in the summer of 2020, a local arts group reached out to me to submit something to their online pride event. i was in a relationship for the first time in my adult life (falling in love just before a pandemic hits is An Experience) & felt like celebrating that love was one of the most #proud things i could do. i’ve written a lot of heartbroken & unrequited love songs, but not a lot of love-love songs, & it was kind of uncomfortable but also wonderful. when i played it for my girlfriend around the end of september, she cried & said something deeply understated & all the more affecting for its simplicity like, “oh, you really like me”. the video went live on their instagram on october 13th, & then on october 20th, i pulled the festival honorarium cheque out of my mailbox as i got home from being broken up with by her. timing is funny.

i love this song & the way it stands as a monument to a relationship i will always be immensely grateful for. it’s sweet & sad that i still related to it as i fell in love again a little while later with someone new because it turns out i wasn’t actually done learning the lesson that love isn’t only bought with hurt. it feels a bit like that’s one i might keep having to revisit.

anyway, this song was exclusively released on the electric city culture council instagram & other than that existed only as this private video i uploaded to serve as an e-mailed preview before i submitted the official file & i think one day i’ll rerecord it & put it out properly but for now, i’m actually linking it publicly for the first time, because why not

i always thought love was only worth the pain you suffered through to earn it
i am finding love is both the lesson & the thing you do to learn it

there’s little that is more torturous than having to revisit things like “artist statements”, but here’s the one that accompanied it when it went live to close out the festival

a difficult journey to accepting love as safe isn’t specifically unique to queerness, but there are more obstacles on the path. part of my personal joy in lesbianism is that seventeen years after starting to come out, i’m still finding new ways to be healed & strengthened by it. this song is an attempt to honour the nervous tenderness of shuffling carefully to feel out the potential of solid ground after a long, long, long climb.