I have taken the next step in a life-long dance with vulnerability by booking studio time to begin my next recording project. Unlike live performing, composing or teaching - endeavours I am fairly comfortable with – recording presents challenges that will expose me to my vulnerabilities in a very direct way: the pressure of the mic and the quest for the ‘perfect’ take, a record that I will hold up to the world and say “This is me.”
And that will be the reward as well: at the end of the process I will have something to share with the world, a manifestation of who I am as an artist at this point in my life.
Why do it? Because it’s in relationship that we learn who and what we are. Facing vulnerability will introduce me to new relationships and stretch and strengthen existing ones, especially and most important one: the relationship I have with myself.
Do I feel 100% confident? No. Do I know exactly what I’m doing? Still no. And that’s the point: if I don’t take a risk, I won’t grow or learn anything. I must, in the words of Amanda Palmer, “fall into the world…”