The unspoken side of being in partnership with a songwriter is this: Each day he climbs through the cave, into his own dark deep to spot his sharks, and search for the holiest cow that's walked his streets with its painted horns. He writes these into songs. His lightning bolts, his storms, all the things he’s never said to me. Meanwhile, I've told all, day by day, my thoughts on a tape that never seems to end, often repeating, often nasty, forgiving, and circular. I expect him to take it all and know it's a tape, not the truth.

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(Peek behind the scenes with Suz's observations of our DC show at the 9:30 Club with The Wood Brothers)

It’s Tuesday night and the pizza dough is still rising when David walks in the front door and says our agent called their agent and we are on standby for the gig to replace Steve Poltz, who got Covid, as the opener for The Wood Brothers’ show in Washington DC tomorrow. The only prerequisites are a positive test from Steve and two negative tests from us. We wait for his positive test before we open our two precious tests. The phone dings. Agent says Steve’s positive! (Sorry Steve! We love you Steve! Glad you’re already feeling better, Steve…) But this means we’ve got the gig if we test negative! Packages are ripped open. Long Qtip is swabbed 10 times a nostril, never felt one side's snot in the other side of my nose until this chapter of life. Swirl in the tiny vial, squeeze the drops in the miniature indentation and then the wait – not unlike the pregnancy test wait – for the line to appear. 15 minutes later only one pink line appears, and voila! We got the gig! Celebratory cookies are baked. My dad is hired for the babysitting job. And too much excitement to sleep well – our first gig in over two months!

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Friends, I’m here to talk about the very challenging process of “getting help.”

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My first single dropped today! “Beautiful Mess” was written in response to the enormous pressure I felt as a young person to go out and "change the world." As an adolescent learning about all the incredible and seemingly uphill battles humanity faces I was immobilized by the enormity of what needed to "change." The weight of this responsibility, combined with a fragile brain that tended toward depression, was too much for me to bear as a small sensitive human.

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To me, “Mental Heath” is actually two related things that are often conflated:

1. Brain health. Lots of us have brains that have well worn ruts/behaviors that we call anxiety, or depression or mania or obsessive thinking, or addiction. I believe, based on my own experience, that medicines can be a helpful tool to calm an over-energized brain or stimulate a slow, depressed brain, to help promote sleep, and to reduce anxious thinking patterns.

But…there’s also…

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Taking time mid-tour to do two of my favorite things: stitching up old clothes, and thinking about the bipolar brain.

In particular, I’ve been thinking a lot about bipolar meds and feeling grateful for them once again.

Here’s something I’m finally learning after a lot of experimentation with various drugs and various doses:

For me it actually matters that I take them super regularly. I mean SUPER regularly. Like every morning at the same time (for me 8am) and every afternoon at the same time (for me, noon). I’ve now had nearly two weeks without any depression or hypomania. (I know it sounds crazy that that is a long stretch for me, but it is.) And I know it may all change tomorrow, but I attribute this stable period to finally committing to taking my pills consistently, at the same time each day, as well as continuing to prioritize regular sleep.

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So many people have commented, how good gardening is for one’s mental health and it reminds me of something I’ve been meaning to share.

Yes, I agree gardening is wonderful for body and soul. But it’s really important for me to differentiate mental health from brain health. I think the two are conflated.

#Bipolar disorder, in my experience, is a brain disorder. For some reason my brain is not able to regulate energy and sleep the way other brains do. Sometimes I wake up and am unable to find the will to get out of bed, eat, think clearly, or enjoy the basics of life. On those days my garden does not feel good for anything. Other days my brain is so buzzed up I can see the literal magic of a butterfly loving a cosmos blossom, and the rain water I’ve collected that sustains life. On those days the garden is bliss.

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It is with great pleasure that I share a sneak peek from my new solo album, Our Wings May Be Featherless.

Listen here: www.patreon.com/davidwaxmuseum

I have experienced a variety of emotions around this record, but one of the strongest one is that of relief. I feel so relieved that due to the pandemic we were given this pause in our touring schedule to be at home. This pause allowed a chance for me to breathe and take time to write these songs. This pause allowed David to learn the skills to engineer this record. This pause meant that producer @dacostaband was also at home in his studio and had the space to work on this project with me.

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Hey friends, wanted to talk briefly about psychiatric meds and share some things I’ve learned along the way.

1. Medicines can be supportive. They aren’t magic. They aren’t everything. But they can be a wonderful supportive piece of the healing puzzle. They can provide relief to a brain that’s gotten off track.

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Isn’t it funny that even after a bipolar diagnosis in my 20s and years off and on meds, I still have a fantasy that somehow my moods will even out as I get older— that I will magically wake up feeling rested and energized each day and not slip back into depression?

Isn’t it funny that I still assume that getting back on meds will somehow magically make me steady and productive?

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In honor of women’s day I wanted to honor the challenge of being a woman and mother with a bipolar brain. These are some of the questions that have haunted me for years:

Do I feel this shitty because it is depression or do I just have PMS? Is it hypomania or am I just ovulating and I tune with my body? Is it depression or did I just have a baby and am touring around the country on no sleep? Is it mania or did I just play the wedding of a famous person and meet some celebrities, so of course I’m buzzing!

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Unsurprisingly, I can only talk about depression when I’m *not* experiencing it. When I’m dealing with it the thought of posting feels gross— so fake, so stupid— who do I think I am that anyone would care about how bad I feel? But when I come out of it (as I did yesterday) I thought, Oh right, I’m gonna post about this. It can be hard for me to distinguish exhaustion from depression. But fatigue, if it’s at a time when you are able to rest, kinda feels good. Like being really sleepy, or feeling physical fatigue. Depression, on the other hand, feels like disappearing under a pillow is the best/only choice because the basics of life become so hard. Motivation is zapped. Your will is taken away. Because I have been down this path so often I don’t feel as scared by this place, though I don’t like how hard it is on my partner. But I am getting better about not attaching any story about the value of who I am (or my work or ability to create) to this place of dull existence. I just hope we can continue this conversation so that people can take away the self blame when they slip down. That is the most dangerous part.

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I wanted to talk about sleep for a minute. Regular sleep is super key for a bipolar brain. Sometimes it feels like years since I’ve had regular sleep since I’ve been a touring musician with babies. And since we’ve worked nights for all these years it is hard to actually decide to go to bed early. But now that we’re home, I’m recommitting to setting my alarm at the same time everyday and working toward regulating my sleep. I read that another word for bipolar disorder is “fragile circadian rhythm disorder” which I can relate to! Regular sleep is such a healer for me in combination with good medicine, healthy foods and time outside.

📖 Recommended reading: “Bipolar, Not So Much” by Chris Aiken and James Phelps

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Being home has been the most unexpected gift. After living on the road for a dozen years, here’s what I’m learning.

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When you start doing creative work you need a lot of external feedback. "Wow! You're good! Keep that up and you'll really be good!" These are important sentiments to hear. They keep you going, at least at first. Really? You ask yourself. Am I good at this? I mean I like doing it, but am I really good at it? More than likely you'll get caught in the quagmire of self-doubt and you'll slide down the sneaky hate spiral, as one friend called it. You'll tear yourself down. You'll despise your art. You know it's not good enough, like Ira Glass notes in his brilliant video on "Taste."

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Making Line of Light was an entirely different experience for me than any recording process up to this point. It started with choosing the songs. David had drafted a batch of about 50 songs, out of which I, along with our producer Carl Broemel, got to pick our favorites. I do not take for granted what a privileged position it is to pick out the songs for an album. It is so much fun -- like choosing songs for a mixtape for your best friend -- just the cream of the crop.

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My brother wrote me a text today from Germany where he is visiting his wife's family. "Suz, I'm playing a concert with a local band here on Sunday, can you give me some performance tips? How do you think about presence on stage? You all have it so nailed." Performance tips. Oh man. What have we learned after a dozen years of walking onto stages many many hundreds of times? Here's what I'm thinking about lately.

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One of the most frequent questions people ask us when they find out we tour with our children is, "What are you going to do when they start school?!"  They often ask it with a mixture of concern and confusion and so far I've answered with my own mixture of ambivalence and confidence, "Well, we're not sure yet. I was homeschooled so there's always that option, but we'll figure it out when we have to!"  Well, the time has come to figure it out.  

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Our time at home has been incredibly fruitful for me as I continue to delve into writing my first book. I try to write primarily in the mornings. Now that we’re not working nights as often, and going to bed at a more regular hour, the mornings are when I have the most energy and focus. I take my cup of Pero (a vaguely coffee-like substance made from roasted chicory root), big black unlined journal and uniball extra fine point pen upstairs to our little writing room. It’s a sweet room under the eaves of the house that also serves as a guest room for musicians passing through town. It’s got a simple desk we bought at a second hand furniture store in Baltimore a few years ago. David wrote most of the new album on this desk, which sits in a little nook overlooking our quiet street and beyond the street, Carter’s Mountain, a neighboring mountain to Jefferson’s Monticello.

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First of all, thank you so much for the incredible response to my last post about dealing with a relapse of manic depression. I was really overwhelmed by how many people wrote to express their support.  Despite a busy summer touring, recording and playing festivals, weddings and private house shows, we're actually trying to lay low this fall and settle into a routine at home for the first time in nearly a decade. What a relief it's been to not work nights for a season!

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