What if?

How many of us have asked this question? How many of us have so desperately wanted to step back in time and turn another corner.   What if...

It can haunt you if you are living a life you wish had gone differently.   But if you are like me, your “What if” always ends in, “then ---- wouldn’t be in my life” or “I wouldn’t be with ----”.   So you accept the bad with the good. 

What if...  What if goes well beyond what if my team didn’t win the big game.  It’s so much more.  What if you had not read that book?  Or what if you had not been influenced by what others had to say?  What if I had not taken that job?  What if I had decided to follow my heart instead of my head?  What if, usually always comes down to this though...

This goes out to all I know that seek solace.  Solace is ephemeral, it’s rest for a tired heart, it’s a pause in the grind of life, solace is a safe haven, a sideline where you see the action all around you and you know you are going back.  

I wrote Seek No Solace years ago about not searching for solace as it happens upon you serendipitously.  Someone once told me, “everything in moderation” and I’ve lived by those words... solace is something you can’t live for, or make happen.   Solace is your friend indeed but it’s not your lifeline to living.  Solace is a reprieve from a bad situation like resting in the shade on a hot sunny summer day.  You have to get out there in live to make a better life.  Solace is ephemeral, make life happen instead. 

This song below is by A-ha.  They are not the A-ha of the 80’s that most people peg them for.  Listen to Solace and you’ll be better for it.  One of my favorite words is solace.  For them to pay a tribute of sorts to this word put a smile on my face the first time I heard it.   I have good memories of this song.  From days driving up the street to my home where my family waited, to skating in central park listening to it as I cut up and down hills.  I’d hear the verse, “No one got ahead ...standing in line...” and I’d look all around me at the countless people thinking how so many of us refuse to see the beauty in life.  I would wonder how many of these people where “standing in line”.   To hear the song takes me back to moments like that, gliding under the shade of the central park trees framed by the skyline of buildings.  Suddenly I felt my moment of solace too.  Some songs don't have meaning until they fit your life.  Listen to this one and you decide.

A-ha has an interesting perspective on Solace. I like it.  It’s about finding solace, a different view than my own. They begin with a woman that has...    more »

I wrote Seek No Solace in a time of determination and pain.  I was a youth of 27.  I was humbled by raw power of Wuthering  Heights and when Heathcliff speaks to Linton offering him "Solace" I was reminded of how powerful a single word can be.  It reminds me that we are all not as strong as we hope to be and that we all share a common desire to find someone that cares enough to help us through our own hardships.  We all have our own demons to deal with.  Mine was finding a friend I could turn to at the end of every day.   Perhaps not as hard as others may have it; for instance drugs.  I've never done drugs so I never had that problem but I've seen others hope for some solace when their own demons attack them.  But in the end we all hope for solace in some way against our own hardship.  

I wrote Seek No Solace in admiration of the word and in part in appreciation for a personal logo I wore on my shirt for a time.  My band adopted it as it's logo.  This seems to set a harsh tone to my song, but again we all have our own battles and demons.   Yet, the song Seek No Solace is a song of hope.  It a song that provides an answer. It was an answer I found.  It was an answer I wanted to share with others that may have experienced the same problem in love.  The answer is the title.  The answer was something I learned to live, and its all about loving yourself enough so others can love you back.  Like most all songs I've written, Seek No Solace is about believing in yourself.  I once told someone, "Fake it till you ...   more »