You Mean I Can't Make This Go Away?!

no, not really...

In “Vulnerability is Not A Dirty Word”, I talked about the being with, the wading through whatever emotions are a part of a life experience.

In 3D, what does that look like?

For me, the earliest part of my path into becoming a songwriter was a confusing jumble of chills and spills.

It started with poetry and prose in journals, expressing the feelings I had repressed to “achieve” my biochemistry degree, my Emergency medicine career, my safe and stable role as “wife” and “mother”.

My, my, my…I was too busy to acknowledge “my” feelings about all this supposedly perfect life.

To do that meant rocking a boat in a big wide ocean I wasn’t willing to swim in yet, so I did whatever I could to keep the watery emotions at bay. But like I said in the last post, storms bring crashing waves, the sea is vast…and my vessel was so small then - full of the cargo of identity I had accumulated and fiercely clung to.

Often when I wrote what came out as poetry, there was a rhythm with the words - a beat in my head. Usually melodies followed, and I started to associate the poems with musical ideas - I was writing songs.

What the heck did that mean? Surely at my age (early 40s then), with school-age children and a full-time job as an ER doctor, I couldn’t be a songwriter? I mean a legitimate one, like, professionally?

So I kept journals, and scribbled on scraps of paper, and after my kids were in bed started tinkering at the piano, wondering what this all meant - where was this process taking me?

When I wrote a lyric from somewhere in the ether that astounded me, or put piano chords to the lyrics and got just the “right” sound, I literally got goose-bumps.

Those actual physical sensations were validation from some internal authority that the experience was real, meaningful, and making something happen in me that I didn’t understand, but wanted to do more.

Spills also abounded, with the newly forming identity butting up against almost everyone’s expectations of who I was. When I tried to create time for “music” in our busy family schedule, it felt selfish and stupid.

As time passed, not doing music became more painful. I started to have sleepless nights, alone with hot tears uncontrollable, trying to square just why I couldn’t be happy as a doctor, wife, and mom with a “great life”.

One particularly intense argument with my then-spouse led to another episode of me alone in a flood of feelings - try as I might to “make everything ok”, the dam had burst again.

Literally sobbing on the hardwood floor in the room I did “music”, a gift dropped into me, clearing the clouds of confusion and calming the waters for a minute.

That instantaneous change shocked me, and I stood up to approach the piano wondering what power was moving me…I could feel a rhythm in my body and hear a tune, see words in my head.

What came out was a song I didn’t even associate with my life at the time. I thought it came from heartache in past failed relationships - now I realize that the vulnerability of opening the door to the truth of my life then was too much. It was all too much.

When I finished the song, an indescribable joy, a sensation of peace so unfamiliar to me, left me astonished.

This was a really great song.

Or was it? That’s when the emos of doubt, fear, and even a little shame crept out of the shadows. “Who was I” to think I could write a real song? Something that was more than “self-expression”, “working out my problems” - something other people wanted to hear? Maybe even liked?

[Before ‘the bast’, I was Staci Braun - I guess I was “waiting” to open doors to more of me.]

For a while I practiced the song at home alone, imagining some day I would slip it into a live performance, test it out, see if it was “any good”. I had spent most of my life exploring music - classically trained piano from a young age, vocal lessons, competitions, performances, even into college until I was pre-med and determined I wasn’t a “good enough” musician to take time away from a career as a physician and a new marriage.

But by the time I wrote “Wait”, I had picked up the thread again, had been playing in my then-spouse’s band, did duo gigs with him, a few solos but mostly harmony and accompaniment - I was a “sideman” - and even though I was terrible in the beginning, I got pretty good at it.

I remember the night we had friends over for dinner, and he and I played music. As we were finishing, I don’t remember how it happened, but I played “Wait” for them.

The opening up that reverberated through me was crazy - I’d never felt that performing before. My soul was in that music - the real me I was just beginning to befriend.

Their response was incredible, and even with the rush of “negative” emotions that came after (self-criticism and insecurity patterns deeply entrenched still) I knew I had passed another milestone of my human life. And it was worth feeling all the rise and fall of emotions, the confusion and despair of my uncertain identity, and the risk to be vulnerable with the people I cared about - to choose music for myself.

That was years ago, with many stories of vulnerability and heartbreak, ridiculous failures and more empowering triumphs between then and now.

I never realized that back then I was a musician. Not the idea of a “real musician” I had in my head, at least. But I knew enough to nurture that part of me - give it the care and attention to allow a process beyond my comprehension to continue.

What I have experienced, is when the path of my life stopped at a crossroads, choosing vulnerability opened door after door into worlds I never imagined, and a fullness of human life that has been its own reward.

And this song, “Wait”, has opened connections with people that made the painful experiences leading to its creation fit into the bigger story of my life.

The song continues to teach me in times of overwhelm or grief, reminding me if I’m patient with the feelings, my heart will know what it feels like to be free again - to be me again - and that the love in my soul can hold everything.

What do you feel and think when you listen to “Wait”? Do you want to hear musicians share their “real” stories?

I look forward to our connection here, in growing community around music and learning to be whole humans together.

How’s that for vulnerability?