Listen to the full podcast episode Here.

Welcome to the first ever episode of an Indefatigable Artist.

 

I have been so enlivened with the adventure that awaits this project. I have gotten back to writing more diligently. I kind of took a break from writing for a bit after finishing Bleace Paradox. I had spent so much time writing those two novels that I need a break from serious writing. Since finishing Bleace Paradox in September 2020, I took a step back and focused on other creations, but now with the start of this podcast and the start of this third book, I am back to writing and it feels so good.

I am also excited to be trying something new. I have never done a podcast before, definitely a new area for me, working with audio in general has been new, but having now done both audiobooks for the novels, narrating and editing them both my self, I have become more acquainted with audio.

Without further ado, let's get into it! Today’s Episode is about Bleace vs Ryan.

In the podcast trailer, I talked about several life experiences that inspired this project. So I wanted this first episode to dive a little deeper into those and to also introduce myself to those who don’t know me, or those who knew me in a past life. The only constant in life is change.

 It’s like family members reading Bleace and thinking Orbie is me. My response is that all my characters are a part of me. But yes, there are a lot of direct parallels between Orbie and myself. Just like Orbie who changes his identity and even how he perceives himself, I too changed in my real life.

Life changes us. We either adapt or we die. We woke up today, with that simple act, we are already more resilient than the day before, if we choose to see it.

Who says we have to keep the same name our entire lives? How is that normal? Because it’s the way it’s always been done? Sure there are legalities to name changes, but I am more talking about how one is addressed. How they see themselves when they look into the mirror. Am I to hold the same name I had when I was an unscrupulous 16 year old who rebelled against everyone and everything?

 I was born and given this name. I didn’t choose it. Yet, for my last name, later on in life, I was able to choose that. I remember my mom asking me if I wanted to change it to Smith to be apart of the new family of her, my little sister and my step father. I vehemently said no and pointed to my birth mark on my right wrist, that was in the shape of an L, which for me always stood for Lannom.

 That is what a lot of people called me in middle school, think it may have started in wrestling, when coaches would call me, Lannom! I liked it.

 Let’s go back to middle school for a second. This is where the first life changing experience occurred, the one I referenced in the trailer.

 The first life changing experience I can remember growing up. Getting a head concussion when I was just 10 years old. It was the very first day of middle school, hadn’t even gone into the school yet. We were playing on the new playground. There was a hand slide that went back and forth.

 I saw kids were going on it.

 I went on it, and a kid pushed me really hard, I was really small at the time, short for my age and skinny. The kids who pushed me were much bigger than me. I held on for a couple of times back and forth, which the kids before me only lasted one push or two, I think it was the third push, where the kids were really trying to get me to fall off just as the ones before had. Fall off I did. I went flying off, my feet went straight into the air and I came back headfirst directly into the ground.

 Flash, BANG! Knocked out cold. Yet, I remember what happened very vividly. It was calm and silent. I see only a bright white lighted scene. Everything is just pure white and serene. Like I was in a computerized dream. There is a black locomotive train with in the distance coming straight towards me. It first appeared as singular black spec amongst the pure white scene. I pan my head left to the right and by the time I pan back towards the left the bright white light at the front of the train is about to hit me, I WAKE UP!

 

When I wake up.

I forgot everything that happened. I didn’t know where I was, or who I was. I had forgotten my name. When they asked me, I couldn’t think of anything to say. They called me mom in and when she walked into the office I didn’t know who she was.

Even now I am remembering things that were told to me. In looking back now, I can’t help by think about how freaked out my mom must have been, her only son 10-year-old me looking at her and not recognizing her. Not knowing his own name or where he was.

 

@bleace.com Indefatigable Artist Podcast Episode 1 is Out Now! #NewPodcast #ArtistPodcast #ArtPodcast ♬ Music In Your Heart (Instrumental) - BLVKSHP

 

I went to the hospital, diagnosed me with a head concussion and said I couldn’t go to sleep that night, that if I did, there was a chance I would go into a coma. Just wild.

 I at the time still don’t recall everything, and even that last sentence was something I was told later on.

 To this day I can’t remember that series of events or exactly what happened.

For me, it’s a blur. I remember the playground, and I remember the crowd of kids standing around me, freaked out, guess my eyes were wide open in a daze.

 Pieces of it come back, but not the whole thing, all I can remember is that pure white scene and the black train that is about to hit me.

 Years later, I had another concussion in the same part of the head too. I had fallen off a horse and hit my head. Flash, BANG!

 Again there was that all too familiar white serene scene.

This time I sat there. I had been here before, something about this time, wanted me to take it all in. I looked around to see if there was anything I could see. Nothing, just white. I pan my head again, and there was that pesky black spec off in the distance.

 The train crept slowly towards me. Again, right as it’s about to hit me, I wake up.

 I forgot everything again, but only briefly. I looked around the field for a couple minutes, then realized what had happened. I was always trying to be tough during this time so I didn’t say anything to anyone. Just like I had when I knew I had broken my arm. I tried not to go to the hospital. Then Gary, my step grandfather asked me to hold my arm straight down. I couldn’t, it hurt too bad, which was the case when you had a broken arm, he and I both knew it too. “Honey’ you’re going to the damn hospital, what are you stupid or something?” he asked me, grinning.

 I did the same when a donkey stepped on my knee and I didn’t want to go to the hospital, even though my knee cap was on the side of my knee and my knee was about 5 times the size of the other one. Tried to ice it and stay off it, but then I tried to carry cement blocks up some stairs and once again, Gary said, “honey, we gotta get your leg checked out before they have to cut it off cause of gang green.”

 I was so upset, because my cousins had come up to Michigan from Texas and I had been looking forward to them coming. Before that incident we were having the best summer kids that age could have. We were outside playing all the time, riding this 4-wheel vehicle, a Kawasaki Mule, it was called. We stayed out in the woods, until coyotes came to our tent cause we left food out.

 When I blew out my knee, all my fun was over. I had a cast on my leg from my ankle to my hip and had to use crutches for the next 5-6 months. My knee would never be the same. This happened when I was 11 years old, before the growth plates had closed, but I had partially torn my acl, dislocated my knee cap and partially tore my meniscus the cartilage between the bones in your knee.

 I can talk about the farm another time, will get back on track here about identity. The farm still occupies many a dream, which I plan to share more about in later episode es. So stay tuned for those, dreams are a great resource for creative material and inspiration for different creations.

 Back to the point of Identity. Bleace verse Ryan.

 

 

 For me, Having these two head concussions really put reality into a unique perspective, that I didn’t fully appreciate until years later.

 That driving question, what is reality? Living and Dreams, what is in between?

 Fast forward from those head concussions, the first occurring when I 10, the second occurring when I was probably 13 or 14, those years were all kind of blurry for me, but around then. But fast forward to 2020, when I am 30 years old. The time of yet another life changing experience that I mentioned in the trailer and the last push for me into this new identity of Bleace.

 The ultimate reason why I introduced myself as the host, Bleace, is that in my mind, Ryan died in that hospital when I had that heart surgery. There was a passing, and it’s a passing that I went through when I decided to go back to school and one of my first papers that I wrote started with the line, I killed him. I had to in order to survive. The killing then, was me growing to be an adult.

 Now, it’s forgiving. Forgiving myself for how I acted out, all the times I was wrong and wronged people that loved me. Forgiving myself for being a product of my environment.

 It’s what Orbie has to do in the book. He has to forgive himself and learn to love all the parts of himself, as they are all necessary, they all serve a purpose, they must all work together.

 Writing my first two novels, was really therapeutic for me. It allowed me to distance myself from all of what I experienced growing up. How for me, it was normal, but for someone else, it may be quite shocking and completely abnormal.

 Again, I ask, what is normal? Keeping your name, staying stagnant. Or living limitless, knowing that the universe flows through you. We are all made of stars. So many limits we place on ourselves, what is in a name anyway? Do you know it more than you know the presence of my energy? It’s very difficult for a person to change.

 

@bleace.com Happy Friday the 13th! #IndefatigableArtist #NewPodcast #ArtistPodcast ♬ original sound - Bleace

 

 So, for those who know me as Ryan, I feel that I have changed in so many ways that a name change, reflects that. Ryan had many flaws, angry outburst, fist fights, ripping doors off cars when you run out of gas in the outskirts of Manchester, Michigan. Rebelling against school so much he almost got expelled, had to take summer school inorder to get a diploma, couldn’t walk with his high school class that he had grown up with his entire life, laying the basement crying in shame for how he had acted, yet refusing to take responsibility for his actions. Eventually landing him in jail in Florida for being black out wasted at a concert at 8:30 in the morning, having stayed up all night two Jager bottles deep at 19 years old.

 Ryan now, is a character in my mind, someone with many flaws. Bleace is someone who recognizes those flaws and has learned from them, a process which is necessary in order to evolve and progress. All of which I will continue to discuss and share what I had learned over my life and how accepting change has lead me where I am today, exactly where I need to be, just as you are exactly where you need to be, whether you can see and appreciate it now, or you see it later on. We are all Going Further, One step at a time.

 

@bleace.com First Stream of 2023! #ArtistPodcast #NewLiveStream #IndefatigableArtist ♬ original sound - Bleace

 

 The phrase, Go Further. This has an infinite number of implications. Go further down your own individualistic path. Go further in any endeavor that pleases your soul. You woke up today, with that simple act, you are already more resilient than the day before, if you choose to see it and be grateful for it. You are here for a reason, each and every one of you listening to this right now are here for a reason, it is up to you to find out why that is. Why are you alive in this moment in time. what are you going to do today that is going to be left behind? That will live on after you make your final, transformation.