i just want to acknowledge here that it goes both ways; it's not all woe-is-me 24/7 around here. really! it's just that when i am feeling unreasonably jubilant, when i am reeling in disbelief of my good fortune in this life (like tonight), i don't tend to feel the overwhelming urge to blog.

and anyway, i love my melancholy. when a sad mood strikes or a song makes me cry or the futility of our short small lives somehow smacks me suddenly in the face, i relish that as much as i do a perfect, fun, bliss-riding, smile-overdosing kind of day like i had today.

so, let it be known! i know how ridiculously blessed i am. it does not suck to be me. i am cherishing my blessings, hour by hour.

i've been singing death cab for cutie's perfect i will follow you into the dark through tears in candlelight. poorly fingerpicking on a cheap classical guitar. the rumble of new york's millions beyond my window sharpening the flavor of my isolation. do you ever think about how insane it all is? these short lives, and yet how uncreative we often are with them. our utter freedom, and yet how we jail ourselves so willingly. my little jailbreaks are private triumphs: a dismantled belief, a disillusionment, a slowed-down 60 seconds, a snap-back into the present from a wild, speculatory ride into an ever-looming future. tonight my life is an impossible jigsaw puzzle, unsolved and scattered in the thousand familiar, well-worn pieces i never seem to figure out how to fit together.

it was so good to be back. of course i felt like shit before the show. i always do. i don't get so much nervous as pessimistic and grumpy and no fun to be around. then the gig, the singing, the guard falling, the energetic exchange with the audience, and it's like alchemy. the dark cloud around me turns to a warm embracing glow.

i played a lot of new songs, and i fucked up on a lot of them - it was the first time they'd been played for an audience and they were like adolescents, clumsy and self-conscious. but i am excited about them. i am excited to be entering a new phase. the choreography phase ending, something new emerging.

interestingly, it felt familiar and yet simultaneously entirely novel up there onstage tonight. in india i developed a certain freedom with my voice, which translates to more improvising within the songs; something that i never felt so comfortable with before but happened naturally tonight. also, there is a certain space that one must get into as a performer of music, you can feel it: when you are 'on', in the groove, in the zone. it's a kind of surrender but a very powerful feeling at the same time. tonight it was interesting to notice that i felt very vulnerable and a little shy and awkward onstage, but that didn't keep me from accessing that place in myself in the songs. maybe it even helped, i don't know. there is power in vulnerabilty.

♥
lauren

it's so weird to be back. it's like the more i travel, the less i belong anywhere. i am an alien in my own land. haven't i always been? i've always felt an outsider here. the funny thing is, in pune i felt i had found my people. a part of me relaxed and came to the surface, finally feeling safe enough to emerge. but it was so intense, to have so much bounty of belonging. my identity, so wrapped up in being unfitting and different, struggled with the shift in scenery and finally, fled.

i had a lover there, and he was beautiful. our time together was intense and present and wild and quiet and soft and magical. the more i fell in love with him, the more i fell in love with myself. he made me beautiful. he woke up parts of me. opened them. loved them... and now? i feel i am closing. there is no one here to appreciate my beauty and so it hides itself. and there is no one here for me to adore, and so i lose my inspiration. the world looks a little more blurry and sad.

hmmm... are my blogs always a bit depressed?... i was sitting with friends the other day and we were telling stories from our youth and adolesence - early boyfriends and girlfriends, awkward kisses and sloppy parties - and i saw suddenly how many of my tales met a dark end: one early crush later became schizophenic and, in a severly deluded episode, killed one of his own family members. another boyfriend from when i was fifteen killed himself three years later. the bandmate of a later boyfriend was recently found with his wife and two children all dead in their own basement, their throats slit by a group of reckless and unskilled young thieves. and of course jeff...

when i was traveling with my israeli friends in rajastan, they would tell stories of revelries and adventures, and we all laughed and enjoyed. but i kept quiet. what to tell? the time when i took acid at fourteen, drove my mother's car into a tree, and wound up in a mental facility for a month? or how about when i found myself at 17 in the ghetto in new orleans, drunk, seperated from my friends, smoking crack on a curb? yeah, exciting stories, but kinda fucked up. i don't even know who that person was, but she wasn't happy. i have spent the years since then, my twenties, trying to step out of that shadow, to unchain the weight of that unhappiness. but my god, it's not easy.

in pune, i found new tools. ways to unlock places in me i couldn't access before. i am so thankful for that. old wounds that had been covered up with numbness and despair were unearthed, acknowledged, and gently released.

these are things that i learned that i really should do every day: dance. wear something beautiful. sing. give compliments. smile. stop for a moment to feel everything that is happening right now. make eye contact and hold it. hug. do something that scares me.

now i'm going to take a bath, unpack for the first time in three and a half months, and sleep in my own bed. wow. the joy of little things!!

xo
lauren

just when i was feeling bleak, just when i really needed to hear it, the comment appeared: "Lauren you're my FAVORITE! When are you coming to detroit again?"... thank you my myspace friend; tonight, i really needed that.

maybe it appears as if things are going ok for my career, like i'm experiencing some level of success, but i'll tell you: i am lost, and i am alone. i don't understand the music business and i don't have anyone helping me with it. and it's such a mind-fuck to have the support and accolades that come to me from disembodied strangers on the internet, but to feel repeatedly snubbed and rejected face-to-face with people in the business.

i hate to complain - i have so much to be thankful for, and i AM thankful. i am thankful that i was given a voice at all. i am thankful that music exists. i am thankful that i have had the opportunities and resources that i have had to make the albums that i have, i am thankful that i have had the freedom and the support to pursue the art that i love.

so without complaining i just want to admit that i feel lost; i don't know what i'm doing and i don't know what to do next.

i've been here at the 'meditation resort' in pune, india, for over a week now and now i love it. it was hard getting into the groove, hard to let go of my prejudices and really appreciate this beautiful place where i have found myself.

because my parents were both spiritual seekers (in very different ways), i have been exposed in my lifetime to many many different forms of spirituality, philosophy, religion, etc. but i never fully connected with any of them until now. osho has a strange reputation in the US. there was a commune that was started in oregon in the 80's, but it met with a bad end after a long fight with the government and the media.

i can understand why the establishment would be interested in supressing osho and his ideas and organizations. his interests are in direct conflict with the establishment. his interest is in giving people the tools to be totally alive, free of the bonds of societal conditioning, present in the moment, celebratory and full of love.

but for governments and corporations, that would be very dangerous. they need us to be miserable, insecure, and neurotic. that way we are docile and easy to control and manipulate. maybe that sounds like crazy conspiracy theory shit to you. i can understand that. part of the way that we've been conditioned is to give those kind of statements the stamp of 'crazy conspiracy threory shit'. but have a look for yourself. are you really free? are you living in your own truth? do you know what your own truth is? do you know what love is? do you live in that love?... or are you insecure/anxious/drepressed/confused? are you putting off your happiness until you acheive or aquire something? do you believe you are not good enough? do you supress your anger, your sexuality, your intensity? becuase if you didn't you would be 'bad', a sinner?... i know i have lived in that place in myself for a long time, but i know those things are not me and it IS possible to be free, to be naked and genuine and content and totally alive in this moment.

this morning in the 6AM dynamic meditation we got to the point where we are supposed to 'go mad' and let everything go, and immediately i just screamed and screamed. fell on the floor and writhed and kicked. it was an amazing release. wow.

most of india is super cheap. you can eat in restaurants, sleep in guesthouses, and get maharaja service, all for a few bucks a day. but here in pune it's different: western prices for everything. the rupees simply fly out of your pocket.

the prices have been driven up by the westerners that are always coming here to the "ashram", which was started by the guru known as osho or rajneesh. now it's called a "resort", and is known as a meat market. osho had some unusual things to say on the subject of sex that have given his followers and this place a certain reputation. and when you come, you can feel it in the air. that is, if the mandatory HIV test upon entry doesn't tip you off.

i think most of the cliches that you can think of about 'new age' guru hippie stuff come from this scene: everyone wears maroon robes and hug all the time, and the 'meditations' usually involve free dancing, shaking, jumping, or making gibberish sounds. i'm still not sure how i feel about it.

i miss my friends that i was traveling with before. for the last few weeks we were all living together in an organic farm just outside of lucknow, in north india; making food together, playing music all the time, sitting round the fire in the evenings, playing with our friends' half-indian, half-israeli 2 year old daughter. now THAT is the kind of hippie commune cliche that i can really get into. it was really perfect for me.

but this is interesting too: i like the dancing meditations. i just let my body go totally crazy and don't give a shit what anyone thinks. it feels great. and it's beautiful here, warm and tropical. plus there's good food at the 'german bakery' restaurant. i think i'll enjoy it more if and when i make some friends. hopefully musician friends. and it would be nice if the creepy guys would stop trying to give me 'spiritual' hugs. oh well.

love lauren

how do people know so clearly how they want to be and what they want to do and where to do it? my mom said to me yesterday "it's hard to commit to anything when you are into keeping your options open". and she's so right. i am overwhemed by all the choices and i don't want to miss anything so i miss everything. sometimes.

music. music is the priority, of course. but sometimes i have to get away from it for a time. sometimes songs don't come. sometimes i'm disgusted with everything i've ever done and all i want to do is find some radical new direction to go in. sometimes i want to build on what i've done before and stay on the path and be patient and persistent and have faith that it will bear fruit one day.

what will it take for me to feel i'm on the right path? what will it take for me to feel successful? right now, i feel like everything i've done amounts to fuck all. like i'm still at zero. i have no idea what will come next. i don't have another album in me right now. i don't have the power to lead the ship right now. i wish that a big wave would come and sweep me up and take me in a new direction. "here" it would say, "sing this. go there. work with those people."... but i know myself well enough to know that i would resist that, rebel against it, defy it.

i'm still in india, and it's so beautiful here. it's hard to leave. but the wind is changing and i will come back soon. everything in balance.

xo
lauren

i am in pushkar, india, on a pay-by-the-minute computer. for the last two weeks i have been traveling around rajasthan with two israeli friends, working on a music project on a portable studio. it's hard to explain how different the world looks from this perspective: cows in the streets, bathing from a bucket, sitting on the floor to eat dinner with your hands. i am changed. it's beautiful. i don't know when i will come back to the west; at this moment, there is only this moment.
love
lauren

it's finally really sinking in: the repercussions are coming soon. the results of our unsustainable lifestyle will be felt, much sooner than i would like...
and i think it's much too late to turn it back.
the ice caps will melt. the sea level will rise. coastal cities will be underwater. there will be many more 'natural disasters' like the tsunami and katrina. there will be major climate change, droughts and floods. not only that, but we will run out of oil, and what then?

it's amazing to reflect on how beautifully constructed our destructive system is. our modern world runs so smoothly, yet every element contributes to our demise on earth... amazing! a beautiful dance of death.

everything we eat came to our table from miles away, using 10 calories of petroleum to deliver every calorie of food.

everything we buy is packaged in plastics, which are made from petroleum, creating greenhouse gases in manufacture, and polluting the environment with unbiodegradable toxic materials when disposed of.

what about our clothes? what are they made of? how are they made? how do they get to us?

and our homes?

i'm only scratching the surface; everything we do, every day, continues to contribute to the destruction that we will all soon feel.

this is scientific fact. deal with it. western civilization is going down.

and we deserve it. the money we could be spending developing sustainable systems, we spend instead on war, and bigger highways, and marketing of new, unsustainable products. the energy we could be spending making a better world for all of us, we spend making a more comfortable life for our individual selves. we are all guilty. and karma will be a bitch.

but in a way, knowing all of this makes me really appreciate life in this moment. what else can i do?... "the future's uncertain and the end is always near"... but we forget that, and sacrifice the present for rewards in the future. 'rewards' and a 'future' that are imaginary. now is all we have. so i'm going to enjoy it, love it, live it. now.

♥
lauren