looking back, leaping forward
Howdy hi — it’s April. The last time I sent out a letter was exactly one month ago, but the last time I finished one was when I was in Dallas on tour. I didn’t like it, I had a bad dream about it, I didn’t send it out. Welcome to April, and welcome to love over fear, my newsletter about living and loving and doing it while you’re scared. Thanks for being here. Into March, then?
March started out with a treat of a chance to meet an OG online bestie, Anna, in real life. I met Anna on Tumblr – study side of tumblr (studyblr) if you were wondering – almost eleven years ago. We knew each other while enduring the incredibly specific ache of growing up & struggling with mental illness while studying our butts off to make ourselves (and our immigrant parents) proud. Anna – saved in my phone as Anna ⭐ England – was visiting the US for the first time, and the fates had it be that we could spend a day and a half together. We talked about God, did a ‘bit of everything left’ style lunch (box mac and cheese, leftover sushi, edamame, tempura cheesecake???) and she came with me to band practice. I love her so much. I didn’t like myself very much at all when I was growing up, but I did love the internet and my friends on there. Anna loved me through what I thought was the worst of it, and we laugh often about how happy we are to not be 14 anymore. For me, she’s one of those ‘proof we’re in the best timeline’ people in my life.
Then tour! But first: car trouble. My car (and car key) started freaking out the morning of the day we were leaving, which created that very specific anxiety of things going so wrong while also being so out of my control. The tour in and of itself was a big adventure. I put something like 4,000 miles on my car (time for an oil change) and visited a lot of places for the first time. Shalom band toured as a bass-cello duo with Cinema Hearts, with the exception of the two unofficial showcases we played at SXSW, where Cinema Hearts joined Shalom band.
My first SXSW was a lot of fun: I saw a bunch of people I hadn’t seen in a while, I spoke on an AdHoc panel about dropping out of the official showcase on account of it being sponsored by the war machine with Eric (of Proper.) and Livvy (of Marmalarky). I played a solo set at Ivy Le’s annual backyard show and two of my first full band shows since I played in New York at the Paste Magazine & Women That Rock showcases. It felt so good to be surrounded by music and musicians that week that I didn’t react as badly as I thought I would when I was being quoted in articles as “indie artist Okay Shalom” and the Fox news emails started coming in. Maybe they should have invited TRUE AMERICA’S.
In all honesty, I started praying again on tour. I really felt so far out of my depth that I called on divine intervention. I realized how bad my eating disorder brain had gotten while dealing with the car, the 9-5, the break up, the travel, the trauma, etc, and said Jesus take the wheel. I didn’t think I would ever find myself back in a church — see religious trauma, queerness, feeling like I am cursed — but it got so intense that I started going to church again. For the last two Sundays, I’ve woken up and gone to church and cried for at least 40% of the time (100% during praise and worship). I guess I figured, what have I got to lose? If there’s a chance that I could find peace in faith, why not try it? I’m giving it a real try: I joined a church running group to prep for their charity 5k in May and I’m challenging myself to talk to at least one person when I go. I’m also considering it the path of least resistance when it comes to forming community. Whatever, in any case, I’ve been going to church and I’m not sure if it’s helping yet but I guess I’ll see.
I released my new EP Sativa and came up on a year since my Big Friendship Breakup. A year since the beginning of an end. I wrote those songs while recovering in South Africa last summer, and I learned that some people took the songs personally, to which I say, the songs very are personal for me, but if the shoe fits…
It’s April 2024 now, and man. What a difference a change and some time can make. Last April I started this newsletter and started reading tarot. Last April I was collapsing in a heap of tears on the shower floor because she didn’t love me back like I thought she did. Last April I canceled a tour I worked so hard to put together and decided to leave the US because I had no money left. I thought it the end, so I took a big leap and hoped for the best. To be honest, dear reader, I’ve never been more lucky to be the fool. Card 0, blank slate. Open heart, new state. Back in the studyblr days I had written a message to myself on a cupboard in my room: “The future is bulletproof even if you are the gun”. Sometimes I think back on that and wonder whether the depressed poet vibes radiated off me as a teenager. Today though, I think about it as a sign to leap, and a sign that I’ve always known to do it.
Joy Sullivan is a favorite poem of mine. She writes on Substack, and her book, Instructions for Traveling West, is out next week? I think? My preorder arrives soon is all I know. There’s only time to leap.
No shows this April but Flemington DIY 10th Anniversary Show May 18th! I am beyond stoked to be returning to New Jersey. DIY or die now and always.
All this to say I am April’s fool. I am leaping into the dark with hope and a sense of humor. I am humoring myself because if the universe is laughing at me then I want to be in on the fucking joke. I am allowing eclipse season to throw me about and seeing what happens. I am entering Mercury retrograde with acceptance that the fuckery (in some shape or form) will continue. I am screaming and crying out and praying for an end to the horrific war crimes being committed by the Israeli occupation. I am screaming and crying out and praying for a free Palestine.
It’s tiring, and I don’t stay up past 10:30 anymore. But I’m cooking and listening to birdsong, and allowing myself to be curious instead of berating myself for being wrong. I’m listening to Glitterbug by The Wombats and wiggling a bunch. We could be gigantic!
Thanks for being here.
love always,
shalom
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