Laura Harley

I just finished a new song! It is called “Secret Weapon” and it’s about what I discovered on my rare afternoon with myself that I mentioned in my last post. I am still amazed at the emotional, spiritual, and creative returns I’ve gotten from just a few hours of time by myself with things that inspire me. I definitely need to do that more often—but it will require setting some tough boundaries so I can actually make it happen.

So when I was writing, it was one of those experiences where it felt like a struggle for the first few hours of work on the song. But I just kept at it, and in the last hour it all came together. It is such a great moment when you feel like you’ve really created something worthwhile. Plus there is this honeymoon stage right after I’ve written a song– I just feel in love with it and can’t stop playing it!

Also, I’ve been working on making a special effort to listen to some of my fave pop songs lately. Listening to songs that I love helps me to write. It gives me ideas and analyzing the song structure and composition is also helpful to me. Recently I was out at a restaurant and the Tears for Fears song from the 80s came on, “Head Over Heels”. That was SUCH a great song! So I’ve been listening to that and a few others. I know there are lots of pop songs I love, but I can’t remember them all. I would LOVE to hear your ideas for some of your fave songs—it would be very helpful to me!

Today I took the rare opportunity to spend some time replenishing. I spent a few hours at one of my favorite places—the Minneapolis Institute of Arts. The building itself is beautiful and the range and depth of the exhibits is amazing. In one afternoon I stood in a recreated version of a ballroom in Paris circa 1800 and saw ancient Chinese tapestries! (And on a side note, a very cool thing for me is that my grandpa actually has an exhibit at the MIA right now–you can check out more about it here.)

Sometimes there is nothing more nourishing for me than getting lost in the museum—just wandering from place to place, seeing a painting or sculpture that captures my imagination, and getting completely absorbed in it for a few moments—it’s like visiting different places in history and different places in my mind. All kinds of emotions and thoughts flood through me. It gives me all sorts of ideas for my songwriting. In fact, after a particularly busy period, I have to take some time like this to get ready to write again.

It’s also very healing for me emotionally. So much of my work and time is spent in working outside of myself—seeing what people want and need, working to help people have certain realizations or try new things—it all takes a lot of energy. I’ve always had trouble staying in touch with myself because I can get so concerned about and lost in other people. So, the kind of day I had today helps me get reacquainted with myself.

Here is a photo of the cafe inside the museum where I wrote and had a decaf mocha (with lots of whipped cream) and a snickerdoodle cookie.

Afterwards, I wasn’t ready to go back to work yet, so I spent some time by a lake near my house. The sun was going down and it was very beautiful:

Now I feel ready to write again.

So…..what do you think of the new site design? It’s nice to change things up now and then :).

Thanks so much to everyone who came to the Acadia show! I had a great time. It was nice to be back at Acadia, to play with such nice and talented peeps, and to have lots of new songs to share. I also really appreciated everyone’s feedback on the new songs—it’s helping me carve out my direction for the next album and choose songs for it. Here are some photos from the evening:

I’m really looking forward to my acoustic show this Friday night, November 9th at 8pm at Acadia Cafe. This show is all ages! Acadia Cafe is where I had my CD release show about a year ago. It’s bringing back memories….SO much has happened since then! I hope to see you guys on Friday!

In the meantime, here is a slideshow of photos from my show at the Varsity Theater in Minneapolis. They were taken by Clark Patrick Photography.

I had such an interesting day today. I’ve mentioned before that I do lots of community development work through the Baha’i Faith. It is something I love and it gives me such a sense of hope and purpose. This week is especially busy with these activities. Today I got to talk to a lot of the people that live around the Baha’i Center in Minneapolis. I had the chance to get to know them and invite them to some activities we hold at the Baha’i Center—children’s classes, youth groups, prayer meetings, and courses about personal and collective spiritual development.

Throughout the day, I met some amazing people. I met lots of adorable little kids who were running around, a couple of teenagers who were really thoughtful and concerned about the state of the world and their neighborhood, a very patient and thoughtful man who has a spinal cord injury and is paralyzed from the neck down, and a man struggling to stay out of prison and to get off drugs (who, in sharing his story with me, showed qualities of being very earnest and tender-hearted). It was such a privilege to meet all of these people, hear their stories, and talk about the commonalities we all have around things like spiritual growth, striving to take things one day at a time, striving to be the best we can be, and trying to make a difference.

No matter what each person was going through, what shined through so clearly in each was a certain sense of nobility. The Writings of the Baha’i Faith state that we are all created noble and that we have amazing capacities to grow and be of service to the world. I saw that so clearly in each person I met today and I feel like meeting them has made me appreciate this short life, feel more connected to the people in my city, feel loads of compassion for people, feel certain of the nobility of the human soul, and feel thankful for the way God guides each of us on our own paths. I know most of the people I talked with today probably won’t read this, but I am sending out a huge thank you to each of them. As I go to sleep tonight, I am thinking of them and feeling connected to the hearbeat of the city.