Never Broken: Songs Are Only Half the Story (33 page)

fire burns it all down cleansing allowing rebirth

there is a wisdom in death

and we experience a shedding of our skin

many many times in life

and in fact the more committed

we are to living

the more deaths we experience

along the way

loss of friends who no longer feel like

who we have become over time

loss of self, even

loss of “girl” as we redefine

ourselves as woman and mother

loss of fertility as we redefine ourselves

as matriarch and goddess

wisdom keepers and doers

free of small children and able

to focus on self after so long

. . .

loss of boy as eros consumes

loss of eros as husband emerges

death of child ego as manhood

must take root

redefined by the need to no longer

be the center of the family

but the supporter of wife and child

rediscovery and redefinition of self

as husband and father die within giving way

so that

the next phase where self must be

attended by self and self alone

may come fully into realization

when elderly

and so many deaths in between

as we re-create who and how we want to be in the world

I have learned to treasure the

eclipse of my soul

to let myself explore fully the infinite

ache the sorrow when it washes over me

for to resist is to miss it

and to miss it is to not fully grasp

what is next in my life because I

struggle so hard to keep what was

and this is truly painful

hanging on is much more painful

than listening in the darkness

for my future calling to me

let all else fade away for a few moments

spend some time with sorrow

see what it is asking for

there is a deep wisdom in you

tapping yourself on the shoulder

asking for some attention

it asks quietly at first, but if ignored

it will demand you listen

by creating so much discord you must

finally pay attention

it will not be denied

for to deny it is to

be buried alive

inside your own flesh

as your inner life and outer life

become so out of sync

drastic changes must be made

to rectify them

make them!

live!

give yourself permission!

write so you may see

the snakeskin of your soul

as it sheds

read the scales so you may see

who you have been

and honor it

then get excited

even in this time of mourning

for something new your way comes

nothing is wrong with you

you are alive and living and growing

if we are truly pushing ourselves to learn

we are reborn

many times in one life

have the courage

right now

to sit in your sorrow

in your silence and know

something is right with you

your body is working beautifully

it is experiencing a longing

from your soul

and making room for something new

in your life

it is emptying its self out

getting rid of what no longer serves

tune your ear to what is next

trust your body to do its work

nature knows its job

trust it knowing soon

you will be full again

(never doubt this—it’s a mathematical certainty—the

only mystery is the quality you will be filled with, which will

be determined by the quality and creativity and the thoroughness

of your grieving)

turn your ear toward it

so you may calibrate

to the level to which you want to rise

bring your consciousness

to the moment

don’t numb out

don’t escape

don’t rob yourself of the gift

so that you may better choose and guide

and inform what should be next for you

get to know the exact nature

of your discontent

for only in becoming intimate

with what we lack

may we know what to replace it with

be vulnerable enough

to want without knowing if you will receive it

dare this much

engage your creativity

let your mind daydream about

how you wish it to be

imagine the face of what is unborn

and have the courage to name it

don’t rush

for you are pregnant with yourself

a new you

and it has its own gestation period

because you cannot

force nature

only nurture
it

twenty-six

brilliant resilience

I
t was a huge risk to make
0304
. When I’d originally come up with the concept I thought I had all the money in the world, and had never before let money govern my decision about what direction to go. With “Intuition,” I made a song I loved even though it was manipulated into being. It was still an authentic part of my soul and I was proud of it and believed in what it said. Knowing how much I needed the money made it surreal. So much was on the line, though I never doubted my direction. It was a risk in terms of the media or those who did not follow my career closely. My real fans saw it coming. I had experimented with loops on my third album,
This Way
, with tracks like “Jupiter” and “Serve the Ego.” I began doing dance remixes. I was pushing myself. I felt if an artist was put in a box, it was their own fault for not being willing to break out of it. Now was not the time to safety up. I had to define what being a sellout meant to me. Being a sellout was doing what everyone expected of you, if it went against your own instincts or heart. I could have done
You Were Meant for Me 2
and the press would have loved it and said I was being true to my roots, but I would have felt like a sellout. Only we know when we are being true to the small and quiet voice that whispers from our soul. Very few on the outside of our skin are in a position to know. Bob Dylan and Neil Young taught me that. The fans will know the difference between changes made of contrivance versus authenticity. And if they didn’t, I would. I knew it would be controversial but I was tired of being controlled, of being told as a woman that I had to hide my sexuality to be considered smart. I doubled down on my instincts.

As usual my label heard nothing until I turned it in. Ron Shapiro was still my champion at Atlantic, along with Craig Kallman, Judy Greenwald, and Andrea Ganis. They all believed in it and my vision, and we went for it. I went to Europe to tour, and while I was there my label called me to say “Intuition” was at the top of the charts. My video, which I thought clearly articulated my satirical comments on pop culture, was widely viewed but also wildly misunderstood, which tickled me to no end. It infuriated people to see me dolled up. It was polarizing, although I felt it was in line with my values—to question, to seek, to explore. Regardless, it became a performance piece, illustrating the mindlessness in culture and the fight for irony alongside the fight for truth alongside the right for sexuality alongside the right to just have fun. I remember talking with Clive Davis about writing for an artist of his, and even he said no one wants to see this generation’s Joni Mitchell wear a miniskirt. It created a huge debate, and that was all I could have hoped for. I never hoped to tell people what to think with my music; I hoped to start a conversation so they could think about it for themselves. My experiences at this point made me more determined to never be dogmatic in my music. I was so relieved my single was doing well. God knows I needed it to be. I had done it against impossible odds, and I would slowly get back on my feet. I would never get back what I had lost, but I would be okay.

After my European tour I went back to the States. And I went back to Ty.

It was hard to come to terms with the fact that I had let go of a man who loved me and stayed with a mom who did not. I chose so wrongly. I told Ty as much. We rekindled our relationship, though he was hurt by our parting and I had to earn back his trust. He was an absolute knight in shining armor. He stood by me and held me when I cried. He stayed up nights talking with me as I tried to make sense of it all. And when there were no words, he stayed close as I tried to heal a broken heart. I confided all the things I had never told him before. All the things I never told anyone. I told him about how Jacque was not just a dear friend but about Z as well. I told him about Dean and Solano. Telling this to a true-blue cowboy was quite an experience. He turned to me and said, “Jewel, I think you were in a goddamned cult!”

I told him about all the things I’d been raised believing. That I could control the lights with my mind if I focused hard enough. That when I failed it meant I didn’t have enough focus. That life was a web of interconnectedness, and that if I didn’t anticipate something in my life it was because I was not connected enough. That if we could harness and fully grasp our true genius and spirituality we would be able to absorb the frequency of any object around us, even be able to walk through walls. Again, I’d always failed. That I would be sick if I lowered my frequency too much. There were some legitimate spiritual beliefs and practices, especially in the beginning, but with time the net effect made me feel insignificant, subservient, obedient.

Ty was the opposite of all this, it seemed, and it felt good. There was nothing touchy-feely about this man. No gray area. It was all black and white and real in his world, and I needed that. He felt like rock-solid earth that I could fall the hell apart on. I began to research cults and how they worked and came across the word
programming
a lot. I don’t know if
what I was involved in was a cult in the classic sense, but I did know I had ideas and thoughts in my head that didn’t belong to me. It was hard to tell where I ended and my mom began. My mind felt as if someone had shattered it with a hammer. There was a lot of guilt and shame, and I trusted no one, especially when it came to my mind. My God, I could spend years in therapy and never get over this. I wanted to look back over my life and think of everything my mom had ever told me, to try to see whether any of it was real. I called my dad.

My dad told me that he didn’t blackmail my mom into letting him keep us. She told him she was tired of being a mom. He told me that she did not have cancer that year we lived in Anchorage. She had told him that she had one year to live and that he needed to give her the money to have us for one year. Every single thing I thought I knew about her no longer seemed real. Nothing about my life seemed real. I found out our former employee had never had cancer. Suddenly the grief and stress of everything I had gone through, it all caught up with me, and I could not just go back out on the road like nothing had happened. I had been juggling all this while I worked. I was smiling on the cover of every magazine. I did all the interviews and all the TV shows. My album was a hit. But I needed to stop. I needed to be with Ty. I called Irving and said I needed to cancel my American tour. He didn’t bat an eye. He asked if I was okay. I said I would be. He said okay, he would take care of it. I would make no money.

I was on my way to the bathroom one day—where all eureka moments happen, right?—when I caught a glimpse of myself in the mirror. I knew something in a flash. It was like a revelation. I see thoughts visually. I saw an image of light that had layers upon layers of sediment covering it up. But the light was under there, intact. I said to myself,
A soul is not a teacup. It is not a chair. It cannot be broken
. I knew I was alive in there. I was
just covered in layers of shit that did not belong to me. That idea would be my key to deprogramming. The idea of therapy was depressing to me, and I didn’t trust a therapist or a support group at this point. I was terrified to give anyone influence over my mind again. But I saw that I had been operating on the premise that I was ruined and needed to fix myself. I knew in that instant that I was not broken and I did not need to be fixed. I needed to go on an archaeological dig back to myself, where I was still there. Whole. Unspoiled. I had a memory of myself as whole, before all the heartbreak. I remember being a child and lying on my back in a green field and I felt free. I could shut my eyes, go inward to this part of myself, and tell when a thought or a feeling was not part of my genuine self, and I could gently push it away. I could lovingly remove all that had been put on me. It would lead me back to myself.