The New Basement Tapes & the Trappings of Insecurity

The New Basement Tapes is a project created around a box of lyrics written by Bob Dylan that had been lost for nearly fifty years. Dylan offered the lyrics to producer T Bone Burnett, who assembled a collection of artists to write the music that would go with these lyrics, then perform and record them as a band. The idea of a project like this was too intriguing for me to pass up.

Showtime presented a documentary that showed these musicians, all considered enormous talents in their own circles, writing and recording the album. Not only was it interesting to see how this collaboration took place and all the behind-the-scenes activity that came with it, but I was struck by how almost every one of these artists -- including the likes of Elvis Costello and Marcus Mumford -- displayed so much insecurity about their work. In one segment, Mumford (he of “and Sons,” if you aren’t familiar), was stressing heavily about how to finish one particular song in a matter of days, since he said it usually took him months. Full disclosure: I’m a big fan of his. I find a lot of poetry in his lyrics, and I feel the music his band performs and the expressive quality of his singing joins to create songs that seem both effortless and perfectly constructed. So it was almost jarring to see him so insecure about the work he was doing, to the degree he wouldn’t let the other musicians play any of the song until almost the moment they sat down to record it. Of course it turned out beautiful, and seamlessly complemented the Dylan lyrics. He went into the recording session with a heavy fear of failure and ended it by needing to wipe his eyes clear.

So much of this resonated with me. I have insecurities aplenty as an artist, to the point where I literally just spent ten minutes writing and rewriting this very sentence because I’m still learning how to refer to myself as an artist without feeling foolish or arrogant. For example, I recently finished a new revision of my manuscript and soon after sent it back to my agent to see how well I’d addressed the points we had last discussed. As soon as I clicked the send button I felt, “Okay. There we go. Done.” And for the time being I’m still thinking of it as (tentatively) done, because I absolutely refuse to go back and look at anything in this newest revision before I hear back from her. Is this impatience? Not a bit. After all, I just sent it days ago. Is it insecurity? OH yes. I’m not exactly stressing about what she’ll have to say; I know how excited she is about the project. But I don’t want to look at any of the new work and give myself a chance to doubt and second guess what I’ve done. Did I reach my goals as solidly as I thought? Did I go as far as I needed to? A week ago I thought, heck yeah, sure. Nailed it. But now? Well...mmmaybe?

I think I can make a good guess what Mumford was feeling when he was obsessing over the placement of each chord and each note, hesitating to let the others hear what he was doing for fear of exposing what he felt were his inadequacies. And when the song was finished, I suspect the tears he wiped away might have had more to do with relief than anything else, feeling lucky that somehow he’d managed to pull it off.

On one hand, it’s daunting to think about how artists in any field can be established and widely respected and still filled with self-doubt. But on the other hand? I kind of like knowing that a tendency which can be so useful never really goes away.

Dogs

It’s been almost four years since my dog Spencer had to be put down. To be clear, I have no regrets about it. I saw it coming, it needed to be done, and I felt blessed that things worked out so I knew the very day it was the right time. I saw letting him go, even if I wasn’t ready for it, as the highest act of love I could show him.

Since then I’ve never seriously thought about getting a new dog, and I honestly have no plans to. This is coming from someone who grew up surrounded by dogs. Outside of one two-year stretch in my early teens, there have always been dogs in my family. Right now there are five of them. But none of them are mine. I love dogs. Dogs are simply the greatest. I love dogs more than I like most people. So why don’t I have one?

Twice in the past week I’ve heard about people I know losing their dogs. One of these I knew well. I can clearly remember how sleek and furry he felt when I would pet him, or how he bounded around the house when chasing his most beloved toy (beloved, because Duck transcended only being a mere favorite), or what his snore was like when he slept, paws up, near my feet on the guest room bed. The other dog was one I’d never met, but it was clear through so many posts and pictures how loved he was by his family.

Reading and thinking about the pain that followed these losses brings back echoes of my grief all too clearly. I had to watch my boy die a prolonged and painful death. The same fear and anxiety from that time will faintly echo back on me now whenever there’s something wrong with any of the dogs in my life. When I was dog-sitting two of them this past fall and one went on an astounding run of vomiting and diarrhea, I wasn’t anywhere near as concerned about all the clean up or my carpeting as I was about how bad he felt and what was wrong. I spent two consecutive weekend mornings sitting in an emergency vet exam room for a total of almost seven hours without thinking twice about it, just because I wanted him to feel better.

I remember reading an interview with Bruce Springsteen long ago when he was discussing themes in his songwriting. He said something about how if you want to feel the joy in life, you have to be willing to accept the pain that always comes with it. From that perspective, I think I’m a coward. After everything that came with watching Spencer’s life end, I must have decided at some point that that particular kind of happiness isn't worth the pain that inevitably concludes it. Because if I ever start wondering that maybe I might perhaps begin to think about possibly considering getting another dog someday, it doesn’t take much to chase that thought away.

I admire the people who can go through that loss and bring a new dog (or dogs) into the family and start over, and I feel they're lucky for all of the good that doing that will add to their lives.  I’m just not sure I’m one of them.

Buying My Way Out of January

Have you ever had one of those great, great days when what feels like free money just appears out of nowhere? This happened to me recently. I’ll spare you the details, but in a nutshell: I had a nice little check for $500 show up in the mail last week. Basically I was only getting a refund related to something from last summer, so it wasn’t exactly free. However, I had absorbed the original loss of this $500 into my budget long ago, which made this check showing up when it did feel very much like an out of nowhere surprise.

So the question became: What to do with it? Pay bills? Well, like I said, I’d already absorbed the loss into my budgeting, so this wasn’t showing up at a time I really needed it for bills. So what about savings? Another reasonable idea since I’m a big believer in being prepared for the rainy days. But because I already kind of live my life that way...well, I don’t exactly NEED to save that money right now. Typically that’s what I would do, and as a result it’s the rare occasion when I would take a windfall like this and just enjoy it. (And for the record -- believe me when I say I have a full appreciation for how blessedly lucky I am to be in this position.)

So the question changed from what to do with this bonus and instead became what would be a good way to enjoy it? First off, I feel absolutely justified in the idea of taking money like this and possibly spending it on something completely unnecessary; after all, my sister just narrowly avoided a near-death experience less than a month ago, and something like that happening makes you pause and evaluate things. I don’t really have anything on what I’d call a bucket list, and I like to think of myself as being relatively level-headed and introspective enough to be able to sidestep anything as self-indulgent as a midlife crisis. So where does that leave me? Would it be to spend little wad of cash on a thing, or use it for an experience? And are those really the only two options I have?

The only thing I’ve kind of decided on is I’d like to find something that can keep my head occupied for as much of the next three weeks as possible. I’m thinking this check showed up when it did because I’m meant to use it as a way to distract myself from how awful January is and how much I hate it. But how? I still have the job I have to show up at and do every day. It’s still cold and windy and snowy and stupid outside. So what would be the best distraction possible?

I don’t know how helpful it would be to ask for suggestions. I’d expect most ideas would be reflections of what the people offering ideas might do in my place, or they might go in such a broad direction I wouldn’t know where to begin. But I sure could use a distraction. I’m not exactly soliciting ideas here, but if somebody was absolutely sure they had the perfect one, I could be convinced to listen....