I’m here: the place where I find hard limits, embrace acceptance and seek help.

Wherever you are.

Buenos Aires, February 6th, 2024.

I’m in Buenos Aires. I came to give my first concert since 2008. Or is it 2010? Actually, I came to feel a little bit more like myself. I came to visit last November, and seeing my old friends, and feeling seen, and recording an album by accident, it all restored my soul.

I haven’t talked much about my music here. Writing is something that happens through me. Music is something that happens to me. 

Last June, after more than a decade of not really singing, I started humming. I was also running up and down the stairs, and absentmindedly dancing as I prepared my kid’s lunches and the new au pair’s room. Then, I was hit by a metaphorical blast and I exploded in love, illumination, grief, devotion, anger and deliverance. I had all this energy and it needed to flow. I swam, and I walked, and I started this blog and I listened to music. I listened to so much music. I listened to music so I could quiet the voices in my head. Other people’s voices. Voices directing me to be someone else. Voices directing me to disappear.

But I didn’t want to disappear, not anymore. I had hope, and I wanted to be amazing. I wanted to be amazing like it was a command. But I couldn’t quite manage to be amazing, whatever that is. Instead, I got an approximation of myself, of who I can be. I still have quite a ways to go. 

A cadre of songs showed up, unannounced, like 29 Palms by Robert Plant and Te extraño by Luis Miguel. And then an old song of mine, long forgotten, returned. It’s called I always love you always.

Beyond the crows, the flash, the bling, the crowds.

After that, the impossible happened. A new song. No, a new verse, arrived. It arrived on the wind, as I was walking, as it often happens with song and poetry. It arrived like a beautiful gift, prettier, airier and purer than anything that I had written before. Prettier than anything I could ever write, because I don’t feel like I wrote it, really. I simply happened upon it.

You are everywhere and I see you in the sun and in the rain.

It would take me months to finish Polaris. Nobody in SF, no musician, wanted to help me. One day, walking on Valencia St, the missing parts of the song showed up, again, on the wind.

I look for you every morning.

I was so happy. Polaris is so pretty. I wanted to do something with it, something good. I decided that while I was traveling in Argentina, during a trip I had planned for November 2023, I would record it. I have so many musician friends here, it made sense. Things happened, and things got derailed. Within two hours, the project went from imploding to becoming bigger than I could ever imagine.

But that’s a story for another blog post. That’s not where I am right now.

Right now, after going back home in the Bay Area for a desolating Holiday Season, I came back to Buenos Aires to try to feel better. And I decided that, to make the best of my trip, I would give a concert. But this time, going for gold wasn’t a great idea, partially because I wasn’t ready, and partially because I was crushed.

I’ve been in a thick mental fog for almost two weeks. I feel like my mind is not my mind, and my thoughts are not my own. I feel absent. I feel blank. I feel catatonic. I feel so lost, I lost my flight. I feel so lost, I almost took the wrong connection. I lose track of things that just happened. Did you bike here? I asked my producer, who rode an Uber with me. We laugh, but I don’t understand what’s going on. I don’t know this feeling. It feels a little bit like shock, like I felt after a near-fatal car crash. But that didn’t last two weeks. It also feels a little bit like after talking with my mom decades ago, but that was never so overcoming. It feels a little bit like the desolation I had after letting go of my first love, but that wasn’t so deep.

I took the photo that accompanies the post standing at the edge of an alley in Palermo. I love charming alleys and Palermo has two of my favorite ones. One of my favorite spots in the world. As I stand on the street, I feel bad in a way I never knew before, in a way I didn’t know was possible. However, I can still appreciate the beauty. I still know that this is a precious moment.

I feel bad in a way I never knew before, but I still showed up to scout the venue my concert took place at. When a friend played the bandoneon on stage, I cried, inevitably, embarrassingly. But I showed up.

I feel bad in a way I never knew before, but I still showed up to my concert. It didn’t go amazingly well, but I didn’t freeze, and I didn’t vomit as I used to, before I gave up more than a decade ago, so I count it as a small win. I feel bad in a way I never knew before, but a few friends showed up, loyal, supporting, caring. I count that as a big win.

I feel bad in a way I never knew before, and even though I didn’t quite write the posts I wanted to write for the blog (William the Conqueror!) I still showed up in ways you can’t see, like payroll, maintenance and content planning.

I have a whole creative process, and it really works. It really facilitates creating and achieving things faster, with perfection and beauty. But it’s a creative process that starts with perfection and beauty within. Most of the time, I don’t feel perfect nor beautiful.

Walking through this thick cloud of bitter molasses not just reminded me, but proved to me, with no doubt, that I can, in fact, show up with a dirty face and a weakened mind. It proved that I can show up as a fraction of myself and still do acceptable work, even meaningful work. 

It also proved that being alive one more day is a little victory, and that it’s sometimes the biggest victory you can aim for.

And it proved that even in your saddest days, you can write your happiest songs.

Little miracles/ sana, sana/ everything will be alright/mañana.

On finding acceptance and seeking help.

San Francisco Bay Area, February 19th, 2024.

I’m back home. The second trip to Argentina wasn’t the resounding success my first trip, back in November, was. But it still was pretty good. After almost three weeks, I could slowly arouse from my stupor. Seeing my friends helped.

Success looks like community.

I somehow managed to write three songs in two days. I finished a delicate lullaby for my kids, Little Miracles. Against all odds, I wrote a soft, happy, hopeful love song, My Every Day, partially inspired by Here, There, and Everywhere by The Beatles. And when I was feeling out of words and out of sounds, came a waltz, calm, haunting, dramatic. So complex and so beautiful, I can’t believe I get to call it mine. It’s romantic in the way Brahms is romantic. It’s gentle and relentless. And I didn’t know what to call it. Mistakes were made? Those words are doing a lot of work in the lyrics, it seems disrespectful. Dark Prism? Dark Prism Sheer? There’s many songs with that name in Spotify already, and it doesn’t quite represent the spirit of the song. We needed to register the song, we needed a name.

What if I’m the best thing that has ever happened to you.

The irony is that the original line was 

What if I’m the worst thing that has ever happened to you. 

As I said, the waltz is dramatic. I’m pretty chill, but I can be dramatic, too. I was, after all, partially raised by telenovelas and movies from the 40s and 50’s. That shit does something to you. And according to Brené Brown’s Wholehearted Inventory I have extreme perfectionism and zero self compassion. I’m pretty hard on myself. I’m definitely not the worst thing that has ever happened to you. I’m not that important. I’m not that bad. I am a good person. 

In those three songs, in the midst of gloom and tears, I found my sound. My sound is some things I am, and some things I want to be. It’s delicate, soft, calm, intimate, emotional, wispy, relentless. It’s strong and brave, in a dainty way. I don’t feel strong or brave right now, though.

My producer asked me to finish the waltz’s lyrics overnight. He actually asked me to finish the lyrics to four songs we had been working on. I felt all out of words. The next morning, an hour before heading to the studio, I finished the waltz’s lyrics. The words move forward and twirl back like in the dance. 

In sickness and in health. Down and out or in wealth.

There were three more songs I was supposed to work on, but I was empty. I felt absent. I felt blank. I felt catatonic. One of the songs, which sounds like a proper hit, is unbearable for me to sing. Ironically, or perhaps, tellingly, it’s the only song about me and my feelings, wholly. Not about someone else. Not about someone else and me. It’s about me. It’s a song that sounds like a rock song. And it’s a song that sounds like it’s for a band. And I decide it’s a song for a different artist. It’s a song to give away.

And as I write this, I realize that no matter the sound, I have to finish this song. I have to record this song. I have to keep this song. 

Defender hasta el final mi vida.

Or maybe I have to write myself a new song. A hopeful, calm, relentless love song to me. Or at least I could write a “like” song to me. I digress.

In the face of mental fog and exhaustion, I found my limits, but I also found my focus. And in the studio, in a grueling session in which I sang nonstop for nine and a half hours, I saw the ridiculousness of the demands I put on myself. Why not do two half-day sessions? Why ask so much of my body and of my energy? Why do I set myself up for failure? Why don’t I treat myself with kindness and compassion? Wow, Brené, you are good!

And so, reluctantly, I accept that I’m here. I’m not where I want to be. I’m not who I want to be. I don’t feel guilt, but I feel regret, grief and confusion. I feel humble. And so I accept, no, I welcome, regret and grief and confusion and humbleness. I accept the fact that I’m not sure how long this mental fog will stay, or if it will come back after it goes, or if it will ever completely go away.

I accept that I’m here. I swim most days, but I still can’t swim butterfly, my favorite style. I’m fitter than most people my age, but I’m not as fit as I could be, or as I should be. I’ve been trying to gain independence in the last eight months, and though I have done interesting things, I haven’t been able to stand on my own two feet.

I accept that, even though I like myself, being authentic, truthful and honest might mean that nobody else will. I know this is black and white thinking, but I feel unlearnable right now, ungraspable. I feel unbelievable. 

I accept that, even though I want you to stay more than I want life myself, I have to let you be. I have to trust you to be patient, nurturing and gracious with yourself. I have to learn to be patient, nurturing and gracious with myself.

I accept that, even though I can’t envision the future, any future, I need to move forward.

I wonder if Alexander Pope ever imagined that he would speak about a person like me when he wrote the Epistle II from An Essay on Man.

A being darkly wise, and rudely great:

With too much knowledge for the Sceptic side,

With too much weakness for the Stoic’s pride,

He hangs between; in doubt to act, or rest;

And so I seek help. I seek help desperately. I accept and embrace the guidance and goodwill of my friends. I accept and embrace the support of my therapists. DBT is so hard on me, it makes me feel like a dandelion being blown away. It makes me feel like I’m breaking in the littlest pieces and being dispersed into nothingness. It hurts like hell and it brings me to my knees.

I seek help from a taxi driver, when I lose yet another flight in the most stupid of ways. I seek help from every business savvy person I know or sort of know: I need to be autarkic. I seek help from every talented person in the music business I know, and they are wise, and they are many, and they think my music is pretty good. Maybe there’s something here. I seek help from my blog team, and they are patient and constant. I even seek help from the people who can’t help but hurt me.

I’m the kind of person that goes away up to a mountain top when in trouble or when in struggle, to solve things On My Own. I should look strong, happy and perfect all the time. I shouldn’t cause discomfort to anyone. But now I can’t stop myself. The mountaintop seems too high, and I’m too low. 

All I can do is seek help.

And help comes, in the form of hope. Hope that maybe within myself, and in music, and in movement, I can build a future worthy of the treasures bestowed, a future worthy of the treasures squandered.

Alexander Pope, this time in the Epistle I in Essay on Man, rambles (rhapsodizes?) about hope.

Hope humbly then; with trembling pinions soar;

Wait the great teacher Death; and God adore!

What future bliss, he gives not thee to know,

But gives that hope to be thy blessing now.

Hope springs eternal in the human breast:

When I read it, all I can see is a poster of Rita Hayworth, gorgeous as ever, sitting on a wall, flimsily disguising the path to freedom. I want to run away to a warm place with no memory. After all, that’s what I do, or try to do, all the time.

And so magically, as I see the poster in my mind, I can see the future: a future where I’m not sitting on this chair, sleeping in this bed, occupying this chamber. A future where, finally, I’m completely out of this place where I’ve never been to begin with. And I realize the obvious reason why, even though I’ve been trying for eight months, I couldn’t see the future. I can’t get a glimpse of a future where I feel whole. No matter where my imagination takes me, I’m fractured. 

I wrote, nonchalantly, in my Facebook wall: My heart is forever broken into (happy) pieces: home is my roots, but home is also my present and future. Home is where my kids are, but home is also where my love is. Home is where the people who know me and love me are, but home is also wherever I am. It’s a lie. My heart is forever broken into aching pieces, and the sorrow seems endless. This time, I can’t imagine how things can be made right again, or how I can ever feel happy again. I decide to accept and allow the pain, and the sorrow, and the uncertainty. I decide to doubt. Things feel absolute right now, but maybe I’m wrong. Maybe the best is yet to come.

 I find hope in Jensen Huang and Nvidia’s story. I find hope in Steve Job’s story. I even find hope in Elon Musk’s resilience through challenges, opposing forces, and public scorn. It’s compelling that whenever I seek hope, I find it not in music nor in words, but in business. Making music makes me feel out of control, like I’m exploding into bright truth and honesty nonstop, like I’m a sonic nuclear reactor. Writing pushes me to dive deep into my mind. It helps me organize my thoughts, but it also coerces me to stare at the darkest corners of my being. Business feels manageable, like a game that, if you keep playing it for keeps, you will win.

Soon enough you will be mine.

Whenever I seek hope, I find it not in a beach, or in Buenos Aires, but in the streets of San Francisco.

And how does all this relate to startups, you may ask? If you think I can’t spin this self serving, overly-emotional soliloquy into leadership and business advice, you haven’t been paying attention.

Three surprising startup truisms that I remembered through my emotional rollercoaster and that are worth noting. Warning: number three is super cheesy!

1. Wherever you are, that’s where you are. You can only grow from here. The sooner you assess where here is, accept where here is, and measure where here is, the sooner you can start to truly move forward. Often, in order to look better on the pitch deck and have a better story, founders end up lying to themselves and they lose sight of hard facts. Savvy, experienced advisors, investors and even possible hires, might see through your self imposed charade and move on from you, not because your company is particularly bad, but because you sound delulu. Instead, assess where you are with open eyes and feet firmly on the ground. Have every measurable metric measured. Have your budget budgeted, your burn rate calculated, your ROI roid. Make sure you are realistic, but remember that pessimistic is not realistic. If things don’t look as bright as you’d like, make sure you practice gratitude, or make a list of positive aspects and things that you have going for yourself and for your startup. And if you have in your hands a company that makes 1M/year of net profits instead of the unicorn you were hoping for, come to terms with that too, and find space in yourself to appreciate a place that might not be everything you had hoped for, is still darn good. Fuck that, it’s great! Or maybe you’ll come to terms with the fact that it might make sense to let go, and start over again, and that’s great too. Because the sooner you make hard decisions, the sooner you can get going.
2. Seek help. I’m reading Million Dollar Weekend, by Noah Kagan. It’s a great book, and I hope it somehow gets made into a movie, because that’s such a perfect movie title. At the beginning, he makes an argument for setting rejection goals, and asking for money. “The upside of asking is unlimited,” he writes, “and the downside is minimal.”  Seek help. Seek advice. Seek funding. Seek rejections. With the right context, knowing where you are, you are setting yourself for success: you’ll ask the right questions, you’ll ask for the right things. And many of your rejections might give you insight into where you are and where you can go. As Noah says, you can’t receive what you don’t ask for.
3. Keep up the hope. So now you can dream big and create an ambitious vision. With your understanding tethered in reality and facts, and with the feedback that you get as you seek help and ask for money and advice, you can let your hope guide you. That’s where resilience comes from. Even in the face of defeat, remember, you wouldn’t be the first founder to have to pivot their startup. You wouldn’t be the first founder to snatch victory from the jaws of failure. You wouldn’t be the first founder who has to close shop and start again, from zero. So “get busy living, or get busy dying.”

And remember, “hope is a good thing, maybe the best of things, and no good thing ever dies.”