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Life finding its way in our pool turned pond.<\/p><\/div>\n<\/div>\n
I\u2019m also converting our pool into a pond, which is a move everyone has an opinion about. Some are enchanted, others confused. That tracks. My ideas often emerge like I\u2019m a woman of means. But the truth is, I\u2019m still the consummate artist. I make art, and it eats up most of my spare funds. Welcome to real life. Financing your creativity isn\u2019t cheap. And I\u2019m still trying to work out how billionaires live with themselves. I get an extra hundred dollars and I instantly start buying homeless people lunches and lending friends 50 dollars.<\/p>\n
So, my pond has cinder block fountains. It works. Minimalism, when done with a good eye, is cheap. And instead of crown molding on my walls or fancy marble, I\u2019m painting murals with my artist friends and tiling the formica\u2014brushes in hand, house in process. Everything in my life is art. Not just the intentional, finished kind, but the make-do, on-the-fly, figure-it-out-as-I-go kind.<\/p>\n
We all dream of big dollars for our art, but the lack of them often forces something better: ingenuity, authenticity, originality. I bought cheap koi, goldfish, and minnows for a few bucks and tossed them into the pool, hoping for the best. A few didn\u2019t make it. But almost 200 have! My numbers are better than the pet stores. And in 15 years I\u2019m gonna have koi the size of puppies. I have a utility pump with a garden hose and a cinder block fountain with a statue of a happy Buddha. It\u2019s simple but quite lovely. I\u2019m figuring it out. That\u2019s the trick to creating music, too\u2014by starting. Starting without knowing everything, but with enough curiosity and courage to keep going. That\u2019s what most people are missing: the audacity to begin.<\/p>\n
There\u2019s a study I read once that said the most accomplished musicians often had some lessons but tended to quit early, then figured things out on their own. That hybrid model\u2014gentle guidance plus self-direction\u2014is magic. If you\u2019re curious and accountable, you don\u2019t need a shadow. You need time, space, and a willingness to trust the process. A little wind. A little chaos. The study may have been fake. Who knows these days? 90% of all statistics are made up on the fly. #AlternativeFacts. Wait a minute\u2026 don\u2019t go there, Frannie. But\u2026 #$^&*%$%$<\/p>\n
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Community mural in process.<\/p><\/div>\n<\/div>\n
\u2026And back to the loving place. The pond has pulled me back into practicing classical guitar. I always do better when I can hear the wind and water. My whole being thrives. Maybe that\u2019s why I\u2019m always drawn to practicing in gardens and at poolside. Anyway, I\u2019ve been drawn to my classical guitar all week. But because I\u2019ve neglected it this year, I had to change the strings and stretch them. It took days for the tuning to settle. The guitar has a way of teaching patience. I keep tuning\u2026 and retuning. Reminding myself not to allow myself to dismiss out-of-tuneness for too long. It\u2019s like practicing without practicing\u2014showing up for the ritual of it, even if the melody isn\u2019t ready yet. Getting my ears locked into six notes and not letting them drift off. There\u2019s a meditation to tuning like that.<\/p>\n
I keep pencils in every room, like breadcrumbs to my future self. I sketch ideas the way I plan gardens\u2014loose shapes and structures, built to be revised. My grandmother used to say, \u201cDraw what you see.\u201d Like Jiminy Cricket, my mind whispers, \u201cBring a pencil,\u201d constantly. Those voices live in my head, keeping me anchored when perfectionism starts to creep in. A pencil, after all, can be erased. I really only believe in two writing utensils. Pencils and classic Sharpies. When I\u2019m ready, I go bold.<\/p>\n
My home is art. Guitars hang on the walls. Photos of beloveds, past and present. I collect the paintings, photos, and sculptures of my favorite artists turned friends\u2014friends who stay for dinner and leave brushstrokes behind. I think some folks would find it chaotic, to live in rooms that are always changing (my poor blind cat). But to me, stillness is death. Spaces should evolve, and so should we.<\/p>\n
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Santa Fe clouds displaying chaos to come.<\/p><\/div>\n<\/div>\n
Even my songs grow in shifting gardens. I track them in a spreadsheet\u2014moving titles on and off albums and EPs in progress as parts are written, recorded, rearranged. I used to think I\u2019d know when something was done. Now I know better: it\u2019s done when I say it is. When it feels ready to share. And if I change my mind later, I can repaint. Rewrite. Re-record. Artists do it all the time. Bowie did. Joni did. Taylor\u2019s doing it now. Nothing\u2019s too sacred to revisit. And no version cancels the others out. They\u2019re all true. Just… different seasons of the same root.<\/p>\n
Yesterday, I was shoulder-deep in pond water, rearranging plants and stirring up muck. The work was sticky, and the smell of damp earth was\u2026 ripe. As I wrestled one of the planters into place, I noticed a tiny goldfish hovering right next to my hand, utterly unbothered. Just keeping me company. I stopped what I was doing, said hello, and thanked him for the trust. I was churning his whole world and he was still calm beside me. There was a lesson in that\u2014about stillness, about letting the hands do their work, about faith in something larger than the moment\u2019s mess and the reward of calm even when you are muscling things into place.<\/p>\n
The album I\u2019ve been working on for years is suddenly done\u2014at least the A-side is. And the rest is super close. I didn\u2019t even realize it until I looked at my spreadsheet and saw that every box was checked. It\u2019s a good thing I\u2019ve learned the discipline of writing things down because when I get knocked off track, I totally lose things. I wandered back into my \u201csong progress\u201d spreadsheet at the beginning of the month and read \u201cmastered\u201d with bemusement. OMG! I had a single floating in there, totally complete, that I hadn\u2019t scheduled for release. Free song! #MusicianMath<\/p>\n
That\u2019s how creation works sometimes. You just keep showing up, reshaping what\u2019s there, and one day the shape takes hold. It\u2019s finished not because it\u2019s perfect, but because it\u2019s ready. Just get it across the finish line and call it. Completion is power.<\/strong><\/p>\n I cut songs I loved to get this record done and maintain focus. Just like I\u2019m dismantling the solar heating system on the pool. I don\u2019t need a heated pond. You have to make space. Destruction and repurposing are part of the creative cycle. I keep every discarded lyric and broken line on scraps of paper\u2014like carpenters keep wood scraps just in case they need them. It\u2019s all part of the same gesture: nothing is wasted when you\u2019re paying attention.<\/p>\n And I don\u2019t do it alone. I surround myself with creatives\u2014singers, builders. Folks with productively busy brains and hands. The kind of people who see unfinished walls and want to add color. You don\u2019t have to ask them twice to scar up a fresh white wall. When I host gatherings, I lay out brushes, instruments, snacks. I set the stage for people to create, and they do. My mural grows in layers from the hands of friends. My kitchen becomes a symphony of shared dishes. The pond gets redesigned by committee. Creativity, like water, finds its way, and once the flow starts, it keeps going.<\/p>\n Tending to our creations is a kind of devotion. An important discipline.<\/p>\n So as spring settles in, here\u2019s a quiet blessing for those of us out here making things\u2014muddy, messy, unfinished things:<\/p>\n May all of our gardens flourish, even when planted too early. Even the greats revisit their work. The Beatles<\/strong> famously re-released Let It Be\u2026 Naked<\/em>, stripping away Phil Spector\u2019s production to let the raw songs shine. Read that again. They edited out Phil Spector!<\/p>\n Check out: The Beatles<\/strong>\u2019 Let It Be<\/em> (1970) vs. Let It Be\u2026 Naked<\/em> (2003) Joni Mitchell<\/strong> reimagined her classics with lush orchestral arrangements in Both Sides Now<\/em> and Travelogue<\/em>, her aged voice offering sagacity and a new emotional palette.<\/p>\n Check out: Joni Mitchell<\/strong>\u2019s selected songs. Compare originals with versions on:<\/p>\n David Bowie<\/strong> took it even further; he hated his 1987 album Never Let Me Down<\/em> so much that one of his final wishes was to have it remade. In 2018, after his death, it was completely re-recorded, the synthetic \u201980s gloss stripped away, the songs rebuilt with live musicians and intimate new arrangements. A posthumous do-over. \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/strong>Check out: David Bowie\u2019s<\/strong> Never Let Me Down<\/em> (1987) vs. Never Let Me Down 2018 Taylor Swift<\/strong> is methodically re-recording six of her early albums\u2014Taylor\u2019s Version<\/em>\u2014to reclaim both ownership and expression.<\/p>\n Check out: Taylor\u2019s Version<\/em> Albums<\/p>\n May has been a learning experience for me in Santa Fe. In California, I\u2019m used to peppers blooming by now. But on May 19, it snowed. Then it rained. Then it hailed. (P.S. Have you ever heard of graupel? It\u2019s a thing here.) Santa Fe weather is a party! We can get all four seasons in a day. It almost always ends with sunshine, but our planting season doesn\u2019t start until Memorial Day. I over-prepared, of course, and have been chomping at the bit to get my hands in the dirt. I had to learn how to pre-grow indoors, something I\u2019ve never done. And next thing you know, I\u2019m researching greenhouses, because if you\u2019re going to do something indoors\u2014do it right, right? I\u2019m also converting our pool into a pond, which is a move everyone has an opinion about. Some are enchanted, others confused. That tracks. My ideas often emerge […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":28224,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[190],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-29355","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-lessons-from-melody-ranch"],"acf":[],"aioseo_notices":[],"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sandiegotroubadour.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29355","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sandiegotroubadour.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sandiegotroubadour.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sandiegotroubadour.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sandiegotroubadour.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=29355"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/sandiegotroubadour.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29355\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":29595,"href":"https:\/\/sandiegotroubadour.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29355\/revisions\/29595"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sandiegotroubadour.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/28224"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sandiegotroubadour.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=29355"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sandiegotroubadour.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=29355"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sandiegotroubadour.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=29355"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
\nMay we trust the process. When we find balance, everything becomes clear.
\nMay we never fear editing. Repaint, rewrite, rebuild\u2014without shame.
\nMay our friendships stir up creativity and water our roots.
\nMay we show up and tend to our creations every day.
\nAnd may we always, always have the audacity to begin again.<\/strong><\/p>\n🎧<\/strong> Homework: Applied Listening. Musical Do-Overs.<\/strong><\/h2>\n
\nFocus:<\/em> Stripped-back production, rawness, removal of Phil Spector\u2019s orchestral additions.<\/p>\n\n
\nFocus:<\/em> Orchestras + matured vocal tone.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n
\nIt\u2019s wild that we get second chances even in death.<\/strong><\/p>\n
\n<\/em>\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Focus:<\/em> Replacing \u201980s gloss with organic, emotional arrangements.<\/p>\n\n
\nFocus:<\/em> Changes in tone, delivery, and production choices\u2014how has her perspective evolved?<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"