Weekly Public Journal

Weekly Public Journal

(This journal may contain Amazon affiliate links)

Feb. 6-11 
This week I've been going through a bunch of old family videos. 15 years of stuff, from my parent's wedding in 1988 to the early 2000s.
 
Go mom and dad for keeping all of this footage!
 
I'm shocked and amazed seeing how distinct my brothers unique personalities are at such a young age. And I'm lucky to have such good parents.
 
I was always so quiet on camera, but I remember I struggled with being too loud most of the time - so it's funny that my brain was like, "shh, a camera is on."
 
And holy heck, I sounded like a smoker whenever I did speak😂. I remember one of my uncles saying that he doubts I'd have any voice left when I grew up, but I never really knew what he meant. Now I do! My vocal chords were shot.
 
Well! Despite how good my parents were (namely, my mom) at filming stuff, I was very self-conscious and wouldn't let them film me EVER (if I could help it). 
 
And I hate that I was like that. Like, if I could go back in time I'd go to 2008 and tell 10 year old me why I'm wrong.
 
But I can't go back in time, so I've journaled out my frustrations.
 
When I was 10 I started playing piano. Which, for me, meant hitting random keys for hours at a time, and coming up with my own 1-3 minute tunes.
 
By the time I was 11 I probably already had over a dozen of these little tunes, which I liked quite a bit. But there's not a single recording of them ANYWHERE (and that's all my fault).
 
The camcorder was too obvious, if it got pulled out I would stop what I was doing and protest about not wanting anyone else to see my music until it was better, or until I had created enough songs to support "my plan" of having a successful album of some kind.
 
A piano album? From an 11 year old's diddles? Really?
 
I didn't believe in that idea much either, so I had already set my eyes on when I was 12. I hated being young, so my goals always made more sense in my mind when I pictured them one year out.
 
Even if my mom snuck some footage with her new iPhone, I'd sneak on there after she'd fallen asleep and delete it.
 
Yea! I can't believe that either.
 
And what is a mom to do when her 11 year old son "has a plan?" Honestly, I don't blame her for not cracking down on me harder. She even mentioned a number of times, "what if you put your music up on YouTube? Other people could learn your songs just like you watch videos learning other people's songs." But I was very intent on doing it my way, and she let me.
 
Damn, I should have listened to her though. But I couldn't have. I didn't have any proper framework as a creator for resiliency (I could have easily been crushed). If I had posted my songs and nobody responded to it I would have felt defeated, AND I thought that's exactly what would have happened, and I protected myself from it.
 
So, there's over 20 songs on piano that are lost to time. But on the plus side, I have this camcorder clip of me playing a bunch of my favorite covers:

So that's a handful of covers, and my mom asks with a hopeful tone (in my room a few minutes later), "will you ever let me film you playing one of your songs?" And that quickly gave me a bad attitude because I HAD to remind her that my foot was down on that as a solid NO. 
 
Stupid. Stupid. Stupid.
 
If only I wasn't so dumb and I'd have put my songs on a tape in my closet, even just thinking of keeping them for myself. But I didn't ever think that was necessary because I was sure I would never forget my music.
 
My strategy was to practice my handful of songs at least once per week so that I wouldn't ever forget them. I was raised Christian and heard stories of people memorizing THE WHOLE BIBLE so I thought, "I can manage to remember all my music."
 
That worked fine when I had 4, or 8 songs to memorize. 
 
But then I had over a dozen of my own songs in my rotation and got bored with going through all of them all the time, so I stopped practicing my least favorite ones.
 
And I forgot all my least favorite ones.
 
I was left with whatever new tunes I was creating, and I also still had some favs - the songs that I was sure I would never forget because I literally play them with my eyes closed and think about them throughout the day.
 
But I eventually got bored with going through my favs every couple days and took a break from playing them, believing they'd always live in my consciousness somewhere.
 
And I forgot all my favs.
 
All my focus was on my next new creation being better than anything I'd done in the past. Every time I sat at the piano I'd only put energy into that - I thought it was fun (analyzing what makes music "good"). 
 
In the 9th grade I actually started keeping a record of stuff more seriously when I partnered with a classmate to form a band. And so ALL I HAVE now is from when I was 15 learning to play guitar as my new main instrument.😪
 
So IDK, this is just a big sad tale. But I'm super mad at my young self as I journal this out, and I'm sure I'll be super mad about it every time I really think about it in the future.
 
I've almost driven myself mad in the past trying to remember how my hands would have been shaped on the piano keys. I didn't ever think in terms of notes, I always just worked with muscle-memory. So you can imagine how maddening it is to sit down and Just. Try. To. Remember.
 
I can't.
 
Cam

I would sure love it if…!

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