Dove Letters: letting the light in

how it felt to get back on stage this week.

Today is Sunday and I am still living in the afterglow of my album release show that was this past week in Los Angeles. It was my first solo, non-festival/opening concert in almost two years.

I felt something that pretty well shocked my system in the hours leading up to going on stage—I felt fear. Afraid no one would show up after all this time, afraid I didn’t have “it” anymore (whatever “it” is), afraid that I do all this in vain.

Sometimes I feel like someone is holding a towel right in front of my face that blocks out the sun. It’s a small towel but it’s so close to my face that I cannot see the totality of the blazing sun behind it. This blocking of the light makes me feel like there is no hope, no truth—but the truth is that while a very small piece of fabric can block the entire blazing sun from our gaze, so can a tiny drop of fear block out our access to love.

On my way to load into the venue for the show, I stopped by the grocery store to buy some gluten free pasta (a little post-show treat hehe). I pulled into the busy parking lot and parked in a spot that had a rogue shopping cart at the end of it, and instead of moving it, I just got as close as I could, causing the back of my car to have its butt sticking out. As I got out of my car, a woman in her car started honking at me, trying to get past my car. I peered around my car, feeling personally offended to be honked at. I saw that there was definitely enough room for her to get through. I motioned her to drive forward. She wouldn’t. I got mad like a guerrilla. I made a face at her, a not very nice face. She kept honking and I finally gave up and walked to the front of my car, moved the cart out of way, and pulled my car forward. By this time I was just livid.

As I got out of my car and the woman had passed through, I involuntarily whispered to myself, and to her (she couldn’t hear me): go suck a dick.

I make it in the grocery store and I’m just shocked. HOW did this happen? Literally 15 minutes before this I was meditating. After taking a few deep breaths, I snapped out of this rage and began to see clear again. But why? Why do I feel like a prehistoric ape who was just accosted by a rival group for some berries? Why did I just say go suck a dick to a stranger?

As I was checking out, I saw the woman walking in. She was older and had cool glasses, short and with a neat grey-headed bob. I walked up to her and just said, you were right. I’m sorry I did that in the parking lot. She just smiled and looked at me and said, oh it’s okay, I just didn’t want to hit your car. We thanked one another and said goodbye. I went to soundcheck.

For the encore of the show I did a stripped down version of a song off my new album, Heaven In My Head. The song is about the possibility of heaven on earth, of peace in this lifetime and not waiting for some far off heaven in another life, some unreachable nirvana that we only get to access when we die.

It’s my belief that true peace is possible on this planet and it starts in the individual. In fact, all peace must begin in the individual before it could ever make its way to the collective. And we must remember that peace is something we can create—that we must create.

Even something as small as apologizing to some stranger in a grocery store for being a dick. It adds up, I like to think. Any little bit of peace we can bring, especially after we do something that disrupts the peace. It’s okay—we are human. We love to make easy things hard. But the secret, I’m learning, is to make the hard things easy.

As I walked back on stage last week, I remembered for the millionth time that there is nothing to be afraid of. I sang my songs, I danced my dance, and the towel in front of my face that was blocking the sun disintegrated, like the miracle that mercy is. I felt the sun, the love that is, was, has always been, and will always be there—the love that is our birthright if we so choose to embrace it, the peace on earth that is an option, if we can only let it shine through us.

LOVE!
Jake