DREAMING OF LAURYN HILL: Last night I dreamed I was at a Lauryn Hill concert and she looked like she did when she was with The Fugees and she wanted me to rap Wyclef's part and I couldn't remember the words. She smiled and said we'll just sing the chorus:
Ready Or Not, Here I Come, You Can't Hide
Gonna Find You and Take it Slowly
Ready Or Not, Here I Come, You Can't Hide
Gonna Find You and Make You Want Me
I woke up. Fully woke up. No morning grogginess or crawling back under the covers dreading going to work. I had to hear that song. I stood in front of the stereo at 7 a.m. and sang that chorus three times and made it my mantra for the day. Lauryn's been away for awhile and I had forgotten how much that voice moved me. The Miseducation of Lauryn Hill was on my CD player often in 1997 when there was so much drama going on in my life. But when Doo Wop (That Thing) came on, it always put a smile on my face. When she made that "comeback" a couple of years ago on MTV Unplugged and cried her way through parts of it, she was singing her truth. Dressed down, acoustic guitar. She dismantled her persona in front of the world. She had been through some rough shit, you could tell, and now she's silent again. My other favorite voice, Kate Bush, has been silent for 11 years. She lost her mother, went through depression, then had a baby and shifted gears in life.
What do you do when your muses go quiet? I conjure mine up in dreams, play those old songs that guided me through past storms, and I try to fill the void with my own words until the masters return. Somewhere right now, Kate Bush is finishing an album. I hope Lauryn is writing a song. She came to me for a reason that has not been revealed yet. Maybe it's a poem trying to scratch its way out of my head, or maybe it was a subtle reminder of something I've forgotten, or maybe it's just a sign from the universe that something good is going to happen. I don't know who that "you" is yet (or if it's even a person), but I'm wide awake.
Ready or not, here I come...
Ready Or Not, Here I Come, You Can't Hide
Gonna Find You and Take it Slowly
Ready Or Not, Here I Come, You Can't Hide
Gonna Find You and Make You Want Me
I woke up. Fully woke up. No morning grogginess or crawling back under the covers dreading going to work. I had to hear that song. I stood in front of the stereo at 7 a.m. and sang that chorus three times and made it my mantra for the day. Lauryn's been away for awhile and I had forgotten how much that voice moved me. The Miseducation of Lauryn Hill was on my CD player often in 1997 when there was so much drama going on in my life. But when Doo Wop (That Thing) came on, it always put a smile on my face. When she made that "comeback" a couple of years ago on MTV Unplugged and cried her way through parts of it, she was singing her truth. Dressed down, acoustic guitar. She dismantled her persona in front of the world. She had been through some rough shit, you could tell, and now she's silent again. My other favorite voice, Kate Bush, has been silent for 11 years. She lost her mother, went through depression, then had a baby and shifted gears in life.
What do you do when your muses go quiet? I conjure mine up in dreams, play those old songs that guided me through past storms, and I try to fill the void with my own words until the masters return. Somewhere right now, Kate Bush is finishing an album. I hope Lauryn is writing a song. She came to me for a reason that has not been revealed yet. Maybe it's a poem trying to scratch its way out of my head, or maybe it was a subtle reminder of something I've forgotten, or maybe it's just a sign from the universe that something good is going to happen. I don't know who that "you" is yet (or if it's even a person), but I'm wide awake.
Ready or not, here I come...
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