A Day in the Life: Mia Alma Blog Entry #1 - Simona writes

Nazareth July 20th 2024 10:25pm -
Mia Alma has been something I’ve been working on since 2014. It used to be called Moon Child. Then another band took this name, and I decided to go with a play on “My Soul” in Spanish which is Alma Mía. But to make it a name, and to play on the fact that I’m nuyorquina and los nuyorquinos are always assumed to speak a sort of gringo Spanish anyways, I said okay— let’s call it Mia Alma. It’s supposed to not just represent me, it’s supposed to represent everybody. The collective experience of life. A celebration, a comedy, a tragedy, a union, a beautiful statement, a whisper, a wave, an oscillation, the binary code, etc.

We’ve been sitting on an album for 5 years now. It is an album we recorded and wrote in Mexico and New York. The masters should most likely be done this week. Right now - I’m living in Nazareth area.

As a Jewish/Spanish(Andalusian)/Latin@ person— it’s not always so easy being on this planet. A few years ago I went through a very serious health scare and surgery, which brought me closer to G-d, and I stopped being able to resonate with a lot of people. It took me about two years to be able to return to my own music, especially the album which felt so intertwined with everything dark that happened to me in September/October 2019, when I was at my sickest. I added a lot of things to redeem this music— and in the end, a lot of that darkness was in my head. pffft artists.

At times I prefer to conceal myself, conceal my identity, conceal my insecurities. But being an artist in this day and age— and in any day and age, this doesn’t really help one to genuinely be successful. Maybe to be mysterious, but certainly not deeply successful.

I still believe success is subjective, however.

I often find that I’m terrified of recognition for my Jewish heritage and for living in this country. But I love the Middle East, and this is the safest place for someone like me to be. If I’m being perfectly honest, I love this country, I don’t care what it is called. I would live here no matter who ran the country. I’m grateful to feel safe in this country. I feel safer here than I do in New York in a lot of ways. And like I can actually push my music here and no one is going to tell me that I’m the reason why everything is wrong with the world. I don’t feel this way in New York, and it’s very painful for me because I love New York. I know New York like the back of my hand. I have been a street lurker, a subway rat, a Manhattanite princess, a Brooklyn reject— a chasidic Jew, a latina in the Heights, etc. To find more solace in the streets of Nazareth and Nazareth Illit, although I feel closer to God, I’m pained to be so far away from the 1 train. But I’m very grateful because no matter what the people in Tel Aviv and Haifa say, this is a very very very beautiful part of the country.

I love everyone here. Everyone. That’s what Mia Alma is supposed to be about anyways— recognizing everyone’s humanity in this place we call Earth. And I’m human too.

All I wanted to write in this post was about my day today. But I guess this being my first entry, well, I gave a little bit of history. I guess this is something I’ll do from time to time. Talk about my past experiences as well.

Today I went to the Old City of Nazareth with my guitar to sit with my Latina friend in her café. She’s engaged to a Nazarene native. I played a lot of Gipsy Kings. Trista Pena, Habla Me. I’d like to play out more, but I’d like to do a lot of things. I’d like to start a podcast. I’m doing this blog post. It’s a lot. I’d like to create more content on Instagram as well, but like I said, I like to conceal my identity to some degree because sometimes it feels like a dangerous identity to have (being Jewish and American living in technical Israel) and I just want everyone to live in peace. I don’t want military borders (and who came up with the idea for borders anyways (¬､¬)). I want to go to Syria and see the churches. I want to go to Jabal il Druze. I’d like to see Beirut someday. I think about this at least once a day. I’d like Palestine to be an autonomous state that would be easy for someone like me to visit, and for there to be some sort of system even reflective of an EU situation between Palestine and Israel and even the other Arab countries. I’d like Palestinians to have right of return and for the Israeli military occupation to end. We cannot turn back time. We can only work with what we have now. But all of the politicians don’t have me optimistic.

I try not to be too political in my instagram posts, but maybe I will talk a little bit more about social dynamics here in the blog. This is my blog, right? I just want to make Mia Alma about healing, I don’t want it to be about politics. I feel that life is so short I just want to make people happy. I want people to smile, and breathe, and hug each other and fall in love, and make peace. I also had a fear for a long time that my fate would end in a similar way as Victor Jara’s. Now i do not think this is where I’m headed, but I worried about this for a long time. Google Victor Jara Chile Golpe del Estado and you’ll understand what I mean.

Anyways, going back to my story about today. Today I felt a bit different internally and though I could have gone home earlier, I decided that I wanted to wander around the Old City for a bit and continue hashing out music covers. Passing Mary’s Well or “The Eye of the Virgin” 3in il Adra, I saw that there was a wedding going on in the Orthodox Church. A few days before there was a funeral service, so it was interesting to meditate on this contrast. Rest in peace Munther.

One day a funeral, the next day a wedding. This is life.

I will say though, I do love living here. Sometimes I feel like a lost soul, and sometimes I really feel like I’ve finally been found. I don’t really talk to anyone about it very much though. I keep to myself a lot, even though I’m very friendly. Sometimes I feel like if I let the public know all parts of me— people would be upset. I’m still looking for ways to synthesize all these different parts of myself and how to connect them to Mia Alma without feeling judgment from others or caring about the judgment of others. It’s a big theme in my life, getting over this. I think that’s why I am doing this blog. I also like that only people that care will look at the blog. This makes me happy.

I’m also getting into this blog because a good friend of mine suggested I write about my time here. His family has been here many many many generations. And he LOVES Falesteen (and there are no words to convey the depth of this relationship he has with Falesteen)— but he respects Jewish (and all) life. And I felt like, well, if this lovely human is telling me to blog about my experience here, and to be open about it, I might as well do it. No fear no fear…….

I liked the Jeep cars with the flowers in the photo. Maybe someday we can make a music video with a Jeep car and some flowers. I’d like Mia Alma to be so successful that revenue can be inverted into projects that benefit the communities of the people involved with the Mia Alma project. Life is fleeting and our time on this planet is finite, but we might as well make it a better place while we’re here.

Anyways, time to passively meditate. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C9hMaqQFKXk I’d like to make music like this. Turn Mia Alma into a true healing experience as well. The sacred frequencies in the new music are emphasized, but I’d like to go even deeper with it.

Much love and a blessed day for you dear reader ♡