Dove Letters: eyes of the past

Lessons from 18-year-old me

Dear lovedove,

Today is Sunday and I have often heard the question asked: if you could go back and tell your younger self anything, what would you say?

I think the more interesting question is: if your younger self had something to tell you now, what would they say?

Very recently I had a direct experience with this where I looked eye to eye with a bygone version of myself. No, it wasn't a mystical apparition where I was not visited in the flesh by the ghost of teenage acne past—but it was something close.

It was a quiet July evening last summer and I was alone in my little nest in Los Angeles, one of those afternoons where I was playing piano and opened my eyes and realized it was already nighttime and had no idea where the day had gone. This has always been my homeland, performing for an audience of zero—unless you count the faceless figures of the Last Supper fresco I painted on my wall. Just me and me, with perhaps some angels between.

Sitting there at the piano, I began to recall some songs from yesteryear, dipping my feet into nostalgia and creations gone by. I specifically was thinking about an EP I made the summer before moving away to college, my last summer in Missouri.

The last year of high school for me was, for all intents and purposes, intense. I was in a relationship with the son of a preacher (period). In the timeline of our relationship, the preacher dad had left his evangelical post at a megachurch, completely embraced his son and I's relationship, and began a new church in our town with the tagline: "everyone is welcome". I sang regularly at the church and this was the first time in my life I developed what I may now call a practice of devotion.

The EP I wrote, called Sanctuary, was a reflection of that season. It was a combination of my instinctual interest in spirituality and my reality on earth, my Missouri, my queerness. Writing these songs felt like heaven and earth dancing for the first time inside of me, and somehow it made sense. It never felt like a contradiction to sing and pray and also be gay and an artist—if anything it felt like a crime against my own nature to not.

My then-boyfriend was a very talented musician and helped me record this little four-song EP right before I moved to Nashville to begin my freshman year of college. I arrived that fall in Nashville with fear, courage, a finished EP, a tripod, a DSLR camera, and a plan: I set out to record my own music videos for every song and make a website that hosted this new project. A visual/music experience. Growing up my favorite artists made the most iconic videos: Gaga’s Telephone video, Beyonce’s self-titled visual album. It was in my blood and I dreamed of making visual art with the entire $100 dollars I had in my checking account and savings combined.

Driving around Nashville, I cast forth my vision. I found a quiet spot by the Cumberland river and recorded my back while singing the first song, I found an abandoned parking garage for the second, I danced around in front of my little tripod, running quickly if I heard anyone coming. I felt like a little detective, looking for the next video—looking for the next clue of the art. To this day it’s one of the most exhilarating art experiences I’ve had.

Because no one was watching. No one cared. There is this child like innocence of creation when you are only creating for your own innate joy. And that’s what I did. I downloaded a 30 day free trial of a video editing software and finished editing all these videos on day 29. I uploaded them. I posted it to my very few Instagram followers. I was delighted.

And last summer, almost ten years later, I was reunited with these videos.

Sitting at my piano in my dark room, I opened up my computer to see if I could find the visual EP I made back when I was 18. You see, I had deleted all traces of this project from the internet after I signed my first big music contract—I think part of me thought no one would understand it. It felt deeply personal and if I'm being honest, I wasn't as brave as I was when I was 18 and made these songs.

But when I finally found the videos, what I saw stunned me.

The last song on the project is called Psalm. It sings like a prayer and even includes a bit of scripture in the chorus: and lo, I am with you always, even unto the end of the world (Matthew 28:20). The video is simply me sitting in my dorm room, staring at the camera. Most of the video is literally just my eyes, black and white. My beautiful, soft, oceanic 18-year-old eyes that had no idea and also every idea of his life, his path, his love, his destiny.

There’s this breeze of courage that blows through the past when looking at it from the present with eyes of love. It could also be called grace. But it’s not just backwards, it’s forwards. Time and again I find that whenever I engage with a piece of art or writing or a picture from an earlier age, it’s like younger me is whispering: you know I’ve always been cool as hell. He encourages me, saying, you shouldn’t be afraid to be who you are.

I’ve spent the last 10 years trying to find a balance between the depths of my soul and something that I feel can be understood. Time and time again the univere has tested me. Time and time again I've felt doubt and been told that it's not actually safe to be who you are.

These are all things I have actually been told throughout my career:

"You can't come out if you want to be a successful artist"

"You can't sing about God if you are gay"

"You can't wear "xyz" if you want to appeal to middle America"

But It's all a trap. It's a false invitation to be yourself with conditions. I could be gay, but only if I fit in the box of what gay people say and do. I can be from middle of America, but only appeal to them if I stay away from certain topics. I can be gay but I can’t have God. Or I can have God and deny my identity.

But what if it’s both?

Sitting there at 27 looking at myself in a reverse mirror, I heard an answer from my 18-year-old friend. And the answer is simple, it cuts through the coats of questions I have placed upon myself over there years. These are the words I heard him say to me:

You know who you are. You know what is true. You have always known what is true. And you know what to do.

Be your god damn/god blessed self.

Amen.

Jake x

PS - A little treat for my paid subscribers - I’ve uploaded the video of Psalm, seen in the world for the first time in 10 years!! Enjoy some love from 18-year-old me