annedavismusic.com - anne davis - journal entries/blog

on songwriting.

Mon, 10 Oct 2011 00:50:11 -0700

as a songwriter, there is nothing like the thrill you feel as a song begins to unravel itself and begins to reveal what's potentially there to find and flesh out--and once you begin to feel it going into a full gallop...where it seems to just go into auto-pilot and overdrive...it's such an exhilarating ride! even if you know not where it may take you....

i just forgot.

Sun, 06 Feb 2011 22:32:45 -0800

well...tonight i pulled out my guitar and was playing on it while watching my youngest little nephew build with his star wars legos...and after i played a little, he said "aunt anne, you play really good. can you play any songs on it?" and i said, "well, sweetheart, i play my songs on it." and he said, "you mean you've written your own songs?"...

i forget that he was only 4 years old when i began lyme treatments in 2007 and quit being able to play much because it hurt my fingers and hands and arms to even pick my guitar up. he was so surprised when i gave him my cd and a t-shirt to go with it...i just forgot that he doesn't have the same earlier memories that his 2 older brothers do. and they were only 6 and 8 years old then. i just forgot.

battle weary.

Mon, 15 Nov 2010 03:16:25 -0800

[sometime later on in november, 2010]

it's like a swerve in the road, to bring me to.

a reminder that i'm bleeding out.

it's like stepping on a nail again in my barefeet.

it hurts like hell....

i can't remember when the warrior in me let my sword slip out of my hands in exhaustion.

if i knew when or where, i'd go back to recover it...

i might retrace my steps if only i could remember where all i've been....

but i've been in a thick fog for years.

jumping off the planet of surreal.

Mon, 01 Nov 2010 03:28:15 -0700

[sometime in november, 2010.]

how did i get here?

how?

i mean, really...this is it?

i quit asking myself why a long time ago.

this is nothing like how i thought things were going to go.

I BELIEVED BIG.

I DREAMED BIG.

i stood on tall shoulders and saw such a different outcome than what i'm crawling in now.

i just don't know HOW to throw myself forward, on to the next page.

this can't be how my story ends.

i know there's more that was written out for me...

oh, Author and Finisher of my faith---come find me here.

what You start, You finish.

right?

RIGHT?

everything else is a facade.

i can't trust my eyes.

right?

RIGHT?

can i read Your face with my hands so my heart can trust You again?

i'm Yours.

still.

here are a few of my favorite quotes

Fri, 09 Apr 2010 20:20:37 -0700

"but for me, it is like a painter standing in front of a blank canvas and not saying, 'i want to paint something someone will buy,' but instead saying, 'i want to paint something beautiful.'
--wayne kirkpatrick

"it is never too late to be what you might have been."
--george elliot

"whatever you are, be a good one."
--abraham lincoln

"all the things that have ever deeply possessed your soul have been but hints of it--tantalizing glimpses, promises never quite fulfilled, echoes that died away just as they caught your ear. but if it should really become manifest--if there ever came an echo that did not die away but swelled into the sound itself--you would know it. beyond all possibility of doubt you would say 'here at last is the thing i was made for.'"
--c.s.lewis

"do not go where the path may lead, go instead where there is no path and leave a trail."
--ralph waldo emerson

"a storyteller has the task of running behind the lines to make sure the stories live, to make sure that those shining moments of our humanity, however brief, are not forgotten."
--ken gire from the book THE REFLECTIVE LIFE

"some people walk in the rain, others just get wet."
--roger miller

"in prayer it is better to have a heart without words than words without a heart."
--john bunyan

"you have to have a certain shamelessness to write. you have to be willing to drop your pants in front of anyone that might want to look. and you don't do that because you're proud of it, you do that because you have to write. it's not a choice.....you write because you have no other option."
--rich mullins

"You have a destiny and your destiny is fulfilled by investing in the destinies of others."
--stephen mansfield

"success - to laugh often and much; to win the respect of intelligent people and affection of children; to earn the appreciation of honest critics and endure the betrayal of false friends; to appreciate beauty, to find the best in others; to leave the world a little bit better, whether by a healthy child, a garden patch, or a redeemed social condition, to know even one life has breathed easier because you have lived. this is to have succeeded."
--ralph waldo emerson

"i wanted to live deep and suck out all the marrow of life."
--henry david thoreau

"you will never know how much it cost my generation to preserve your freedom.
i hope you will make good use of it."
--john quincy adams
6th American President

"except for ending slavery, fascism, nazism &
communism....WAR has never solved anything."
--author unknown

"disturb me, God.
challenge my complacent comfort.
stir me.
shake me from my ambivalence.
storm on me if necessary.
but don't allow me to sit unmoved by life in your presence."
--kim thomas

"gardening forces you to be in the moment, to deal with what is happening in the here and now. plants can't fake it like humans can. they don't tell you everything is fine if it isn't. that's why observation is the single most useful talent to cultivate."
--judith handelsman

"let people feel the weight of who you are.....and let them deal with it."
--john eldredge from the book WILD AT HEART

"if a man does not keep pace with his companions, perhaps it is because he hears a different drummer. let him step to the music he hears, however measured or far away."
--henry david thoreau

"they may forget what you said, but they will never forget how you made them feel."
--carl w. buechner

"this above all--ask yourself in the stillest hour of the night: MUST i write? delve into yourself for a deep answer. and if this should be affirmative, if you may meet this earnest question with a strong and simple 'i MUST', then build your life according to this necessity;"
--rainer maria rilke

"there is no division into sacred and secular; it is all one great, glorious life."
--oswald chambers

"earth's crammed with heaven.
and every common bush afire with God;
but only he who sees takes off his shoes;
the rest sit round it and pluck blackberries."
--elizabeth barrett browning

"preach the gospel, and when necessary, use words."
--st. francis of assissi

"songwriting is a form of contemplation. to write about someone or something, you have to meditate on that person or that idea until the swirl of feelings surrounding it can be expressed in words. the process is worthwhile, whether or not you end up writing a song...."
--amy grant

"i do not want to die....until i have faithfully made the most of my talent and cultivated the seed that was placed in me until the last small twig has grown."
--kathe kollwitz

"the great thing about getting older is that you don't lose all the other ages you've been."
--madeleine l'engle

"if a shovel was created and molded and put together to be a shovel and made to dig into the ground, then it is naturally more than likely going to find a way to dig into the earth....because that's just what it does--that's its purpose....what it was designed for. and if that shovel instead, is forced to try to be a rake, it is just not going to be as effective at trying to do something that it was never created to do."
--anne davis

"how many a man has dated a new era in his life from the reading of a book."
--henry david thoreau

"if a man is called to be a street sweeper, he should sweep streets even as michelangelo painted, or beethoven composed music, or shakespeare wrote poetry. he should sweep streets so well that all the hosts of heaven and earth will pause to say, 'here lived a great street sweeper who did his job well.' "
--martin luther king, jr.

"the life i touch for good or ill will touch another life, and that in turn another, until who knows where the trembling stops or in what far place my touch will be felt."
--fredrick buechner

"what you leave behind is not what is engraved in stone monuments, but what is woven into the lives of others."
--pericles (attributed)

"if you are what you should be, you will set the world on fire."
--st. catherine of siena

streaming thoughts from 1992...the preface i wrote to my song, "get lost"....

Thu, 18 Mar 2010 11:21:54 -0700

i recently stumbled across this when going through some piles...

"there is such a thing as experiencing the 'realness of the moment'....it's giving the heart a chance to feel--it's letting someone laugh and cry--it's freedom. and, it's embracing life and savoring the moment. i say we really don't let today inspire us until we realize it'll never come again. we can lose ourselves and all of our inadequate feelings and focus in on something incredibly bigger than ourselves. it can happen. and, when it does, we're left changed."

unpacked suitcase.

Thu, 18 Mar 2010 11:20:07 -0700

i thought if i didn't unpack my suitcase, that that would mean i wouldn't have to stay.

my suitcase stayed packed for a good solid year, i think.
i was certain i was just visiting--(like the jail in the game of monopoly)--just passing through--

ten years have come and gone, and my heart has still not unpacked itself.
i think it must know where it belongs somehow.
where it feels at home.

it's some kind of an odd pulling.
a pulling like the steering wheel of a car has when the tires need balancing or rotating.

i finally just threw that old suitcase away.
it quit zipping.

this one is entitled "telemarketers".....

Fri, 01 Jan 2010 19:49:31 -0800

random thoughts from journal entries that i jot down from time to time, again, randomly...

well...this speciific very random jotting down of thoughts could be entitled "TELEMARKETERS", though i don't usually entitle my journal entries...just start with the date and the number journal entry it happens to be--but, i'm sort of just finding myself jotting "randoms" anywhere--sort of like when i jot down song lyrics or song ideas. so that's that....

"my mom has me answer all the telemarketing phone calls--i tell them ALL about my being ill for over 10 years and it seems to kill 2 birds with 1 stone.

1) they usually never call again.

and....

2) it gives me another outlet to unload and vent and process--sort of like FREE therapy sessions"

christmas eve -- 2007 [journal entry]

Sun, 20 Dec 2009 20:18:59 -0800

after my mom left with my little nephews for the 5:00 early evening christmas service, sad that i was unable to go, i knew that i wanted to have my own christmas service in my heart.

so, i turned the heat way down, opened the sliding glass door to the deck, and just let in the cold air.

i put on michael w. smith's first christmas cd and lit a cinnamon bark candle.

i sat on the ottoman where we usually have a real christmas tree standing...all lit up and covered with ornaments that bring years of memories to mind. i sure would have rather had a real christmas tree standing there instead--but with my being so ill, it just didn't work out this year.

so, i sat there right in the opening, letting the wonderful crisp air fill my lungs--and i got to enjoy the early night sky--watching it go from shades of blue to black, as i sipped and slurped on little chocolate liqueurs.

and i enjoyed the stillness and the quiet and looking up into the evening sky--with christmas songs ushering my weary spirit into a place of worship.

GOD WITH US.

GOD WITH ME in that moment.

a moment i only wish for a thousand more times....

deep calling to deep.
engaging in my own christmas eve service long enough to remember how satisfied and complete the created can feel when reaching for its CREATOR--remembering and celebrating the miracle of christmas.

EMMANUEL......"GOD with us."

here's a little personal list of favorites

Fri, 10 Jul 2009 20:17:17 -0700

a few of my favorite movies--

STAR WARS TRILOGY and STAR WARS I, II, III, ANNE OF GREEN GABLES, ANNE OF AVONLEA, ANNE OF GREEN GABLES....THE CONTINUING STORY, BRAVEHEART, SCHINDLER'S LIST, LIFE IS BEAUTIFUL, SERENDIPITY, MY LEFT FOOT, REMAINS OF THE DAY, LITTLE WOMEN, AMELIE, TOMMY BOY, SHADOWLANDS, FIRST KNIGHT, LES MISERABLES(with uma thurman and claire danes), IT'S A WONDERFUL LIFE, DEAD POETS SOCIETY, IRON WILL, IN LOVE AND WAR(with sandra bullock and chris o'donnell), OFFICE SPACE, MY BIG FAT GREEK WEDDING, ONE NIGHT WITH THE KING, CATCH ME IF YOU CAN, LOVE AFFAIR(with warren beatty, annette bening, and katharine hepburn), THE SCARLET AND THE BLACK, THE HUNT FOR RED OCTOBER, SUPERSTAR, AIR FORCE ONE, ROCKY I, II, III, IV, V, THE SOUND OF MUSIC, A WALK IN THE CLOUDS, THE AGE OF INNOCENCE, STELLA, MISS POTTER, A ROOM WITH A VIEW, AMISTAD, FREEDOM WRITERS, most any movie that's based on a true story that inspires, etc.......

a few of my favorite books--

WINDOWS OF THE SOUL by ken gire, THE SACRED ROMANCE by john eldredge and brent curtis, LIVING IN THE SACRED NOW by kim thomas, SIMPLICITY by kim thomas, SAFE PEOPLE by henry cloud and john townsend, SAFE PLACES by arterburn, minirth, and meier, THE LION, THE WITCH, AND THE WARDROBE by c.s. lewis, THE RAGAMUFFIN GOSPEL by brennan manning, DESCENDING INTO GREATNESS by bill hybels, ROARING LAMBS by bob briner, YOU ARE SPECIAL by max lucado, THE REFLECTIVE LIFE by ken gire, BOUNDARIES by henry cloud and john townsend, COMING UP FOR AIR by margaret becker, etc.....

a few of my favorite singer/songwriters--

amy grant, sheryl crow, indigo girls, sarah bettens (from k's choice), sam phillips, patty griffin, mary chapin carpenter, kim hill, david wilcox, julie miller, counting crows, fernando ortega, marc cohn, shawn colvin, sarah mclachlan, nanci griffith, lifehouse, vertical horizon, beth nielson chapman, gillian welch, emmylou harris, tracy chapman, maura o'connell, damien rice, lisa marie presley, wynonna judd, melissa etheridge, james taylor, garrison starr, anthony skinner, daughtry, delirious, jars of clay.....(just getting started).