it is

I have always had the ability to completely ignore probability.

Saturday Afternoons

We Love You

S.O.S

Someone once told me that, "most people just want to be rescued from themselves."
Is this true?
Are we waiting for something outside ourselves?
Are you?
To be changed and airlifted from yourself to another place and time entirely...
strange thought.

avoid

to avoid. to keep away or to stop oneself from doing. to contrive not to meet.

evade
shun
eschew
dodge
elude
shrink
escape

truth from Seuss

I'm afraid that some times
you'll play lonely games too.
Games you can't win
'cause you'll play against you.

All Alone!
Whether you like it or not,
Alone will be something
you'll be quite a lot.

my mind

I keep my head in the clouds so I don't have to rest my feet on the ground

my boys!!!

Isn't it nice to find out someone is listening. Hello Evening got a rather rad review from the fine folks at The Wild Honey Pie drawing comparisons to the man Springsteen. Go Boys!!!

Somebody That I Used to Know

this is my song for you

the art of thought...

I had a friend tell me recently over a phone call cup of coffee that she was trying to “find where she belongs” and it spun me down a rather strange path. Find where we belong? “What an interesting notion,” I told her. “If you found where you belong you would know when you found it? Would you feel a sense of accomplishment like climbing a mountain? Is it more like finishing a painting, you don’t know why but suddenly you are struck with the notion that yes, done, this is finished! I have arrived where I belong.” The word itself has a variety of definitions: to be proper, to be in an appropriate environment, to have in ones possession, to be a part of something else. It seems to me that the only true definition comes from understanding all the definitions of the word, are they not all speaking to each other? What then? How does one know if and when they truly belong? So I ask all of you, the most interesting people I know, the bright, and the curious, the traveled and the tired, how do you belong?

I have begun an experiment or an exercise if you will. I think we all have some incredibly interesting things to say but become so caught up in our lives and the next thing we have to do that often times nothing gets said anymore. Sometimes we have to ask the right questions. This is the first one. I asked a random selection of people, mostly to see who will participate, and even more so to see what people have to say when you actually ask them something worth thinking about. My aim is to get us thinking and speaking again and in a selfish way to generate more ideas within myself. This constant dialogue I have could be so lovely if some of you would join in. So if you weren't asked or I don't personally know you yet please take this as an invitation to answer. Send all thoughts to belair.erin@gmail.com. 

sight

was it foresight? or an afterthought? or perhaps hindsight? 

Cassandra

today.

Something's Got A Hold On Me

I spent the entire day as I am sure many of you did listening to Etta James. What an incredible woman. Love you always.

300,000

An estimated 300,000 people die every day.
So whatever it is, it's not that bad.

Unless you're dying. In which case, I'm sorry.

a note on Love.

I want someone to love me so hard I could only love them back

I want someone to love me for more than the reasons that they have

I want love that moves the earth and forces time to close and still

I want love that changes daily and love that press on my will

I want someone to love me and to look me in the eye

so that when they say they love me I know it’s not a lie

I want love that doesn’t care for the distance that we make

while we are traveling this great big world out looking for our breaks

I want love that tells me honestly where he spent the night before

and love it isn’t love if you’re always out looking for some more. 

I want love that people sing about, the kind you see up on the screen

the kind they say is make believe and lives only in your dreams

I want someone to love me as if there is no way it could ever last

so that they hold onto to me carefully as we watch the moments pass

I want love that doesn’t care for the rules of who we’ve always been

and I want love that doesn’t ruin me, love that never wears too thin

I want someone to love me not just because we always leave

and I want someone just to love me because it lets us both be free

I want love that strikes me on the spot and changes who I was

I want love that doesn’t make any sense

I want someone to love me just because

A Change Is Gonna Come

Theme song for Today.

tumbled

I’ve been making a list of the things they don’t teach you at school. They don’t teach you how to love somebody. They don’t teach you how to be famous. They don’t teach you how to be rich or how to be poor. They don’t teach you how to walk away from someone you don’t love any longer. They don’t teach you how to know what’s going on in someone else’s mind. They don’t teach you what to say to someone who’s dying. Honestly, they don’t teach you anything important.
— Neil Gaiman (via hard-kids)

I have never been one for tumblr... but I found one love... if I looked like a tumblr I think this one would be it... some love for You Are My Sunshine

you were saying?

She was saying all these long scenes and describing where she lost it but failed to tell us truly what she had lost. She was running with her eyes and smiling with her teeth, they were broken and knocked out in places where her ideas used to be. I wasn't afraid of being near her more afraid of being like her. I could see resemblances in us, in the way she moved and the words she chose to use. It had been a long day and I had been walking for what felt like forever. I had taken to walking recently because it was the only thing that made me feel like I was doing something about things there was nothing to be done about. It was as if the very ground passing beneath my feet marked the passing of time itself. Like I could look and say, "that is behind me and this is now in front of me." Everything had taken on a liquid quality and the most important and solid things in my life had suddenly begun to slip through my fingers and the tighter I held on the quicker they slipped. Then I was just left with all these fillers and mistakes and they clung to me with steel like talons. It had become easy to hold onto only the things I wanted to let go of. So there she was in front of me articulating all these fears I had kept rolled up in the cuffs of my shirt. I had come to think I dropped them and that she had picked them up, followed me for blocks, and then reread everything back to me. I had grown tired of trying to solve things for her, grown tired of telling her to retrace her steps. I was sure that whatever she had misplaced would find her soon enough again.

Over and Over

FREE Album



We Love You.
Filmed in the fine city of Costa Mesa for Milk Route Records. Made by Jenaveive and Erin Rose Belair for Cherokee Fade.

Time Spent in Los Angeles

makes me think about someone I knew well and how all the time in the world doesn't change the past. makes me think of how we change each other. makes me happy for you.

off again..

The time has come and the other side of the world is calling my name. After years and years of waiting of Nisan to marry Marcelle so we could all travel to his native land of Sri Lanka, we're going. We Leave April 1st and don't return home until the end of the month. Two weeks of planned travel and celebrations on the island before spending another long and peaceful week on the Maldives Islands. During this time we will be doing our best to flex our skills at travel writing. So come and tune in during my travels for some remarkable moments and I'm going to do my best to keep ya'll updated. On the off chance that I don't return, at least you will know where I went to spend the rest of my days...

uh, pretty much just in the middle of the ocean...

 

:)

know.

blows in like a bad cold day and stays for far too long. no reach is too far for these thoughts. I can read energy like a richter scale. Not by choice. it just tunes into me and suddenly know how you feel and that you're gone. comes to me from nowhere and leaves just as quickly but I know. I know things could have gone on just fine without knowing. and you ask me how I know, but you would never believe me. why no one seems to tell me the truth is no fault of my own. I already know.

Bet My Life

Tuesday January 10th, Kings Inn, Memphis Cafe in Costa Mesa California. Cherokee Fade loves you.

don't move me

it's a sleep so heavy and a pause so great you cannot shake me from this spot. the entire world has stopped as far as I care. please don't try to convince me otherwise. don't try and lead me your way by golden promises and finely knit truths in hand. don't try to take me backward, those places have been bombed and torn pieces. all I can trust in is the moment I wake up, the feeling in my gut that tells me how I think before the world comes in to influence me. it only lasts a brief fleeting second but I read it quickly and then hold onto it for the rest of the day. if I am angry, let me be angry. if I am forgiving then graciously take my forgiveness. and if I wish the world to stay still for another day, a week, a month, a year then please don't try and spin it. not if you want in.

by the seashore

I found a pile of old and thinning sea shells in a small wooden box in my bedroom when I was throwing away everything I could touch. Their delicate nature, some cracked and ruined lay next to a razor blade, a broken old bracelet, and the single word "and" that I had cut from a book. The collection and the box itself had gone unnoticed and untouched for how long I'm not sure. It just disappeared amongst all my belongings and mementos from around the world. Something about the simplicity and the pain that this box seemed to represent forced me to close it and place it back on the shelf as one of the very few things I would keep. I had never intentionally placed these things together, they had come to this box by chance and stayed for years on end. They had come to be a part of how I feel and what I am sure I would look like could you pull me off the shelf and take the lid off. Sea shells like dreams often crack under the pressure and surprise of life and yet we still hold onto the broken ones right next to the ones that are still beautiful and whole. Sometimes we hold onto them tighter thinking that our sheer will power will somehow press them back together. But I have come to believe that once things are broken there is no coming back from the dead. A razor blade for it's useful nature and tenacity and yet t reminds me that I have always been the type of person to cause my own problems, inflict my own pain. A broken bracelet for those people we have been because they always still live within us. And a single word, "and" because there is always more to say and more to do and until my dying day I will never be finished. So there I sit on the third shelf next to a photograph of an old friend who passed away over seas...

sunday lover

 

just acting like a lover for Jenavieve Photography

vanity, vices, and virtues

We wont always be this pretty.
This wont always hurt so much.
I have seen better days, but have they seen me?
I told a good friend over a long distance call as the space crackled between us that the only choice she had was to pick her self up, had I called myself?
It's easy to point and blame when your the one on the ground.
At least the days seem longer, like they listened to my pleas to slow down.
Why now, I'm not sure.
And we're all still here and still healthy and still alive and still pretty.

I am...

The Hanged Man.
The Story...
The Fool settles beneath a tree, intent on finding his spiritual self. There he stays for nine days, without eating, barely moving. People pass by him, animals, clouds, the wind, the rain, the stars, sun and moon. On the ninth day, with no conscious thought of why, he climbs the tree and dangles from a branch upside down like a child. For a moment, he surrenders all that he is, wants, knows or cares about. Coins fall from his pockets and as he gazes down on them - seeing them not as money but only as round bits of metal.
It seems to him that his perspective of the world has completely changed, as if his inverted position has allowed him to dangle between the mundane world and the spiritual world, able to see both. It is a dazzling moment, dreamlike yet crystal clear.
Timeless as this moment of clarity seems, he realizes that it will not last. Very soon, he must right himself, but when he does, things will be different. He will have to act on what he's learned. For now, however, he just hangs, weightless as if underwater, observing, absorbing, seeing.

The Lesson..
What is important to remember is that this is a card about suspension, not life or death. The querent might well feel that one thing has ended, yet the next has not begun, and they are stuck in a kind of waiting room. Things will continue on in a moment, but for now, they float, timeless.
Yet this isn't just a position of rest as the querent is inverted. Which means so is his/her view of the world is very different from the rest of us who walk upright. Thus, this waiting becomes a time of trial or meditation, selflessness, sacrifice, prophecy. This new way of seeing things often leads to insights and enlightenment. Answers that eluded the querent become clear, solutions to problems are found. All of which the Hanged Man hoped to buy with his sacrifice. 

It is a time when you change your perspective.

Such moments don't last, and they usually require some kind of sacrifice. Sacrifice of a belief or a wish, dream, hope, money, time or even selfhood. The sacrifice may be made to get into the inverted position, or it may be made to get out of the inverted position. Either way, in order to gain, you must give. Great or small, spiritual or mundane what you gain from making that sacrifice and allowing yourself to see things differently is insights and solutions. These can help you and everyone else you care about. Which is often why one goes through it all in the first place. One thing is certain, once you have been the Hanged Man you never see things quite as you did before.

Oh! The Places You'll Go

The lesson never grows tired...

dreams

I dream things and then they happen, all the time. Then you tell me that I'm crazy but you find that I am right. And you can't believe I left your side for things that happen in the night.
But it doesn't matter who I love if he lives here or far away, there is no rewriting the things we've done, we must simply find a way to change.
I bet you feel guilty, your shadow shows you hang your head, and you told me a life of living like this is like living with the dead. But the dead don't have your fingertips and they don't run them down my back, they don't hold me underwater, they don't leave broken beaten tracks, to the places where they go or the days that they have seen and I saw it in my dreams, but you just couldn't believe.

newbie

the opening paragraph of one of seven short stories from my next book... enjoy.

I was existing under a plate of glass, those butterflies on display in an old museum pinned down at the wings and one through their sternum. The sheets needed to be washed. I was watching the way they wrinkled when I moved. Those were the big moments, from one side to another. I could see the cheap sewing, the low thread count of the washed out yellow, they were soft once I’m sure.

Dry your eyes

a special pain

Why is it that we always manage to hurt and mangle those that we love more than anything else? Why is it they suffer the brunt of our stupidity? The greatest mistakes of our lives are often the downfall of great friends and great love. There is often no return from these places, no road leading back to a place you wish you had again. New roads must be built, roads that hopefully take us far away from where we find ourselves today, roads we cannot yet conceive. Why is it that we only wonder what we have done and take a close look at where we are, who we are, when bad things happen? Why are we all inherently so bad? I have always believed in the good of people, always found faith, but when there are no reserves left to draw from what is one supposed to believe in?

barre what?!

Don't act like you aren't aware that of that swimsuit in the back of your drawer. Don't act like there aren't still chocolate bars in your freezer. Admit it, your jeans are tight and the suns coming out and you aren't ready. A massive part of living down here near Mexico outside of the fine city of Los Angeles is spending a good chunk of the year half naked. So it's time to start lacing up those sneakers and time to get your downward doggie on, workout season has officially arrived. To kick off the new year and countdown to bikini time I signed up for ten classes at Cardio Barre in Costa Mesa off 17th street and Tustin. 10:30 a.m beginners class, there I am stretching out my tight quads and laying down my Hello Kitty towel. I had no idea what I was in for. This class will kick your ass, literally. Ten minutes in and I was begging and praying to some workout god I've never known before. But then something funny happened, I started sweating and I started having fun. Once I got over the initial fear of what was going to happen next or how plies I was going to have to do, I was killin it. The moves were easier than I had expected and for someone with no rhythm I had nailed them nearly from the start. Don't get me wrong this shit was hard but I was jumping and pumping with the best of them. I'm going back for all ten classes in the month of Janurary and taking this photograph below as a serious challenge. I'll show you, my ass is going to be lookin just like this. Ba BAM!!

defibrillator affect

the new book will be based around the running ideas of a few things other than you... like...

open windows... and...

 

Old motels and parking lots... and...

Winter.

Victory

so in love with this video...
the making of videos.
commencing now.

shine on

I am feeling like a very luck girl today.
Samantha Huddleston, photographer, has used my song Red Book
on her beautiful website.

I hope your day is as lovely as ours.
We Love You.
xoxo,
Cherokee Fade

Yoga Girl

Yes, so on point!

new year inentions

check back in six months and see how well I fare on these intentions of mine...

-write everyday no matter what
-write a new book
-publish said book
-write another album, record, play, and repeat
-travel to Sri Lanka
-travel
-play music in Mpls.
-be good or just be better
-quit serving tables
-practice yoga 

I think that will do. Yes, I think that makes me happy.
viva la 2012.