Counting Up The Days (Camren)

After (Changes)

Soon after the ecstasy of the People's Choice Awards came one of the worst days of my life followed straight after by one of the best since the after count up had started. Day 28, thought of by most as Doomsday, and for a few other ignorant and cold blooded beings as the joyful day of POTUS' inauguration. Once again I feared the media, this time not with the constant dread over my own name being brought up but for one even more repulsive: the moron whose birth name is Donald Trump. I didn't turn the news on, focusing my energy on both my flight to Washington and the creativity which coursed through my body in form of art the more angry I got about the latest undoing the American population had brought upon themselves.

It was a new kind of anger and sadness and uselessness, polar opposites to what I had felt and continue to feel when Camila left both times round. The anger was worse in the sense that it affected so many more people than just me, that so many more lives would be diminished and seen as inferior, and that the repercussions would be monumental on a global scale. However, it was also a preferred kind of anger in the sense that the pain could also be shared communally, the people around me understood and although Dinah, Ally and Normani internalised that grief more and preferred to not get physically sick by a decision which was out of their power to change on their own, the sentiment and the feeling was a more global one. And at least that thought made you feel less lonely.

So the day progressed in an attempted haze of numbness which I achieved through art, music and, to put it candidly, some pre-flight greenness, and thankfully soon enough I found myself lying in between freshly cleaned sheets, awaiting both two friends (who mean more to me than they'll ever know) and the sun rising in the morning so we could go out and show the new government what they would be up against.

And that is indeed what we did. I am so proud to be able to say that 'we' encompassed millions of people on a global scale coming together to defend a common enemy and show that the silent masses will no longer remain mute. On our own battlefield in Washington DC I can testify that there were over a million people fighting for their right to freedom on their own soil. I will treasure the day forever, between the speeches made by both celebrities and full time advocators that usually don't get provided as big a platform, as well as the multitudes upon multitudes of entire families, mothers and daughters, couples and so much more walking down the streets of the capital proudly raising up their signs and voices so much so that they all managed to merged together into a single body of determination, strength and most importantly communal love. Despite what anyone else will try to tell you, love is the ultimate worldly magic.

I couldn't have slept that night even if I had been bribed with endless sums of money, my body was pulsating with adrenaline and still feeding on the ecstatic energy I had witnessed all day long. So the three of us joined the throngs of people who, mirroring our own feeling, could not sleep; and therefore the celebration of love trumping hate continued well into the night. It was the sort of party I had not experienced in a long time: where closeness was the only sort of alcohol being served and love was the sole drug being taken. I wish Camila had been there to witness it with me.

The night had to end at some point however- so, as nature dictates, the sun eventually chased the moon away as it has been doing for millennia; and so the celebrations were brought to an end (although as I'm saying this it was definitely more to do with the 9 o'clock flight I had to be on than anything related to nature, the break of day hadn't stopped me before).

On the plane back across a country that had now so obviously been divided, the day before and the monumental impact it was already having really started to set in. Suddenly however, after what seemed like a lot less time than it should have been, we touched down on the other side and the dream-like state I had been in was clouded over by the view of palm trees and tall grey buildings placed next to each other as if it were Mother Nature's own doing. We had arrived, and this wasn't Miami- it was LA again, and the only word synonymous to Los Angeles is work.

If I'd already said we were falling into the same old routine after the award show, now- a few days later- all the rest of the routine we had been doing for the past four years was promptly incorporated. There was an extra part too that for the first time was also added in, something we had been sorely missing out on all these years and the lack of which had ultimately lead to the parting of ways with one of our members: writing time.

Over the years we have all had a complicated relationship with our sound, and how we could stay as authentic as possible when the messages in the songs we were putting out weren't our own. This time, finally the men in suits had consented slightly. This time we would actually get to sing lyrics that we ourselves had had a part in creating, to dance to melodies that had been born in our presence and with the help of our own ideas.

Obviously, like always,most of it was still an illusion of freedom, the shackles of the industry had us just as tightly bound, the only difference was that this time round we had been given some cream of sorts to soften the burns and soreness that arose from the chains. It all sounds gruesome, I guess it is.

Days 31 through to 39 (had a month already passed?) were spent in studios, regularly being treated as ignorant and inferior by writers who had prematurely assumed we had a voice but no words to put it to use with. As much as possible though we were able to prove them wrong.

The first few days started with a sort of therapy. Ideas we had from our own autobiographical stories and words we had never been able to formulate because of stigma or repressed memories or fear were slowly and timidly being put forward. As the days passed and the once rusted gates were oiled, there was no stopping the flood of love and hate and everything in between that started to tumble out of all of our mouths in a sometimes incoherently desperate fashion.

Some of our words were being allowed out at last and, as the formations of sentences dispersed into the air around us, I think I can speak for us all when I say that the weight, which was slowly easing on our bodies was a relief I hadn't felt in a long time. Not since the other person who allowed me to speak some of these words had ceased to be my mouthpiece, but I refused to think about that. That was still a part of the story too ingrained in me to let out in front of other people, I would have had to rip out some of my organs in the process of letting the repressed emotions Camila abandoned me with completely free, and during that initial period of creativity I didn't feel like going through all that pain (again).

And so we used up our words as if they were oxygen until our entire rooms was filled with the invisible literature we had just created. At that moment I think we all realised in our own ways that words and letters are like atoms: they are what make up our entire world, they are the pillars of our society and without them we would be nothing. Most of our ideas however were soon discarded- for being too deep, too dark, too personal or too not-part-of-our-contracts.

Then the next phase started: it occurred in what we quickly named the tiny rooms. They could just about hold four people in each, a small recording booth in the corner and a couple of instruments I had never yet had the chance to play around with such as synths and drum machines sprawled out around the room. If the room was small to begin with, all the extra equipment made it minute. I wasn't complaining though, I only had eyes for the synth in the corner; finally I would be able to come up with stripped music of my own regardless of whether it would make the album's final cut or not. For a singer to meet, for the first time, the objects that allow the songs they sing to be sung is a pivotal moment, and I did not under appreciate it.

Soon, between the four of us and a dozen or so other writers that periodically came and went, we had an ever increasing pile of lyrics and melodies and sometimes even of both put together ready to hone down and embellish. Studio life in the City of Angels was making me soar, although all the side effects of living in the concrete jungle were starting to become tar to my wings and fire to my lungs.

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Hiii, I apologise for my extended leave and only a short chapter to make up for it but hopefully I will be back a bit more regularly now (: It might just be me but I kinda feel like the story is getting a bit repetitive and hence less eventful by this point so I'll try to spice it up in any way in which I can, and if any of you guys have any other ideas or things/events you would like me to focus more on I'd love to hear about them!

And as always, thank you for continuing to read this story ((: