Size Matters...

..and scope, and perception. The world is smaller- and way bigger and

I love that I'm alive now, creating in this massively shifting, scary, exciting 21st century.

I'm curious about everything-

and always drawn to connecting. I want to understand other perspectives.

What's happening?

Why do we give up?

Why do we hold on in those times when everything feels impossible?

What drives me to do this with my life?

I love changing my lens to see through other eyes, overlay your view and mine, explore where the edges line up, or overlap, or completely change the image.

With songwriting, I'm looking for ways to help us relate to each other- to find common ground. When people ask me to write for them, I write their stories, but for me, personally, my communication puzzle is;

How can I sneak a lyric into your heart that moves you?

What makes us care about someone else's struggle?

How can I make you stop beating yourself up?

-And do a better job of letting go of old hurts that hold me back? -And Isn't there a faster way?

How can I use my own damage in a positive way, and maybe heal myself through the process of creating music for you -

How can I hold on to, or Find the humor in bad situations I've experienced and get to a place where we can all laugh together about the stupid things we sometimes do- or the horrible things we see other people do that impact our lives- How can I frame it in a relatable way?

When people we don't know, far away from where we live, have a problem- it's our problem too. That's actually a good thing. Although this is a horrible time for a whole lot of people, it's a really good thing for us to remember there are a lot of reasons to care about each other.

Pretending things don't exist doesn't make them go away.

Closing our eyes doesn't keep us safe from whatever we're afraid of.

As this pandemic spreads throughout our big beautiful world and people begin to panic and fear interaction with each other, we are being forced to accept that we are all connected.

We are going to have to grow to survive.

I think that's awesome. Every day is a good day to grow.

Let me be clear; many, many people in this country have been working tirelessly in an effort to get important information and proper response plans in place to help save lives, contain this pandemic and keep us from experiencing the worst outcomes. Unfortunately, our Federal Government and most of the folks holding power right now have been putting short term gain over long term care of the people. So here we are, totally unprepared for what's about to shake our nation.

The stock market does not have a vaccine for Covid-19. Neither does a tax break for rich people who keep their money in off-shore accounts. (not that I'm judging- I wouldn't mind being a 'rich people')

In my experience, growth is always pretty painful, but this is really gonna hurt.

Pretending it doesn't exist won't make this one go away. We have to pay attention to what's going on in the world and respond to it, build on the information other countries have gathered as they've faced this new challenge, be responsible and accountable because people who don't have the power or the access to all of the information are trusting the people they've elected to protect them from looming dangers..

I was flying to London on March 25th. That's been cancelled.

So I'll be working in my garden, finishing some new songs, and trying to build out my way-too-long-neglected web site.

Please be kind to each other and help each other out.

Wash your hands, don't cough on folks, stay home if you can, and lets see if we can all expand our hearts; make them as big as this amazingly diverse and vibrant world we're all sharing.

-Because size matters - and we can all do better

Love from New Orleans-

Leslie