Fear Less

Why have I gone over two weeks without publishing a new post? It definitely isn't that Life is lacking in stories, people, and general fascination lately. Have I been unknowingly falling asleep to subliminal messages from a fearful voice in the back of my head, questioning whether what I think is worth listening to? Is there some inaudible frequency bullying my stream of consciousness, declaring that my daily state of awe is coming across as preaching to the choir that taught me to sing in the first place? Are the words I choose weighed down with enough whole-heartedness to stay grounded as I pontificate? Maybe some part of me is simply scared to admit that my latest songs are "behind schedule".

Whatever the reason, this sub-surface behavior simply won't do and I vow to remedy the situation right now. A major reason for starting Immaculate Miraculous two months ago was to further practice fearlessness in the face of the unknown, the way we all do everyday. Even a two week commitment to silence with this journal is crucial to the complete picture - rests between notes.

The more unafraid I am to write shitty songs, the more I dare to be uninteresting, the more interesting and creative everything will end up being. Or at least there'll be no negative attachment, because something was actually done / created. When fear is out of the equation, all things are addition.

Adding it up.

ryandilmore

You May Say I'm A Dreamer

For the past three nights, I've been experiencing incredibly vivid dreams. The fade-ins and outs remain hazy when I wake, but certain moments are as crystal clear as any deposit in my lifelong memory bank. I've been finding myself in situations that are so real to my senses. I remember the color and feeling of clothing, the height of the sun, the sound of car doors closing, the couple loose stones on the driveway, being right up next to someone. Even if I could tell my sleeping self "this is just a dream", I'd hesitate to believe it. The whole notion of just a dream seems insulting after nights like these.

Occasionally I'm joined within a dream by songwriters. Imogen Heap, Jason Mraz, and now Patrick Stump, have each co-written songs with me over the years, and sometimes they just show up and sing a new idea they're working on and I'm always floored by how incredible they are. It's their best stuff, in my opinion. Of course, the tragedy is when I open my eyes and the music has vanished. I like to think those melodies still live hidden somewhere in my soul, waiting for the right moment to be shared with the awake version of me. Or maybe they actually are the notes and words that Imogen Heap will find herself jotting down this morning.

A couple nights ago I somehow wound up working on new songs with Patrick Stump. I was getting ready to sing demos for things he'd been writing. We were sitting at a table looking over the lyrics, figuring out how we wanted to arrange the parts and sing each phrase. I was literally holding the printed pages in my hands (I use the term "literally" loosely in this case), and went through every single line of the song. I remember so clearly the nervousness in my stomach, thinking about how impressively I would need to perform, all the while wondering how the heck I was granted this awesome task in the first place. I could feel my molecules energizing with such enthusiasm and awe, convinced that the song I was holding in my hands was pure gold. Of course, I woke up, and the only word I remember is the girl's name he put down in quotations as a temporary placeholder... "Ramsy"... which we both kind of laughed about when we got to that part. "The words won't matter as much as you think. You gotta be fire, let that feeling live."

I wonder if the people we meet up with in our dreams are ever dreaming the same thing, or if they'll even remember. I've been waking up these past few mornings, the heels of my palms pressed firmly against my eyes, in a strange disbelief that I'd been dreaming at all. It's a beautiful gift any time I get to experience something completely lifelike in the dreamworld. And they've been so real lately.

I'm probably dreaming this right now...

"ramsy" sounds more real than "blog".

R.

Together We Will Live Forever

One of the greatest concepts I like to mesmerize my mind with these days is the power of collaboration. It's in our nature to work together. We all Love the songs and melodies that we can harmonize along to. A companion to travel with to new lands. A dance partner.

"What I can do, you cannot. What you can do, I cannot. But together we can do something beautiful" -Mother Teresa

A few things we know about collaboration . . .

When Yellow and Blue paints mix, Green is born.

When tectonic plates collide, mountains are formed.

When Outkast and Queen converge:

Since I first began writing songs, I've spent so much time staying in on Friday nights to fill countless pages and gigabytes with new ideas and reverberations. I've stayed up night after night (tonight was definitely one of these instances) to sit in total darkness, just to get the shivers from listening to the way a guitar and voice can sound so hauntingly pure with the lights off. I've spent so long role-playing the part of the lone lab scientist, determined to unlock for myself the secret to creating living/breathing music. After all these years, the answer is the same as it was back when the first song poured from my pen - it's pretty much spontaneous magic and I don't really understand it.

So when two people get together and into existence comes a new creation, it's even more mystifying. To me, collaborating with different writers and musicians is like adding our own ingredients into a cauldron, anxious to find if we'll be feasting on something exotic and delicious, or if we're stuck with some sort undercooked meatloaf that we accidentally made. I've been really lucky in my experiences. Way more often than not it's been fine dining. The coolest part of working with other people is the effect a joint effort has on the writer in me. Playing an acoustic guitar accompanied by a cello spins entirely different wheels than plugging in an electric guitar in a poorly ventilated rehearsal space with a rock band, or pounding the keys of some 80's sci-fi synth to the ass-kicking beat thundering from a subwoofer. There are just way too many "genres" of music to ever think I could settle on just one and feel musically satisfied. That's why I'm so thankful for all the people in my Life, musician or not, for supplying the awesome (and environmentally friendly) fuel required to do what I do, and to be who I am. We're All In This Together.

Some may find it's not the meal they hoped for, some may find it blasphemous, but here are some examples of attention-catching cross-breeding I've recently come across:

Thanks, Youtube and Wikipedia, for providing endless volumes of entertainment and interesting knowledge to enhance the flavor of an otherwise pretty bland body of text.

And Thank You for the constant high-frequency energy you radiate into the atmosphere. Believe me, it's been mixing heavily into my music and my dreams lately. I look forward to the world we'll create together.

Without U I'm just

ryan doglas dilmore