Nightbirde, Take Flight + An Update
"You can't wait until life isn't hard anymore before you decide to be happy."
Dear Friends,
In February, Simon Cowell’s golden buzzer, Jane Marczewski (Nightbirde), passed away after a long battle with cancer. For those of you who haven’t heard her sing, here’s Jane’s performance on America’s Got Talent last year.
Nightbirde is one of the most powerful voices I have ever heard, and I’m not just referring to when her words are put to music.
A few months after her golden buzzer, I discovered a blog post she had written three months before her AGT performance aired, it’s titled “God is on the Bathroom Floor.”
“I don’t remember most of Autumn, because I lost my mind late in the summer and for a long time after that, I wasn’t in my body. I was a lightbulb buzzing somewhere far…”
Her words came to me when I was in a darker place than I am now. It was a time I still desired notebooks and paper and to jot down ideas in an app on my phone. Surprisingly, it wasn’t during those days that I considered deleting this newsletter, in fact I hadn’t even created it yet. A few weeks ago, when my mind was the most calm it had been in years, my motivation to write was nonexistent. I would write down thoughts on lined paper and in the notes on my phone, but the words felt hollow. Someone had pulled the plug on my creativity without me realizing it and even if I knew I could find it again underneath the floorboards I probably wouldn’t have bothered to retrieve it.
Then I snapped out of it. Call it grace or the cumulative outcome of thirteen months of counseling or call it both. After a couple of months of dryness, my cup was being filled again.
One of the things I’ve been struggling with for a while now is how to best identify with my art. Perhaps you’ve noticed (it coincides with the number of times I’ve modified the name of my Facebook page).
Am I a writer? And if so, what kind of writer am I? An essayist? A journalist? Or a children’s book author?
But then again I do enjoy artwork and dabbling in the occasional craft. Am I an artist?
Perhaps I am both: Writer and Artist.
After my bout with writer’s block, I realized that if I’m going to focus on labels the most fitting one would be “teacher,” but I don’t need it to take up space on social media anymore. It’s a knowing I carry with me.
A teacher is knowledgeable in a variety of subjects and is passionate about sharing what she’s learned with others which for me could be an interesting conversation, a book, a movie, an observation that I attempt to capture with words and hurl out into the world as black text against a white backdrop. Maybe it’s a handmade “new baby'“ card, or a clean desk.
I remember another creative telling me once that whenever she gets up in the morning she asks the Holy Spirit what He wants her to work on that day. That little gem of advice has stayed with me through the years and even though I’ve done a very poor job of executing it, I have reached into my pocket to remind myself it’s there and I think now I’ve finally discovered the value in it.
It’s not in my nature to limit myself to one creative pursuit and box myself in a cardboard box covered in labels, instead I want to be like the wind:
“The wind blows wherever it pleases. You hear its sound, but you cannot tell where it comes from or where it is going. So it is with everyone born of the Spirit”. John 3:8
So, no, I will not be deleting this newsletter because like the gems I’ve turned over in my pocket for years, I think this one should be added to the collection.
I plan to resume my third Thursday deadline this month and next week I have a little something special for Holy Week because as Jane once said "You can't wait until life isn't hard anymore before you decide to be happy,” and now is the time to be fully alive.
See you next week.
-Jessie
“Call me cursed, call me lost, call me scorned. But that’s not all. Call me chosen, blessed, sought-after. Call me the one who God whispers his secrets to…”
To read Nightbirde’s full blog post “God is on the Bathroom Floor” click here.