AUSTRIA
Ach, every year I promise myself the idea of 3 weeks off in August, and every year it finds a way to not quite work itself out. That said, I have returned to Berlin with a renewed sense of vigour. I had a period of feeling over awed by the future, or rather, how vast and open the Journeys project remains. Some questions arose. Do I have the energy to fulfil what I have set out to do? Am I chasing to many creative endeavours? Have I lost sight of the project? Can I accept the feeling of fear that I get every time before I set out once again into this vast world?
However, in Austria I reconnected with the space that I experienced in between losing the EMI deal, and commencing Journeys.
There is something wonderful about allowing yourself simply not to seek the answers to your questions. Must I always need to know?
I have long craved some time in the mountains, and the feeling is behind my song Blue Sky:
In reaching them, I let myself go, and for the first time in some time, traveled far away from the project – and let it settle far away from my conscious thoughts. I realised that while I am in one part in love with the project – and the ways I find it freeing and liberating – it equally comes with its own burdens. At times I feel unready for it, or just not tough enough to meet its demands. I spend some time in the UK before Austria – the fist time in over a year that I had been home and seen my old friends – and I found myself at times a little envious of how settled so many of my friends have become. Living in the same place brings a sense of ritual – of seeing change – rather than just difference….which is what you see when you travel.
But then life again turned its hand, as it always does – when you allow it to. I found a friend in the steepness of the mountains, and every day found myself called to run up them. I don’t know why, but it was inexpressibly relaxing. Each day the sentence returned to me – when in doubt – “just climb the mountain”
The period of uncertainty has been a necessary friend, just as its over coming has been unexpected. For years I didn’t holiday, or take a proper break. It was the typical musician / free lancer´s paranoia – that work will come in, and you have to be permanently available to it. Nonsense. We need space. Our spirits need rest. I make a toast to laziness and all that is slovenly. Even this little guy:
Anyway, for now, I have returned, and again the future feels anew. Or at least I am ready for it. Those little tinkerings we make in the silence are some of the most important steps we make. The act of not doing precedes most the wonderful enterprises. It’s about the allowing the vision to form itself, rather than always trying to force it. The next steps are upon me. I have the sense the journey will shortly continue….
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