Miss Leslie

Wait For Your Pitch, Honey, Wait For Your Pitch

On my drive back from San Antonio the other day, I was listening to NPR’s Fresh Air on XM. They were talking about “Moneyball: The Art of Winning an Unfair Game” – the book by Michael Lewis. A movie based on the book opened Friday. In the interview with the author, Lewis talked about a player named Scott Hatteberg. Hatteberg had a more laid back style when it came to batting. He said that he didn’t hit anything that he didn’t like. It was apparently a source of frustration to his batting coaches and also to opposing pitchers. Hatteberg said that he always had this intuitive sense of himself. He knew that this was the way that he hit and wanted to stay true to that, despite the advice of batting coaches who tried to get him to hit more aggressively.  He remembered being a young boy and seeing one of his baseball heroes talk about also having a laid back approach to the plate, and decided then and there that he would stay with that. And he did.

Authenticity is actually not that hard to find. It surrounds us in the natural world. But there are many of us that do try to stay true to who we are and try not to lose ourselves in roles and categories that our unnatural society tries to force us into. I’m looking back and understanding how much I’ve lost of myself and once again trying to figure out why. And the only thing I can ever come up with is my theory of Adjustments.

If you’re a musician, you understand adjusting. You begin the show at a certain volume level. Many times, whether it is because of room acoustics or what I think happens the majority of the time, general excitement and adrenaline, the music gets louder and louder.  One person turns up just a bit to hear themselves better.  The person next to them turns up. And on down the line. And sometimes over and over. And sometimes you end up a lot further from where you started.

I believe in dynamics in life. I believe that it is necessary to have opposites. I believe you have to have loud and you have to have soft. I believe you have to have down and you have to have up. I believe you have to have happy and you have to have sad. It’s necessary – for growth, for understanding and sometimes to avoid total boredom. But it is a rhythm. It is sometimes a roller coaster, but most of the time it is a pattern of ups and downs and happiness and sadness. The cool thing to remember is: It all comes back around.

I’ve spent countless hours at baseball games. My brother, Joel (who is 1 year younger than me), played Little League ball and played thru high school. I’ve heard hundreds of mothers say, “Wait for your pitch, honey, wait for your pitch.”

The key to authenticity is waiting. It is a remaining true to who you are amidst the changes. The key is reminding yourself that you ARE who you are and NO ONE (not even those that you love with all of your being) can change that. The key is a perseverance that withstands the hardest times and the lowest lows. Sure, you adjust. Sure, you sway a little bit. But remembering that core of who you are – that person that waits for their pitch – is what keeps you YOU.

I don’t want to see a world where we’re all the same. There’s a uniqueness to me that I like. Not everyone does. I’m ok with that. Because if I’m not me, I’m someone else, and I don’t like her. I like me.

I have more music inside of me than probably I even know. It is diverse. It is unique. It is dynamic. I learn more about this music every day. I’ve got enough songs to cut an album (actually about 2 albums), but I’m not ready yet. Life has been a storm lately and creation is better after the storm has settled.

My music is about my time. My soul. My heart.

I wait for my pitch.

So WHAT Are You Listening To?

So OK you’re listening.  You’re in the wilderness waiting for the sign from above.  You’re sitting in the ashes of humility with your best friends waiting for a relief from the curses that have been inflicted upon you (Job from the Book of Job). . .

It’s not like that. It’s not like some bolt of lightning that hits you and suddenly you have freedom – suddenly you are emancipated from the darkness and haze you’ve been in and now you have peace, happiness and even joy.

I have been told that I am not looking for the answers. Answers come later - I am looking for the questions. In order to know the questions I have to listen.

But what am I listening to? What am I focused on? Am I really paying attention to this life, to my soul, to my heart?

Do you remember going to the pool and play the game where you talk and try to understand your friends underwater? Do you remember the muffled sound? The ability to semi-understand what is being said, but in general you’re not having a deep conversation. If someone says watermelon, the game is over.

Are we so buried in noise and sound that we’re no longer sure of what to listen to? What I think about more, as a musician, is the loss of purity of sound. Have we become so accustomed to layers of "perfection" that we no longer understand how to take in sound that is pure, genuine and real?

How can we find our authentic selves, stripped of layers of artificiality without being able to listen to what is authentic? Have we become so glossed over that we don’t know the difference?

A friend of mine was talking the other day about preferring the sounds recorded to tape, and instantly recognizing a digital recording (and, by the way, virtually EVERY musical recording you hear nowadays is recorded digitally). He preferred recorded sounds that are more raw and real.

And I told him it’s impossible to record that way nowadays and be competitive.  While you struggle as an independent artist to even get satellite radio airplay, there’s NO way that you could receive anything close to the mainstream with an analog recording.

 Because we don’t want real. We want perfect. The irony of this is that we are still obsessed with “reality” shows. Reality shows that have shown over and over that the more they play up the drama, the better the ratings are. So reality becomes manufactured reality. And we drink it in.

Take a day and just listen.  Go out to a park and just listen to the sound of the wind, the leaves, the birds, the insects, the frogs.  Find a place that has a record player and listen to a vinyl recording (if you can find a 78 to play, EVEN better).  Go hear a live band.  Sit down at a water fountain.  Hear kids at play on a playground. SING IN THE SHOWER.

LISTEN. But listen to something REAL. Listen to something that hasn’t been run through a machine, then reworked digitally on a computer so that whatever the engineer “perceived” as an imperfection got taken out. Listen to hear a voice within you that connects with something authentic. THAT is the way the revelation comes. THAT is a way that the lightning bolt hits – in that moment of hearing something that echoes within yourself.

Because YOU are the one with the answers inside of you. Waiting.

Listen.

Are You Listening?

Ever have someone say something to you just at the right time? That word of encouragement or inspiration that’s “just when you need it”?

Ever thought that maybe it’s not just coincidence? Ever think that maybe YOU are listening – you are in that moment where you are open to hearing what your soul really needs?

There is a Buddhist saying, “When the student is ready, the master appears.”

We don’t need to LOOK for our answers. Our answers are within us. The question is, “Are you ready? Are you willing? Will you listen?”

And that’s the funny thing about listening. Signs are all around us – whether they are the words of a friend, the sights and sounds of nature, or a new book.

I’m a fix-it kind of gal. I tell my kids all the time, “There’s a solution for everything.” They know this. They quote it back to me all the time. . . . But sometimes the solution is there – waiting at our fingertips. Waiting for us to recognize it. Waiting for us to believe it. Waiting for us to LISTEN.

So the question is not whether there is an answer, the question is:

Are you listening?

Just Listen

It’s been a month since I’ve blogged. There are 2 reasons for silence – one, you are listening. Two, you can’t talk.

I think I’ve been a little bit of both.

My personal life has been turned upside down. I don’t want to go into it. I’ve never been one to be public about my personal life. I know people that post their drama all over social networking sites. It’s just not me. I have friends and family to help get me through.

But I have found over and over through crises in my life that you cannot over-value listening.

When I was 5 years old, I began taking classical violin lessons. I studied the Suzuki method, which relies heavily (and some critics say TOO heavily) on ear training. I would listen to tapes of the songs I was learning to play. I would listen over and over and over. I could then play the songs because they were already in my head. The key was that you had to listen and get those songs in your head BEFORE you could begin attempting to play them.

We go through life sometimes just like a bull charging from one thing to the next. We encounter a crisis and can’t wait for it to be over instead of just sitting and feeling those moments. How can we learn from a crisis that we don’t allow ourselves to even experience?

What if we just stopped and listened? What if we filled our heads with the “sounds” around us – those notes and chord changes and melodies that fill the air around us. We could learn from the pain, or the things people are trying to tell us, or the new change that life is trying to bring us.

I’m trying to listen. I fully admit that there are days when I turn it all off and don’t feel it. But I’m trying not to do that very often. I’m trying to train my soul into gaining a new perspective from this so that when it’s all over I can play new music – and if I’m very lucky, even more fulfilling music.