The Album. The Book.
The Songs. A dream …
I have been writing songs for what seems like forever. It’s how I breathe. How I interpret and express emotion and make sense of our world.
One day I wrote a song called Crystallize. It happened in the usual way. Just me and the piano. That place on earth I call home, where I feel most comfortable, most like myself. The lyrics came, something about “Search your heart, search your mind” “It’s closing in” “Safe journey.”
One night I had a dream. I don’t always remember my dreams and often they’re quite mundane, unless I’m having nightmares. Those I remember. I know exactly where I was. Which house, which room, which bed, same husband. And I remember how I felt when I woke up. I had been given a book. Not the whole thing, but somehow the whole thing. Not the plot, the words, or all the characters. But it was there. A boy, a girl, and a dog who would become friends of many lifetimes … A quest, a battle for the last sky.
So I started with a blank page. Characters emerged. The quest grew. The stakes were raised. And the songs kept coming. I found myself writing a song about my friends who had just split up and suddenly the title and lyrics fit a segment of the novel. Also, Right by Your Side, a song written for my father losing his battle with cancer. And then Crystallize – you’ll have to read the book to work this one out. Songs inspired words, words inspired lyrics. Music, there’s always music.
The story is an adventure about growing up, making mistakes too big to fix. Relationships that work (and then they don’t.) And environmental change. Above all, it’s a story about discovering we are more than we think, more than we can imagine. Stronger than we believe. Braver than we know. Not only is there hope. You are the hope. Each one of us is the hope.
Thank you for sharing my world. The album. The book. The songs. And a dream I felt compelled to turn into a story.
JJ