Some News!
I’m so pleased to announce an essay I’ve written will be featured in an exciting compilation of writing; Weaving Our Way Beyond Patriarchy – A Womancraft Compendium - to celebrate the ten-year anniversary of Womancraft Publishing. Compiled, edited and with an introduction by Womancraft Publishing founder Lucy H. Pearce.
It’s available for pre-order now, exclusively from Womancraft Publishing.
About My Writing
Through the ever-evolving soundtrack I curate for my own life, I use music as the inspiration for the stories I put down on the page.
Flip it to the B-Side
Flip It To The B-Side is a music and storytelling lover's (that's me!) look at life through various lenses. Posts will include short stories, personal essays, deep dives on the lyrics, films, books, songs, pods, and any art that lights me up… and even the occasional piece read aloud for effect.
I'm a swirly-brain Gemini writer who can't exist in one box. Ever. So thank you for following along each month as I take a beat, write down some words that mean something to me, and give them a home of their own- welcome to my B-Side.
Subscriptions are free, like when we used to tape our favorite songs off the radio.
Turn the Record Over: Vol. 3
Music and writing have always gone hand in hand for me. Music inspires the writing; I write to the music- the circle goes on and on. Often, it’s a line in a song that unlocks something in me. And usually, though the song says one thing- it makes me think of something else entirely…
“Track 6:” Viv
Get me out of here. Same route. Same routine. Same run around the city.
Get me the fuck out of my own mind. Skip. Next. Nope. I keep tapping my phone screen over and over. I should make a new playlist- this one is tired. I’m bored and I’m blue and I want to see something new.
“Renton-” She plucks the phone out of my hand, effectively canceling my privileges as D.J. “It’s two minutes and thirty seconds of your life. Just let it play.”
“Isn’t that sacrilegious or something? Coming from you.”
“Depends. Sometimes a song is just a song.” She clocks me staring at her. “Fine- yes, a song is never just a song, but I will murder my only child if you hit next one more time.” Fair.
“Track 5:” Take Away the Sad
This place we go could break our backs, Edie thought. She flicked the ash from the end of her cigarette in an effort to stop the overgrowth of thoughts that had sprung up in her mind like wildflowers.
“Was it worth it all?” Roxy, the youngest, poured herself another glass of wine from the spigot attached to the box of red blend the girls procured from the convenience store before heading out to the river. “We missed every proper spring break to ‘tour’ in the back of Gaby’s retched station wagon.”
These heartfelt songs, all we got, what we’re living for- ‘were.’ Edie made a mental note that their university years were due to become past tense in just nineteen hours time.
“Track Four:” You Have Stolen My Heart
‘I don’t know if you know, but I feel you in me. Inside of my years inside of my bones.’ It was unseasonably warm the November we moved into Red Cliff Manor. Fifty-five and sunny, the only cool that came in was brought in off the water from the breeze in the mornings just after dawn or under the moon in the middle of a sleepless night.
‘I remember the colors, your mysterious eyes. Part of me stays in the room where we met.’ A year ago, to feel that voice echo inside me would have terrified me.
It did terrify me.
But now? Now I didn’t want to leave the Manor. It was home. So were the grounds. The cliffs and the waves and the old shack that looks over all of it.
Even the star jasmine that wrapped around the old tree in the backyard. Its vines, choking the life out of that tree. Maybe that’s why I found it a kindred spirit. Though I don’t know which I was. The star jasmine, or the tree.
“Track Three:” Kampfire Vampire
“Don’t-” They all bellowed.
Honestly, I’m grown, and they think I’ll burn myself on the dying flicker of a campfire, of all things. “Don’t be scared-” such children they are sometimes. I swear it. And you know I tell them all the time, ‘to leave yourself open…’ but here they were. Same tradition, same time every year leading up to the 31st where we make proclamations about the year to come, and they’re still banging on about their plans and this and that.
Dreams- bullshit scene.
I tell them, ‘Rules are made to be broken,’ but it’s like they don’t hear me. They just rattle on around me and now the voice in my head is a ghost singin’ songs like, ‘Boy, stay away from the campfire-‘ just because I lean in towards the heat while everyone else stays so safely away from it.
“Track Two:” Run
We’re too big for this place. It’s all I could think about lately, how we’d outgrown it here. How small this town was. Large enough not to be noticed in, small enough that we could afford it.
“I miss the smile that used to be on your face,” he said the other day.
We weren’t getting too big for this place.
I was.
And unfortunately, it was starting to show.
Pack your bags, we’ll make an escape… I asked him that the week before he noticed my smile had faded. But he didn’t correlate the two.
I said, ‘I’ve got some money and old 80s tapes.’
The 80s tapes were true. I’d picked up a boombox from the thrift shop and collected cassette tapes at every garage sale I passed.
The money… well, that was dwindling.
“Track one:” Keep the Light On
I never wanted a fortress. I just wanted a home. To put my worries and failures, and make them not alone.
This has become my routine.
Lock up the yard. Secure this compound I’ve found myself living in.
Repeat these words over and over again.
Day after day.
Look for a hand reaching out, thought everybody knows- to keep the light on.
But no one ever comes.
And there are certainly no other lights on. Not in my area anyway.
