by Jewel
I began working with Lester Mendez, a young producer and songwriter. We had music chemistry and wrote feverishly together. I wanted a dance record that had soul. I wanted pop music with poetic lyrics. I wanted to re-create my version of postwar big band music. I wanted to write clever pop songs like Cole Porter did. The country was at war, Bush was president, everyone was scared of terrorists in a post-9/11 world. I wanted to be free. I wanted to dance. I wanted to feel young and like everything was okay. I loved writing 0304, even as my life fell down around my ears. Once again writing saved me. My mom’s voice began to fade, and I could hear my soul speak to me. I wrote “Becoming,” eerily full of portent, though still I didn’t know the extent of what I was dealing with. A deep part of me was screaming at myself to wake up.
Listen, heart
Listen close—listen
to the melancholy
Melody of your own voice
I am weary of my own dreaming
I am tired of waiting
So this time, I’m leaping
I am hurting
Oh, I am not yet born
I am the mother and the father
Of what is not yet known
Darkness surrounds me
I scratch, I struggle, I breathe
I’m witnessing my own becoming
The beginning of the album was the beginning of the end for my mom and me. I told no one what was going on. I quit talking to Solano, though Dean called often. I would not give up and just fall in line again, although I held out an impossible hope that I would see it was all just an honest mistake and my mom and I would get to live happily ever after. I was desperately alone. No Ty, my relationship with my mom strained even as she kept managing me. There were many days I cried in the vocal booth, where no one could see me, trying to keep my throat relaxed enough to let the song escape and lift me. I would walk out of the booth, a smile painted on my face, and get back to dealing.
I was in my room at the Sunset Tower the day I finally saw who my mom really was. I had been trying to get her to sign off on selling her vacation house. I needed the money, as I was unable to tour or work while I made the record. She kept stalling. I had invited her over, thinking we could resolve this once and for all. She always had that calm Buddha’s smile on her face. She had never once apologized for all that had happened. It just “was.” The prevailing wisdom around me was that there was nothing that was truly real. Not the way most people thought of things as real. It was all a projection of our spirit’s wanting. Life itself was only what we chose it to be, and if a person chose pain or illness, it was what their soul wanted. If I was broke, then it was an experience I must have wanted. I sat in that hotel room and pleaded with her. She needed to sign it over to me so I could sell it. Finally she cracked. I had never seen her speak above practically a whisper my whole life, and suddenly the mask fell away. She screamed at the top of her lungs, “I will give you the fucking house!” Spittle flew from her mouth. Her face was twisted with such sudden rage and anger that I sat back in my seat. She scared the daylights out of me. I knew then that she would not give it to me. She would not let it go. She never did.
When I hired Irving, he helped me find a good and reputable business manager, Lester Knispel. Irving and Lester spent countless hours helping me dismantle all the organizations that had been built around me. In a bizarre turn I still can’t explain, the auditor I had been working with disappeared. We could find no trace of her. It was completely strange. So I had to start from the beginning again, and Lester had to sort through all the books. I had to pay severance to every employee. A bitter pill does not begin to describe it. Money I did not have. My mom and I had quit talking. I kept working on the album and moving that ball forward. It was my only hope and it was my joy. My salvation in more than one way yet again.
I would never get to sell her vacation home. I was on my own and it was up to me to clean up the mess. I did not want more fighting. We would never have a coming together of the minds. I would never get an apology. I would never get a hug. And I would have killed for just a hug. I was alone, a scared little girl.
I decided to walk away and be done with it. Let go. Forgive. Rebuild. I didn’t want to let her ruin me this way, or ruin my legacy. I didn’t want to be known as the girl who was broke. The girl who once believed she and her mom were the same soul in two bodies. I was deeply ashamed and embarrassed. I wanted her gone and that was all I wanted. We had to have a legal parting of ways. I needed her to absolve herself of my career and all future earnings. I needed her to sign an agreement saying so, and I needed my lawyer for this, so he could draft up the paperwork. I would have to tell him everything. Well, almost.
I remember calling Eric—the same Eric who had come to my show in San Diego years earlier before I was signed. He had been with me ever since, though we rarely talked once my mom took over. He was surprised to hear my voice. I had no idea how to start, so I just blurted it out. “Eric. I’m broke. I’m in debt. I need my mom out of my life and I need you to draft something that she can sign.” He was dumbfounded. It took him a while to catch up with my words. Everyone in the business knew my mom and I were best friends. We held hands everywhere we went. The first thing he asked was whether I was okay. I was so surprised by the tenderness it brought tears to my eyes. It was hard to be seen like this, even just a little, and I was unprepared for empathy. Tears began to flood down my cheeks. “Not really,” I said weakly. “But I’m dealing.”
A few weeks later I sat across from my mom in the conference room of Irving’s office. Irving, Lester, Eric, and I sat on one side of an impossibly long wooden table. On the other, my mom and her lawyer. I shook with adrenaline and fear. She sat still. Her hair freshly dyed blonde. Her capped teeth pearly white. The same Buddha smile. Hands folded in her lap. This was my mother. This was the woman I had known my whole life and loved dearly as life itself, and yet never knew. And this was how it was all to end. As the lawyers spoke, my mind drifted back to the days in San Diego. Her bedroom was painted in a pearlescent white that shimmered. Her bed was white and ghostly, and sheer drapes fluttered in the breeze when the patio door was open. It felt like the inner sanctum of a palace. We would lie on her bed, that warm wind playing with our hair, laughing like schoolgirls. Sharing secrets. She would hold me and pet my hair and it felt like the sun was shining down on me. God how I loved that woman with my whole heart and being. And it almost killed me. And still there is such a sad and tender girl in me who tears up thinking back on this same image. I would always be a child. I would always love my mom.
When it was all done and decided, she looked at me for the first time that day, and said, “I look forward to just being your mom now.” I knew better. I never saw her again.
I think about my son reading this one day. I think about what I tell him every night: Mommies always love their babies. I will always be your mommy. I love you when you are angry or happy or sad or silly. I love you all the time.
This is not always true. Some mommies don’t love their babies like that. I can’t tell you the tears I’ve cried to see who my mom really is. I can’t tell you about the pain, and how my heart to this day screams to have a mom in my life. But I know that it is not safe with her. Every day I miss having a mom. But I don’t miss Nedra. I will always want a mom, the concept of what a mom is. But I don’t have that. I never did, no matter how hard I tried to fool myself. Nedra is not that. Reality wins, and I’d rather see the truth than stay in love with a fantasy.
THE INFINITE ACHE
disoriented
standing in the shadow
of what yesterday
was a great brightness
in my life
so sure the brightness was forever
that I’m confused now
by the feeling
that shadow is all
there is left
how could this be?
/>
yesterday I knew the sun
it was so present in my life
that I was sure
I could never be unsure again
so happy that I just knew
there could never be
sorrow again
worst of all
ashamed
feeling like a bad child
cast from heaven
by some deed I did in my unknowing
I search for my badness
so that I may expunge it
so I might feel the grace of sunlight on
my face again
shame robbing me of the
true gift
often I have been gripped
by the terrifying fist
of a sadness so complete
it shut out the sun entirely
like an eclipse
I had landed
on the other side
of myself
a stranger to me
. . .
this sadness has come and gone
since childhood and so
ever a student of nature
here is what I learned:
there is nothing wrong with me. nothing.
in fact, my sadness
is the result of something right
I am not just body but also spirit
and so it is true in reverse
I am not just spirit but body
and my body has the same salt
in its cells as the ocean does
and is under the same influence
as all living things
the physics of being an organic being
on earth mean I cannot escape
the natural rhythm and order of things
by praying it away
and shame only locks me out
of my experiencing the gift
paralyzing me with fear instead
of reaping the benefits of the cycle
sometimes the tide is just out
but it always comes back in
sometimes hibernation is required
to build and prepare for a new season of awakening
sometimes there is devastation
fire burns it all down cleansing allowing rebirth
there is a wisdom in death
and we experience a shedding of our skin
many many times in life
and in fact the more committed
we are to living
the more deaths we experience
along the way
loss of friends who no longer feel like
who we have become over time
loss of self, even
loss of “girl” as we redefine
ourselves as woman and mother
loss of fertility as we redefine ourselves
as matriarch and goddess
wisdom keepers and doers
free of small children and able
to focus on self after so long
. . .
loss of boy as eros consumes
loss of eros as husband emerges
death of child ego as manhood
must take root
redefined by the need to no longer
be the center of the family
but the supporter of wife and child
rediscovery and redefinition of self
as husband and father die within giving way
so that
the next phase where self must be
attended by self and self alone
may come fully into realization
when elderly
and so many deaths in between
as we re-create who and how we want to be in the world
I have learned to treasure the
eclipse of my soul
to let myself explore fully the infinite
ache the sorrow when it washes over me
for to resist is to miss it
and to miss it is to not fully grasp
what is next in my life because I
struggle so hard to keep what was
and this is truly painful
hanging on is much more painful
than listening in the darkness
for my future calling to me
let all else fade away for a few moments
spend some time with sorrow
see what it is asking for
there is a deep wisdom in you
tapping yourself on the shoulder
asking for some attention
it asks quietly at first, but if ignored
it will demand you listen
by creating so much discord you must
finally pay attention
it will not be denied
for to deny it is to
be buried alive
inside your own flesh
as your inner life and outer life
become so out of sync
drastic changes must be made
to rectify them
make them!
live!
give yourself permission!
write so you may see
the snakeskin of your soul
as it sheds
read the scales so you may see
who you have been
and honor it
then get excited
even in this time of mourning
for something new your way comes
nothing is wrong with you
you are alive and living and growing
if we are truly pushing ourselves to learn
we are reborn
many times in one life
have the courage
right now
to sit in your sorrow
in your silence and know
something is right with you
your body is working beautifully
it is experiencing a longing
from your soul
and making room for something new
in your life
it is emptying its self out
getting rid of what no longer serves
tune your ear to what is next
trust your body to do its work
nature knows its job
trust it knowing soon
you will be full again
(never doubt this—it’s a mathematical certainty—the
only mystery is the quality you will be filled with, which will
be determined by the quality and creativity and the thoroughness
of your grieving)
turn your ear toward it
so you may calibrate
to the level to which you want to rise
bring your consciousness
to the moment
don’t numb out
don’t escape
don’t rob yourself of the gift
so that you may better choose and guide
and inform what should be next for you
get to know the exact nature
of your discontent
for only in becoming intimate
with what we lack
may we know what to replace it with
be vulnerable enough
to want without knowing if you will receive it
dare this much
engage your creativity
let your mind daydream about
how you wish it to be
imagine the face of what is unborn
and have the courage to name it
don’t rush
for you are pregnant with yourself
a new you
and it has its own gestation period
because you cannot
force nature
only nurture it
twenty-six
brilliant resilience
It was a huge risk to make 0304. When I’d originally come up with the concept I thought I had all the money in the world, and had never before let money govern my decision about what direction to go. With “Intuition,” I made a song I loved even though it was manipulated into being. It was still an authentic part of my soul and I was proud of it and believed in what it said. Knowing how much I needed the money made it surreal. So much was on the line, though I never doubted my direction. It was a risk in terms of the media or those who did not follow my career closely. My real fans saw it coming. I had experimented with loops on my third album, This Way, with tracks like “Jupiter” and “Serve the Ego.” I began doing dance remixes. I was pushing myself. I felt if an artist was put in a box, it was their own fault for not being willing to break out of it. Now was not the time to safety up. I had to define what being a sellout meant to me. Being a sellout was doing what everyone expected of you, if it went against your own instincts or heart. I could have done You Were Meant for Me 2 and the press would have loved it and said I was being true to my roots, but I would have felt like a sellout. Only we know when we are being true to the small and quiet voice that whispers from our soul. Very few on the outside of our skin are in a position to know. Bob Dylan and Neil Young taught me that. The fans will know the difference between changes made of contrivance versus authenticity. And if they didn’t, I would. I knew it would be controversial but I was tired of being controlled, of being told as a woman that I had to hide my sexuality to be considered smart. I doubled down on my instincts.
As usual my label heard nothing until I turned it in. Ron Shapiro was still my champion at Atlantic, along with Craig Kallman, Judy Greenwald, and Andrea Ganis. They all believed in it and my vision, and we went for it. I went to Europe to tour, and while I was there my label called me to say “Intuition” was at the top of the charts. My video, which I thought clearly articulated my satirical comments on pop culture, was widely viewed but also wildly misunderstood, which tickled me to no end. It infuriated people to see me dolled up. It was polarizing, although I felt it was in line with my values—to question, to seek, to explore. Regardless, it became a performance piece, illustrating the mindlessness in culture and the fight for irony alongside the fight for truth alongside the right for sexuality alongside the right to just have fun. I remember talking with Clive Davis about writing for an artist of his, and even he said no one wants to see this generation’s Joni Mitchell wear a miniskirt. It created a huge debate, and that was all I could have hoped for. I never hoped to tell people what to think with my music; I hoped to start a conversation so they could think about it for themselves. My experiences at this point made me more determined to never be dogmatic in my music. I was so relieved my single was doing well. God knows I needed it to be. I had done it against impossible odds, and I would slowly get back on my feet. I would never get back what I had lost, but I would be okay.