I'm on a New Path
new path, new song, new video
INTRODUCTION THAT CAN TOTALLY BE SKIPPED:
It’s been just over two years since my last PoSR installment, and wow. What a journey I’ve been on. In fact, my Saturn Return started March 7th, 2023, two days before my last post, and will complete one month from today. And if you don’t know what that means, basically, fundamentally, it’s been a hard time. I feel... different, and also home again.
My last post was about falling in love, and this one will be about where love took me, or, at least, some of the tokens it left me with.
One last thing before I get into it: I am playing a show on Saturday, May 24th*!
I hope to raise some funds for a new computer! Creative Cloud has aged me out of using Premiere Pro for now, but I’m loving the creative restraints.
Onto the goods..
“New Path” was the last song I wrote before coming down with laryngitis, and the first thing I recorded as soon as I could muster a sound (way too soon, but I had an itch).
It’s from a doodling session I had on my front porch one evening in late March. And by doodling, I mean strumming the same notes repeatedly and letting the unconscious stretch out of my face (a diary, songwriting, you know?).
Here’s a shot from the exact moment:
It is a continuation of a song I wrote and produced a couple of months ago called “A Fruit That Sweet.”
Back on the Path…
VIDEO side-quest-story:
So, I’ve been singing this old tune, “Poor Girl,” lately, a song about the bitterness I felt that someone close to me wasn’t taking responsibility for their life (everything is a reflection of ourselves, hah). And while I feel pretty far from that sentiment now, the line, “I am jumping from feeling to feel,” kept turning in my head. So, I thought it was asking for a video.
I went digging through the archives, searched “jumping” and found Boy Scouts leaping into creeks, jumping bean cartoons from the 1920s, and Maasai people springing into the air. If you follow my stories on Instagram, you’ll have seen the goods.
I bought myself a jump rope, too, which I thought was completely unrelated (silly me, it’s always related).
My roommate and friend, Micah, offered her studio space in the Liberty Station Arts District for me to shoot some b-roll, which was amazing. I recorded everything to a sped-up track of PG, but as I went to edit, playing back the song again and again didn’t feel right. I’m not in that place anymore, and that song didn’t match the vibes.
The mood was obviously meant for New Path, and just like that, I ended up making a video to a song I didn’t realize would be a song.
It’s really strange how things work themselves out. The footage is all captured in the context of a song that expresses a lot of pain and resentment. I’m dancing and jumping to those distorted words, like the vortex I was in for the past two years. Transmuting resentment into something light, grounded, and accepting.
In New Path, I say:
I’m on a new path
A new path I’m on says “please,
calm down”You’re on another side
And I don’t think I can deny
All of the lessons nowI’m back on a path that’s my own
While you led me here,
It’s time for me to growSaturn returned us
Back to our homes
In our own time
This video is a sweet, benevolent reflection of where I am today.
In the past two years, I learned how to feel loved for exactly what I am, despite a storm of unfairness. I saw clearly that thing so many therapists speak on: how the coping strategies we played out in childhood no longer serve us. Damn. We’re ALLOWED to take off the armour. And DAMN, there are OTHER WAYS to do things. AND DAMN, we’re ALLOWED to feel joyful.
Oooof. Children are warriors. And as adults, we can be free.
I didn’t end up using any of the archival footage I found (yet) and was constrained to only using 2 layers in iMovie, but it’s a nice, soft step back into making things. It’s also really got me thinking about collaboration. I feel a lot more of that happening soon.
Songs are from the Soul
Something about how our innermost knowing has the exact words/actions/sounds we need to make sense of things, and yet it is only by repeating them again and again that we come to finally understand, or maybe, accept it. Think: those instincts you have to want to tear fabric, push paint, play a particular song, or read a particular passage again and again. How can we KNOW and not know? You know? Is this just me? How does this come through for you?
Feelings are Markers, not Masters
The past 5 months, I feel I have finally made a breakthrough in managing my mental health, and that feels major as someone who has had a long-term hot/cold relationship with depression.
Self-compassion is by far the most helpful practice I’ve integrated into my life. Mental health is a huge, passionate subject for me and I’m hoping to create more space to speak on it more broadly. It is why I make anything at all. I really want people to be okay.
Reminder: Of course you feel the way that you feel. Why wouldn’t you? Anyone in your shoes would. You’re not doing it wrong. This is right on time. It’s okay to feel this.
FINAL THOUGHTS:
The path is always new because it’s always uniquely yours.
I want you to see what’s on the other side of this.
To more baby steps.
Thank you so much for reading and listening. Please let me know if anything stuck out to you, or just give me a little wink.
Wishing you the best.
-K
PoSR <3
*Show date changed from the 17th to the 24th! Sorry for the change! More details to come.