Crimped

After writing and recording Northumbria, getting it to the starting gate and out in May 2020, my plan was to put out another album in 2021.

I was pretty confident that this would be possible. Having knocked the rust off the machine, got all of the mechanical, spiritual and ontological parts of it up, running and humming, music didn’t stop coming after Northumbria.

In fact, it felt like the tap had been turned full on.

Every time I picked up the guitar, music poured out, like it had been waiting for me. I didn’t write anything. It wrote itself, two distinct complementary strands: one, simple songs using simple chords; two, melodic, emotionally rich lines. I was excited by what I was hearing, and excited to think about how I could record it: perhaps one mic, one take for the simple songs, perhaps bringing in other musicians when shielding was over … ?

I wrote about it here.

I was already quite seriously ill then, but didn’t really know it. I’d had Covid, but despite being deep into a pandemic and despite having been told by my consultant to shield because of an underlying condition, I didn’t connect it to the recurring waves of swollen joints, inflamed soft tissues, chest pains, breathlessness, coughing blood, or the constant smell of burning rubber and tobacco in my nose and the constant taste of tin and drain-cleaner, heart palpitations, tinnitus and rashes to that earlier episode.

But they were connected.

I also didn’t connect them because when your brain stops working, you don’t actually know that it’s stopped working.

It just stops.

The waves would roll in, and I would vanish, and then they’d roll out. I’d come back to life again, wonder what was happening to me, and try get on with things.

But as spring turned into summer and summer turned into autumn, the waves came in more regularly, they got deeper and darker and they took longer to roll out until they stopped rolling out and I spent the first three months of 2021 in bed, barely conscious. Then six weeks staggering around, and then another three months in bed, and so on. And here we are eighteen months later and it’s still happening. I’ve rowed at Henley. I’ve sculled the length of the Thames. I’ve done manual work. I’ve written a PhD while working full time, looking after three small children and an extremely challenging personal relationship so I know what I’m physically capable of and how far past what you think you can do mental capacity can take you. When you can’t walk the 18 steps to the bathroom without being forced to stop halfway gasping for breath, heart beating too fast for the monitor, sweat pouring off you like you’re standing under a hose … it’s tough. When you start defecating in a jug because you can’t walk at all, and your elderly parents, who you are now supposed to be looking after, have to take it away …

… that’s tougher.

I’ve begun crawling out of that hole many times.

But the waves still keep rolling in, so for every two steps forward I take, I take one and 8/9ths of a step back.

I am not a good patient.

I am not patient, for one thing.

I hate feeling lesser than I was, I hate not being able to do things that I used to do. I hate my brain and my body not working.

The music is still there.

But the joints in my hands are now so badly damaged that I can’t actually play it. It’s too painful. They feel like they’ve rusted, that all of that work I did to learn to play again has been wasted, and everything feels slow and uncertain.

And now it’s two years since Northumbria came out, lockdown for me at least will continue because of the need to shield, and my plan to release another album last year and one this year has gone by the board.

I feel like after working very hard to get out of where I was and away from what I was living with, my ability to do things has again been crimped.

I’m not sure if this is a sign or not.

Maybe I was only supposed to write and release Northumbria?

Maybe I was only supposed to reconnect with the music one more time, and then move on?

But if that’s the case, then why does music keep coming out?

Maybe I’m supposed to learn to play again all over again?

After all, that’s what I did for Northumbria.

Let’s see.

©℗ A. I. Jackson

——-

Origin(al) Stories was first launched to show some of the thoughts, decisions and processes that went into the writing, recording and release of the Northumbria album.

Following the launch of The Landing Stage, which brings together some of the things I do, I’ve continued adding to Origin(al) Stories.

Origin(al) Stories has none of the features beloved of self-help and influencers: how-to guides, lists, essential hacks.

Drawn from my personal diaries and journals, the posts might often seem unconnected, elliptical and fragmentary. Showing, as they do, my explorations of ideas and approaches and processes as I do things, they are best viewed as glimpses of my workings.

They show my mistakes, the false trails I’ve followed, and the blind alleys I’ve gone down - all of which are intrinsic parts of finding a path through to doing something.

If you’ve liked an Origin(al) Stories post, or it’s helped you with something you’re doing in some way, please share it to your socials, and give credit. All content on this website is under copyright and attributable.

None of my work will ever appear on platforms or social media, for reasons I talk about here, but which can be summarised as: platforms don’t pay or sustain people who make things.

Buying an album or a book direct from me helps me to make the next one.

So please do.

Thanks for reading. Have a great day. Tell the people you love that you love them. Be a positive force.