letter 013: since we last spoke, again tomorrow
dear junk mail club,
recommended listening: menthol - allie kelly, henry solomon
it has been quite a long time since we last spoke. i wish i could come in here and say that i’ve taken some time away and that now i have something really amazing to share with you.
unfortunately, that’s not the case. what have i been up to? a bunch of small little trips here and there around california. also, i did buy a milk frother for myself so my coffee experience is top notch now. frothed milk in my drip coffee. i’m living a life of luxury.
to be honest, i can’t say where my head is at right now. i sat down to write this out of the hope that it would help me figure that out. i do journal every couple days. if i don’t, i start to feel like i’m holding too much weight in my brain. it starts to get all clogged up and sludgy. i get this weird guilt when i haven’t been writing in it. i feel like i should go back and read some of my entries, but i rarely ever do. i don’t like to influence the way i’m thinking and feeling now with how i felt last week. those two can differ quite drastically. i’m talking aloud as i’m typing this. can you hear my voice? maybe you’ve never heard me speak. maybe that’s for the better. i used to have a speech problem when i was kid. couldn’t say my “r” sounds. so for example i couldn’t say my own name “garrett” or “garry”. it would be more like “gahwet” or “gahwee”. i worked through that don’t worry guys--but i still mumble a bit if i’m being honest.
i got into biking a little. or at least riding a bicycle. i’m not going for miles and miles. i just ride around my neighborhood, to the beach and back, sit and stare at the sailboats. one day i’ll have a sailboat. i’ve actually never sailed before and i actually get motion sick quite easily. so that could be a terrible experience for me, but i enjoy romanticizing it in my head. the idea of taking a few friends out for lunch and floating out there--not too far. i’m trying to stay within a couple miles of the coast at all times. i’m not trying to like sail sail. or who knows maybe i will be down the line. if you can tell by the way i write these letters -- especially these newer unfiltered streams of consciousness -- i’m a bit of a sporadic thinker. when i let myself go wandering, i can travel quite a lot of distance. though i’m actually extremely good at focusing when i want, often so hyper focused i’ll ignore everything else. sometimes for the good, other times to my detriment.
biking has been good for me though. it’s like walking in the way that you get the chance to observe and absorb the world as you pass through it. i think about a lot without overthinking. that’s a rarity. it’s odd. maybe it’s because of the movement. i don’t ever spiral out on the bike. right when i sense myself on the verge of ruining my own day, that’s when i reach for the handlebars and leave from my room on the bike. i wrote this poem about my bike over a year ago, but it still holds true.
on a day to day basis, life has been super lovely. i wake up and my one goal is to try to work on new music. in no particular order, my day normally consists of making music, skating, biking, and hanging out with friends. that is all i’d want to do for the rest of my life, so to be doing that at all, i can’t complain. however, the music process has been more of a battle than ever before for me. it started as one hard day and has become weeks in a row of difficulty. i have over 20 songs i’m working on so i try to rotate between those to keep it fresh and avoid blockages, but it adds up overtime. i wrote on the whiteboard in my room “all you can do is try again tomorrow.” that is the blunt truth. so, everyday, i try and chip away a little bit at song or two. it’s been a while since i’ve finished a track and the lack of closure is getting to me. but i do feel like all this chipping and chipping away, all these small, repeated attempts, are adding up. maybe not in sonic success quite yet, but i think i’m right on the verge of gaining momentum, over the hill to a place where i can show these songs to my friends and family without narrating all the changes i still have to make. i hate when people do that when they are sharing their art or asking for a critique. and that’s me everytime i show what i have so far to somebody. lol. but here i am, trying again and chipping away.
when i really think about it, it’s just a song in the end. no matter how frustrating it may get, i always am reminding myself that i’m getting all worked up over music. and music is the best thing in the world. there’s a lot worse things that the world could dish at me than writer’s block and hating a guitar tone. to have people who press play on my attempts at making songs is an amazing thing. music is there for you when everything else is shit. and i should never alienate myself from how special music is because i’m stumped on making another song.
i stay motivated by the day that i dream of when i can put on my headphones and listen back to back to back tracks of mine, completed and seamless. at least as seamless as they can be. completed in art terms means only that it’s reached the point that you can’t stand to work on it anymore. that’s the done point really. you could keep making little adjustments for eternity if you let yourself. but i think that’s why making art is a lifelong exploration. there’s always something new to feel, always something new to try to make sense of and share.
yours,
garrett