Edition #23
Time Is Now… and Now I’m Free!
I hope you are doing great, my dear friends, that you’ve been able to embrace some of the beauties and wonders springtime has to offer already. The colors of this new season are in full bloom all over the mountains where I have the blessing to live. The spectacle offered by nature is quite phenomenal presently. And even if I’ve been able to witness the full-scale rebirth and evolving transformation happening all over here, I still can’t believe how fast the last couple of weeks went by… I mean, I only noticed it a few days ago when one of you asked me about my playlist. And I was like, “Yes, what about it?!” until I realized that it’s already been 6 weeks since I had last updated it. I was stunned. Time went by so incredibly fast and such realization has never been a positive sensation for me, as I always feel like I’m running out of time. At the very least, I always find myself hoping for the clock to stop a few seconds once in a while, just so I can go a little further, see what could be discovered if I keep pressing on still… But no, here I am. The month of May is already a thing of the “now” and leaving for my upcoming tour is about to be a “what, tomorrow, really?!? IMPOSSIBLE. Well, I better be packing a few of my countless black shirts!” event.
In fact, time is a recurrent theme for me. When I said to the other band members that I felt like hadn’t done much, Ben and Jeff burst in laughter, which is pretty common. Not the laughing at me part — well maybe a little — but mostly the “I haven’t done much” part.
I guess it’s true; it is a process, but a confusing one for me nonetheless.
“Alex, you’ve probably established a world record for the most personal postcards ever sent by one individual in the internet era. You wrote a new musical project which we played live and did a direct-to-vinyl with it, that you also accompanied with personal letters. You did interviews. You supported our Ukrainians friends at Music Saves UA. You just released the song The Power of the Heart. You are in motion to complete a set of new additional songs to be shared with the people in another live stream. All that while working on your upcoming tour…” is what I was answered with. And they kept on going on, and on, and on… Until I had to surrender a battle I knew I had absolutely no chance to win from the very start.
The thing is, as right as they probably are — and I know they are — I just feel like I’ve wasted the beginning of the year over everlasting issues. And If I have never wanted to compensate by overdoing a whole lot of things to somehow make amend for that loss, it brings a strange sensation of guilt, frustration, and disappointment when I realize just how easily I let time pass me by with my continued struggles to let go of past worries, just how much power I gave others over my existence, my happiness, my peace and freedom… I may be trying to convince myself that it’s a part of growing, of allowing my open wounds to heal once and for all, that it’s the emancipating process that will grant my heart the freedom I long for. I guess it’s true; it is a process, but a confusing one for me nonetheless. Time seems like a masterful entity I’ve learned to kneel before, and that for as long as I can remember. How strange… That’s why my closest friends are so prompt and vigorous at reminding me who I am, beyond time and projects, beyond my distorted perspective of it all…
It all started going faster and faster, and it kept on going, a song after another, a new idea after another. New desires, new sensations, renewed visions, renewed determination to be.
I can’t recall how often Jeff and Ben have told me something in the likes of: “You have to appreciate what you give life to, Alex, but that’s only possible if you are willing to be proud of who you are, if you want to make peace with the notion of losses you’ve always been fighting with. That’s how you can defy time. That’s how you can shed light over the bleak way in which you torture yourself. You’re not alone, brother.” This is a battle I will have to deal with all my life, some days being better than others. And if 2022 felt like a loss already back in January, it is the project The Power of the Heart that essentially brought me back to the light. It is my complete abandonment to its singular essence that woke me up, that what felt like slow-motion self-imposed misery, started to gain momentum, just like Tim Burton’s movie Big Fish (one of my all-time favorite movies). It all started going faster and faster, and it kept on going, a song after another, a new idea after another. New desires, new sensations, renewed visions, renewed determination to be, to give happiness and freedom the right measure of faith, the proper place in my otherwise cynical and defeatist state of heart and mind. If I never dared ask myself the right questions, it’s the acceptance that I might never have — nor ever find — the answers to any of them that gave place to a profound comfort within me, a rare solace I’m no longer afraid to embrace and be transformed by. And just like that, it is the month of May… And tomorrow will come shining sooner than I can see its luminescence come my way in the far-distance strand…
Time is now… and now it’s time to dream, to be free!
Much love always,
Alex
PS: My playlist has indeed been updated, and you can read all about the new choices here.