The Kitchen Musician ~ October 2022
Hello friends,
This month’s new song was inspired by recent interactions with an app I installed on my phone – an app designed to help folks deal with emotional challenges and mental health disorders. Join me in the kitchen and I’ll explain.
Index
NEWS:
THIS MONTH’S MUSIC: “One Step Become Two”
UPCOMING SHOWS
FEATURED NON-PROFIT: CDC Mental Health Resources
Tom at The Keene Music Festival (2022), Keene, NH.
Photo: Volkert Volkersz
News:
Perhaps you noticed that I have taken a little time away from “The Kitchen Musician”. Lots of family and personal stuff this past summer. I am happy to be back with a new song this month, and looking forward to doing a few shows in the fall and winter.
This Month’s Music: “One Step Become Two”
“One Step Become Two”
© 2022 Tom Smith
Lyrics in comment below.
In a recent appointment with my Primary Care Physician, he asked me several questions about my emotional state. He has done this in past annual checkups, and I always say something like, “Well I admit that XXX does get me down, but I think I am doing all right”, where XXX is one or more of a long list of things – the Republican Party, the climate crisis, our fragile democracy, the Supreme Court, voting rights, the pandemic, racism, conspiracy theorists, an aging body… and the list goes on. But this time, I decided to open up a little more than usual and I described a sense of hopelessness that I am experiencing, and my difficulty doing things I love – like writing songs.
Among the options that my doctor and I discussed are apps that perform some of the functions of a therapist. I chose one that is specifically based on Cognitive Behavioral Therapy, a form of “talk therapy” that is often effective in helping one deal with emotional challenges and mental health disorders.
As I work through some of the guided lessons, meditations and other features, the app occasionally presents me with a quote or saying, and then it asks if that quote or saying was “helpful.” While the app is otherwise generally helpful, being presented with inspirational witticisms when feeling hopeless or anxious does tempt me to respond by flushing my phone down the toilet.
As fate would have it, my friends at Rhode Island Songwriters Association (RISA) invited me to do one of their “Songwriters in the Round” sessions. This is a monthly event in which four songwriters perform in-the-round; and in one round each singer shares a brand new song written to a specific prompt that is determined by the audience from the previous month. I accepted the invitation, thinking perhaps it would help me get out of the writer’s block spawned by my overall sense of hopelessness. Ironically, the prompt for this event is “writer’s block.” When they informed me, I almost withdrew since I have written at least two other songs based on that prompt, and I figured I was tapped out on the subject.
I decided that it might be useful to dive deeper into the reasons for my writer’s block, which I hoped would inspire a song. So I opened my therapy app, and it presented the following inspirational quote by Robert T. Kiyosaki – “Sometimes you win. Sometimes you learn” (putting a more positive spin on the common saying “Sometimes you win. Sometimes you lose.”) When the app asked if that was “helpful”, I replied “No”, like I do to all of those platitudes. But when I picked up my guitar later in the day, that saying and a few others started sprouting into this month’s song. Yesterday, I performed it for the first time at the RISA Songwriters in the Round.
Of course, when one is emotionally down in the dumps, one is apt to discount their own self worth or the worth of their work. I find this especially true for creatives, like songwriters, poets, and artists. I know that this has been part of my own struggle with writer’s block.
Coincidentally, a couple of weeks ago I traveled down a Google rabbit hole when I visited the disambiguation page for Thomas Smith. This is a web page that lists all of the “Thomas Smith”s in Wikipedia, with links to their specific page entries. (No, I don’t have a Wikipedia page.) There are also disambiguation pages for Tom Smith, and Tommy Smith, for a combined total of 164 entries. Among them is a poet with my exact name – Thomas R Smith, and I was pleased to learn that we have more than just our name in common. We are very nearly the same age and his poetry shows that we are on the same wavelength when it comes to music and politics – and he is an excellent poet! One of his poems really spoke to me, and answers questions I have been asking myself – “What good have my songs done? Why bother?” (Thank you, Thomas.)
THE REPLY
What good have these poems done?
The question insisted relentlessly
with every mile I drove into
strip-malled heartland that radiant
spring day. My forty-seven years,
my choice and stubborn practice . . .
Later, calmed by a motel’s
plastic assurances, I slept, with
miniature golf outside the window,
and dreamt we’d been baking bread.
Our loaves stood stacked with those
of other bakers in a wall of bread,
boules like skulls, nubbled heels
of baguettes like the femurs and tibias
of those five thousand Franciscans
in their terrifying chapel in Portugal.
And I felt suddenly afraid that
this wall, our hope and common labor,
might come in the end to nothing
but bones, though when I stood
behind the wall, I saw each individual
loaf had been clearly marked with
the name of some hungry person to whom
it would be delivered without fail.
–from The Dark Indigo Current, Holy Cow! Press, © 2000 Thomas R. Smith, used with permission
Steady on, friend!
Tom
(If so inclined, I invite you to leave a comment by scrolling to the end of this page.)
Featured Non-profit
The Center for Disease Control and Prevention: Seeking Help
For obvious reasons, we are experiencing an unprecedented amount of stress. If you or a loved one find it difficult to cope, I encourage you to ask for help. If you are in the United States, these free and confidential resources from the CDC are a good place to start. Outside the US, please find your local mental health organization.
Tom
October 10, 2022One Step Become Two
© 2022 Tom Smith (ASCAP)
Someone once said,
“Sometimes you win
Sometimes you learn”
That’s such a good thought
I must be learning a lot
“It’s all in your head,
It’s all in the spin
Be patient. You’ll get your turn”
That’s what they said
It’s all in my head
Pain is the way
To better your score
Without it they say there’s no gain
That’s what we are taught
I must be be gaining a lot
“You have to pay
To earn your reward
Sunshine will follow the rain.”
That’s what they say
Is it all just cliché?
How can I break through
To get back to hope?
That is a very steep climb
With the baggage I brought
And the fights to be fought
Get into the queue
Lean into the slope
Take it one step at a time
That’s all I can do
Make one step become two
One step become two
Peter Fischman
October 14, 2022I take comfort from a speech by Leonard Bernstein at a memorial for John F Kennedy in 1963. The whole speech can be found here: https://leonardbernstein.com/lectures/speeches/jfk-memorial-speech. This quote seems particularly relevant to the discussion. Substitute any condition for violence and any creation for music.
This will be our reply to violence: to make music more intensely, more beautifully, more devotedly than ever before.
Tom
October 14, 2022Thank you, Peter. Indeed!
Mike Lipchak
October 14, 2022Even before I knew you could make music, I knew that you were one of the kindest, fun-loving-est fraternity brothers I had. It’s not your music that makes you special – it’s YOU.
Tom
October 14, 2022Hi Mike! Long time no see. Thank you for this. Wishing you and loved ones all the best. Will send a private email.
Elaine
October 14, 2022Dear Tom, “Cuz”,
Thank you for this new song ! You amaze me/ us!
Call if you want to talk, anytime.
I recently stumbled upon this , thought I’d share it with you today. Speaking of “steps”…
Helps me, as care-giver, esp the “Praise yourself” part! 🙂
Strength,
Elaine
“My grandmother once gave me a tip:
In difficult times, you move forward in small steps.
Do what you have to do, but little by little.
Don’t think about the future, or what may happen tomorrow.
Wash the dishes.
Remove the dust.
Write a letter.
Make a soup.
You see?
You are advancing step by step.
Take a step and stop.
Rest a little.
Praise yourself.
Take another step.
Then another.
You won’t notice, but your steps will grow more and more.
And the time will come when you can think about the future without crying.”
✍️Elena Mikhalkova
Tom
October 17, 2022Thanks for this Elaine. Am doing just that… “making one step become two.” Best to my Kansas fam!
Sarah Howard
October 15, 2022This. SO true. Thank you.
Tom
October 15, 2022Thanks for the comment, Sarah. We carry on as best we can.
Deborah Goss
October 16, 2022I feel ya…as they say. What a great song…and great to read the poem. Oddly, just last week, connected to my ‘identification’ problem with Facebook and my hacked and locked original page, I clicked on another “Deborah Goss” because she ended up at the top of a search and, as with you, this one has my politics (is a Dem in GA!), also my interest in the care of children; she posts all of her Wordles and had guessed in 3 tries the same as I on the previous 3 days, has some connection to an historic site in Georgia with the same name as a site in NH that I had booked a performance at day or two before, went to school 45 minutes from my hometown, has a next door neighbor w same first name as one of my sisters and a friend whose last name appears on both sides of my family tree and which I had been researching just the day before. Her whole page was public or I wouldn’t know all this. I haven’t tried to contact her and probably won’t (?). There are a lot of people with my name on FB, doctors, a chemist, an artist in CA — and several others when you Google. I’m sure it means nothing but it does make life interesting. Cheers on your new song. I’m going to listen once again! – Deb
Tom
October 17, 2022Hi Deb. That is a VERY long line of coincidences. Fascinating. Thank you for listening. Hope to see you in 3D space soon.
Gary Saindon
October 16, 2022I am writing as what used to be Phylis and Gary. We saw a lot of you Tom for many years. Phylis in the electric wheelchair due to her stroke. In the last several years we have been in Denver, Colorado and I have shown her “The Kitchen Musician” which she enjoyed immensly. Phylis died two months ago. I wanted to let you know you always showed such compassion to the both of us as we struggled. You being so open to your struggles in this newsletter reminds me of why we thought so loving and caring thoughts about you Tom through all of these years. I will continue to enjoy your compelling “Kitchen Musician” With deepthanks to you.
Tom
October 17, 2022Hello Gary. So good to hear from you, though saddened by the news that you lost Phylis. I often wondered what happened to you when I stopped seeing you at my shows in New England. Blessings to you and all who loved Phylis. I hope that her memory continues to warm your hearth, as it does mine.