There’s a particular stillness that shows up after I release a song. Not celebration, not relief, not a let-down... although all those things can be present.

It’s a tiny ember I carry around for a few days.

Nothing is on fire.  There is just a little song glowing out there in the ether,

Putting European Skies out on Friday had that feeling. I started that song on the River Seine, after walking the Camino Frances.  It was a way to put into sound what I had experienced out there on the trail. 

We worked on that song, recorded it, and held onto it privately for so long, shaping it, living with it, letting it settle in.  And then release day arrives and I do the part that never feels natural: I make requests of people. I ask friends, family, listeners to take a moment, to pre-save, to share, to press play, to meet the song halfway.

It’s vulnerable every time. Because what I hope for is some human connection, that I have made something relatable and that for them, it was worth the ask. 

Once it’s out, there’s a letting‑go. The song stops being mine in the same way. It becomes whatever someone else needs it to be. Like a piece of landscape they didn’t know they were missing. 

It’s like most things really, we do something, say something, share something, and we may or may not have had an intention behind it. And, once it is out in the world, it does what it does and it is received or rejected according to the perceptions and permissions of those it touches. It slips our ability to keep it fully under our domain.

So here’s to quiet embers. Not a blaze, not a spotlight, not a rocket launch. Just a steady warmth that comes from knowing the song is finally out there doing its own work.

Thanks to everyone who’s taken a moment with it.