Postcards from the Past
by Trisha Leone 12/15/2019
Little did I know when I started this project that one little picture had so many stories to tell. It’s true that a picture paints a thousand words, but in reality a thousand words barely scratches the surface and even with so many words it can be hard to find the right ones. Though a photo may capture a solitary moment in time, it’s the details that tell another story. It’s the t-shirt I was wearing—I remember when I got it, it said Winter Park and I loved how the silver snowflakes sparkled against the black fabric. It was the car in the background—a Thunderbird that we got from your grandparents that barely fit into the garage. One time when I was backing it out it slipped on a mound of ice created from snow melting off the roof and put a dent in the side. It’s looking into the eyes of someone else and seeing yourself— a key that fits into a tiny lock somewhere deep in your soul. It’s the crooked smile, the innocent glance, the band on the stage, the dog in the yard, the address of the house. Layers of story upon story, all in one photograph. And to think we have an infinite number of these moments every single day of our lives.
If nothing else, through the words of a song, I have told one truth of thousands, a pinhole view of a bigger picture. Postcards From the Past is a project that could go on forever. Maybe it made a difference in someone’s life, or maybe not. Either way it has been worth every effort—digging through boxes of pictures, trying to come up with fresh chord progressions so that the songs didn’t sound the same, and spending more than I make to record the project. If there ever was a labor of love, this is it. But there has definitely been something for me in all of it. Last December I decided I didn’t want to play, write, or perform music anymore. I was frustrated, discouraged, tired, and burnt out, so I quit, again. In January, Minton Sparks and Jane House challenged me to go on a quest through writing and yoga and to discover the stories my body held deep inside. The stories took me back to my first love, music. Writing songs makes me feel alive. Committing myself to this soul quest gave me a vision and a purpose and kept me moving forward. I will always write songs, it’s not something I can quit, I am the song. This has been a life-changing year for me. I have discovered that everything I need or want is inside of me. And Melea, you were right, I now have a body of work to show for the last twelve months. So now, here I am again, another year ahead of me—12 months, 52 weeks, 365 days. I don’t know the details of my new quest yet but I already have the titles to three new songs.
