You Can't Force Magic

Lessons on letting go & looking desperately for something you never lost (you silly goose!)

(excerpt from a journal entry from August 2025)

The tunnel vision, the urgency, the urge to perform the biggest Irish Goodbye not just to the party-goers and the host at a party but to your entire social group, your surroundings, your life, disappearing across state lines and ghosting it all– I didn’t understand it until now. When one piece of your life falls apart, a piece that you BUILT your life around, living life feels so painful. The grief around the empty space in the same setting that used to be so full, it gnaws at you. The plans you made won’t be the same, you always imagined them with you. The memories you made feel different. You yearn for a friendship that you’ll probably never have again, to be 15 and walking to Last Chance Thrift Store because you both couldn’t drive. Then you look up, and you’re 28 and the room that used to be full is empty. The empty synth stands, the corner where the blue Twin Reverb amp used to sit, and of course, the people who accompanied them. The polaroids ripped from the walls. The silence. It’d almost be easier to upend your life in the middle of the night than to continue on with the change in the familiar. At least with a change of scenery, there’s no constant reminders of what once was. Would it be easier? To burn this band down, move to Ireland, finally go to grad school, change my name, start over? Any of that ease would just be from the illusion of control. The answer is: not harder or easier, just different. But doesn’t that just sound so enticing? I understand it now. I understand it.

What I want to do is, if I must stay and not Irish Goodbye my entire life, is live an art life. More fully than I ever have. I want a music room. It’s impractical I know, but I want to move an entire piano up the stairs, an acoustic piano. I want to smoke weed and post up in front of it for hours, alone, working. I want to create with my entire attention, the way the songs BEG to be worked on. I hate the road blocks, both self imposed and imposed upon me.

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November 2025: substack #3.

YOU CAN’T FORCE MAGIC !!!!!!

For a brief time, I felt I had my people. My friends, all in a powerful musical unit. I would feel my heart overflow with love and gratitude for them and this beautiful feeling we were all building together. I’d call my guitarist after a really good rehearsal as we were pulling away from the rehearsal space, and I would just gush about how much I loved being in a band, how much I loved being in THIS band. Then, it was like it had all been taken from me. Not that I wanted to possess them, but that FEELING. Of belonging. Of working hard together towards a shared goal, of working in service to the songs. A family, a marriage, a core attachment wound being nursed and remedied through music. (Maybe one day I’ll write a substack about the ways that attachment theory can play out within bands, shit’s wild and interesting)

I really did think that the original lineup would be together forever. I really did. I think all of us did, in a way. It’s why we got matching tattoos. I was probably the last person to realize, after one by one the original lineup faded or exited, that I was the remaining founding member and that this was my project. I was the last to realize because of how much I loved each member and the way they made the songs what they were. Yes, I laid the foundation, the skeleton, I made rough blue prints, but they actualized it– they painted the house, furnished it, decorated it. I had input and final say but ultimately, it was their parts that made the songs what they were to me. My identity, my concept of what the project was– it was wrapped up in the collective magic. They animated the skeleton, placed the flesh and organs and a soul into it. What good is a skeleton, I thought. What good is a skeleton except as an artifact, a way to practice forensics or archaeology, a way to solve a mystery? Skeletons can only tell you so much. I believed the magic came from all of us together, and TRUST ME, it did. Anyone who came to an original line up show knows what I’m talking about. Each former member is a deeply talented musician and in their unique own ways, expert alchemists. I watched them take their magic with them and finally, I gave up. I sat and despaired.

I began to wonder if I had any magic inside me at all without them. I had to find it again, and I spent the Summer trying to. I hoped the water would heal me, purify the bitterness and anxiety out of me. The water didn’t heal me, but I think that’s not because the water doesn’t hold power to heal. I just wasn’t willing yet to release all the bitterness, the anger, the deep grief. I wasn’t letting it go, so the water couldn’t take it from me. I held onto it tightly. I flailed and expended energy I should’ve been preserving. I learned that lesson from the River.

My partner Nic saw me struggle and I’m sure it was hard to watch. I can’t remember if this is what he said to me exactly one day, but I gained something valuable from what he said to me. That moving forward didn’t mean that the grief I felt wasn’t real or meaningful. However, wallowing and floundering was disrespectful to my calling. I had music, sitting, ready to be worked on and I had almost entirely forgotten about all of it because of how clouded by sadness I had become. I gave myself the permission to feel it, but to continue to seek the magic. Even if I was not sure I’d ever find it again.

As a young musician, I had moments of magic. Glimpses, just brief brushes with those thin places you can get to with music, and for moments I could take an audience with me. Not for very long, but I could do it if the circumstances were right. I couldn’t do it on command.

Same with my attempts to bring the band all back together again, I couldn’t force it. I tried! Every time I tried, things would fall apart or my meddling would make them worse. I needed to let it run its course. It was painful, slow. Not just for me, but I think for all of us. Part of what scared me so deeply with each change, each departure post was a fear that people would stop caring about the project. People’s attention is valuable, and it is a scarce and fickle resource. One I wished for so deeply as a young musician. Now that we had even a smidgen of it, even only being semi-well known locally, I felt great pressure and urgency to hit the ground running again. I learned quickly though that magic cannot be forced or barked at to hurry up or come at with fear.

With Equal Creatures, I honed my ability in magic. Something that used to only be accessible to me briefly became something I could tap into. I felt overcome with energy. I felt like a lightning rod, a conduit for something massive. I can now, with focus and intention, bring an entire room to silence with the songs I sing. This, of course, also relies on the audience to be open to it, to be willing to be moved. Some audiences aren’t.

I had to remind myself when I started to panic about this resource running dry, that people’s attention isn’t why I do this. I do this to FEEL and to understand and to be understood and for the love of practicing magic. I do it so that I can be a mirror, so that you might see yourself, or a situation that makes you feel lonely and strange. I do it so that you can KNOW that you are not! I write and sing what I don’t have the courage or maybe even the ability to say. I sing to make spells. I sing to tell stories about the South River Forest, about Tortugita, about heartbreak, about healing. I do it because if I don’t, I will despair and disappear. I will drink myself into oblivion. My core will cease to exist. I sing because I have been singing since before I could speak or read or write. I sing to go to thin places, to feel God or a higher power or Goddess or whatever you want to call that big mystery.

When I play shows, I don’t feel like I’m performing– I often feel like it’s the only place I feel real, like you’re really seeing me and I really feel authentically myself. Sometimes, singing on stage, it’s the only place I feel like I’m not performing.

After a summer of road blocks, I focused on what I could control. I could meet up with George and Connor, even if no one else could. I allowed myself to move forward, anyone who wanted to catch up with me could if they wanted to. From the second we played the first song, I felt that intangible thing, that electricity flowing through me, IT WAS THE FEELING! It was there! Rick Rubin talks about how to know what seeds to nurture, creatively. I think the same idea applies to collaborators and experiences with them. He says, “Most accurate sign posts are emotional, not intellectual. Excitement tends to be the best barometer for selecting which seeds to focus on”, I felt what he was talking about in that room, I felt “A feeling of leaning forward” and Rick Rubin said “… follow that energy”. I walked out of that experience with the three of us and I felt almost altered, I felt high. I used to find these moments so often, cracking open an idea like an egg, hatching it into a chick or directly into a mixing bowl, creating a glue like bind for a baking mixture. I began to take it for granted. During the Summer, I had forgotten what it felt like, it had been so long since I had felt it. But here it was again. I felt it tangibly. Before this moment, I felt so stuck. I began to make my peace with it, that I might never experience the magic again. Each passing week that I went without it felt like torture, time spent stagnant felt eternal.

Suddenly, the burden lifted. I felt determined and hopeful after meeting with Connor & George, I knew we were on the right path. I had let go of the need to control it, to make it happen. Magic can’t be forced so I stopped trying to force it and worked with what presented itself to me. Connor sought us out, DM-ing me and then walking up to Laura at a show, & George was already sitting in on a few sets and we had good mojo together. I let it come together without meddling. Path of least resistance.

As the Summer ended and Fall began, something in me started to shift. Slowly but surely, through each solo gig, each heart to heart with my loved ones, each therapy session, each run after work. I sat in on a set with new friends, Flat Tired, I stretched myself far outside my comfort zone to do it but I’m so glad I did. I did it again with my friends in Posture Clinic on Halloween. I sought wisdom from many of my Saints of Creativity (Leonard Cohen, Jeff Buckley, Rick Rubin, Julia Cameron, Neil Young, David Lynch, Janisse Ray….), & I stopped trying to FORCE IT. And then, my magic came back. Maybe it never left, maybe I just became closed off to it. I had let enough of the bitterness and self doubt go to be open again.

Since the Summer, I have been living more of an art life. The pressure (self-inflicted) I felt this summer nearly broke my psyche, so I’m trying to live differently. Going to Jazz night with friends and my partner, walking to record stores and sifting through the used records, going on long walks and stopping whenever I feel inclined to look at something or take a Polaroid picture. I’m trying to live slower and with less urgency. I’ve been rehearsing for full(ish) band Equal Creatures shows (I’m very excited to share some of the magic with you on Saturday)!

I’ve also been trying to place less value on others’ attention. I’m trying to live in tune with the magic. I have a whole room dedicated to music (making & listening). I didn’t get that acoustic piano, but I am allowing myself to want things that feed my art life, even if others think those things might be frivolous or impractical. I’m excited to see what this next era holds for Equal Creatures, I’m excited to be living a life I’ve dreamed of. I know it sounds simple, but to have a space to create and to dream in has already been life changing.

Books that helped:

• The Creative Act: A Way of Being by Rick Rubin

• The Artists Way by Julia Cameron

• Catching The Big Fish by David Lynch

• Craft & Current by Janisse Ray

• Songwriters on Songwriting by Paul Zollo

Movies that helped:

• It’s Never Over (Jeff Buckley Documentary)

• Kiki’s Delivery Service (THE WHOLE THING IS A METAPHOR FOR CREATIVES)

Another note: Stephanie Trauner (a dear family friend, mentor, & former teacher of mine and many others in Decatur) passed this week. She helped me write the first song I ever wrote when I was in 1st grade, changing the trajectory of my life forever. This was the first time she changed my life and it wasn’t even close to the last. Please consider donating to this fund in her memory AND/OR reaching out to a teacher or a mentor that impacted you as a kid or a young adult. Tell them how grateful you are for them and share their impact on you with them. Please, do it while they’re still here.