When I first stepped through this airport gate to find my transport onwards, I felt a healthy combination of nerves and excitement for what was waiting in store. Brimming with anticipation and illusion that something of significant importance was happening. At the time, I was stepping out of the permissible, yet eery restrictions of a coronavirus affected world. The airport was only part functional but I was feeling prepared and primed to go about business as usual. Feeling freer, like we had all awoken from a really bad dream.
I was curious to know of future encounters, new places, new people, new cultures, possible outcomes; all this in a Country that was familiar to me but where I’d never actually trodden before. Another part of me a little apprehensive that it could, or couldn’t all go to plan. It’s true we can never know what sits around the corner in life.
So oblivious was I in that moment of the challenges ahead that would over a period of a few years come to lead me to doubt, disillusion and disappointment. Eventually making me feel really quite distraught at times.
Seamlessly I’d shifted from one recently lived collective nightmare into yet another, more personal one. Ambitions of achievement getting dowsed, caught up and discarded in a negative spiral of events. Me trying to keep hold of the positives and of a rational sense of perspective but these becoming fewer and fewer as time went by.
Out Of The “D”
In the English language there are many words beginning with D that describe a state of mind, emotion or feeling. Down; Distraught; Despondent; Depressed; Dip, Darkness; Drowning; Disappointed; Difficulties; Distressed. These to name but a few. Some D’s have maybe deeper and darker states than others. Others lighter and less heavy. Some can lead on to others. Several combined can to come at you like a continual waves of variable ups and downs. At times tipping you off kilter. Sometimes leaving you with a feeling of fighting to stay above the water as the swelling currents of “D” erode at your wellbeing and will. Others time just there in the more regular stresses or anxieties of living, taking them in your stride.
My D’s, of which several did combine, put strain on valued relationships, questioned devoted love, bought disorientation and confusion, tore holes in confidence, ignited bad habits and provoked a want to retreat and self isolate; at times feeling ashamed or at best embarrassed and hurting. My pride being tested to the full.
I found myself torn between a sense of fight or flight, wanting to press on, be the fighter but feeling a yearning for solitude and silence to reflect and to recalibrate in the midst of on every busy world. This to self-protect, find new understanding and meaning and to gather from it renewed motivations.
A period of solitude can be followed by a desperate need to talk, express, vent and release. At times uncharacteristically exploding like a raging storm, at times falling back to silence again. With hindsight, all this seems necessary before we can begin see a clear pathway to something beyond the immediate D’s. Helping us to shift out the negative energy which they can trap you, hold you back or even take you under.
Wise people tell us that there is cleansing during the rains and a clarity after the storms. Wise indeed yet sometimes its very hard to believe when you are emerged and drowning in your D’s. In the end however, it is totally true, somehow a journey does unfold, an emotional one, propelling us to embark, to sail away into new horizons, fresh starts, awaiting adventures. Walking with renewed hopes and dreams. If at first only tentatively, then eventually into transition. Our hearts and minds may be bruised, our spirits weakened but never broken.
Out Of The ‘D” brings together a mini-collection of songs by kindness RAINS eternal that reflect such states of mind, emotion and feelings that we can have in our moments of “D”, then onwards into transition to something more enriching and heathy. If we really can draw from the positives, no matter how small, somewhere in the future, waiting to greet us with open arms, is a better place to be. Moreover, if we can turn an overall negative into something positive then that can be truly releasing.
I’d like the words and music to speak for themselves but somewhere in the cameos and characters of the six songs that make up Out Of The “D”, therein lies a mixture of mind states and emotions, anxieties, fears, hopes and illusions. I hope that somewhere in this collection there is something that resinates with you the listener too.
If you are in a D, know that in the serenity of silence or the tranquility nature we are never truly alone in this world. Take your private space, to make of it what you need, its yours and no one else’s. Then try to talk to others because inside we are all human and have our own ‘D’s. From the fewest of words to a compassionate ear, wonderful things can flow. Be kinder, if only to yourself, cut yourself some slack and feel freed to embark upon a new journey of renewed meaning and strength.
Sincerely
Andrew