beautiful things grow out of shit...

The new Daniel Lanois cd has inspired me -
and her is the letter to a friend...

i just wanted to apologize for the horrible and gloomy email I sent to you the other week. Sometimes I forget that not everybody wants to hear me gripe and complain about how hard life is - I can be such a downer, and I'm so sorry for having dumped that on you. I know you have so much of your own shit going on and I didn't mean to add to it all...

I'm leveling off somewhat. My mom is getting back into the swing of things, but I have to keep on reminding her that she had two huge operations done at the same time - had a part of her lung and all of her lymph nodes in her armpit removed, had a huge stomach flu - was not on any pain meds for the first day after the operation (which still makes me angry and horrified) and spent two weeks in a shithole that was equal to a third world country hospital. She has her good days when she zips around the city, visiting my grandmother and shopping, but then she gets tired. NO KIDDING LADY! I tell her - the body needs time to heal, and I'm realizing, so does the mind. Never thought of the mind as a muscle - we take for granted that we are always using it - keeping it running 24/7 - even in our sleep, but it too needs rest - and after any traumatic experience, it too needs a period of recuperation and regeneration - and we both are needing to find that space where we can take part in these things...

I picked up the new Daniel Lanois cd - (he worked with U2 and Brian Eno). His music is kinda folky and ambient. He did all the production work on U2's Unforgettable Fire CD so if you know it - that's his style... Well, I'm a huge fan and when i got the cd, and listened to it, I thought of u - it's so complex, on so many levels, and as an artist, he strives to find soul and meaning in his work and life. There was one conversation he has with Brian Eno on the cd...

LANOIS: I’m trying to make a film…about beauty itself… about the source of the art rather than everything that surrounds the art…

ENO: …What would really be interesting for people to see [in your film] is how beautiful things grow out of shit, because nobody ever believes that… Everybody thinks that Beethoven had his string quartets completely in his head, that it somehow appeared formed in his head… and all he had to do was write them down… But what would really be a lesson that everyone could learn is that things come out of nothing… the tiniest seed in the right situation turns into the most beautiful forest. And then the most promising seed in the wrong situation turns into nothing… and I think this would be important for people to understand because it gives people confidence in their own lives to know this is how things work… If you walk around with the idea that there are some people so gifted and have these wonderful things in their head, but you’re not one of them – you’re just a normal person who could never do anything like that - then you live a different kind of life. You could have another kind of life where you say, “Well I know that things come from nothing very much, start from unpromising beginnings, and I’m an unpromising beginning, and I could start something…”

I’m an unpromising beginning, and I could start something…

That almost left me in tears - something in it rung true - to me, for us - what we are looking for in life, what we are looking for in our art, even within ourselves. The idea that we are all coming from nothing, every day - a new day - a clean slate, our bodies - constantly regenerating new cells, that as artists, our souls can start something new as well...