipulation and greed, fear and mistrust. I guess I mistrusted him all along. I suppose then it is good that I did not give him these words. I will though. One day, when I can finally make known all I felt in our exchange, good and bad. I will tell him. I need him to know. Even after all the wailing and chest thrashing, withholding this is my only regret. </p>
<p>And I will tell you, because I will never again let myself withhold this. Turn it down if you must, the first time, the second time, however many times. It is a permanent offering. It always has been that way with me. Once I give this it goes to the person and stays with them, a part of me, now carried with them, or discarded, whatever they wish to do with it, is beyond my control. That may be why it scares me so much. </p>
<p>So, all that is left, here, now, between you and me, is for me to tell this to you. </p>
<p>To tell you—I love you.</p>
<p> </p>
<p style="text-align: center;"><iframe class="justify_inline" data-video-type="youtube" data-video-id="uFV8Qqlev-g" data-video-thumb-url="https://img.youtube.com/vi/uFV8Qqlev-g/mqdefault.jpg" type="text/html" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/uFV8Qqlev-g?rel=0&wmode=transparent&enablejsapi=1" frameborder="0" height="280" width="500" allowfullscreen="true"></iframe></p>
<p><em>Written for and performed May 2, 2019 The Basic Premise Gallery, preceding readings by Jane Handel and Lydia Lunch</em></p>
<p> </p>
<p>© 2019 Licity Collins all rights reserved. Please ask permission to reprint.</p>
<p>Photo by K. Stenbeck</p>
Licity Collins — Multidimensional Genre-Busting Artist
tag:licitycollins.com,2005:Post/5746294
2019-05-07T14:22:20-07:00
2020-10-10T12:52:22-07:00
The Reply
<p>"You think you really loved me?" </p>
<p><span class="font_small">2 min read</span></p>
<p><strong>The Reply</strong> (Live Version)<br>Flashback June 2, 2013<br>Now Playing: Fleetwood Mac “Everywhere” from the album <em>Tango in the Night, </em>on the turntable</p>
<p>Then today, I received this one line email from him: </p>
<p>"You think you really loved me?" </p>
<p>I do not know what to say. He asks a good question. I do not know how to understand if I have loved someone. Back when he and I were friends, close, meaningful friends, he had a key to my apartment, to all of my apartments. He was the person I trusted with my real feelings. He became the person I thought of kissing night and day. I wanted to feel him. Is that love? I don't know. The phrase that occurs to me is: back then I was so desperate for safety. </p>
<p>He must think that I did not love him all those years ago. Otherwise why would he ask this question? I understand. My love was greedy then. Desperate. Terrified. Generous out of a need for reciprocity. I had just been left by my partner and I lost most of our mutual friends in the process. My mother was at a peak of meanness, and I felt I had nowhere to go, be, or get love. He and I had dinners, spent time, I confided in him—he protected me. He remained loyal when everyone else chose my ex and her cute new lover. He loved me. I don't know what he felt in his heart, but his outward gestures were the best love I had then. </p>
<p><img src="//d10j3mvrs1suex.cloudfront.net/u/175112/ad5d3d84bec6c1e8fccaf950e3942ab8ab9df3df/original/reply-1-cu.png/!!/b:W10=.png" class="size_l justify_center border_" /></p>
<p> </p>
<p>I have decided that I will answer his one line question with a one word answer. "Yes." </p>
<p>Of course I loved him then, even if my love was desperate and needy. I loved him deeply. I knew I was in love with him when I gave him the key to my first apartment. He thought that was strange. I knew then, I wanted him to be on the inside. </p>
<p>So, I will reply "Yes." That is the truth. There is no need for further explanation for something so elemental as a question of love. The answer is either yes or no. We can talk about what my love looked and felt like for him, if he needs to, but what I hope is that he does not want to look towards the past. I hope he asks me if I can love him now, today. That answer will also be, "Yes."</p>
<p> </p>
<p> </p>
<p> </p>
<p>This piece was performed at the Underground Exchange, Jan 12, 2019 and is included on the <a contents="LOVE COURAGE YES" data-link-label="MUSIC" data-link-type="page" href="/music">LOVE COURAGE YES</a> album.</p>
<p>© 2019 Licity Collins all rights reserved. Please ask permission to reprint. <br>Video still by Steve Newkirk</p>
<p><a contents="" data-link-label="MUSIC" data-link-type="page" href="/music"><img src="//d10j3mvrs1suex.cloudfront.net/u/175112/928d44c53f4c9c179b2f050759ca32c2e224ece0/original/lcy-front-final.jpg/!!/undefined/b:W1sic2l6ZSIsIm1lZGl1bSJdXQ==.jpg" class="size_m justify_left border_" /></a></p>
Licity Collins — Multidimensional Genre-Busting Artist
tag:licitycollins.com,2005:Post/5745566
2019-05-07T01:06:41-07:00
2020-10-10T12:51:19-07:00
The Regrets
<p>"There are certain conversations that only come up when you are naked with someone."</p>
<p>2 min read / 3 min video</p>
<p><strong>The Regrets </strong>(Chapbook Version)<br>Saturday January 6, 2018 Ojai, CA Thomas Fire at 281,893 acres burned 92% containment<br>Now Playing: Gabrielle Fauré<em>, Requiem</em> on KUSC the classical radio station </p>
<p>I spent new years eve at a party at the house which was my first evacuation location during the fire. It seemed just right to go back there after we all survived the fire. They were under closer and closer threat for almost two weeks, the evacuation orders and the fire creeping closer and closer to their community on the hill waiting out another terrifying weekend of strong winds. But then, it stopped. All evacuation orders everywhere lifted, the fire was 85% contained and focus was on recovery and restart. I asked my host if things were back to normal and he said, “Normal if you live in a bakery!” He had begun prepping for his annual New Year’s bash. </p>
<p>Besides my hosts, I didn’t know anyone at the party. I’m not really a party person, and I can’t remember the last time I went to an event on New Year’s Eve. I’m usually at home with a movie, take out food, and a hot bath. But I decided I needed a change, my whole life needs a change, and New Year’s is that artificial opportunity to start things off in a new way. </p>
<p>I was enjoying a chat with a professor of feminist theory until she promptly bailed when she interpreted something I said as disagreeing with her. Then I talked with a jewelry designer who lived in Portland at almost the same time I did. She lived in an ashram which I had no idea was even there. Then later I talked with, no, I listened to, a physicist who after spending quite some time explaining an experiment in particle physics told me that we were going to be at war with North Korea within a year. </p>
<p>At around 11pm I went down into the bedroom where all the coats were and just sat in a chair for a while. My social anxiety hasn’t been as high as it was a few years ago, when I had to text a friend three or four times just to give me the courage to walk to a party around the corner, but sometimes in the moment if I think about how overwhelming a situation could feel, then it is. I emerged from hiding with about 45 minutes until the end of 2017. </p>
<p>When the clock struck midnight I was in another awkward conversation with a woman who had just started telling me about her friend who had breast cancer. “Breast Cancer” had just come out of her mouth and was hanging in the air when the bulk of people at the party started counting down. It did not feel like the most auspicious start to the new year. </p>
<p>There was dancing. I didn’t dance. I wish I had. It really bothered me that I didn’t. I got in my car to leave (to beat the drunken traffic home) really kicking myself about that. So I started the new year with a feeling of regret. That was an uncomfortable (and rather unfamiliar) feeling, so I decided that I would not have that feeling again for the rest of the year. I will dance whenever the literal or metaphoric opportunity arises. </p>
<p>It was a good reminder of a lesson I learned about regret from someone who crossed my path for a short time in Portland, who I always want to write about but never have.</p>
<p style="text-align: center;"> </p>
<p style="text-align: center;"><a contents="" data-link-label="" data-link-type="url" href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V4ES16RJnps&feature=youtu.be" target="_blank"><img src="//d10j3mvrs1suex.cloudfront.net/u/175112/6566e84e0fc7a102b688a3f6a97926c83dc5c64d/original/lcy-reading-1-play-button.png/!!/undefined/b:W1sic2l6ZSIsImxhcmdlIl1d.png" class="size_l justify_center border_" /></a></p>
<p> </p>
<p>Josh was spry like a teenager still growing. Though his name was Josh, he went by the moniker “Cherry Sprout,” which felt somehow equally fitting and absolutely misplaced. He wasn’t a pixie in any way. Josh and I met when he was working at the trendy used clothing store and I was buying a black mini-skirt with red lace trim. I’m sure his compliments on my purchase was just a part of his job, but we kind of fell in love right then. It was that feeling of meeting someone and instantly not wanting to let them go. We were both Pisces and he was a drummer. That was all we knew. We became friends as best we could and we had sex once or twice. </p>
<p><strong>There are certain conversations that only come up when you are naked with someone and one moment with Josh has never left me. </strong></p>
<p>Josh was a spry, fidgety person, with messy short brown hair, a wide smile, and spikey teeth. He had lots of tattoos, including these tiny red stars on his face. They had no dark outline like most tattoos. They looked like freckles until you were close enough to see their tiny five points. That was very much like him, you had to get really close to understand his delicate beauty which seemed so vulnerable, so unprotected, just like the tiny unlined stars on his face. </p>
<p>As he propped his bare body above me, I ran my fingers over a tattoo on the upper right side of his chest just below his shoulder. It was of the drummer “Animal” from The Muppets. I smiled, delighted. </p>
<p>Josh was embarrassed. He had mixed feelings. He thought the tattoo was maybe was silly or immature. These were the same fears he harbored about himself. He said he had mixed feelings about all his tattoos, since tattoos are forbidden by Jewish law. Something about it affecting where he could be buried. </p>
<p>Parts of the conversation are blurry, but it was what he said next that stayed with me and has tapped me on the shoulder every few years since. “But I figure,” he said, “when I die, I want to regret the things I did do, not the things I didn’t do.”</p>
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<p><em>A segment of this piece was performed at the Underground Exchange, Jan 12, 2019 and is included on the <a contents="LOVE COURAGE YES " data-link-label="MUSIC" data-link-type="page" href="/music">LOVE COURAGE YES </a>album. Watch now:</em></p>
<p><iframe class="justify_inline" data-video-type="youtube" data-video-id="V4ES16RJnps" data-video-thumb-url="https://img.youtube.com/vi/V4ES16RJnps/mqdefault.jpg" type="text/html" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/V4ES16RJnps?rel=0&wmode=transparent&enablejsapi=1" frameborder="0" height="180" width="320" allowfullscreen="true"></iframe></p>
<p> </p>
<p>© 2019 Licity Collins all rights reserved. Please ask permission to reprint. <br>Video still by Bernie Larsen</p>
<p><a contents="" data-link-label="MUSIC" data-link-type="page" href="/music"><img src="//d10j3mvrs1suex.cloudfront.net/u/175112/928d44c53f4c9c179b2f050759ca32c2e224ece0/original/lcy-front-final.jpg/!!/undefined/b:W1sic2l6ZSIsIm1lZGl1bSJdXQ==.jpg" class="size_m justify_left border_" /></a></p>
Licity Collins — Multidimensional Genre-Busting Artist
tag:licitycollins.com,2005:Post/5745567
2019-05-06T14:30:00-07:00
2020-10-10T12:52:31-07:00
The Hotel Room
<p>"I unpacked my sweet little funeral dress..."</p>
<p>3 min read / 4 min video</p>
<p><strong>The Hotel Room </strong>(Live Version)<br>Saturday February 10, 2018 Washington, DC 9:50 pm<br>Now Playing: Edwin McCain “I’ll Be” from the album <em>Misguided Roses, </em>on the hotel lobby radio 97.1 WASH FM</p>
<p><br>The hotel is a total dive. I mean Total. Dive. </p>
<p>I had some idea it would be old, and questionable, but this is up there with one of the shadiest hotels I’ve stayed in, and I’ve stayed in a lot. </p>
<p>It’s a basement room—which was an upgrade from the room I found I was assigned when I arrived. Thank goodness, because the tiny fourth floor room with the bathroom nearly attached to the bed really struck me more as a cell rather than a room. This “upgraded” room feels like a hole in the ground. Two of the walls are covered with dark brown wood paneling. The low ceiling hovers ominously overhead, duly matching the bars outside the single window, which opens to a view of a small corridor and a tall concrete wall. There’s not a hint of sky. </p>
<p>I feel like a mole. In this corridor outside the window, which I guess is not really a corridor but a garbage dumping area, is an overflowing green garbage bin. It’s pressed up against the window, its lid unable to shut completely due to a plastic bag of garbage bulging out of it. There’s a chunky brown stain dripping down the window glass which looks like someone tried to throw a slice of pizza into the garbage bin but hit the window instead. The bathroom is a spacious 2 feet from the foot of the bed, and to get to it I can tiptoe across the dirty tan carpet which has probably been here for thirty years. There’s no soap so I am using the complimentary shampoo to wash my hands, but it does have a bathroom sink, which is more than I can say for the space I live in most days. I miss having a sink at home, so that’s kind of a treat. </p>
<p><img src="//d10j3mvrs1suex.cloudfront.net/u/175112/c1107fad49c8d43fb8a183971493dfd132bfec92/original/lcy-hotel-room-playbutton.png/!!/undefined/b:W1sic2l6ZSIsImxhcmdlIl1d.png" class="size_l justify_center border_" /></p>
<p>This is what people mean when they say “You get what you pay for.” I am grateful for the Expedia deal, which I reminded myself was paying for my emotional comfort, not necessarily my physical comfort. I’m not sure if that’s working either, something about this room makes me feel like a failure. I’m not sure I can handle my mother’s funeral with this as my home base. </p>
<p>But I am tired, and the bed is soft. I unpacked my sweet little funeral dress and hung it on the dowel propped in an indentation in one side of the room. It is only wrinkled a bit, and they do have an iron and mini-ironing board, which was something I really hoped for when I was planning this. I will adapt. This is how it is happening. Yes. </p>
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<p> </p>
<p>This piece was performed at the Underground Exchange on January 12, 2019 and at An Evening of Art and Music with Janice Chan on March 24, 2018. It is included on the <a contents="LOVE COURAGE YES" data-link-label="MUSIC" data-link-type="page" href="/music">LOVE COURAGE YES</a> album. Watch Now:</p>
<p><iframe class="justify_inline" data-video-type="youtube" data-video-id="AP-wRTIQRDI" data-video-thumb-url="https://img.youtube.com/vi/AP-wRTIQRDI/mqdefault.jpg" type="text/html" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/AP-wRTIQRDI?rel=0&wmode=transparent&enablejsapi=1" frameborder="0" height="180" width="320" allowfullscreen="true"></iframe></p>
<p> </p>
<p>© 2019 Licity Collins all rights reserved. Please ask permission to reprint. </p>
<p>Video still by Bernie Larsen</p>
<p><a contents="" data-link-label="MUSIC" data-link-type="page" href="/music"><img src="//d10j3mvrs1suex.cloudfront.net/u/175112/928d44c53f4c9c179b2f050759ca32c2e224ece0/original/lcy-front-final.jpg/!!/undefined/b:W1sic2l6ZSIsIm1lZGl1bSJdXQ==.jpg" class="size_m justify_left border_" /></a></p>
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Licity Collins — Multidimensional Genre-Busting Artist
tag:licitycollins.com,2005:Post/5746295
2017-12-05T14:25:00-08:00
2022-01-02T11:43:57-08:00
The Evacuation
<p><img src="//d10j3mvrs1suex.cloudfront.net/u/175112/3e97536e8a85c14585046bd801632881ff79b06a/original/ring-of-thomas-fire-map.jpg/!!/b:W10=.jpg" class="size_l justify_center border_" /></p>
<p>"Clearly, I am ready for doomsday."</p>
<p><span class="font_small">8 min read</span></p>
<p><strong>The Evacuation </strong>(Chapbook Version)<br>Tuesday December 5, 2017 Savoy Café, Santa Barbara, CA, Thomas Fire day one 45,000 acres burned 0% containment <br>Now Playing: Miles Davis (unknown track—overhead at the cafe) </p>
<p>2:05 pm </p>
<p>Where do I begin? </p>
<p>I am sitting in a café in Santa Barbara because this morning me and my housemates, most of the people on my street, and a good portion of the entire town of Ojai evacuated due to intense, fast-moving wildfires that began last night. They are spreading quickly due to the environmental conditions: We’ve been in a drought for 4 years. The rain that came in mid-November was just a sprinkling and hasn’t returned. There’s been no water in the air or on the ground. And then, out of season, the notorious Santa Ana winds came to town last night in full-throttle. </p>
<p>Now it was morning and all signals (wi-fi and cellular) were intermittent or down. The power was on then off then on again, then off. I couldn’t reach anyone. There was no way to know what was going on—I couldn’t find out where the fire was, what anyone was doing, or what I should do. </p>
<p>I went into the main house to see if I could get any information and if the wi-fi could be re-set. My housemate was on the couch looking at pictures on her computer of her daughter and laughing over old Halloween costumes and how much she’d grown. She told me that schools had closed due to the fire. She was excited to have the day off from a job she’s been struggling with for four years. She encouraged me to chill out and kick back. It seemed like the fire drills like we used to do in middle school—you get out of class, talk to your friends. Then it’s over and we all go back inside. I decided to change my guitar strings. That was on my list for the week anyway. I also needed to try to find a way to get through to my studio. We were tentatively scheduled to start re-mixing the songs for the album today. </p>
<p>But then the mood changed. Suddenly the light inside my tiny-space darkened eerily as if the sun was setting at 10 am. I went outside looked up and the sun was covered in a huge cloud of red and grey smoke. I pulled my housemates outside to look. She told me the neighbors had started leaving. The only information we really had was the sky and what everyone else was doing on our street. My housemate mused, “Yeah, if I had to evacuate, I don’t think I would take very much…” I interrupted. “I don’t think this is a hypothetical situation anymore. I think we might need to, you know—leave.” </p>
<p>Out of nowhere one of the neighbors I hadn’t met yet stormed up our driveway. She wore black metallic hinged braces on both her legs and a look in her eye that was non-negotiable. “You have to get out.” She commanded. I tried to introduce myself. She didn’t care. I don’t blame her. “I was in the army.” She asserted, “It’s my job to see that everyone is safe and only then I will leave. That’s my job. That’s my job. You, you have to get out. Get out now.” </p>
<p>Then we all started packing for real. </p>
<p>I suppose I overdid it. I didn’t know if I was going to spend hours upon hours in traffic, I didn’t know how far I was driving—Santa Barbara? Berkeley? Portland? Denver? Ottawa, Canada? My mind ran through the list of people who might be willing take me in. If roads continued to close, I could end up stranded on the side of a freeway which out here can mean a curly two-lane snake surrounded by forest and hills. The idea that I would “evacuate” to a café in a posh city 50 minutes away, didn’t exactly fit with the pictures that were popping up in my head. News reports of Hurricane Katrina and the movies The Day After and 28 Days Later were my reference points. </p>
<p>So I did me. I packed up 3 gallons of water in one of my 5 gallon containers with its pump and a portable sawdust toilet (bucket, pine shavings, toilet paper). I threw together a bag of any food I thought would survive the trip—canned beans, tuna, my half-filled jar of homemade granola, almonds, chips, sauerkraut (it’s a probiotic), and a thing of frozen ahi that I knew I could eat raw if I needed to. The real “prepper” in me showed when I grabbed a bag of potatoes and thought, If I can’t eat these, maybe I can trade them. Clearly I am ready for doomsday. </p>
<p>Shaking, I took a last walk through my sweet little home, to say goodbye—maybe forever. I stopped abruptly as I passed two drawings I had hung on the wall a week ago. They are the two drawings I am most proud of making. One took weeks, the other twenty minutes. They remind me every day of why I live for the unpredictable and unfathomable process of making art. I burst in to tears. I kissed the mouth of the portrait like I was saying goodbye to a lover, but that was not enough. They had to come with me. There are a few things in the world that cannot be replaced and whose memory is not sufficient. I took those three things: my guitar, the two drawings, and the afghan my great aunt Sarah knitted me. It is one of the handful of items from my childhood that I still take comfort in. I wrap up in it every night (ah, the endurance of polyester yarn). I don’t remember life without it. I put those things in the car among my survival supplies, hugged my housemates, and we all left. </p>
<p><img src="//d10j3mvrs1suex.cloudfront.net/u/175112/8cb44c4e2e9623a551046739e113273d0029df32/original/leaving-town-ojai-fire.jpg/!!/b:W10=.jpg" class="size_l justify_center border_" />The air was smoky and heavy. The sky was red. I sat in traffic for a few miles getting from my neighborhood to the main streets out, which gave me the chance to snap a few shots of the flames in the hills behind houses. “Those are flames!” I said out loud as if someone were sharing this escape with me, but my passenger seat was only occupied by the partially filled five-gallon jug of water. I had never seen flames coming towards houses. I guess other people had because they were unfazed. Two people were outside chatting. One woman was clearing her yard of dog poop. I kept trying to reach another close friend in town but signals were not connecting. I headed towards the main highway which my housemate and I had agreed was our best bet out. I heard later that she got through, but by the time I got there the fire had jumped the road they and were closing it off. I asked a volunteer worker what I should do. His answer: “Get out.” </p>
<p>I turned the car around. There are only a few ways out of Ojai, and most of them were now closed. I crossed my fingers and ducked down a side road taking the back way around past the lake to get to the road out. The lake looked rusty and murky. I hadn’t seen it in a while so at first I thought that it was so dry from the years of drought that it finally had turned to mud. Then I realized the lake was merely reflecting. That was the color of the sky. </p>
<p>It was hard to drive away. A part of me felt like I should stay. I should experience it. I should witness the flames. I should stand by our home. I should be as tough as the people I knew would never leave. Tim, Vic, Lee, they would hunker down. They would not see this as a big deal. I managed to get through to Vic, my old neighbor, and told him I was evacuating, his response was “swing on by if you want.” The close friend I had been trying to reach is Tim’s wife. I wanted to see if they were evacuating but I knew it was a long shot. He is the type of person who has actually run into fires when he sees them. I just hoped he would help her go if and when she wanted to. </p>
<p>There was one other thing that spurred me to leave. A couple of months earlier, during a Rolfing session, I had been lying on a heating pad that was on top of the practitioner’s table. It started off warm, but had steadily gotten hotter, particularly under my hip bone. I didn’t say anything. I grew more and more uncomfortable, then it hurt. I started to think I might be getting burned in that spot on my hip. Still I said nothing. I just lay there, as my hip start to sting, reminding myself that I have a high pain tolerance, not wanting to interrupt the session, or speak up. When I got home I had burns—on both hips, because I did the same thing when the practitioner asked me to roll over so he could work on my other side. This wasn’t the first time I had endured discomfort to the degree of physical harm—and for what? To not inconvenience someone else? To prove my own strength? To whom? Today I made the decision not to be burned again. </p>
<p>And so I arrived here in Santa Barbara. </p>
<p>I wandered around downtown in a daze. </p>
<p>I don’t look good. <br>A guy wearing black dress pants and black button down shirt who looked like a spokesmodel with a thick (maybe fake) European accent was kind enough to point that out. He was hustling product outside of a beauty shop on State Street Why are beauty shop people always wearing all black? He offered me a moisturizer for my face that was made with merlot. When I replied “I don’t drink, not even on my face,” he said, “Well, what about something for your eyes?” He was quite unsubtly referring to the dark circles under my eyes that have haunted me my whole life but lately seem to grow deeper and darker and more disturbing by the day—Thanks for noticing…dude. Then he pulled me inside the store and tried to sell me “natural Botox” for about 20 minutes while putting stinging gel under one of my eyes, and pointing in the mirror saying “See?” He asked me to repeat back to him the instructions he was drilling into me about how to use the product. I failed his test. </p>
<p>My thoughts were a unintelligible patchwork of his words and endless questions about my situation. I looked out the window to the street realizing where I was and why. Then he informed me I could buy the gel for half price for $100. After explaining that I don’t have $100 and his responding that all Americans have $100, I took his card. I do hate those dark circles under my eyes. I can’t remember if I told him I was evacuated from the fire or not. </p>
<p>I did tell every other person I talked to, “I am evacuated from Ojai—because of the fire.” It kept spilling out of my mouth. I went from eating spot to eating spot looking for a decent hamburger and telling people I was evacuated. Evacuated. I had to get my mind around a word I had never used to describe myself. </p>
<p>A couple I recognize from Ojai came into the café while I was in the restroom. They have dazed looks on their faces and their eyes have a wide glassy focus like there is a movie playing in front of them. It’s that look you get when you are imagining the worst. They had a hard time picking through the thoughts to make sentences. She apologized for looking like a mess. He said his house is just a few blocks away from a school that is rumored to be burning. He won’t know if that rumor is true or if his house is burned until accurate information starts to trickle out of the fire zone. So they wait. They are sitting two tables away from me—waiting. All we can do is wait.</p>
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<p>© 2017 Licity Collins all rights reserved. Please ask permission to reprint.</p>
Licity Collins — Multidimensional Genre-Busting Artist
tag:licitycollins.com,2005:Post/5745579
2017-11-16T14:30:00-08:00
2022-01-02T11:43:14-08:00
The Radio Station
<p><img src="//d10j3mvrs1suex.cloudfront.net/u/175112/ee1c386885c54ab2c8044e32ac4491b6caa02d0e/original/1003-the-sound.jpg/!!/b:W10=.jpg" class="size_l justify_center border_" /></p>
<p>"One day my life would look like what I dreamed it should look like—not this."</p>
<p><span class="font_small">9 min read</span></p>
<p><strong>The Radio Station </strong>(Chapbook Version)<br>Thursday November 16, 2017, Ojai, CA <br>Now Playing: Radio Silence, in the air </p>
<p>My favorite LA radio station went off the air at 1pm today. </p>
<p>At 9 pm I began writing this diary. </p>
<p>There are four radio stations I listen to in my car: KUSC, the Los Angeles classical station (the one station I can get on my home system), Santa Barbara’s 99.9 KTYD “quality rock,” and LA’s KLOS a harder-rock station which I only listen to when my favorite station, 100.3 “The Sound: Southern California's Classic Rock" is playing commercials. I would listen to “The Sound” exclusively but since I moved to Ojai from LA I only get spotty reception, so I had to adapt and fill in the gaps. One of the reasons I look forward to driving to Ventura every couple of weeks for groceries is that half-way there the reception clears up and the station comes in perfectly. </p>
<p>Sometimes at home I listen to it through the dodgy reception as songs morph in and out through the static because I love the music that much. I can name any song within the first couple of notes. Good solid, excellent rock and roll. Tom Petty, Led Zeppelin, Pink Floyd, Blue Oyster Cult, Bad Company, Lynyrd Skynyrd, Steppenwolf, Rush, The Rolling Stones, CCR, Kansas, Styx, Eagles, Queen, Elton John, Aerosmith, Fleetwood Mac, Jethro Tull,—the bands that gave me hope through the hardest years of my life, the sounds that continue to remind me that everything is possible. </p>
<p>Two days ago I happened to be in the car for about five minutes and through the static heard a DJ make an announcement that the station was going off the air for good—and soon. He didn’t say why, although their recent broadcasts of NFL games on the weekends had made me suspect they were having financial trouble. Since hearing the sad news, I have been listening as often possible. </p>
<p>Now Playing: Bruce Springsteen “Thunder Road” from the album: Born to Run on 100.3 “The Sound” for the last time </p>
<p>Today was their last day on air. This morning at 10am all the DJs gathered to play one last song of their choosing. They each chose something that summed up their time at the station, or was a song they always wanted to play, or that gave them a sense of hope for the future, “Thunder Road” by Bruce Springsteen was the song that hit me hard. It started my tears and they never seemed to end. I sat in the window seat of the 9x19 ft. structure I now call home, gazing into the first warm hazy rainy day of the season and cried and cried. </p>
<p>I hadn’t realized that something inside me desperately needed space to grieve. </p>
<p>The downsizing to move to this new “tiny-home” space three months ago was profound. It was harder than any move I remember. I thought I was a pretty expert mover after DC to Providence, Providence to Chicago, Chicago to Portland, Portland to LA and LA to Ojai, not to mention the moves to and from multiple locations in two of those cities. </p>
<p>This move required much more mental and emotional attention. I had been living in a two bedroom cottage for five years, but the things I was keeping hadn’t been accumulated exclusively in that time. A lot of the bulk were things I had been holding onto for much longer, those “I’ll use them one day” things. But now I could only take what I could fit in this specific 9x19 ft. space. I couldn’t afford to rent a storage unit, so I also took the small shed that had been in the back of my cottage. That could hold a few bins of memories, a couple of boxes of childhood things, the vacuum, tool box, and seasonal appliances like the fan and the space heater, plus three boxes of kitchen goods that didn’t make sense to get rid of. I had decided to pare down to three bowls, four plates, one mug, two each of knives, spoons, forks. I wasn’t going to have a sink, so I wanted to make doing dishes as minimal as possible. </p>
<p>Now Playing: Creedence Clearwater Revival “Someday Never Comes” from the album: Mardi Gras on my ipod </p>
<p>So the practical questions were solvable, but it was the items that required self-examination that made the move feel so huge. The reflection in the “What are you keeping this for?” mirror, became the most revealing when I went to deal with a set of flannel sheets I had bought on sale (of course) when I moved to Portland with my then boyfriend. They were king-size and so we never used them on our full size futon, but they were a great deal, with warm yet cheery thin stripes of purple, gold, maroon, blue, and green. I figured we’d use them one day. We never did. I took them with me when we broke up and I moved to the next place, then the next, then the next. I can count on one hand the times I’d actually slept in them, but the “one day” idea kept them around. </p>
<p>One day I would have a king size bed? (which I never wanted) One day I’d fall in love with someone who had a king size bed? (never wanted that either) No— what “one day” meant was that one day I would be happy. One day my life would look like what I dreamed it should look like—not this. Those sheets were less about wanting the future and more about being dissatisfied with my present. </p>
<p>I asked myself how long I’ve been toting those sheets from town to town, home to home in the hopes that one day my life would be different. It had been twenty years. For twenty yeas was I subconsciously hating my life through the material guise of saving stuff for “someday?” As Creedence Clearwater Revival says, “Someday never comes.” That’s when I realized that the sheets and everything else I was keeping for “someday,” had to go. </p>
<p>So now I am here, with much less stuff. I sat crying listening to the last hours of 100.3 “The Sound” and grieving perhaps not just the station, not just the stuff, but the idea of “one day.” </p>
<p>I call this place my “tiny-home” because its’ the easiest way to explain it to people. It’s a 9x19 stand-alone room, which has a front and back door, windows and a skylight. It’s elevated from the ground and the front door has three steps leading up to it and a little landing. It is just like the tiny houses that are all the rage, except the ceiling is flat and not as high so there’s not room for a loft like most of them have. Plus I rent it, and so I can’t claim the total self-sufficiency that comes with owning an actual tiny house and living off-grid. </p>
<p>It has electricity, which is a major plus. It was listed as a “studio” but there’s no toilet or shower, which most studio apartments do have. Most tiny houses have a kitchen sink and stove, I don’t. There is a main house nearby where I can use those things, but I prefer to be as self-sufficient as possible, so I have been constructing alternatives to those amenities myself. </p>
<p>I borrowed a small fridge and a two-burner hotplate. I rigged up two five-gallon containers with a hand pump to dispense drinking water. And of course, the essential old-school-turned-new-school fixture—a sawdust toilet, which is basically a series of buckets and a side basket of pine shavings used to cover the deposited goods. I’m working on a system for doing dishes. The little girl in me who imagined cars with independently moving wheels and tried to make her own chewing gum loves this stuff. </p>
<p>I feel like time is slipping through my fingers. Waiting for my first album to come out is excruciating. I want so much to share the songs and sound I have created, and to have people hear this labor of love, that sounds cliché—It’s not labor, it’s just love. It is the best thing I have ever done with my time, energy, mind or body. </p>
<p>It looked like the final stage of the album process was about to be completed. But it took a serious dive. Things got complicated, people got stuck, more money is going to have to be spent, the timeline got tanked and now no release date is in sight. I had planned to be mailing it this week to the people who donated to the small crowdfunding campaigns over the last two years but instead I am fighting with engineers and praying that the fourth mastering engineer can hear what I hear. Someone has to unlock the sound I feel in my bones. It’s odd to me how some of the people we sent it to can’t hear the sound at all. I have a feeling this one can. She sent me two sample tracks yesterday but I haven’t had the courage to listen to them yet. With the last three mastering engineers I ran to the speakers to hear the latest as soon as I can. Now I am tired, weary, and afraid. </p>
<p>Now Playing: The Beatles “The End” from the album: Abbey Road on the car radio </p>
<p>I managed to schedule my day so I was in the car and got reception when the “The Sound” finally went off the air. They closed with side 2 of the Beatles’ Abbey Road on vinyl. I wept uncontrollably driving the 101 freeway as I sang along with one of the most original records in all of rock and roll. </p>
<p>I got off the freeway drove down Main street, so I could grab the 33 towards home. The tears streamed down my contorted face. I think one pedestrian crossing Main street was genuinely concerned as she spied me through the windshield. Out of the corner of my eye I could see her slow down, her eyes fixed in my direction, maybe wondering if she should do something to help while her friends pulled her along toward whatever activity they had planned for the moment. </p>
<p>I pulled over into an alley. </p>
<p>The last DJ counted down from 10 to 1 and The Sound was gone. </p>
<p>Death seems to be in the air. As I was driving I got a text from someone I no longer speak to (by choice) that someone I grew up with died. That was the second text like that I’ve gotten this month. A different person I no longer speak to (by choice) popped up to tell me the news that a distant but dear college friend died last month as well. I had a huge cry in my car about that too. And I burst into tears in my car a few weeks earlier when I turned on the radio and heard that Tom Petty was also lost. </p>
<p>Now Playing: Tom Petty “Refugee” from the album: Damn the Torpedoes in my memory of the cassette in my teenage car </p>
<p>It feels so odd that neither of them will ever hear the record, my college friend and Tom Petty. She supported my foray into music by connecting me with someone who knows the ins and outs of folk festivals. Tom Petty is one of the main reasons I make music, and even remain alive. He seems so essential to my existence, I don’t really know how to let him go. I could not have made it through being 17 (and through some days of the past couple of years) without his music. I survived adolescence in part due to the daily sanctuary of the used car my sisters and I shared and the drive through the park to school with Damn the Torpedoes. </p>
<p>That album let me know that what seemed like an endless period of torment would one day somehow actually end. Hiding the treasures of my heart from those who would destroy them, questioning if I were truly invisible, or merely a creature to be punished, feeling like I was starving, vagrant, unwanted, outcast, and alone—he let me know that this did not have to continue forever. “You don’t have to live like a refugee.” Those were his words. They became my prayer. </p>
<p>I harbor no illusions that Tom Petty was going to become a fan of mine, but I did want to somehow get my album to him as a way of saying “Thank you.” I want so much to be able to thank him and so many others. For the rest of my life, every song I sing will be trying to do that. </p>
<p>All this death fits with the air outside the big window here. It feels so very autumnal—leaves falling down to the (now wet) ground and the crisp clean air, cleared of the summer thickness. It is heavy with the scent of death but light with the impetus to move forward soon, but not yet. It’s the kind of feeling you only get at the end of October and the start of November. </p>
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<p>© 2017 Licity Collins all rights reserved. Please ask permission to reprint.</p>
Licity Collins — Multidimensional Genre-Busting Artist