Waiting For You

These Are the Days - Pt. 2

Aug 14, 2024

This is a follow-up to a piece I wrote here about Lauren Daigle.

If you’ve never heard of her, take a listen below.

“Someone once told me true freedom is giving people the permission to misunderstand you, and that was one of those moments.” - Lauren Daigle

This was a life-changing moment for me in 2020. Lauren was riding a bicycle through the Louisiana French Quarter when she heard the singing of outdoor worshippers at a “Let Us Worship” revival event. She hopped off her bike and joined in. The mayor tore her down verbally, like only an autocrat could do during that time.

By Christmas, New Orleans Mayor LaToya Cantrell advocated for Daigle’s removal from the New Year’s Eve special put on by Dick Clark Productions. Cantrell wrote, “This is not who we are, and she cannot be allowed to represent New Orleans or the people she willfully endangered.”

As my dear mum would say, “who’s she? the cat’s mother?”

Freedom was on trial with the wave of a sceptre, the slope no longer slippery.

As I was thinking about these last four years, I asked myself what was the most important, most consistent life lesson I have learned so far?

The sun rises. Darkness comes. What’s in between?

Waiting.

Listening.

For everything.

For family, friends, jobs, justice, creative desires, intimate relationships, as Lauren’s song Waiting is all about.

Discipline.

During the summer months of the pandemic, mostly from May to September, I clung to ~~the couch~~ nothing, stared at old family shows and repeats of Jeopardy with no answers. Blankly staring up, staring out, staring, shutting the a.m. light out of the east facing blinds, waiting to disintegrate, never going to bed, or anywhere, I found my love of Lauren Daigle. Neo soul crying anthem to dead space.

Hello God. Nice to meet me again.

Little did I know Lauren Daigle was quietly trying to find her own voice.

I had one. Somewhere.

The two-time Grammy, seven-time Billboard Music Award, and four-time American Music Award winner didn’t begin smoothly. She was timid and insecure with the level of players around her. Although successful in her own right, Daigle dove deeper.

The result of a worldwide pandemic, isolation and a severe panic attack became the result of a personal evolution.

No gas left in my tank, no gas going into the tour buses, or rides to the recording studios, stages - for literally any musician and performer around the world, Lauren sat down and began penning and dreaming songs with some of the best songwriters in the world. Amazing talent, that made her run to the bathroom, hide and beg God to “give me a song.”

I’ve said in my writing “He gives us songs.” He gives us ourselves in the waiting.

A seven-hour panic attack brought on by “a deep state of paranoia” inspired her first ballad, Thank God I Do. “I didn’t know what was going on, but two people sat with me through the night, my mom and one of my friends, and they were so kind, so calm. If God had to show up for me through two people, he chose those two, ” said Lauren.

Second song, Be Okay, was co-written with friend, singer-songwriter Ellie Holcomb, another pure raw talent with an intoxicating voice. Be Okay was the result of meeting a child with cancer. The hope of heaven.

Were we going to be okay?

Look Up Child, from Lauren’s previous and third studio album, entered my obit on the couch. When we saw her at the Honda Center, this past April, You Say raised teenage arms upward, eyes closed, singing life in the nexus of struggle. Tears filled our eyes.

A mystery, unlike Taylor Swift, Lauren Daigle keeps her personal life extremely private. Her path points away from herself and to her infectious joy. Asked political questions, she sheepishly doesn’t have much of an opinion, once again giving the seediest among media permission to misunderstand her. She is my spirit animal. Despite my age.

Lauren Daigle Vol 1 and 2, released in two parts during 2023, marked the most defining work of her career. She struggled after two solid years working and recording through the pandemic to name the album. Her hope was to transcend her Christian label into the world. God agreed.

No stranger to waiting on that crack of loft light, homebound for two years, as a teenager, pouring herself into every song, from its inception, her friends suggested she “self-title.”

"It took those records to find my voice, to find the voice that I can stand on in front of people and say, this is what I love. I love this sound. I love the way that we recorded this record."

Saying of producer Mike Elizondo, “I didn’t have the language for what I was trying to say and Mike fully got it.” He traveled with Lauren to New Orleans and realized there was so much more to her music roots. This is her sound. Her most “precious piece” she said.

The pandemic put many of us in a position of “wait.”

Waiting, for me, was the best thing that came out of the worst.

I would write me. I would write my life into existence again. Maybe I would be found by my family someday.

There have been other times in my life that I did the same thing. I learned the art of photography for the absolute love of it. I found, in the patience of waiting, God had good things for me with an unexpected career. If you are picking at straws for something to happen fast, “to be seen,” as I experienced with a few people grabbing onto me during my photography career, zealous to work faster than they could learn, using my waiting as a fast ride for their gain, I can tell you it’s not sustainable. It’s a crash and burn to the next fast track.

Same goes, especially, for trying to control relationships. It never works.

Waiting is losing control. Letting go. Waiting is worth it.

Waiting is “waiting for you.”

Fellow Pacoima raised, Mike Elizondo, producer/multi-instrumentalist, mostly bass (I spent my formative years growing up in Arleta, Pacoima, Ca) puts down the melodic bass undertones on this song, leading up to the last five notes. Wait for it. If you don’t know me yet, I’ve been married to a longtime bass player…

THE FAMILY WE KEEP | by Deborah T. Hewitt

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