I can’t believe we are already heading towards autumn. The year unfolded its rich colorful spectrum of sensations with such an incredibly chaotic rhythm so far, at least that’s how it felt for me. No matter why, it is hard to identify — let alone keep track of — everything that actually took place in my life over the course of the last 8 months. It’s a bit of a blur, still, and if it wasn’t for the fact that I’ve been witnessing the neighbors at the riad starting to wear their warmer outfits, it would have been difficult to pin down the season I’m drifting in as I’m writing those very words.
Having to pack from one place to the next is another disorienting factor. I’m almost done wrapping my suitcases as I’m going back to Montreal tomorrow morning. My time in Tangier went by too fast for me to fully grasp its singularity. I was already ill since my last touring days in Cologne and ended up catching every virus floating around for the entirety of my six weeks here. As I said in a previous journal entry, it strangely helped me realize the full extent of everything I accomplished since I left my Virginian home in January. This is also quite a time marker in itself; two albums, a movie, a soundtrack, multiple official videos, an intense month-long of new recording production that ended up a false start, the launch of merch collections, the conception of the yearly theme for The Club, a summer tour, and probably more elements that I just don’t remember right now. It’s no small accomplishment considering that it was supposed to be a transitionary year to facilitate my recovery from heart surgery. Add my beloved pup MacKaye’s devastating passing, and you have all the ingredients for the recipe for the greatest and most perfect of all storms… Again, and again, and again.
Having to pack from one place to the next is another disorienting factor. I’m almost done wrapping my suitcases as I’m going back to Montreal tomorrow morning. My time in Tangier went by too fast for me to fully grasp its singularity. I was already ill since my last touring days in Cologne and ended up catching every virus floating around for the entirety of my six weeks here. As I said in a previous journal entry, it strangely helped me realize the full extent of everything I accomplished since I left my Virginian home in January. This is also quite a time marker in itself; two albums, a movie, a soundtrack, multiple official videos, an intense month-long of new recording production that ended up a false start, the launch of merch collections, the conception of the yearly theme for The Club, a summer tour, and probably more elements that I just don’t remember right now. It’s no small accomplishment considering that it was supposed to be a transitionary year to facilitate my recovery from heart surgery. Add my beloved pup MacKaye’s devastating passing, and you have all the ingredients for the recipe for the greatest and most perfect of all storms… Again, and again, and again.
Glimpses into the year so far.
I guess that’s why, with a little perspective or a tiny bit of retrospect, besides my constant health challenges and my emotional tides, I can say that I have managed to navigate the high-rising swell my evolving existence has been defined by for what feels like forever. I had to let go in order to lose myself in a looping abyss, and letting go offers some form of clarity. You realize that you’ve been looking at your universe with a microscope, and those magnifying glasses lead you to believe that otherwise inconsequential details of your journey were the voyage itself. Even if they are indeed involved to whatever foreign extent, they do not define your motion’s cadence nor your paralyzing state. Materiality desynchronization sets in such a quick type of tangible perversion when you are inclined to self-doubt… Confusion becomes delusion, and there you are, looking for far-fetched impressions to give your existential nausea a concrete sense of verisimilitude. Make-believes degrade your conception of reality until deception completely dematerializes yourself from your own life. The starting line might be depression, but it’s your growing degree of desperation to see the light that keeps you digging deeper each day. It takes an equal measure of courage and recklessness to stop, and it takes determination and acceptance to fight the apprehension and wavering dubiousness to recall their rights on your renewed emotional freedom.
I’m learning to cultivate some sort of inner balance now, or at least, I dispose myself towards it. It’s an awkward lifestyle, leaning a little more towards inward peace, but it provides me with a sort of serenity. Well, I should say it provides me with an inclination in that direction; that would be more precise, yet very significant in my case. It’s weird having to pack and unpack, transition and re-transition, plan and reorient, from year-in to year-out. How I cope with everything I had to deal with could be summarized by turning my affective dysfunctionality into becoming highly self-disciplined. Performance and results. To do so, I usually had a few time stamps over the course of a year. A typical one would look like this: January was the collective yearly plan announcement and deployment, May was the plan adjustments and strategy realignment, July was the last high-geared stretch towards our goals, October was pressing ever more the already overachieved objectives, mid-November would find me completely crashed, both emotionally and physically, before I’d get myself back together some time in December before heading somewhere with Miss Isabel and Jeff to undertake our yearly evaluation, establish the next year’s vision and try to get some elusive rest along the way. It’s been pretty much like that for more than a decade now, a super well-oiled organism working in perfect synchronization… That was until I had my heart surgery, when the machine blew up and left me in pieces, a fraction of myself still, resulting in having to be grounded in the moment, in the “now” more than ever. The abyssal rabbit hole is never too far… So again, I have to decide to keep on letting go. and it’s terribly hard.
I guess that’s the reason why it’s quite perplexing for my entourage to see me laugh it off with what has become my characteristic stupefaction when they mention any specific calendar ephemerides or reminisce about an event that happened years ago on that particular date or season of our collective journey. It usually goes with me saying, “What? When was it again?!” or “Really? We actually did all that? Wow! I didn’t remember… Was I there?” to nobody’s reaction, no laughter or comments, if only a few timid smiles. It’s still somehow taboo — or too uncomfortable — for my friends to know how to behave with me being so lost, unfocused, or simply “off” in a conversation, especially as they saw me cry in despair and scream in frustration when I initially had to face the severity of my memory loss (until a neuro physician explained to me, months later, that it was due to the micro-embolisms I endured during my surgery). I understand that it puts brakes on the teasing part, even though I find it quite surreal when someone else reminds me of pieces of my life that are presently too foggy for me to truly remember. There’s nothing I can do, even though it will slowly come back, “piece by piece,” the specialist told me. I can live with the prospect that it may never come as well…
In retrospect, I’m just grateful that I still remember my father’s face, some fragments of my grandfather Henry, joyful teenage nonsense with my friend Phil, and poignant instants with MacKaye. As for the rest, I’m alive, and it offers me the ultimate blessing to be able to embrace my life like I maybe never had the audacity to do in a long time. Therefore, new memories are in the making. It’s for me to make the best of what I have, to do what I truly want, and to share it in my own terms. Nobody knows what tomorrow is made of, especially not me, and thank God I don’t because I would probably freak out! I’m leaving Tangier lighthearted, knowing it is already in the plans for me to come back soon. I hope my health will allow me to go to Hamburg in a few days. A few dates in the US will follow. Then maybe Tokyo before taking a significant break to focus on my next record. But more importantly, it’s living whatever comes my way with that wonderful fragrance of freedom that matters to me. And whatever might bloom of it, as long as it’s real, you can count me in!!!
Much love to you all,
I’ll see you again soon.
I’m learning to cultivate some sort of inner balance now, or at least, I dispose myself towards it. It’s an awkward lifestyle, leaning a little more towards inward peace, but it provides me with a sort of serenity. Well, I should say it provides me with an inclination in that direction; that would be more precise, yet very significant in my case. It’s weird having to pack and unpack, transition and re-transition, plan and reorient, from year-in to year-out. How I cope with everything I had to deal with could be summarized by turning my affective dysfunctionality into becoming highly self-disciplined. Performance and results. To do so, I usually had a few time stamps over the course of a year. A typical one would look like this: January was the collective yearly plan announcement and deployment, May was the plan adjustments and strategy realignment, July was the last high-geared stretch towards our goals, October was pressing ever more the already overachieved objectives, mid-November would find me completely crashed, both emotionally and physically, before I’d get myself back together some time in December before heading somewhere with Miss Isabel and Jeff to undertake our yearly evaluation, establish the next year’s vision and try to get some elusive rest along the way. It’s been pretty much like that for more than a decade now, a super well-oiled organism working in perfect synchronization… That was until I had my heart surgery, when the machine blew up and left me in pieces, a fraction of myself still, resulting in having to be grounded in the moment, in the “now” more than ever. The abyssal rabbit hole is never too far… So again, I have to decide to keep on letting go. and it’s terribly hard.
I guess that’s the reason why it’s quite perplexing for my entourage to see me laugh it off with what has become my characteristic stupefaction when they mention any specific calendar ephemerides or reminisce about an event that happened years ago on that particular date or season of our collective journey. It usually goes with me saying, “What? When was it again?!” or “Really? We actually did all that? Wow! I didn’t remember… Was I there?” to nobody’s reaction, no laughter or comments, if only a few timid smiles. It’s still somehow taboo — or too uncomfortable — for my friends to know how to behave with me being so lost, unfocused, or simply “off” in a conversation, especially as they saw me cry in despair and scream in frustration when I initially had to face the severity of my memory loss (until a neuro physician explained to me, months later, that it was due to the micro-embolisms I endured during my surgery). I understand that it puts brakes on the teasing part, even though I find it quite surreal when someone else reminds me of pieces of my life that are presently too foggy for me to truly remember. There’s nothing I can do, even though it will slowly come back, “piece by piece,” the specialist told me. I can live with the prospect that it may never come as well…
In retrospect, I’m just grateful that I still remember my father’s face, some fragments of my grandfather Henry, joyful teenage nonsense with my friend Phil, and poignant instants with MacKaye. As for the rest, I’m alive, and it offers me the ultimate blessing to be able to embrace my life like I maybe never had the audacity to do in a long time. Therefore, new memories are in the making. It’s for me to make the best of what I have, to do what I truly want, and to share it in my own terms. Nobody knows what tomorrow is made of, especially not me, and thank God I don’t because I would probably freak out! I’m leaving Tangier lighthearted, knowing it is already in the plans for me to come back soon. I hope my health will allow me to go to Hamburg in a few days. A few dates in the US will follow. Then maybe Tokyo before taking a significant break to focus on my next record. But more importantly, it’s living whatever comes my way with that wonderful fragrance of freedom that matters to me. And whatever might bloom of it, as long as it’s real, you can count me in!!!
Much love to you all,
I’ll see you again soon.
The last few days in Tangier.
