A Mile South of Heaven

Hello! I write to you from the pool at the Hotel Indigo in El Paso, Texas. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: this is a perfect hotel. The $22 margarita notwithstanding (what is this, LA? I digress).

I am here because I’m flying to Calgary, Canada for the Calgary Folk Festival. El Paso is the closest airport to Marfa (3 hour drive), and I decided to come a day early to do a little shopping. I bought new boots at Cowtown, and a belt. The guy who helped me out at Cowtown was really cool, and genuinely helpful. He encouraged me to take my time looking around and “make some memories”. We are now instagram friends.

Last week, I announced the album (!!). I told you all about it first, but now the world knows. It feels really good, and in the coming weeks I’ll be sharing more and more about the album here.

All of the things I hoped would happen on announce day did happen, so naturally now I’m worried about other things. And isn’t that how it always goes? And as it turns out, this is sort of the point of the title of the album…

The meaning of the title, A Mile South of Heaven, is best explained with an image. There are actually two different images, one is a little darker. But I will start with this one:

I imagine a long highway, the kind that most of us have probably driven down, where you see signs with the number of miles you have to go to the next destination, and that number gets smaller and smaller as you get closer. In my mind, we are driving down a highway toward heaven. The signs read 100 miles, then 20, then 10, then 5. Finally, there's a sign that says, "Heaven 1"

And then you realize the signs just start repeating. Every sign says “Heaven 1” but heaven never gets any closer.

There’s something about growing up in a place that is normal (Dallas, for me), having big dreams, and moving to a city of dreamers, such as Los Angeles, to try to make your dreams come true, that lends itself to forever chasing “heaven”, that dangling goldmine/carrot, that thing that will finally happen and make all of the striving and chasing and the relentless pursuit make sense because look: it all worked out.

I’ve had some amazing experiences walking down this path. Some moments that felt like my dreams were coming true, or like they did come true. And then, of course, there’s a balance. Things fall apart. The dream becomes, gratefully, a job, but thats really different than a dream. The thing that was a big deal six months ago is suddenly the baseline, so now you’re chasing the next thing. It’s more and more and more. And it’s a lot of compare and despair.

So where I’m at with it today is this: what if we stop barreling down the highway and pull over and enjoy the view? I’m working on it!

To my Canadian friends: see you soon Calgary! I’m doing a session and a “tweener” on Friday solo, one session Saturday, and then the full band set is Saturday as well. It will be the live full band debut of my new song Goodbye to All That!

Speaking of Goodbye to All That… behind the paywall I’m including a special demo of that song. I recorded this version with some friends last summer, when I was curious about working out a full band version of the track to see how it would sound. It was engineered by my dear friend Ben Schwab of Sylvie and recorded at his home studio. Ben also played bass on it, and Tommy deBourbon played drums and pedal steel.

Until next week,

Jess