where these songs came from

In 2013 I was forty-four years old and struggling to find enjoyment in life. Nothing had prepared me for the grief I felt after my mother died in 2011. For two years, I tried an endless string of activities that, according to the many books I read, were supposed to improve my mood. At one point, I even made a daily checklist of work, exercise, sleep, hobbies, and social time, carefully tracking whether I had done all the things that were supposed to make me happy. It was not enough.

Eventually, I stopped trying to fix how I felt and simply went through the motions of my life. One of those activities was flying back to New York after a business trip to California. Viewed from the airplane window, the sky was clear and blue, the scene expansive and calm. I knew it was a moment I would have enjoyed earlier in life, but instead my throat tightened and I turned toward the window, trying to hide my tears from the passenger beside me.

I was traveling alone, with no one to talk to, so I reached for a pen and began to search for words. I wrote a short poem about how the blue sky seemed gray, about my mother being gone, her ashes scattered in the sea. That poem became a song, the first I had ever written.

That was over twelve years ago. I have been writing and recording ever since, and songwriting is now a central part of who I am.

This record brings together songs written across that entire span of time, with a wide range of subjects, moods, and musical arrangements. There is the darkly comic “Misery Store,” about someone who wants to spend a Saturday night thinking about dying; “Still Here,” about unconditional love and acceptance; “Dishwasher Love,” about how small gestures add up to create deep connection; and the title track, “Dive into the Wave,” inspired by Rumi’s image of a wave in search of the ocean, not realizing it is already part of it. Taken together, these songs form a chronicle of my inner life, including its struggles, celebrations, and moments of clarity.