JFDI. You know what it means. And if you don’t…Google it. Or think of it as an emphatic take on a popular sportswear company’s “Just Do It” campaign.
Introductions aside, this blog is dedicated to a woman who is dying. She is my co-writer, someone I happened to share a profound experience with after I made my way out of Lebanon in the midst of bombs flying and tempers flaring. These words and my actions today are for my friend, a woman who came into my life at a time when I felt alone in my bewilderment over the world’s apathy to war around us (in us?).
Safely esconced back in my apartment overlooking a mountain in the western Hejaz region of Saudi Arabia, I sat day and night for a week, feeling as helpless as I did in Malaysia after 90 people were swept away from the beach we were to visit the day of the tsunami. I petitioned Canadian government senators on their ’stand’ re. the war and what I perceived as a calculated overreaction to the usual ping-ponging that goes on between Hezbollah in Lebanon and the Israeli military (you kidnap some of mine and imprison them for twenty years; we do the same until we can negotiate a prisoner swap; to hell with all the innocents–there are none).
I felt it coming. It had happened after a bad dive two years earlier in the Farasan Banks off the south of Arabia. I came down with vertigo that lasted four months and made me want to end my own life. My friend commiserated as I lived through the worst of the post-traumatic stress or whatever it was. Then we wrote some songs.
‘Love Song to a Terrorist’ was the first. A Buddhist ‘take’ on the fact that, yes, even suicide bombers get up and have breakfasts in the morning with their loved ones, their families, before they go out and do their dirty deeds. I knew ex-act-ly where Liz was coming from with that lyric and begged to put it to music. Next thing we knew, we were causing strife in our own online songwriter’s community.
It’s a strange thing to be a proponent of peace and to know you’re instigating and aggravating and upsetting the balance with words and viewpoints. I don’t have all the answers. I only have my experiences and a fundamental belief that we should be free to tell our stories. Somehow in the ’story’, the song, the telling, we find out–as a wise woman said to me this summer–what we truly think. We find healing. Some people don’t know the difference between thought and action.
Threats came in from a few who thought they might intimidate me, and they did. They silenced me, temporarily. I began to question myself: should I put my words out there? Should I explore my opinions publicly?
It’s an ongoing question and I take heart, as a songwriter about to launch a decidedly exploratory album, from one thing: Some out there like Moses Avalon, author of Secret Confessions of a Music Producer, and David Walter of the Photolink Creative group whom I happened to meet last week to put this question to, have stated clearly: artists including songwriters should be putting their thoughts out there about the issues that affect our world most today. We have an obligation, like every other citizen, to make use of our talents for the greater good of something.
I would add something I heard this past week: We have two ears and a mouth and should use them in those proportions.
Liz and I re-named ‘Love Song to a Terrorist’ to ‘My Heart Goes Out to You’, slightly more palatable to some and based on the hook. That week my emotions ran through my writing and I penned three more songs that showed the evolution of my internal conflicts:
Peace Won’t Come
Mary
In the Reflection
Liz solidified our status as ‘co-writers’ some time later when she delivered a new lyric into my emailbox. I didn’t trust that I could do this–share a song. I’m fairly possessive about what I write. It’s a shield for insecurity. But it was also a reality; I’d written a few scraps here and there with others, and nothing good had ever come of it.
When ‘Let Me Age Gracefully’ was eagerly sent to me, I knew I had met a woman who’d lived a life. We became friends. I thought we’d write a whole lot more, one day meet each other. I promised to put these songs on an album one day.
Three months ago, Liz was diagnosed with cancer, underwent a massive surgery to cut out a portion of one lung and three ribs, and was given time and hope. One to five years. Not having healthcare insurance in the U.S. means you have to wait for chemo. It effectively meant for Liz the end of hope for more time, because the microscopic cancer left in her body didn’t have a chance to be blasted away. It wrapped around her spine and has now paralyzed her. Her daughter tells me she has months to live. I’m on a frantic mission to find David Foster in Los Angeles to record this song with me, to fulfill this prophetic wish, and deliver it to my friend before she passes to another place.
So, this is a long-winded, unexpectedly somber sharing. It is me telling you about JFDI and why it is at the core of my being. It is a mantra of sorts. I have experienced death and fundamentally believe we are all dying as we live. Our time to do good and make use of our talents is now. JFDI.
Free downloads of all of the above songs at:
http://www.soundclick.com/loreleiloveridge
Let Me Age Gracefully Lyrics
© 2006, Liz Ward, BMI Music
© 2006, Lorelei Loveridge, SOCAN
I can’t walk a straight line
Through the circle of time
I can’t float illusions
On a sea of denial
I can’t nip, tuck, or suck out
Everlasting youth
I’m getting old, I will die
It’s a simple truth
[Chorus]
Let me age gracefully
My life is still sweet
Let me be in the vanguard
The social elite
I am present, I am legion
I’m your history
Where will you go
If you don’t follow me
Don’t rob me of meaning
I am wisdom evolving
I’m seeking my higher self
I am harmonies resolving
I won’t recant my life
To allay your worst fears
I am more than loose skin
I will take my place here
[Chorus]
[Bridge]
And when I grow too weak
Care for my soul
I am your future
You go where I go
[Chorus]
Free downloads @ http://www.soundclick.com/loreleiloveridge
