True Things are True

The first song on Everything’s True by Jessica Wolfbird

In 2014, I sat down to purge some big feelings using a reliable approach - press record and improvise piano + words.

Originally, this opening track of Everything’s True was 30 minutes long. I think only a few people - or maybe just one - have heard that version.

The first vision for this album was a 2 song EP called Everything’s True, pt. 1 (because I thought it sounded funny - but also because between the 2 ‘long songs’ it used to span 60 minutes - Traveling Walls used to also be about 30 minutes - now the two together total around 24 minutes)

For the purpose of this moment in time, and my first attempt at a song+essay pairing, I’ll stick with the 11 1/2 minute version of the song. Here we go…

~

“True Things are True

By Jessica Wolfbird”

(with notes :)

“Every joy sits on a spectrum

Every pain connects at the bottom

In the middle is the point”

These lyrics come from the juxtaposition of one of the worst times of my life, with one of the highest flying…falling in love only a year after losing everything and barely holding it together. I was studying a lot about heart healing at the time, wanting to be more able to live in my heart and be/feel alive, but everything felt like a risk…these words poured out, reminding me that the greater the joy, the greater potential for pain (loss of joy). Despite wanting to grow, and accept highs and lows, I was also wanting to learn to sit still, in the middles of feelings, and observe it all.

“Sitting in the middle

Looking at each joy and pain

Sitting in the middle

Not floating far away“

In my life, I’ve often escaped into fantasy, dreams, visions, ideas, plans…this was the beginning of learning to really sit with myself in a big way.

“Not looking to feel safe

Not hiding in the center but

Experiencing pain

Born out of the joy you long for”

I’m incredibly hard on myself, and wanted to be sure that this new obsession with finding the center wasn’t just a new kind of escapism- like, instead of escaping to some outer reaches, brooding artistic pain or high-flying fantasy, what if I was newly obsessing over the perfect monotone middle? What if perfect meditation WAS the new escape…

I quickly dismissed this idea as WAY too hard on myself (are highs, lows, AND middles now scrutinizable?) For where I was at, learning to find the center was a way to find balance, and not about hiding at all. More of a way to be, to be able to admit potential pain in the joy, and moments of joy in the pain…to admit that everything’s true, I guess :)

“It’s true, this joy we long for”

And even the longing for joy is a kind of pain.

“And desire is in our being”

The desire, the wanting, feels like a curse sometimes…a long time ago, when I was getting some help for some painful circumstances I was in, there was a process I was taught about: Awareness, Acceptance, and Action…it became a joke with myself, how I liked to skip from awareness to action, skipping over acceptance.

Acceptance, of circumstances, of my own feelings, of anything, as it is, without wanting it to change or without morbidly reflecting on how - if it’s good and wanted - it’ll have to change someday, is truly one of the hardest things for me. Like right now, I’m fighting against a silly mundane circumstance in my house right now…instead of letting things be. And accepting them, as they are. And focusing on what I CAN change.

“Joy can’t exist alone

Accepting the full dimension

Accepting the truth of being

Not holding onto suffering

Not holding onto bliss

Picturing life

Picturing life like grains of sand

Through our hands

Through our toes

Up our nose”

Just a reminder that these lyrics were originally improvised as part of a 30 minute cathartic, therapeutic improv session, for myself :) (and I could have changed the nose part, but I grew to like its levity in this moment of the song)

“Floating floating

We can choose

We can pick it up again

If we can stand it

If we don’t mind losing it again.”

I wonder if this part is a bit vague…I’m talking about life, past and future lives maybe, or just different chapters of the same life, here.

Our love of joy, of connection, leading us to try again, or as I wrote in a song 8 years after this…during the pandemic and a lot of crushing disappointments that had piled up, I think it was early 2022 when I started an improv song in Michigan City, Indiana now called L/imitations, that starts with the line ‘Do you want to saddle up girl, or settle down dear’ (and the answer line to this being ‘There’s enough room to decide on your own time, in your own way’) …anyway, this idea, how do we pick up our crayons and start coloring again, after embarrassment, disappointment, loss, tragedy, heartache, and so on? Seriously how? Most of us shut down, I know I have, sometimes for years or decades at a time (on different topics and in different ways). This line is about admitting that even if we saddle up and try again, the potential for the NEXT loss is there, waiting, in the new start. Beginning the next ending, so to speak.

“Feeling this pulse in me

Feeling your energy“

This is about feeling someone else’s energy in your body - it’s not sexual, though it could be, but it was written about how we absorb and embody each other’s moods and emotions and wisdoms and beings, especially in intimate / romantic relationships.

“I am alive and free

From the lies that were taught to me

There is no destination

There is no safe escape

Right in this moment I feel safe

And then unsafe”

I am pretty sure this was about destination-seeking in romantic relationships. But perhaps also in ambition, in goals in general. Believing that there will be some sort of arrival, when the whole thing - this whole very world - is unstable like surfing or standing in the center (at best) of an old metal merry-go-round. Trying not to fly off, holding on, but sometimes standing upright, smiling, with no hands (before grabbing the bars again).

“In my mind, I am safe

And then unsafe”

Clarifying in the song that I’m talking about mental safety, like thinking “we’re good and stable” about a romantic connection, and then the next day, feeling that new connection wobble a little (or a lot), and not knowing how committed the person is to both you and the idea of the two of you together, working through the wobbles.

“In my mind where I harbor lies

That I tell myself to be okay”

Admitting that I sweet-talk myself, in order to function in this very-hard-world. Job, bills, student loans - and it’s not just my A-student nature and work ethic that caused me to hold together and sometimes lie to myself, it’s also that a few really intense and internal breakdowns in the past taught me that breaking down and falling apart is actually HARDER than just keeping it together…breakdowns feel easier and more real at the time they’re happening, or at least they did for me, like a letting go, but to come back from it (every dang time), I had to do twice as much work to recover any stability and inner organization to be able to function again. So a quick bypass, before I had the wisdom to authentically be okay (or try to be okay) was to lie to myself. About anything. Kids do it all the time, and it’s an incredible coping mechanism.

Side note: if anyone tries to tear apart your coping mechanisms that may be in place to cope with serious and severe trauma, it’s okay to politely excuse yourself. You don’t owe anyone realness; even therapists aren’t Gods and no one knows your whole story but you.

(*And, I am adding this bit of painful experiential wisdom on the re-read, in case someone needs it, as I would have - unfortunately, since even the best therapists have to charge a fee and can’t see you 24/7, even they will let you down…so it’s good to learn to hold your center in a way that makes sense / feels right to YOU - even if those helping you don’t understand or approve of everything that works for / makes sense to you (and they might not be your people - which is super painful but worthwhile information, as you create your life).

“And you feel things deeply

I feel the same”

Acknowledging that I found a partner who ran similarly deep, which was cause for much of our wobbling (which has stabilized over the years :)

“And we feel ourselves growing deeper

Deeper in the light.”

This feels a bit sacred to write sentences about - I’ll just say this…the next album, Trees for clouds, hopefully coming out next year, has a song called Becomefortable, and the first verse is about becoming and falling in love and passing ‘the point of no return’ and the spark between lovers and the image in my head when I sing it is like two humans coming together and …igniting? Becoming star-like? I don’t remember enough from science class to further this metaphor, but it’s a real thing to me…light, both alone and between people, not just in romantic love but also in friendship and family love too.

“And I will not judge the light that flows through me

I will not judge the words that come from my mouth

I will not judge each chord I witness

In my mind the second before it comes out”

I remember feeling like my self and my songs were too big and too weird and too easy to criticize, but also beautiful and everything I’d wanted to be. But I was incredibly scared to be, at the same time. So this part was like an affirmation. Which I guess took me 10 years to live up to (I tried to release these songs way back in 2016, but never felt like I was doing them justice - until my friend Elisabeth came on board with her brilliant orchestrations, and Hunter added his beautiful cello and Cynthea mixed it in a way that brought it all to life).

“I will not judge myself at all.

I will not judge myself at all.

I will not take this experience

And make it cheap for you”

This was an aspirational moment - it was like I could see myself dismissing this song before I was even done writing it. I knew it’d be thrilling to relearn it, how to play and sing it, but I was already scared (while writing) of how it’d be received and perceived, and saw my future imaginary self watering it down to 4 1/2 minutes, editing the life out of it, and my heart said NO!

For what it’s worth, I know some people love longer songs and unconventional lyrics, but at the time I had years worth of critics and shoulds in my head…and back then I was just beginning to live in my authentic truths instead of following unspoken rules. And the shock of how WEIRD I naturally was, was turning out to be VERY uncomfortable for me. Like I’d been preaching to some of my students, how they should be themselves …but the more I explored my own natural self, the more worried I became, that I wouldn’t fit in anywhere.

So my heart was fighting against invisible forces in these lines, stating that I wouldn’t take a miraculous experience like being given a 30 minute long song, and edit/hide/alter/cheapen it, just to be more accepted (ironically, despite this line, I did cut 19 minutes of the song…but I’m pretty sure it was because these 11 1/2 minutes were my favorite parts).

“I will not hide myself

My heart doesn’t want me to.”

I will say, my heart is fickle and I still return to hiding myself, all the time. But through challenges like 365 Songs in 365 Days and other ways of sharing online, I’ve learned how to lean into that exposed feeling…some people call it a ‘vulnerability hangover.’ I used to have them all the time…not so much anymore. I guess that’s why they say ‘keep going.’

“The world is full of people who

May need to hear what’s on my mind”

This is me trying to convince myself to be brave and authentic, even if it hurts.

“Just like I’m inspired by people who

Are not afraid to share their minds”

I always think of Oprah here,

And Maya Angelou.

“The world is full of broken people

The world is full of people who

Are trying to find their dream come true

They think they’re owed their dream come true.”

I used to toy with changing this to WE. We think we’re owed a dream come true.

I realized that while I want one; I don’t believe it is owed, and I don’t believe it’s coming. Not like a place to land anyway. Dreams come true sometimes, but also time keeps moving, the flow is terrible (terror-filled) at times…even our greatest joys keep moving. I’ve taken 100,000+ pictures this past decade I’m sure, and none of it is staying put; it keeps flowing and going and fading and some of it staying like core memories and who knows which things will or why…which feelings; which moments, it’s all so much. Kids grow up, people die, it’s a wild and horrifyingly painful (and joyful) ride. I’m almost crying right now, thinking how by not releasing these songs - even by writing this - I’ve tried to freeze time, to still my own heart, so scared to die and lose everything.

But the only things we keep are the things we give away…

“But the only dream

The only dream we’ll find

Is the one that says

That time is on our side”

Time is here for us. I believe in things I’m not ready to get into here, but Joanna Newsom writes about Time in both Divers and Have One on Me, so if delving into spiritual topics (like, time as a gift: so we can understand the horrors of our wanting natures, before letting everything go, in the end) is something you’re interested in, then I highly recommend anything by Joanna Newsom. Or Sufjan Stevens for that matter.

Also, this essay is quite long so perhaps that’s why I’m leaving extrapolating on the mysteries of Time for another time (one more short thought - all times are now, all time folds into Now, and Here…C.S. Lewis’ The Great Divorce describes this phenomenon better than anyone - it’s my favorite book, and tends to both my heart and my former agnosticism, closing some intellectual loopholes in my childlike faith).

“Every moment that we breathe or speak

We choose to be

We choose to breathe”

I was recovering from a death-wish at this time. It was an incredibly intense time in my life, and nothing fully felt worth living for, with the amount of pain I carried from the dozens of past mistakes (including being a victim of abuse, which at the time I blamed myself for, for choosing sick people and not being honest with those who could have helped).

“And I choose this life

And I choose to breathe

And I choose to be here

With the war that’s inside of me”

I felt my ambitious musically-educated self, screaming for a chance to make music and live this life…mixed with the part of me that felt so broken beyond repair and wanted to die.

“Fighting the past that hurt me

Fighting the lies that shaped me”

All the lies about how to do music and life the ‘right way,’ how to be ‘successful,’ instead of how to be a loving person and be yourself. Education hurt me as much as it helped.

“Knowing my breath can help

Knowing my voice has meaning“

ALL of our voices have meaning. All of us have wisdoms to share, personal experience that others could benefit from. If we’re able to take the risk. It’s a big risk, I won’t lie. It’s a heart risk. To share everything and still feel unheard or unwanted. I’m currently leaning towards “but it’s worth it.” But time will tell. Mostly it feels like a mission, a calling, a painful journey full of growing pains and birthing pains, taking the work and music and words I care most about, and letting them leave my world of control, to run free in the worlds of others.

“For others who want to be here

For people who need to be here

For people who can’t help but feel fear

Like me

Like you

Like me.”

This part, which ended up the end (in the 11 1/2 minute version) - is affirming that we ALL have fear, but if we can believe that our voices and perspectives are important and have meaning, then sharing our lives and thoughts can help others. What others? I don’t know. Well, in my case, I know a few. Like the friend who said he’d love it if I did a song+essay pairing. We’re not all wired the same. Some of the people we love most have different interests than us. It’s wild to live in a world where we all intersect in different ways on different themes and is not personal, it just IS.

Which is really hard. Much much harder than I thought it’d be (to come to terms with, to accept). And it’s equally beautiful, like a wildflower garden. Being your one glorious flower, in a field of color and texture and light.

I’ll end with a quote I found by John Lennon, soon after writing this song (I loved it so much, and it helped with this sharing-while-still-feeling-invisible feeling so much, that I doodled and painted it and hung it on my wall).

“When you do something noble and beautiful and nobody notices,
do not be sad.

For the sun every morning is a beautiful spectacle
and yet most of the world still sleeps.”

Thanks for reading my first attempt at writing about my own writing. I trust that if you made it this far, you found something in this for your own heart or mind or spirit. If so, I’m grateful for that. Please keep sharing, everyone.

Xoxo Jessica

https://jessicaintherainbow.com/