jamie writes.

i do better on the road.

HEAVY AND LIGHT was awesome. The week that followed was not awesome. It was coughing and lonely. Coming home from camp ain’t easy. It’s pretty great being around people you love and doing something you believe in every day. i’ve always struggled with coming home. There’s a lot there but there’s also a lot missing. i talked to my counselor about it today.

Flew to Hartford tonight so as to avoid doing it mega early tomorrow. Speaking in New Hampshire tomorrow night. Steven McMorran is singing. i love doing these events with him. We spend 80% of the time making each other laugh, but when it comes time to do the event, he is incredibly focused. He is a deep deep dude. When he sings, i believe him. UNC Wednesday and it will be so good to see my friend Josh Moore. First time in forever we get to do something together. He is a special guy and one of my favorite voices. New Mexico Thursday (Steven again). i do better on the road. i like being around my friends and their songs. i like the sense of purpose, the day taking second to the night, the laughing when the work is done.

i want to write more. i suppose it comes down to whether or not i really believe it’s okay to be honest. Perhaps this is a step in that direction. 

Craig Gross: Thanks Dad!

My Favorite Songs of 2012.

1. Wicked Games - The Weeknd

2. Like Teenage Gravity - Counting Crows

3. Reaching the Potential - A Silent Film

4. No Other - JT Daly

5. All Too Well - Taylor Swift

6. The Fighter - The Fray

7. The Healing - Bloc Party

8. Calm My Soul - Paper Route

9. Be Still - The Fray

10. Born & Raised - John Mayer

11. Montreal - The Weeknd

12. Youth - Daughter

13. Rabbit Hole - The Temper Trap

14. Whiskey, Whiskey, Whiskey - John Mayer 

15. Ladders - Lovedrug

16. The Morning - The Weeknd

17. Wing$ - Macklemore & Ryan Lewis

18. Red - Taylor Swift

19. Scrapbook - The Rocket Summer

20. My Oh My - Macklemore & Ryan Lewis

21. Here With Me - The Killers

22. Lonely Star - The Weeknd

23. Runaways - The Killers

24. The Wind - The Fray

25. Medicine - Daughter

26. This Stage is Your Life - A Silent Film

27. Let Them Feel Your Heartbeat - A Silent Film

28. Fingers Never Bleed - Yeasayer

29. Be Still - The Killers

30. Pink Champagne - Lovedrug

31. Lover of the Light - Mumford & Suns

32. Modern Age - Anberlin

33. Broken Yolk in Western Sky - Benjamin Gibbard

34. Begin Again - Taylor Swift

35. Harbour Lights - A Silent Film

36. Duncan, Where Have You Gone? - Benjamin Gibbard

37. Lucie, Too - Now, Now

38. Come Clean - Tristan Prettyman

39. Unstable - Anberlin

40. A System of Symmetry - Further Seems Forever

41. Old Love - The Rocket Summer

42. The Way It Was - The Killers

43. We’re Still Here - Sleeping at Last

44. Soldiers - The Rocket Summer

45. Magnet - Now, Now

46. Anodyne - Lovedrug

47. Walt Grace’s Submarine Test - John Mayer

48. Wild - Royal Teeth

49. Take a Walk - Passion Pit

50. The Age of Worry - John Mayer

The Spring Songs.

“No Light, No Light” - Florence + the Machine (Live, MTV Unplugged)

“Like Teenage Gravity” - Counting Crows

“Here We Are (Chancer)” - Silversun Pickups 

“Everyone But You” - The One AM Radio

“Afterlife” - Switchfoot

“Doorway” - Civil Twilight

“Born and Raised” - John Mayer

“Whiskey, Whiskey, Whiskey” - John Mayer

“Mercy” - Counting Crows

“Youth” - JT Daly

“Landscape” (demo) - Florence + the Machine (Live, MTV Unplugged)

“Four White Stallions” - Counting Crows

“No Other” - JT Daly

“Bronte” - Gotye

Motorcycle.

“Run.”

That was his friend’s advice.

“She’s a man. She’s a lion.
You just showed up on a white horse.
She wants a motorcycle.”

He didn’t own a motorcycle.
He had never even been on a motorcycle.

“I’m a mess,” she told him.

“i’m not afraid,” he told her.

You have my attention.
i know you want a motorcycle or you will think you want one for a while.
Well, i don’t have one.
But i have an unusual heart.
And you can have it if you want it.

Today.

i couldn’t sleep last night. Took medicine to help me sleep and still couldn’t sleep. That awful surgery of a hope removed. But different this time. Not “This is over and you have to let go.” Just “It can’t happen now and you can’t control it and so you have to let it go.” In short: “This needs to begin to matter less to you.”

i was supposed to have breakfast with CJ but i asked if we could make it lunch because i might need to sleep through breakfast to make up for what went missing in the night.

And then this morning i woke up early and i was awake and so we got together. And we had a good meeting. A really good meeting. And we had a good morning, dreaming up something we’re going to build together this year, something deeply personal and yet bigger than us and something that we both believe in to the point that we’re going to roll the dice on it this year.

We had lunch with his daughter Genevieve and my sister Jessica. Genevieve is six and one of my favorite people. She is amazing with her innocence and personality and perspective. i remember her being with us in France when she was 2 or 3 and she was the eye of the storm. She was the one thing that made sense in our house full of dudes and questions. Kids are miracles like that, i suppose.

Jessica is pregnant and it’s so cool to see her with kids because she is going to be the best Mom. It is a gift she has and this little person inside her is going to grow up so very very loved because of it.

And Jess and i worked together at the office all afternoon. No one else was there so it was quiet. i worked on HEAVY AND LIGHT and she worked on all the thousand things she does behind the scenes every day, the things that free me up to dream and allow us to keep going. She is our quiet anchor.

i had dinner with my friend Mark after work. Mark is my all-time best friend. Our Dads were friends before we born so i’ve known Mark since i’ve known anything. We grew up together. We were cowboy kids together. Not actual cowboys, i just mean we lived the adventures that come with being young. For us, it was surfing and chasing crushes and making mistakes and surfing and video games and hours stacked on hours of laughing ‘til it hurt.

There is more at stake now. Mark has a family and life looks different and we both have things we wish were different. And so we spent some time talking about the hard stuff. Spent some time trying to make sense of it and also laughing at the parts that you just simply have to laugh about.

So it’s night again and i’m alone now and i suppose that much of life is a battle for perspective. i have my dream and the ache that comes with waiting, or whatever way you word the absence of a dream. And if i’m not careful, it’s in me just to stare at whatever’s missing, to buy every whispered lie that comes with pain.

But there is much to be thankful for. My parents and my sisters. My friends. My work. i get to do a job that i believe in. i am loved. i am safe and healthy tonight. HEAVY AND LIGHT is this weekend. i watched some of the videos from 2009 and 2010 and they made me really excited for this weekend.

And it crossed my mind that maybe i’m in the perfect place for HEAVY AND LIGHT. There is pain in my life. And there is hope. It’s been a battle for as long as i can remember. There have been seasons rich and bright, and seasons dark and sorrow.

Life is both.

HEAVY AND LIGHT exists to ask people not to give up.

i am a person who struggles.

i am a person who dreams and feels and believes.

Today was a good day. And i will live again tomorrow.

My Favorite Songs of 2011.