Hello lovely folks! Beautiful rainy day here in LA. I’ve been sitting at my kitchen table piecing together this story. So we’re picking up when Bird has just finished her huge recording session and is about to sit down with her interviewer. And we’re about to go backwards for a bit so hold on tight. When I made sense of this order, I realized I’ll have to go back and change a few things in the second chapter. But hm. Maybe I can find a way to make it work. We’ll see. anyway enjoy! Thank you thank you for reading and going on this journey with me! xo Oh and this chapter features the song BEAUTIFUL DISASTER from my soon to be re-released album BIRD. ooo and next week the first single from the album, called Good To Me, which I wrote with the great Nate Barr, is being released. With an awesome video…and yes a new Chapter of the book!
Chapter Four
Bird
Beautiful Disaster
You found me running with my chains
Painted me a rainbow to watch me dance again
A special thanks to you my friend
For forcing me to fly
I find Evan seated at a picnic table, laptop open before him, papers spread out. I smile that his writing technique is the same as mine...a bit chaotic. Sometimes pen and paper feel better, and sometimes I need to see everything typewritten in front of me to make sense of it all.
“Did you see him crying? And the director too? I mean what the heck Bird? I saw players in the orchestra wiping away tears! You must feel, wow, well, how DO you feel?” Evan is beside himself with excitement, knee jiggling, biting his thumb nail, spilling his paper cup of coffee all over his sleeve.
“Evan?” I look at him, taking a deep breath.
“Yeah?”
“Breathe! In and out. Calm.” I close my eyes and take a deep breath, immediately feeling my shoulders release . My neck actually cracks and I open my eyes to a clearer view of the world. Evan is sitting stone still , watching me.
“Ok. That’s better” I say, taking my phone out and placing it next to me. Evan is still staring.
“Can I talk?” Evan whispers. I start laughing. This guy is too much. I nod.
“So what does a person have to go through to sing like that because it’s like you bring this big pile of emotions through with every note. It’s like this vast emotional landscape in just 1 minute of sound.”
I look at him, young, sweet, innocent, smart, and kind, and I decide right there to be honest.
“A lot. You have to go through a lot. And lucky you, I’m going to tell you the whole story.” And so I do.
~~~~~~
3 Years Earlier
The screen door slams behind me as I step into the sunny little beach cottage that is now my new home. It’s breezy outside, the ocean air smelling of salt and summer. The late afternoon sun is painting everything a honey tinged gold. Guitar in one hand and Petey, my large brown tabby cat in the other, I gaze around the open living room with its warm wooden walls and beamed ceiling.
“Are you here?...Sophie?” I call out to my best friend, my rock, who had picked me up and pushed me forward into this new life. No answer.
I put Petey down on the floor and he immediately begins to sniff every inch of the space, his long tail pointing straight up behind him as he disappears into the kitchen at the back of the house.
There’s a note scrawled on an envelope and tossed onto the stained white couch that’s shoved against the side wall. It’s more shabby than chic, but it’s something to sit on, and for that I am thankful. The landlord offered it when I’d casually asked if renting the house furnished was an option. As always, I left everything behind. Breaking up was getting expensive. My table, my Indian armoire, my Deruta Italian dishes, my custom recycled wood bed frame, kitchen supplies, all gone. All left with an undeserving man whose new trophy girlfriend would move right in and start using them as her own. All I had was my piano, my guitars and Petey. The essentials. But somehow, I am going to make this work.
Should I have worked harder, put up with more, forgiven more, to try and make the relationship work? I reach up and lightly touch my swollen left cheek, wincing a bit with the pain. No. I was done. I’d hoped the make up I’d packed on this morning hid the worst of the bruising.
I had a bad habit of jumping from one guy to the next, always looking for the one. Wanting forever. To finally find home. And of course I never did. Usually I just found an extension of the Hell I already knew. Sophie is always telling me
“Bird, love yourself first. Fall in love with you! The guy is just an accessory.”
It had always been hard for me to make friends.
Luke used to say. “You look kind of constipated when you meet people. Can’t you just smile, act natural?”
People tended to think I was a snob because I was so quiet. I was too pretty to be friends with some girls, and not pretty enough for others. One girl had actually told me I was “kind of striking, but not really beautiful” Kids can be so awful. Not sure I want any.
And then one day Sophie had appeared in front of me after a little show I’d done at the Troubadour a while back. I didn’t know what to make of her easy smile and affable way. “You’re incredible! Your voice makes my stomach flip flop! And those lyrics. It’s like you’re writing just for me! I’m Sophie by the way. Have you eaten? Let’s go get some food.”
She’d looped her arm through mine and that was that. I smiled at the memory and looked up, sending a quiet thank you to the universe. I knew I was complicated, withdrawn at times, not trusting. There were days I wondered why Sophie wanted to be my friend. Like the Marx Brothers said, I wouldn’t want to join a club that would have me as a member. I just felt too broken to be worthy of a friendship like this. But she didn’t care. She was always there for me, and I was there for her. Her motto? Nothing is so broken that it can’t be fixed.
Sophie had a life of her own running a graphic design business and caring for her older parents. And I had to create a new life for myself, something no one could do, but me. This is the time to fall in love with myself. And discover what that actually means, since I honestly have no clue. I’m so used to making sure everyone around me is ok. How am I going to do this when what I really feel like doing is going to bed and pulling the covers up over my head? Petey strolled back into the room, and sat at my feet, tail swishing, green eyes blinking up at me as if to say, “Inspection complete Mom. We can stay.”
I lean over and grab Sophie’s note. “Went to get us smoothies. Right back”. Her little heart above the letter “I” makes me smile.
My long flowered skirt settles around me as I heave my guitar onto the couch and pop open the clasps. And suddenly the Words arrive and I have to sing.
I pick it up my guitar by the neck, the worn, honey colored wood immediately calming. The purple and blue flowers I’d painted on the front have started to chip off. I sit, swinging it across my lap, and start idly playing a melody on the E string and then the words Beautiful Disaster float through my brain and a picture of me running through a field with chains around my legs. Someone’s in front of me painting rainbows in the sky, egging me on. Such a clear and perfect picture of knowing you’re trapped while everyone tells you the world is beautiful and there’s nothing wrong at all. It’s all in your mind! The ultimate gaslighting. The music pour out of me and when I stop, I open my eyes and see Sophie lying on the floor next to the couch, two melted smoothies next to her. She’s sound asleep with Petey curled up next to her shoulder, her cheek using his furry tummy as a pillow. I can hear the thrum of crickets outside. I’ve been living in song world and the day has slipped into night. I drape a throw over Sophie and drift back to the story unfolding within this new tune.
Luke was my own personal Beautiful Disaster. He was gorgeous and famous, … so enticing to an insecure nobody like me. Lead singer of the Grammy winning band Wired, we’d met when I moved into his neighborhood along the Venice boardwalk. We were introduced by Lily, a girl I met on the beach. She was taking photos of a big dog splashing in the waves. I stopped to watch, both of them smiling, happy. Lily had walked right up to me and started chatting. I was so shocked that I looked behind me to make sure it was me she was talking to. “Hi! I’m Lily! I think I saw you moving in the other day? Want to grab some tea?” And that was that.
We trudged through the sand, and through the jugglers and skaters and singers parked on the boardwalk every few feet, and found our way back to her walk street apartment, that she shared with her boyfriend, Luke. When we got to the stop of the stairs and Luke was sitting in front of his computer I froze for moment, recognizing him instantly. Everyone knew the band Wired and the hot lead singer. But I pretended I didn’t know who he was, which is what you do in Los Angeles. When he started flirting with me while Lily was in the other room, I thought this is strange and inappropriate, so I left.
Lily and I would meet for lunch now and then. And one day she told me she and Luke had broken up. So when Luke called me, telling me he couldn’t stop thinking of me and he missed me, and would I let him produce one of my songs? Well, he was famous, and I was 22, and wide eyed and, let’s face it, an idiot. Of course I thought of Lily. Before I even responded to Luke, I asked Lily to meet me at a café on the boardwalk.
“Luke asked me out”. I expected her to get up and leave, to spit at me or throw a drink. But instead she said “Oh please date him. He needs someone grounded and kind like you. I can’t be with him any more. The bikini clad roller skaters clomping up our steps and eating my popcorn as they moon at Luke....it’s too much.” That was Lily; kind hearted and pragmatic, steady as redwood. She was saying “I’m done. It’s your turn. Good Luck”.
I had no idea how much I’d need it.
~~~~~~
I dove in to the life of Luke and I inherited the bikini clad roller skaters and also the stoned and greasy guitarists and the tattooed coke dealer, and the all night parties and the rolling out of bed at 3 in the afternoon. And I was cool for a time. But the thing about life is, you grow up. Well, ideally anyway. And you, hopefully, start thinking about what might be best for you. His mood swings had me walking through the house like a feral cat, always ready to run. The insults never failed to catch me off guard. “You look pretty. You should try parting your hair on the other side. It might look better.”
But that last day, well that woke me up. It was a Friday and I was on my way out for a walk to the ocean. I called up to Luke
“You wanna come? You said you wanted me to help you get more exercise . Let’s go to the beach!”
“Are you telling me I’m fat?” Luke snarled at me from the top of the stairs.
I felt my stomach tighten at his tone, all too familiar with the mood swings.
“What? No I just..” I started to say, but Luke interrupted
“I don’t want to go for a fucking walk. Stop pushing. Always criticizing me. Always know what’s best for me.”
He was quiet for a moment and I shook my head. But he wasn’t done.
“I know what’s best for me! And what’s best for me is to sit here and work!” he continued as he came down the stairs.
“And eat a pint of ice cream and watch porn” I mumbled under my breath.
“What?” Luke growled.
“Nothing, Ok “ I said backing up. “Ok I wasn’t trying…”
And then I saw him curl his fist.
“Luke calm down. It’s not a big deal. I’ll just…” but my words were cut off by his knuckles.
“Here give me that” Sophie grabbed the trash bag that I’d shoved my clothes into. I snuck out later that night with Sophie’s help, the two of us running back and forth to my car in the alley, Petey sitting in the front seat, green eyes wide, watching us go back and forth. Before I closed the door, I grabbed one of Luke’s checks to give my new and as yet undetermined landlord the security deposit on a new place. Not my proudest moment. Desperate times, desperate measures and all that. But for all he’d taken from me, this felt like a tiny way Luke could give back. And now I have a new home. And so the last line of this song comes into being. A special thanks to you my friend, for forcing me to fly.
~~~~~~
“I think divorce agrees with you doll. Sony just called. They want to meet with you about a deal.” My agent Penny was never one to mince words. And just like that, I had a 3 album deal. The first album was the most important . I had to prove myself.
So, now I have an album to write and produce, and a life to put together. No time to lose myself to love or make some guy more important than me. I absent mindedly brought my hand up to my face where my swollen cheek was slowly healing. I was done. At least I’d gotten a song out of it.
“You know he was a jealous asshole right?” Sophie snapped me back to the present, dangling a dripping smoothie in front of me, her straight black hair falling like a cape around her. “Here…drink up! You haven’t eaten in days! You look like a carcass.”
I started to respond but Sophie was on a roll.
“You always want to think the best of everyone, but that dick does not deserve it. All he did was put you down, take your money, and sabotage your life.” Sophie was fuming.
“Like when you got that last deal and it was over before it started because fucking Luke insisted on producing and they wanted you to work with Daniel Strohm, who would have been perfect by the way.”
I groaned remembering all too well.
“Oh and he cheated on you...repeatedly…don’t forget that little tidbit!” she added snorting… “What a catch!”
“Remember when he went to Italy for a week to ‘Help’ that young Italian actress
with a video she was making?” I nodded and rolled my eyes, the memory all too clear.
“And when you called his hotel room that cow answered, and when she heard it was you she started crying and babbling?” And together we both said
“He lova you mora. He lova you mora. I am so good at the sex but you singa like a bird and he lova the birds, he tell me he won’t a leave a you” We both dissolved into fits of laughter.
“Yeah and that was followed by 5 minutes of nose blowing and mangled words in some combination of Italian and English.” I added.
“I actually felt sorry for her.” I said. “Luke of course denied everything, and like an idiot I stayed.”
Sophie jumped up and wrapped me in a hug.
“You can do this you brave human. You’re my hero!” she said as she squeezed me.
I squawked in her arms and we both sank down onto the couch.
I turned my face and ran my palm over my cheek to swipe at the tear that had escaped.
“I am done trying to dim my light.” I said “Done pretending to be someone else,
so jerks like Luke can shine and talk about how they know everything. Screw that….From now on it’s me, my music and my career. I hereby promise to think only of myself.”
Sophie opened her mouth and then shut it again.
“What?” I said.
“And some therapy?” Sophie added with a wry smile “The fact that you’re not a drug addict passed out in a gutter somewhere shocks me. After what you’ve been through with that family?”
I put my hand up to stop her going any further.
“Yes therapy. I give in. I could use some help.” Sophie hugged me again.
I took a deep breath. Can I do this? Yes. Will I love it? Maybe not….but at some point I have to come first. I am almost 30, so now is as good a time as any.
“Amen” said Sophie.
“Music, career, therapy. Period.”
It all sounded so good! Until I walked into the Café du Monde the next day.
~~