Post by Dan the G-Man on Feb 15, 2010 23:07:42 GMT -5
Nothing to be frightened of.....
I know this is crazy because even I know this facebook page of mine has contained nothing but references to death and dying but there is one other thing I need to mention here because it explains a little something about where I have been and what I've been doing and why I haven't really been doing music much lately and why all of a sudden I feel like making music again.
And I know I don't really have to explain myself and I also think there is something a little unhealthy about writing about these things in a public forum but I do believe I owe all of you darklings and noirlings an explanation.
Without all of your love and interest I would never have had a career in music which as I have come to realise has been the greatest gift I could ever have been given in my life.
So thankyou and without further ado..........
As I have explained in these notes before, my mother was officially diagnosed with dementia in the early summer of 2007 but in my gut I knew that there was something wrong long before that.
Dementia is an extraordinarily cruel disease and although my poor mum was the solitary victim of its ruthless power, it felt like a nuclear bomb had gone off in our family home and none of us got out unscathed.
My dad got savagely burnt.My sisters too. And we are all still struggling with losing the one person who rooted us in the world. She was our foundation and our compass and life without her is diminished.
My desire to sing, to take risks, to make music shrivelled to nothing over the course of her illness. I was finding it hard to concentrate, to remember things, to get anything done in a day. I wasn't really aware of this at the time per se but looking back I realise now that I was a scrambled idiot.
On the 17th of April 2008 I flew back to Los Angeles having been to scotland to visit my parents.
Upon landing in LA on the car ride home I checked my telephone for messages. There was a text from Morag, a very close friend who I have known since my days in Edinburgh Youth Theatre when we were both just 14 years old.
The text simply read: David died today. Call me.
David was her wonderful,funny, smart and handsome husband. He was forty years old. He was the father of 5 children and stepdad of another 2.
Morag had gone to drop the kids off at school that morning. He was in bed with a cold.
When she returned to the house, she found him dead in their bed.
They had been married less than 9 months.
As you can imagine she was utterly and totally devastated.
I got on a plane a few days later and headed back to scotland.
I did what I could. I did dishes. I cooked.I did the laundry. I made tea.
We held hands and talked into the early hours of the morning until she was so tired she couldn't fight sleep anymore.
She wept.We both wept.
We listened to Malcolm Middleton and the Blue Nile and King Creosote endlessly.
It brings me comfort she would say. Play it again.
I bore witness to my childhood friend as she buried her husband, her soulmate and her protector.
I felt completely impotent.
There was nothing I could do or say.
I just tried to be there to listen and empathise, understand and absorb.
I returned to LA a few weeks later to the news that Pablo was diagnosed with cancer.
It broke my spirit and I felt terribly terribly afraid and completely heartbroken.
I couldn't make any sense of the world.
It was completely random and terrifying and I railed against the universe and felt contempt for all the petty nonsense I heard coming out of peoples mouths.
I got a call out of the blue from a friend who's husband was a writer and creator of a tv show:Wanna be a terminator?
I jumped at the opportunity before even thinking about it.
I could escape into fantasy! Into fiction!
I could escape death! I would become an indestructible MACHINE!
YES YES YES I WANT TO BE A TERMINATOR.
And so it was.
When I went into the audition I knew I was going to get the role.
Even when I was told that 300 other girls were up for the part, I knew deep down I was going to get it.
And I did.
It was a great escape from what was going on with my Mum, with Morag, with Pablo.
It was joyous and silly and fun and I loved every single second of it.
It made me feel alive and fearless.
It made me feel powerful and victorious.
I WAS INDESTRUCTIBLE.
LONG LIVE THE MACHINE.
And then Mum died.
And now Pablo has died.
And I am faced with the prospect of reality again.
And there is no time machine to fix the blips in the present.
There is only me in my life and what is left of my time on earth.
And suddenly I feel a yearning to write music again.
To sing.
To play.
To CONNECT.
I find I am gasping for CONTACT!!!!
So there it is.
That is what I wanted to say.
And I wanted to say it today because tomorrow my dearest Morag is flying over with her three children to come visit me.
It is a new beginning for her she says.
And because we have been on a journey together of sorts, it is a new beginning for me too.
The deaths of my mother, of David and of Pablo will always be inextricably linked for me.
All three deaths have profoundly touched me, moved me, shifted me into a different state.
I will never be the same.
I guess that is part of life.Part of what happens.
There is life and death.
These two things shape us and eventually destroy us.
And that is life.
As Alice Walker wrote: The way forward is with a broken heart.
To LIFE then!
And to living.
And bless the dead.
x
x
I know this is crazy because even I know this facebook page of mine has contained nothing but references to death and dying but there is one other thing I need to mention here because it explains a little something about where I have been and what I've been doing and why I haven't really been doing music much lately and why all of a sudden I feel like making music again.
And I know I don't really have to explain myself and I also think there is something a little unhealthy about writing about these things in a public forum but I do believe I owe all of you darklings and noirlings an explanation.
Without all of your love and interest I would never have had a career in music which as I have come to realise has been the greatest gift I could ever have been given in my life.
So thankyou and without further ado..........
As I have explained in these notes before, my mother was officially diagnosed with dementia in the early summer of 2007 but in my gut I knew that there was something wrong long before that.
Dementia is an extraordinarily cruel disease and although my poor mum was the solitary victim of its ruthless power, it felt like a nuclear bomb had gone off in our family home and none of us got out unscathed.
My dad got savagely burnt.My sisters too. And we are all still struggling with losing the one person who rooted us in the world. She was our foundation and our compass and life without her is diminished.
My desire to sing, to take risks, to make music shrivelled to nothing over the course of her illness. I was finding it hard to concentrate, to remember things, to get anything done in a day. I wasn't really aware of this at the time per se but looking back I realise now that I was a scrambled idiot.
On the 17th of April 2008 I flew back to Los Angeles having been to scotland to visit my parents.
Upon landing in LA on the car ride home I checked my telephone for messages. There was a text from Morag, a very close friend who I have known since my days in Edinburgh Youth Theatre when we were both just 14 years old.
The text simply read: David died today. Call me.
David was her wonderful,funny, smart and handsome husband. He was forty years old. He was the father of 5 children and stepdad of another 2.
Morag had gone to drop the kids off at school that morning. He was in bed with a cold.
When she returned to the house, she found him dead in their bed.
They had been married less than 9 months.
As you can imagine she was utterly and totally devastated.
I got on a plane a few days later and headed back to scotland.
I did what I could. I did dishes. I cooked.I did the laundry. I made tea.
We held hands and talked into the early hours of the morning until she was so tired she couldn't fight sleep anymore.
She wept.We both wept.
We listened to Malcolm Middleton and the Blue Nile and King Creosote endlessly.
It brings me comfort she would say. Play it again.
I bore witness to my childhood friend as she buried her husband, her soulmate and her protector.
I felt completely impotent.
There was nothing I could do or say.
I just tried to be there to listen and empathise, understand and absorb.
I returned to LA a few weeks later to the news that Pablo was diagnosed with cancer.
It broke my spirit and I felt terribly terribly afraid and completely heartbroken.
I couldn't make any sense of the world.
It was completely random and terrifying and I railed against the universe and felt contempt for all the petty nonsense I heard coming out of peoples mouths.
I got a call out of the blue from a friend who's husband was a writer and creator of a tv show:Wanna be a terminator?
I jumped at the opportunity before even thinking about it.
I could escape into fantasy! Into fiction!
I could escape death! I would become an indestructible MACHINE!
YES YES YES I WANT TO BE A TERMINATOR.
And so it was.
When I went into the audition I knew I was going to get the role.
Even when I was told that 300 other girls were up for the part, I knew deep down I was going to get it.
And I did.
It was a great escape from what was going on with my Mum, with Morag, with Pablo.
It was joyous and silly and fun and I loved every single second of it.
It made me feel alive and fearless.
It made me feel powerful and victorious.
I WAS INDESTRUCTIBLE.
LONG LIVE THE MACHINE.
And then Mum died.
And now Pablo has died.
And I am faced with the prospect of reality again.
And there is no time machine to fix the blips in the present.
There is only me in my life and what is left of my time on earth.
And suddenly I feel a yearning to write music again.
To sing.
To play.
To CONNECT.
I find I am gasping for CONTACT!!!!
So there it is.
That is what I wanted to say.
And I wanted to say it today because tomorrow my dearest Morag is flying over with her three children to come visit me.
It is a new beginning for her she says.
And because we have been on a journey together of sorts, it is a new beginning for me too.
The deaths of my mother, of David and of Pablo will always be inextricably linked for me.
All three deaths have profoundly touched me, moved me, shifted me into a different state.
I will never be the same.
I guess that is part of life.Part of what happens.
There is life and death.
These two things shape us and eventually destroy us.
And that is life.
As Alice Walker wrote: The way forward is with a broken heart.
To LIFE then!
And to living.
And bless the dead.
x
x