Posted January 30, 2012 at 6:05 am

Bonne Nuit Virginia!

 

Posted January 30, 2012 at 4:22 am

I am still processing the last night's Peter Gabriel concert. But for now, check out this photo from a recent photoshoot by the very talented Oliver De Filippo.. styling my Melissa Washington.

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Posted January 24, 2012 at 5:04 am

May you find love in a hopeless place (cover)

I hope you are warm, safe and loved – or planning to be.

Happy Thanksgiving! I am grateful for where I am today, as confused as I am at times. 

However, let us learn to love the questions as much, if not more, than the answers. It is the way to finding balance.

It is getting late, and I am so tired – we shot the cover of the album yesterday, and today was a long day, as well.

And, as promised, here is a cover of We Found Love.

 

 

Posted January 7, 2012 at 2:46 am

poems as maps.

Face it, everything always takes a lot longer than you expect.

Especially when it comes to building something. Act of creation may be spontaneous, but even God, according to holy texts, had to take a rest after a few days. While something can be destroyed in a blink of an eye – a life, a forest, a career, a dream – a relationship – it can take aeons to build either one of those.

It also applies to days. You can plan out your day or work, but some tasks will take a lot longer than others – and you can beat your head against the wall all you want, but there is no use.

It is already one week into 2012, and I still feel like NYE was yesterday. Does it progressively get even more so as one gets older? I hope I can find creative ways to slow my perception of time down. It feels like universe is playing a game of poker with me and bluffing, when time goes by this fast. I have to call its bluff or else.

I also feel like I should start writing poetry again. Poetry crystallizes the moment and is a meditative experience. It's not unlike taking a walk inside your emotional world: it is a snapshot of your internal landscape through a lens of words. I think poetry is more useful, over time, than paying a psychotherapist. The wild or wounded creature inside you may take a while to emerge, when faced with a rational, albeit sympathetic stranger. But given an opportunity to express her or himself via a few random words, committed only to paper – or screen (for the smartphone poets out there) the emotional self will take the bait and give you a hint as to your real feelings and the why's of them.

I have practiced this time and time again. Some would argue  it's not poetry, but 'free associative writing' because it doesn't have to rhyme. Ah, but 'Poetry' sounds so much better. Put some words to paper from your heart, and you are a Poet. I like being a Poet a lot better than just plain ol' me who is doing something called 'Free Associative Writing'.

Just make sure these are not poems you post on Facebook or take to your significant other and say, uncertainly: 'Oh, it's this poem I wrote…uh…mmm…want to hear?'

These are poems to be kept hidden and private. They are maps of your internal continent and some of the traced routes may lead to treasure or great peril. Make sure you share them only with someone who already loves and accepts you for what you are, and does not need for you 'to complete' them. Or vice versa – if you are a people pleaser and need to validated, don't go there. 

Keep your poetry to yourself.

 

A cup of tea
not much longer
until you see
the wake of stars
with plumes of light
the moon is pale
open the window
let uncertainty in
and revel in chaos
of being human
(eik, 8-21-09)

Pirate_map
Posted January 6, 2012 at 1:05 am

My life is undergoing a complete overhaul. I wanted this for a while, so why is it that at the same time I am welcoming some of the most amazing changes and opportunities into my life, am I dealing with bouts of anxiety, minor and major freak-outs and meltdowns?

I am an emotional creature, but I am also a highly rational one. I took a test a few years ago – and the psychologist told me, for whatever it's worth, that she thought both of my brain hemispheres were equally active/dominant. I guess according to that paradigm, most people have either left or right hemispheres running the show and being dominant. Whereas in my case, both of them are constantly vying for attention.

Yes, it can be rather exhausting. As a matter of fact, as of today, I am going back to meditating at least a bit every day, because I quite simply need it – it's not even a luxury – I need to maintain a balance and when it comes to my head and my heart, maintenance is as crucial to my well-being as basic necessities to the body.

I think I know, though, what is going on. As a new leaf is about to turn, I am confronted with the bits of the past I put away haphazardly into the drawers of my psyche, hoping and thinking they would never be needed again, or would not have a chance to resurface. I like to keep moving forward, and I have conditioned myself to be that way, almost to a fault.

But what that means is: I don't spend enough time healing what needs to be healed. I suit up and ride into battle. And now that I am opening up to life on more levels than one, I am realizing that my proverbial 'forgotten drawers' still hold a few feelings, memories and fears I never dealt with.

They are like emotional tax returns you never filed. Eventually they do catch up with you.

Last night I went to see a very cute film by the French director Jean Pierre Jeunet, Micmacs. It happened to be a screening on the USC campus: the college I have graduated from here, in the US. It was a fascinating coincidence of sorts, that I would find myself there again, at this time in my life. Actually, I had avoided that campus for a while. It is still connected in my mind with some of the hardest years of my life: be it in music or otherwise.

As I exited the theater last night, I sat for a little while in the space between two buildings in the School of Music area. I had spent many hours here: waiting for a class, chatting with friends, or – well – having fallen in love, waiting miserably for the object of my misguided affection to walk by. I remember it as a different lifetime: a solitary Russian girl, who brimmed over with music, was slowly growing to detest Los Angeles and kept slipping into self-destructive behaviour. Someone who felt so much and yet kept pushing people away. So unsure of myself, and my place in this world.

Last night, being there, was a moment to remember. I sat there with a new friend – who is fast becoming an important and close one – who could relate to me on many levels. I felt the unreality of the moment, as ghosts of my past kept marching by. I was wondering what the moment was telling me: was it a warning? Or was it something like a graduation: an encouraging gesture from the universe for me to let go of the past? I would like to think it was the latter.

And as I enter a new phase of my life, sloughing off the layers of resistance and cleaning out the drawers of emotions and memories which belong to a different time, I am filled with gratitude. There is work to be done, for sure. But I can do it. I can. And even this city I used to fear and hate so much, has truly revealed itself as a City of Angels to me over time and has become my home. I have learned to love and accept love: be it for my music or for myself. I have fallen in love with music and life, made amends where I could, and learned to give back. And so today is a new day. As I slept last night, I had many fearful and sad dreams, all dealing with the past that got dredged up, ghosts of fears I carry with me in the present. I woke up, went swimming, and as I sit here, writing this, I have a request for you, whoever you are, reading this.

Pick a sad or shameful memory and let go of it. I will do the same thing. Join me for a moment and let's celebrate the fact that we are here, alive, on this blue day. We have all made it this far. We can love, laugh and there is music all around us.

And there are better things yet to come.

Usc night

 

 

Sunrise geese

 

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