As most of you know by now, I spent lots of waking hours of the past two years of my life listening to people’s stories about DMB. With 13 years of DMB fandom already under my belt by the time I started So Much To Say (or, more accurately at the time, Still Here Dancing), I went into this project thinking I had a pretty good idea of what to expect. And in many ways I did. I heard all of the remembrances of stunning shows, tales of amusing antics within the community, and travelogues that I expected.

I knew there would be some emotion with all of this—after all, people connect with DMB’s music on many levels and, as we all know, death and loss are two of the big themes in Dave’s lyrics—but I soon came to find out that I wasn’t prepared. The one thing that really floored me was how many people used DMB’s music and the shows and community as a tool to get through difficult times. Really difficult times: the end of relationships, material losses, and even deaths. I was consistently impressed by how open people were and humbled that they were willing to open up to me. But that’s one of the things music does, right? It soothes you and opens up your world in small and sometimes big ways.

So, in tribute to that, I’m going to share my story, though it freaks me out a bit and I know I may regret it as soon as I hit this little publish button here. However, it only seems fair after everything everyone has so willingly shared with me. In terms of both this book and my own career, today, publication day, is a milestone moment, so it seems like the appropriate moment to do this if ever there was one.

I signed this book deal with Simon & Schuster in July 2009. It was a really happy time for me. At that moment I felt as though (finally!) all those long days I’d spent toiling away as an editorial assistant and all those sleepless nights I’d spent lying in bed wondering if I could ever really make it as a writer paid off. Who the hell gets lucky enough to write a book about their favorite band for a major publishing company? The whole thing was sort of inconceivable.

I spent the next few months happily interviewing fans, booking a trip to Italy to see some shows and do some work on the book there in February 2010 (Italy—another item crossed off my “wish list”—damn, I was on a roll!), and, from there, a summer full of shows and traveling and writing spread out before me. Hog freaking heaven—that’s where I was!

Then, in December 2009, right when I was about to get into the thick of writing, my little brother Nicholas died. Not only was he my brother, but he was also my best friend. Literally, he was the single soul in my life who I’ve always felt really and truly understood me. The person who could unfailingly make me laugh to the point where my stomach hurt so much I had to beg him to stop impersonating whoever the hell he was impersonating at any given moment. Among so many other things, Nicholas was also a musician and my most favorite travel companion.

My world flipped inside out and upside down within a millisecond of getting the phone call that he was gone. I didn’t really know how to process my loss at first. What I felt was much deeper than sadness—I felt hollow and numb and empty and as though the most important part of me had died right along with him. And I was pissed. In a completely selfish kind of way, really. Here I had finally gotten the opportunity to have this great experience and it was totally marred by this horrible thing that I couldn’t even begin to wrap my head around. Not only that, but how could I possibly write in this emotionally deadened state?

DMB has helped me during other dark times. I’ve felt lifted up from the buoyancy of shows when there have been other losses: break-ups, the end of friendships, and points in life where I’ve just felt generally lost. Also, I’d spent the past several months of my life immersing myself in other people’s stories about how the music had healed them. Maybe that will happen for me too, I thought. In a way, I expected this to happen—I was waiting for the music and the shows to somehow magically heal me. I’d like to tell you that happened. In some ways I feel like that should have happened. But I can’t lie … it didn’t.

In fact, sometimes the shows almost made me feel worse. Everyone else seemed so happy and celebratory that I often felt like even more of a sore thumb than I already felt like in those months that followed Nick’s death. Grief can be isolating—everyone else was having a party and I was trapped by this sort of all-consuming thudding hollowness that appeared to have settled in my bones. Logically, I know that everyone has to deal with death at some point. That so many people have it so much worse than I do. I can and could process that. But when it’s you going through it all and you can’t run from how it feels in the inside, it’s hard to be logical. In so many ways I was miserable as I was traveling around, interviewing people, and writing the bulk of this book last year.

That’s just the truth, whether I like it or not. But here’s what else is true …

Had I not had this book to write, I may not have had a good enough reason to get out of bed for several months. Literally. But I didn’t have that option. So, instead, every morning I got out of bed to do what I had to do to write this book. Was the experience what it would have been had all of this other stuff not been going on in my life? Absolutely not. But, still … rather than being taken down by grief, I: met hundreds of amazing fans from all over the world; I traveled everywhere from Padova, Italy to George, Washington; I randomly ran into Dave while crossing over a tiny little bridge in Venice as I drank a Capri-Sun box of red wine, and into Stefan while I was lost on a cobblestone sidestreet in Milan; I camped out under the stars, I listened to music; I found myself in the very surreal situation of interviewing Stefan on his tour bus as it rolled from downtown Boston to my home venue of Great Woods (sorry, I refuse to call it Comcast Center).

And, really, what better tribute could there have been for my brother, who is so intricately connected to my happiest and most cherished memories of listening to music and traveling?

It sounds dramatic but, in the end, this book saved me. Don’t get me wrong—obviously, I know I would have lived through the shitty year that was 2010 with or without writing So Much To Say. We all have our own personal tragedies and, one way or another, we all get through them, no matter how much it sucks when you’re wading through the muck. But, for me, writing this book is ultimately how I got through mine. And, lemme tell you, writing So Much To Say certainly beats curling up in bed for a few months.

I’ve given several interviews over the past couple of weeks. The answers I’ve given about the experience of writing this book have been honest, but they’ve only begun to scratch the surface.

What I’m trying to say is thank you. Thank you for letting me interview you. Thank you for taking the time to write and share your stories … or even just encouraging emails. Thank you for surfing over to this site. Thank you for sending a tweet, or throwing a thumbs-up on the book’s Facebook page.

Over the past couple of years, you’ve all been kind enough to share your stories. So, finally, this is part of mine.

Thank you for helping me tell this story that belongs to all of us. I hope I did it justice.

 

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This entry was posted on Tuesday, June 7th, 2011 at 12:12 am and is filed under Nikki's Blog. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Responses are currently closed, but you can trackback from your own site.