unfinished

I remember when I started this website. I remember why, and somehow still get it. But it’s changed; we change. Slip or grow, we hopefully lurch forward…simply because time demands it. You can look back, but can’t go—or grow—there. You can be a student of history, but what’s done is done. You can get caged by the history-shouldn’t-repeat-itself argument, but the real deal is that we’re just people…often hurt and mistake-prone folks being creative with the ladders we build to emerge from all that. Some call it growth or climbing or becoming; some might actually call it prison. But I’m no prisoner, and the bars of blame are for suckers. So, I’ll drink to tomorrow’s sunrise with those who have the courage to raise a glass, so long as we’re bestowed another breath. For everybody else…I am literally, compassionately, longingly waiting for you…

Two songs, never released and, more importantly, never finished. I’ve decided they never will be ‘finished’…and I think that’s okay. This first one is simply about the pain of separation. Because that experience is universal, I won’t get into how that’s been a life-changing wringing of my personal perspective; rather, just let it mean something to you instead (if, that is, you enjoy this genre of music):

Next, recorded this with my mom while she was in the hospital, a year before she passed away. She was worried then and so was I. But I knew she enjoyed music, loved to dance and hated when—as a child—I would get underfoot. Hence, ‘Move!’ But, when I was a jackass-kid, she would crush that word through gritted teeth, which I now completely understand as a stressed-out parent oftentimes cornered between immovably hard places. Originally called ‘Katmandance’ because of the Indian vibe, I eventually felt it was a higher honor to name it after her. She loved it. Even laughed at and about it. Besides, that’s her actual voice from a hospital bed, sampled. I’m gonna hang on to that and leave it as it remains, if y’all don’t mind: