Back to the Studio II
In February 2020, my husband Mark and I found out we’d had a miscarriage. I experienced what is called a “missed miscarriage” — I had no idea it had even happened. Shortly after our first visit to the doctor where we heard our baby’s heartbeat, the baby had stopped growing, but we didn’t know that until our next appointment at almost 10 weeks.
During those few weeks, I recorded for the album, we made a trip to Hawaii to meet my family where we shared the pregnancy with them — all the while unaware that we had already lost our child.
When my father died, the sadness was like a punch to the face. I knew who I lost, and it was gut wrenching. I missed so many things about him. I hated that I could never hear his voice again, hear his mumbled stories again. But when I lost our second child, it was a blurry and heavy haze of sadness. I didn’t know exactly what I had lost, and I missed what I will never know I missed. My recovery from the surgery was hard. I was in bed for a week barely able to move. My body hurt. My heart hurt. I felt emptied in every sense.
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We kept working on the album. I didn’t know what else to do, and I needed something to do. I limped to the recording studio as I was still recovering one day, and lay on my producer’s couch while we added strings and piano to the tracks. I let the music wash over me. I wanted to keep creating in the midst of my sadness, and let that be a part of the process.
I remember telling Mark around that time that I was ready for a break, to really rest and find ways to be restore.
And then all of a sudden, Covid-19 hit NYC like a hurricane, and we were trapped in our apartment for two months, then three, four, five, eight, ten…
A couple of months into the lockdown, I was tempted to abandon the album. I lost my motivation as I became overwhelmed by the year that was 2020. As the news got darker by the day in seemingly every way across the globe, finishing the recording seemed an incredibly insignificant endeavor. It’s not even that good. What’s the point? What difference will this make? The voices got loud again.
But if there’s one thing I’m thankful for during the months of having nothing to do (I mean, except keeping a little toddler alive) and nowhere to be, it was having to hit pause with all the things I’d busied myself with through the past decade, and take time to address my still-complicated relationship with being an artist.
I had always thought you had to earn being an artist, that it was a title that should only be awarded to those “good enough”. Otherwise, you were more of a leech, an awkward weight on society. The friend/daughter/sister that’s always asking for something: a listen, a click, a purchase… I was jealous of other pursuits where you could be self-sufficient, where you didn’t need anyone. Or better, where other people needed you. That’s partly why I had turned to graphic design (and loved it) — people came to me to tell their stories. And I loved listening. Then all I needed was my computer to work, and the job would be done.
It took many conversations with friends, other artists, a gentle counselor, to help me see that an artist was a part of who I am, how I was made, not what I was doomed to spend my life proving that I was good enough to be. Telling stories as best I could was an impulse I’d had from my earliest memories. As Mark put it for me one night while I cried in confusion about how to move forward: the urge to make music was a fountain in me. I couldn’t stop the flow if I tried; my time was better spent thinking how to let the water flow.
Somewhere in November, my producer and I decided that, with precautions, we could resume the recording and wrap up the album. I went in to the studio with a renewed, though fragile, sense of belief that this is just a part of who I am, and what I do. I’m a musician. I make music. I’m a storyteller. I tell stories. I want to. And I’m so incredibly thankful that I can.
I re-wrote the lyrics to over half of the songs in light of the journey I’d been on. The album had already been about love (becoming a mother) and loss (losing my father, losing my passion), but the contours and depths of that love and loss had grown even sharper for me during 2020, and I let the songs better tell that story.
I can’t wait for you to hear it. Stay tuned. :)
Listen to my past music on Spotify or Soundcloud (free).
