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Dispatches From The World of Singer/Songwriter Heather Pierson

Dispatches From The World of Singer/Songwriter Heather Pierson

Tag Archives: hindsight

Saturday Morning Musings – An unexpected thaw.

03 Saturday May 2014

Posted by heatherpierson in Uncategorized

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friendship, hindsight, life, perspective

Memories are quite puzzling things.  Think of it – in the time it takes to blink an eye, a memory can arise into consciousness from its hibernation – quite often unbidden – and carry with it all of the attendant emotions.  Encapsulated within that memory, one can find a range of time from moments to years: a first kiss; a concert; a friendship.

The brain is amazing!  And yes, I do believe that everything about our conscious experience can — and will someday — be entirely understood at the level of the brain, the most incredible supercomputer on offer.

“We are a way for the cosmos to know itself,” said Carl Sagan.

Sometimes, though, a memory can take hold and not let go.  That inability to let go can turn ugly — sadness, despair, anger, resentment — or it can be transcendent — love, joy, peace, contentment.

Sometimes… it’s hard to tell.

Like, thinking about an old flame.  Sure, that might be fun, even inspiring, but ultimately it’s a frustration that cannot — and likely should not — lead anywhere.

Or when gazing into the photographed eyes of a long-deceased parent — what an alien mixture of joyful longing and heartbreaking acceptance of fact.

What about pondering the demise of a friendship that ended abruptly in unexpectedly bitter words and anger?

When is it time to forgive?

In that moment — when cheeks are flushed, earlobes are hot, heart is throbbing with adrenaline and sadness, throat is raw from forcing out the vitriol — it seems that nothing could ever repair that ashen bridge.

But perhaps all is not lost.

There is nothing left here for me
Nothing for as far as my crying eyes can see
There is nothing left for me here
Nothing that’s worth me shedding another tear

Those lyrics were written while adrift in an emotional cyclone, mourning the loss of a friendship that gone painfully awry.  Every time I sing them, I still feel the sting of their genesis.

A phone call and email this week from the friend for whom the song was written reminded me: ice hasn’t always been so.  It was once water, flowing freely, refreshing and clear.  Sure, that water might be damned cold at times and not at all inviting, but as long as it’s moving, there is an opportunity to move along with it.

So, spring has finally sprung here in the White Mountains — and the thaw feels good.  I still have an eye on the snow that still persists at the shady end of the lawn, but it, too, will eventually have no choice but to succumb to the warmth.

My heart, I am sure, will do likewise.

Saturday Morning Musings – One jelly bean at a time.

12 Saturday Apr 2014

Posted by heatherpierson in Uncategorized

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hindsight, life, looking back, Malala Yousafzai, perspective, school, worry, worrying

This week, I read an astonishing book – I Am Malala – about (and by) the young Pakistani girl who spoke up for the right of girls to go to school – and was shot for it.  She and her father (an educator himself) had received numerous threats, and still they raised their voices from the Swat Valley against the misogyny of the Taliban, nearly paying the dearest price for their convictions.  The story of the attack on her life in the fall of 2012 captivated the entire world.

For what would I be willing to risk my life?

It’s a hell of a question.

In her book, Malala speaks with such passion about her studies, her competitive nature come exam time, about her love of science, her voracious appetite for reading.

She also expresses her sadness about how many young girls and women in her country – and, indeed, around the world – are uneducated and illiterate, regarded as unequal to men and boys and not deserving of the same access to education and information.

It’s amazing what one takes for granted.

As much as I also loved (and still love) learning and reading, I really didn’t like school much beyond third grade.  I was always shy, awkward, probably seemed aloof a lot of the time.  I was so uncomfortable at school, more so as I got older.  Naturally introverted, I shied away from most things social.  I didn’t have a lot of confidence.  I didn’t really like myself too much.  I couldn’t wait to graduate and get the hell out of there.

On the heels of all this, there was a very moving video on wimp.com the other day, in which each day of one’s life is represented by jelly beans:

http://www.wimp.com/timebeans/

As the original pile of 28,835 jelly beans (representing an average lifespan) is whittled away to account for school, work, sleep, eating, commuting, watching TV, chores, errands, bathing and grooming, down to an unthinkable 2,740, the narrator asks a few stirring questions, including this one:

How much time have you already spent worrying instead of doing something that you love?

Boy, I do have a worry wart streak in me.  I get it from my mother.  I even worry sometimes that I worry too much.

Davy said something to me a while back that rings true.  He observed that I wear the world as a tight garment.

I know what he means, and he’s right.  I get up into my head a lot.  I do hold the world close.  It’s miraculous and maddening, inspiring and infuriating.

I think of all that time I spent worrying as a kid, too.  Didn’t we all?  Worrying about where I stood, how I seemed, what kind of mood Mom would be in when I got home, about doing okay in school.

About feeling safe and okay.

Nowadays, I worry that I might miss out on something, that some opportunity might pass me by because I’m not prepared for it, that I’ll have a dream about the most amazing song that would be a smash hit and then forget the whole damn thing as soon as I wake up.

Then, I read Malala’s book and I think, “What the hell do I have to complain about?”

In the grand scheme of things?  Nothing at all.  She is a champion, a hero – and I’m a hobbyist, living a charmed life.

Time to let all that tension out of my shoulders, contemplate and appreciate that finite supply of jelly beans, and savor their sweetness.

Saturday Morning Musings – What does “selfish” really mean?

25 Saturday Jan 2014

Posted by heatherpierson in Uncategorized

≈ 2 Comments

Tags

family, Heather Pierson, hindsight, life, parents, perspective, selfish, selfishness

I knew a woman once who collected other people’s mistakes
And with her voodoo magic, she could make them all her own

Merriam-Webster defines “selfish” as:

1:  concerned excessively or exclusively with oneself :  seeking or concentrating on one’s own advantage, pleasure, or well-being without regard for others

2:  arising from concern with one’s own welfare or advantage in disregard of others <a selfish act>

3:  being an actively replicating repetitive sequence of nucleic acid that serves no known function <selfish DNA>; also :  being genetic material solely concerned with its own replication <selfish genes>

“Selfish!”

My mother wielded this word as a weapon against me as I was growing up, and boy did I spend many nights scribbling away in my journal, wondering whether or not she was right.

Well, certainly she was and is right… to a point.

Today I am a self-employed DIY musician.  I burn a lot of fuel on myself.  Writing, composing, practicing, rehearsing, booking, promoting, performing, traveling.  Is this out of an excessive concern?  I don’t know about that.  Maybe by some people’s standards.

I do not agree, though, that I do all of this “without regard for others.”   It is because I wish so deeply to share my love of what I do with others, in hopes that they will enjoy it, too, that I continue to push ahead, push myself.

But I wasn’t always a self-employed musician.

I was once a child, and then a young adult, working regular jobs (while gigging on the side) and living with my parents, feeling the exciting tug of the wondrous world on one shirtsleeve and that of my mother’s irrational desire to keep me home, obedient to her and safe from a harsh cruel world, forever, on the other.

I rebelled late.  Most kids go through their rebellion at a much younger age than I did. Sure, I snuck around and drank and smoked pot in my room like every other kid I knew.  I’m talking about really rebelling against parental authority.  I rarely dared to speak my mind, to express my deepest emotions, to question the illogical rantings into which my mother often launched.  On the rare occasion that I did, I was usually ridiculed and punished for it, and called that terrible “s” word.

As I got older and a little wiser, I began speaking out more.  When I finally summoned enough courage at the age of twenty to say, “Mom, I think you have a drinking problem” – this was the beginning of the end.

Despite the many years that I’ve spent fighting against that small yet cruel voice in my head, I think what my mother was really expressing was her frustration with what appeared to her as my not putting her needs and wants ahead of my own.   Maybe she didn’t realize that that was precisely what I did.  For many years, in fact.  To my detriment.

Sure, everyone has issues with family.  The old joke about “putting the fun in dysfunctional” is not too far off the mark for most people.

I’m sorry to have to bring up such tough stuff.  Mom has been on my mind this week.  It’s hard to believe that she has been gone for seven years now.

January 28, 2007, just two weeks after my birthday.  Heart attack.  A policeman came to the door to deliver the news.  I hadn’t even spoken to my mother in over two years.

“I’m alone now,” I remember thinking at one point that night as the news sunk in.

But I’m not!

Believing, with both of my parents gone and with no siblings or close family on whom to depend, that I’m alone in the world is a somewhat selfish thought.  It is easy in a moment of pure despair to forget about the love that is to be found in the loving embrace, literally and figuratively, of those numbered few friends without whom life would not hold nearly the sweetness that it does.

It happens to the best of us, eh?

After so much sadness in my mother’s life – the loss of her parents, of her firstborn, of her first husband – I get it now.  She crawled inside that bottle and rarely came up for air.

Then, once her second husband – my father – died, things just fell apart for her, for the both of us.   I went on duty – I put my own grief aside and tended solely to her until that expense of energy was no longer sustainable.

Our bond slowly and surely crumbled.

I really wanted to have a deep and meaningful relationship with her, but there were too many things standing in the way.  She couldn’t meet me halfway.   Or even less than halfway.

I loved and feared her.

She never did find help for her alcoholism, nor did she ever even admit that she had a deeply debilitating problem with drinking.  When she died, the hope that I carried quietly in my heart that she would get help died with her.

Do I regret finally standing up to her as an adult?  Do I regret saying, “I love you Mom but I can’t have you in my life”?

I can’t regret it.  Why?  Because of all the times she said, “All I ask is that you just be honest with me” and I know she meant it.

Do I know that she loved me?  Of course I know that.  Rarely did I doubt this, though she certainly had trouble expressing this love.

I guess I did too.

Selfish?  Yeah, I probably was a bit selfish sometimes – but she was too.  And she must’ve realized that.

Certainly a little bit of selfishness is needed to survive and to be happy, isn’t it?  Without some focus on the self, there is no meeting of one’s needs and desires.   If I don’t take care of myself first, then I can’t be fully available for anyone or anything else.

I may always wrestle with this word, with its implications, with what could have been, with the ghost of my mother.   Perhaps it’ll be a match to the death, perhaps there will be a winner.  I like to think I’m slowly marching towards a victory.  Some days, it’s a tougher fight than others.  But I’ll be damned if I won’t give it my best.

(I started this post with a line from a song that I wrote about my parents, called “Did I Mention.”  You can listen to that here and read the rest of the lyrics here.)

Saturday Morning Musings – Once more around the sun.

28 Saturday Dec 2013

Posted by heatherpierson in Uncategorized

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Christmas, hindsight, holidays, looking back, New Year's, New Year's resolutions

Every year without fail, I have resolved quietly to not make any New Year’s resolutions.  By doing so, of course, I’ve already broken that promise before even getting out of the gate.  I’ve long thought that the marking of the passage of time in this way is a bit banal, at least for me.

I don’t even really observe my birthday anymore.  To put it plainly, my birthday was, for my parents, a pain in the ass, falling as it does just three weeks after Christmas.  For this reason, I would always get everything at one occasion or the other, or just a little bit at each – which brings to mind the musing of an old co-worker of mine, whose own birthday of June 25 was, he declared, the best one to have because it meant “I get a bunch of gifts exactly every six months!”

I even dropped out of traditional Christmas gift giving years ago, not because I don’t enjoying giving gifts – I really do – but I don’t like the idea of a religiously-annexed Pagan celebration being used by a consumerist culture to guilt me into buying things for people.  I think gift-giving should be spontaneous, for the sake of the giving itself, for the joy and the surprise that appears on the recipient’s face when they accept the token of friendship and love.

One ritual I always enjoyed was traipsing around the big drafty house in which I grew up and plugging in the decorative, electric white candles that my mother placed in nearly all of its thirty-two windows every December.  As I did so I would also think, “What a waste of electricity!”

Looking back now, I know why my mother clung to those white candles.  Not to say that she was phony – she wasn’t – but she was deeply concerned about appearances.  While the interior of the house – and her happiness – slowly crumbled, both strangers and neighbors passing by around Christmastime every year could see our beautiful old gray house as she wanted it to be seen – as a beacon on a dark and dangerous corner.  That meant a lot to my mom, and so every year those candles would go up.

If only I could get my hands on my family photos again – there is an image in particular that is tugging at my memory right now.  In that first year that my mother decided to put up those candles, she decided also to take a photo of the house from across the street.  In those days, the hobby photographer without the benefit of his or her own dark room had to bring a completed roll of film to Rite Aid, fill out the correct envelope (35 mm or disc film?  Black and white or color?  Singles or doubles?), drop the package in the bin and wait for days – sometimes over a week – before putting his or her hands on the prints.

What resulted from my mother’s hope for a lovely Christmas card was an image of a house set on fire from within, yellowish flame bursting from each window.

Luckily, my mother laughed off her disappointment at this particular turn and at her clumsiness with the camera.  The photo did end up in the family album as a joke, where it remained for years and was forever a source of amusement and laughter.

Every year, my mother promised that she would quit smoking.  “I promise ye, hen, fir yir birthd’y.”

And every year she broke her promise.

This year, in an odd fit of nostalgia, I bought a string of white lights to hang in our apartment.  No tree, no ornaments, just some soft white lights that have remained plugged in since the day I brought them home from the hardware store.  They bathe the kitchen in a soft light that reminds me very much of that same light that shone in my bedroom windows in Hebron as I drifted off to sleep.

I’ve even thought about honest-to-goodness New Year’s… maybe not resolutions, but I’ve toyed with a few fancies.  I’d like to learn a new instrument – the fiddle maybe?  I have small hands for something like that.  I’d like to read more, like I used to.  I’d also really like to volunteer for an abused women’s project – I’ve already put in an inquiry with a local agency.  “What can I do?” I sincerely asked, being a survivor of domestic abuse myself.

Well, we’ve nearly made it once more around the sun.  What things does the number 2014 have in store?  How will we mark the days?  A new year coming really does feel like a clean slate, doesn’t it?  Let’s resolve to fill it with honesty and beauty.

Saturday Morning Musings – More then and now.

21 Saturday Dec 2013

Posted by heatherpierson in Uncategorized

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aging, getting older, hindsight, life, looking back, perspective, then and now

Still reading old journals from high school this week and I’ve
noticed a few more things:

THEN

I was afraid of being noticed.

NOW

I don’t mind being noticed (most of the time).

THEN

I fell in love so easily.

NOW

My heart is cautious.

THEN

I hated school.

NOW

I love learning.

THEN

I was convinced that no one cared about me.

NOW

I realize how much love I took for granted.

THEN

My mother and I fought bitterly.

NOW

I wish I had her back.

THEN

I drank too much.

NOW

Sober, and proud.

THEN

I thought I had it all figured out.

NOW

I don’t have a clue.

THEN

I thought thirty was old.

NOW

I think thirty is young.

THEN

I was passing notes to friends and boyfriends in the hallways and
waiting for hours, agonized, for a reply.

NOW

All communication is instant and in the palm of one’s hand.

THEN

Music got me through.

NOW

Music is what gets me through.

THEN

I thought I would be a rock star.

NOW

I try to be good at what I do and hope to be appreciated.

THEN

I took everything too personally.

NOW

I am still too sensitive.

THEN

I judged people a little too harshly.

NOW

I judge myself too harshly.

THEN

I questioned everything.

NOW

I still question everything.

THEN

I was brutally honest.

NOW

I choose my battles.

THEN

I thought other people were holding me back.

NOW

I hold myself back.

THEN

I thought I could change the world.

NOW

I know I can only change myself.

Saturday Morning Musings – Letting sleeping dogs lie, but uncomfortably.

14 Saturday Dec 2013

Posted by heatherpierson in Uncategorized

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hindsight, life, looking back, perspective

It’s been an interesting week.  Arctic air has descended upon this part of the world and seems poised to hold us all in its grasp for a bloody good while.  Though I’ve been busy with lots of music, including the Charlie Brown Christmas shows (here is a highlights video I put together from the first show), I’ve been yearning recently to stay inside next to the little space heater and go inside, into the deep dark of my remote personal past.

I’ve been digging out and reading my journals from nearly twenty years ago.

It’s a somewhat harrowing experience.

Have you ever done this?  It can be kind of crazy-making.

First, I’m thinking, “How could I have been so stupid?” both then, for doing some of the thoughtless and foolish things that I did, and now, for wanting to relive it!

Second, I’m wondering what’s happening to my brain.  Here I am, reading about all of the minutiae that had me in utter thrall – and some of these things, even after I read about them, I still don’t recall a single thing about them!  Time is a thief whose pockets are lined with the hopes, fears and adventures of a million billion souls.

I have done some things that I do remember quite well and that I probably should wish that I hadn’t done – regrettable actions of youth to be sure – but regret is a depressing waste of energy, while learning from one’s mistakes and shortcomings is certainly not.

I don’t want to be afraid of what I’ll find.  As icky and uncertain as I feel looking back, I am kicking at these sleeping dogs because I want to face the skeletons head on, to really own it all — the egregious lapses in good judgment, the petty grudges I shouldn’t have held, the arguments I shouldn’t have had, the friends with whom I should’ve stayed in better touch.  It’s all made me who I am, warts and all.  There’s no shame in it – forgiveness of one’s self is the final hurdle one must clear.

Yep, it’s all me, or at least, my former self.  Another fascinating thing to consider in all this is: at the cellular level, I literally am not the person I was when I scrawled those words in 1996.   Every sinew, every drop of blood and layer of tissue has replaced itself anew in the years since that young girl set down those words.  On the one hand, this is a comforting notion: I like to think that I’m now healthier, wiser, and more sane and rational, forever getting a new lease on this business of living and trying to be a good person.  On the other hand, though, it’s a slightly unnerving notion: if not “me”, then who wrote about those things that “I” did?

Me.  Who the hell is that?

This moment, this instant, is all I have.  So, shouldn’t I just let those sleeping dogs lie?

Perhaps, but maybe they should be a little uncomfortable as they do, and be ready to stand at attention, to confess to the messes that they’ve made, to impart the lessons that they certainly have at the ready.  Sometimes you just have to get out of your bed and rearrange it before it’s good to lie down in it again.

Saturday Morning Musings – Then and now.

31 Saturday Aug 2013

Posted by heatherpierson in Uncategorized

≈ 5 Comments

Tags

aging, getting older, Heather Pierson, hindsight, life, looking back, perspective, time

It is astounding to me that it’s already Labor Day weekend.  I know it’s cliche to say it, but it’s true that time flies faster the older that you get.

That’s not the only thing I’ve noticed about getting older…

THEN

Summer dragged on.

NOW

Summer is over in the blink of an eye.

THEN

My parents didn’t relate to a lot of the music that my friends and I listened to.

NOW

I don’t relate to a lot of the music that kids listen to.

THEN

I loved winter and didn’t mind being cold.

NOW

I don’t like winter and can’t stand being cold.

THEN

I only had permission to use the phone once a day, for 15 minutes max.

NOW

Every kid has their own cell phone.

THEN

I practiced piano every day.

NOW

I practice… almost every day.

THEN

I wished my parents would just leave me alone.

NOW

I wish I still had my parents.

THEN

I had hundreds of cassettes and records (and, eventually, CDs) that took up entirely too much space in my bedroom.

NOW

My entire music collection can fit in the palm of my hand.

THEN

I watched TV.

NOW

I watch Netflix and YouTube.

THEN

MTV had music videos.

NOW

Most of MTV’s programming has nothing to do with music.

THEN

I had to wait agonizingly for weeks or months for movies I wanted to see to become available for rental.

NOW

Netflix can deliver anything I want to watch, either instantly to my computer or within a day to my PO box.

THEN

I wanted to make noise.

NOW

I want peace and quiet.

THEN

I wished I had more money.

NOW

I wish I had more time.

THEN

I wanted to be famous.

NOW

I want to be appreciated.

What then-and-nows do you have to share?

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