The discontinuation of Hel part III: Sunflowers

It's been a while since my last blog. I can't explain it! It might be an instance of self-sabotage at the hands of Hel... Listen, Hel, this is happening one way or another, ok? Stay put! Be still!

Where was I... oh yes, Sunflowers. One example of a happy sounding song that turns out to be anything but, if you pay attention to the lyrics. Here, have a listen:

Hey! I’m knocking on your head/ Can I go in there? / I guess that you’ve been checking out the odds again, so, well/ Is our horse doing ok?/ By the way need to tell you I got distracted/ It was cold and it was raining/And you know how easily two wheels can slip/ when the ground is wet and, suddenly, hey!/ What if things never change?/A lighting crossing my brain / You can see it even with your eyes shut/ We try to stare into the sun/ As a caution measure/ So all we can see is what comes from within, yeah/ You, you fight a different way/ You let it inside your veins / It moves with you and you / Keep it quiet with no need to explain/ Exactly like myself/ When I can’t wait to tell you/ I just discovered there’s a brand new taste of gummy/ And I know how much it frightens you to think / You’ll end up with all the sunflowers in the field, hey! / What if things never change?/ A lighting crossing my brain/ You can see it even with your eyes shut/ We try to stare into the sun/ As a caution measure/ So all we can see is what comes from within/ Life keeps getting more expensive/ And I’m paying with all this age/ But if I can’t be a young promise anymore/ I’m determined to be an old glory/Yet to be discovered

It's been a while since I wrote that song... a very long while. At the time I identified myself very much with my artistic struggle, I saw it as a battle that would eventually be either won or lost. And I saw it as something that separated me (together with my partner at the time, as he was also involved in his own artistic struggle) from the rest of the world: I was the fierce one, walking the line of sanity and poverty and refusing to fall in line with all the "normal" working people. Only I was always to responsible to tread on the side of poverty for too long, so I became the "abnormal" one with both a job and a dream, and virtually zero free time.

The song echoes the constant worry that runs in the back of your mind when you're pursuing a dream: what if it never comes true? And when you come up with a bold sentence like the one that ends the song, meaning: I'm never gonna give up, does it mean you're willing to end up a delusional and decrepit old fart who refuses to accept reality?

Well, it's a good think my very good friend and mentor, the black oracle, passed me a book that made a big crack in my resistance to accept that now is all that matters. This is something we become aware of when we hear about someone who is by no means at the top of the list of those to say bye bye to the world soon goes and does exactly that, leaving everyone puzzled and humbled by the seemingly ephemeral nature of human existence."I gotta live the moment... a piano could fall on my head tomorrow". (To die like that would be the ultimate cosmic joke for someone like me, though!). But that awareness lasts for a day, or not even that long, then we resume our worried lives and the now becomes again an endless floating bridge between before and later that never quite moors.

I'm purposefully trying to pry that crack open and to fully enjoy the process of becoming a better musician, regardless of the outcome. And the process of being alive as well. I already know the outcome of that, at least in this plane of existence, so... why worry?