Copyright Molly Holzschlag <mollyh@indirect.com> The Importance of Heavy Insecurity is a sweaty fist in your stomach. When Don Reeve, probably one of the most venerable guitarists walking the earth, critiqued my album, he made the comment that it was "dark and uncomfortable" and that I really needed to look for some light. The sweaty fist pounded against my internal organs, tears welled up in my eyes, I found myself thinking that there must be something terribly wrong with me and my art in its darkness. The suffering became obsessive. I talked to all my friends, looking for someone to comfort me, to still that pounding, gnawing fist, to reassure me that what I was doing as an artist was relevant. Back in the early days, hanging around the music department at Pima College, theorizing and exploring realms of music and ideas, we used to watch Don play guitar. He'd only been doing it for five years, but was already skilled beyond any teacher on the Left or near Left Coast. And passion, my god. But our other pal, John, and I worried a lot for Don, for his depression and moodiness, for his constant longing for something undefinable. Perhaps Don had that same sweaty fist pounding at his guts. I called John on the phone and cried my story, that Don, the musician I admired most in the world, had told me I was dark. What was going on? Time was doing its non-linear back-stabbing humor and biting me on the butt. I was being reminded of the fact that darkness is a part of light, it is inseparable. Don didn't become the high-spirited musician that he is without going through some heavy. I still get phone calls from him about the heavy. It is this roller coaster pattern of light and dark that makes me realize both are necessary, and both are artistically relevant. So back to John. In this rare man, a Wiccan priest, a walking library of religious, scientific and literary knowledge, is a lucid and poetic place. He clearly defined it all for me, in a single phrase, and set the fist to rest. "Molly" he said. "Don's music takes the listener out of the body, your music puts the listener into the body." My jaw dropped, the world spun 'round, it was epiphany, revelation, completion. Our bodies are not always very comfortable places to be. Pain and discomfort force us to look for effective medicine, though. Maybe the heavy is the mother of light. You have to pass through the dark womb before setting foot into the glare. Even then, chances are you're gonna cry really loud before you laugh, and then again before you smile. Three years after this realization, much of my music expresses light, spirit, hope. "Lightning From a Blue Sky" is a song that expresses the heavy. I wrote it after connecting my vision to CNN for a day. Pressed always, it seems, to some video screen, my vision screams for song. Once in a while I turn from the futureglare and find peace in life. But this time I knew I had to take the pieces of the day and crystalize their shards into some kind of poetic truth. I had to lighten up and talk the heavy. "Sliver of glass / foot cut, blood / stains on the path / hounds can follow / radar can see / air lift my sorrows / call 911 for freedom." I cut my foot and the blood stained the path in front of my door. I looked at it, and thought about the way dogs sniff at a menstruating woman. It's carnal, innate, a life and death confirmation. I think about Bosnia, and people dying, I think about the United States air lifting food and bandages for the bleeding feet of humanity. I think it will never get there. Should I call 911 before I bleed to death? How do we stop the blood? Is there a simple solution? "Touch the woman / slap the hand / feed the starving / dogs can follow / world can see / video my dead / sing for alms from the lying." I feel inadequate. I'm a woman, I've been violated, the law has slapped the hands of the aggressors. How can I effectively solve the problems of the world if I cannot be respected for my own strength? Feed the starving, yes! There are starving people staring at me from my T.V. Somalia is a starving dog, it limps through filthy streets. The journalists take pictures, I get to watch, write a poem about the death while my hand reaches out to brush away the flies from that sad woman's face. Here I am singing for light, desperate for light, and money, and help from a nation filled with deceit. "Strikes like lightning from a blue sky, looks like tears falling from the face of the free world, sounds like laughter coming from the man in chains, strikes like lightning, from a blue sky." Lightning from a blue sky? How does this happen? How does any of this happen? How can agony emerge from beauty, and this magnificent blue reflect from the red blood on my foot? It's confusing, I have to cry, I am a free woman in the free-est country on earth (so they say) and I am incarcerated by these empathic tears. So how come this prisoner, murderer, maniac on the tube is laughing? His legs are chained together, he's going to be put to death. His laughter is uncannily pure. "Bang the gun / shoot the kid / change the story / I can read / world don't care / go to the movies / pretend you are the true savior." L.A., riots, kids shooting each other. Switching the channel to MTV, Pearl Jam grinds grunge guitars and Eddie sings melodically about Jeremy, a teenager who walks into his classroom and blows his brains out. Switch back to CNN, David Koresh is huddled with his progeny, about to die. Salvation in a box, fast spiritual food that rots inside. "Spit on a soldier / poison the water / kill my mother / hounds can follow / I can hear / nuke my problems / fear my angry God." The Middle East is our conscience. The dogs of war follow the mother. Solve the problem and split an atom, but yes, I shall forever fear God, who is angry at me, at my bleeding foot, at my inability to change the world back to its perfection. What have I learned? That my blood is the blood of my world, and the blood of my world is my blood. My joy is Don's sorrow, my sorrow moves and becomes a song. Anger is cathartic, potentially. Listen to these words, and maybe you will become angry. Maybe you will walk through your own heavy and find the light switch. If I touch you and you touch the light, can't the rest of the world? Survival is finding the cosmic joke, flipping your creativity back at the anger, stopping the sweaty fist from pounding and letting the blood flow when it must. I always am in awe when lightning strikes, and here, beneath this blue sky, I am convinced that the dark songs are as important to the cosmos as any revelation of spirit.