Howdy folx! I’m back after taking some time away from… well… everything except the necessities! Now that I’m back, I’ll be updating the site more regularly as well as filling out some sections (I’m looking at you, about me). For now, here’s this.

I wanted to share something I’m *finally* getting the wheels in motion for, and first will give a touch of background info (skip the background). I may edit this post once I make an About Me to get rid of redundancy. As you may well not know, I’m an amateur guitarist and poet. To me, this is why I’m here on earth. Not in the sense of I was born great at this stuff. I wasn’t. I’m still not a great guitarist, although I’ve only been at it for 3.5 years. I started writing poetry around that same time.

Before that, I spent years distancing myself from anything that might come too close to feeling my feelings. But don’t we all… Anyways, that’s a tiny glimpse of my path, more to come when I finish the about me (soon, I promise, in case anybody out there is biting their nails waiting for the next ecopsychologer post!). Anyways, a combination of psychedelics, substances, and growing up helped me realize I needed a way to cope with the extreme emotions I feel.

While I haven’t found much that helps when I’m feeling like the walls are caving in, I have found that if I can manage to give that feeling some expression, sometimes I feel just a little bit more able to exist, and that’s the goal of this life thing, right? And these feelings seem to just randomly show up cause trouble just about whenever.

Which is exactly what happened this morning! I opened my eyes at about 5:20 am, just feeling uneasy. I often get this sense of inadequacy – that I’m not good enough to do what I so badly want to do, which is exactly what I’ve been experiencing with my music. I want to start recording, but I’m not sure I’m good enough to make music people want to hear, which is entirely subjective and even if *I* don’t like it I have no way to know that everybody won’t like it, which is so statistically improbable anyways!

But (judgement time!) I feel like I don’t have a great singing voice, and I don’t have the guitar wizardry to create the kind of music I imagined myself playing when I started learning guitar, so I never try.

However this morning in my mental discomfort it occurred to me that my first recorded song doesn’t have to be my best, it doesn’t have to encapsulate my style, and it doesn’t have to be good. It just must be. So I decided to start working on poetry (for any poetry connoisseurs: I just mean words that sometimes rhyme) that I can read over guitar tracks.

I had a phrase/song name come to mind, which was the thought that spurred this whole thing: I’m Talking at You, Not to You

And here are the words that followed, written down half asleep and uploaded entirely unedited and for your entertainment. It was really hard to type this out without editing, but I’m sure if anything becomes of this y’all will be the first to read it!

I'm talking at you, not to you
When I look I see right through you
All that you've said, and that you thought
All that you hoped would never be caught
In the gaze of another
But really it's no bother
It's a relief, you see, for me to see
I'm not the only one this way
It's a human condition, a mortal affliction
Leaving you wishing life were a work of fiction
Under the covers, try to hide
But there's no escape from what's inside
You can run till you drop, doesn't mean it'll stop
Don't be scared of the monsters
Maybe ask what they want first

And now, dear reader, I am talking to you. Thank you for taking the time to see this piece of me. Be good to yourself!

With love,
Jack