Three Years In

Life is constant. It breathes in deep and exhales long winded sighs of lucid relief. A warm, understated fluidity flows forward and we drift along doing our best to guide ourselves safely along. Because of this, we need ways to slow the movement, we need anchors to tie off to along the way. What are your anchors? Where do you seek comfort as the night moves in?

Me? For the longest time I left myself to drift, untethered. I let life carry me along as I slipped through blindfolded, that is, until I decided to open my eyes and allow myself to understand things about this flow that I had not let myself fully understand.

Joy is love and love is gravity. This is my anchor and I found that love, warm, heavy, and with a resonance that keeps me grounded in happiness. With it I am learning to balance myself and see things with a clarity that I only thought was possible in my imagination.

Three years ago today I married YoungDoo Moon and with a throat sticky with nerves and the newfound weight of an abundance of love I read the following to her during our wedding as a way to try to communicate how I felt with words:

Life brings us to unexpected places. It is infinitely complex yet unwaveringly simple. In this life I have felt so much and experienced a myriad of emotions and curiosities. I have seen the rise and fall of hope and love within me skip widely about the surface of my time here on earth and I have done so with open arms and a great, un-censored vulnerability that led me to both to moments of great happiness and of unbearable darkness.

As fate would have it, along this path, as transient and unpredictable as it has been, I have discovered something that has not only pushed me beyond my own self doubt and reservations, but has also given me the strength to transcend what I thought I was capable of within my lifetime. That discovery is you and the love you give to me.

Never have I felt so confident and capable as when you are by my side. You give me pride and a wholeness I never thought possible within myself, and for this, I love you.

For you, YoungDoo, my love is absolute.

It is, without question, the greatest feeling I have ever been blessed with and without it I would be incomplete.

There has never been a feeling locked away inside me that has been more pure, honest, and true as this love that I have for you. It feels as transparent and essential as the air I breathe.

You are my light.

The light by which I live and breathe and find happiness in all things. Together I feel anything in this life is possible and darkness will never again find me. I love you YoungDoo. You are my everything.

Of course, this is just as true today as it was when I wrote it 3 years ago while riding along in a busy subway train in Seoul a few days before the wedding. Struck with an exciting rush of inspiration the words flowed out without hesitation as though they were there waiting for me to pick them from the air. Happy anniversary YoungDoo, here’s to the years of joy we have yet to share.

Sprung

Spring is doing its best to push winter aside around here. While it is still chilly out the sun is starting to take hold of most days which is giving me some much needed energy among an increasingly busy work schedule. Over the past couple of weeks I have tried to sneak in a few photos of spring springing and I thought I would take a few minutes today to share a couple of them with you guys.

Thanks for hanging in there while things are slow around here, I still have a few things brewing and am still chipping away at them as I am able. Enjoy the blooming new wallpapers and for those of you also starting to see spring take shape, enjoy the sun!

It was Triumph We Once Proposed…

I, like so many others, discovered Glen Hasard after seeing Once and while I do enjoy his music quite a bit I have not stuck with his releases through the years. When I heard he was planing to release an EP of Jason Molina songs I was skeptical. Cover albums, especially those in the guise of a tribute, usually miss their mark and simply leave me wanting to put on the original recordings. Heres looking at you Seth Avett and your well intentioned Elliott Smith Covers, though to be fair, it’s not often you hear someone cover an Elliott Smith song well. So yes, it’s rare to find a cover or tribute album that I actually come back to for repeat listens.

I pre-ordered a copy of ‘It was Triumph We Once Proposed…’ hoping I wouldn’t end up disapointed and thankfully I was anything but. He did a fantastic job capturing the essence of what made these songs great to begin with and managed to do this without over embeleshing the music. It is a worthy tribute in my book. Jason Molina had a wider reaching influence than I feel many fully realize and it’s nice to see his music live on and get shared with a new audience.

While it seems they have sold out on his personal site, I know there are still vinyl copies out there and of course it is available digitally through all the usual channels. Any fans of blues, alt-country, or singer songwriter music should jump on this without hesitation.

Shine On

Welcome back! I decided to take a short hiatus from 50ft so I could focus time on another project I have been helping with locally but I hope to pick things up from where I left off and get a few new posts out the door in the coming weeks. I’m kicking things off with another shot from Seoul, still plenty of them kicking around in my archives to share. Another simple one, nothing poetic, I just love these low watt lightbulbs with the filaments showing through delicately.  Enjoy!