coulou's cafe trumpet meditations (no. 35)
Hello my friends, again hoping everyone is doing okay, safe, families and friends safe as well.
Sending lots of love. I'm finishing my lovely stay at this cabin and I've just been thinking about how the spaces I am in so deeply impact the way my mind and body operates (true for lots ((all?)) of us).
I'd found myself over the last few months in the classic existential rut of "will I ever be able to create something good again?" which yes, yes, yes that sounds so dramatic, but! When I get stuck (and I know many creative people can relate to this) it truly is such a vulnerable place.
I think I'd been overworking myself on projects, focusing so much on getting things done. I kept sitting down to write music and my mind was blank, which can be a scary feeling. In the endless running into mental walls I found myself in, I finally took a moment and decided I should head out to a cabin with my instruments.
Now, at the end of this truly nourishing and grounding week, I'm thinking about the first time I ever did this, which was in the midst of COVID. I'd been in Brooklyn for months and months holed up in my apartment. I was still working on music constantly, but through all this *drama* and *stress* and *emotions* of sorts in my life I hit a mental breaking point.
I found an old old Airbnb off the grid on the coast of Maine, booked it for two weeks, and the next morning I packed my car with everything in my studio (including the 70 pound Wurlitzer keyboard that I carried down several flights of stairs on my own lol) and got on the road. Nine hours later I was in a beautiful/incredibly creepy cabin with no WiFi and no service, a ten minute walk from a lighthouse and several dark and quiet houses on the block.
Once I made it out there, unpacked my stuff and took a deep breath, I realized I'd never spent any real time alone before. Yes, I've been in my room alone, in a practice room alone, on drives etc, but never a real stretch of time going unperceived by the world around me.
Even being in a room alone you feel the presence of people through the walls or floors above and below. Without people, without internet, my thoughts burst through and completely swarmed me. My inner voice was non-stop, chatting away, narrating everything I did, narrating about narrating about everything I did.
It was so difficult, it's like 95% of my life I've kept this voice somewhat pacified, yes it's always there driving me kind of nuts, but with nothing to shut it up it just grew and grew and grew. The more uninterrupted time I spent with this voice, the more embodied it started to become, the more it started to separate from me.
And then, after three days it started to get tired. I found little gaps at first of just experiencing walking as walking, not talking about how I'm walking while walking, just single beautiful threads of thought. The voice continued to shrink and for the first time in I have no idea how long, I felt a sense of peace. Deep deep settled peace, I was so alone out in the world in this weird (again really creepy for sure haunted) cabin way up in Maine but at the same time, I don't think I'd ever felt so whole in my life.
I know for many of us as we grow we try to find ways of coping with existing in this world of technologies and jobs and responsibilities and crazy concept that we were like in the wild some thousands of years ago and now we have society and Instagram. But but! I want you to know that it's possible to feel this way too.
I'm thinking about sharing my meditations on all streaming services as well if you wanna just listen and walk, all under CouloU's Cafe.
Love you all, so much.
Will add my links next time.