I am feeling very emotional sharing this because I have been holding back this release for a very long time - over a year in fact - because this song means the world to me. I had to be ready. I decided not to force it, but now at last, the song feels ready to make its way into the world.
The song came to me after a dream where a woman with chestnut hair was singing to me. It was my long-lost grandmother, a woman I'd never met because my dad was adopted. I only discovered who she was after my father died.
The Bombshell
It was a beautiful day in August 2023, and I was travelling from a fun family holiday in the Cotswolds back to Bristol. I'd have just a few hours at home before flying to New York to perform at an industry showcase. I had recently arrived home when I received the news that my father had passed away in the early hours of the morning.
In a state of shock, I concluded there was no way I could continue with my trip. But my family were extremely insistent that I must still go. They said it's what my dad would have wanted, he was so excited for me. But it felt so overwhelming. Packing my case was a feat of mental strength. My body and heart felt so heavy. I was feeling a lot of resistance about going, and then I realised: I didn't have to decide right then.
I tried to get some sleep but couldn't settle. Eventually I fell into a troubled slumber. My alarm woke me an hour later at 2am and I couldn't move. My boyfriend, who had fallen asleep beside me, got up and tried to encourage me out of bed, but my body felt like lead. I remember sitting up and feeling like I just needed to be here in my safe space, with friends close by, surrounded by love. I just didn't want to go.
My boyfriend gently tried to encourage me, but I was being stubborn. Eventually he suggested I get up and go with him to get petrol - he'd need it in case I decided I could still go. That felt more achievable, so I pulled myself together and stepped out into the street light and into the car, leaving my luggage behind me.
That drive changed everything. The purr of the car engine as we zoomed along the tree-lined streets, and the street lamps forming dotted lines of light as we whizzed past, had a soothing, hypnotic effect on me. Suddenly everything seemed possible again. I felt calm as we went from one petrol station to another, trying to find something open. I didn't feel perturbed. I felt open to every potential outcome. Either I'd make it, or I wouldn't. What would be would be.
We finally made it back to my place over an hour later than my planned leaving time. We sat outside in the car and my boyfriend, who was used to flying long haul, told me that I wasn't going to make it - long distance flights close their gates significantly earlier. I sighed, before suddenly saying, "Wait, my first flight is only to Amsterdam. I'm changing there."
He said, "Well, in that case you might actually make it at a push."
At this point I just felt it was worth a try. I ran in, grabbed the luggage I'd thankfully managed to finish packing before bed, and we left. Surprisingly, we hit traffic at 4am en route, the main route to the airport was closed. As we found ourselves at a standstill on a country lane in a row of traffic, I wondered again if I was actually meant to go. At this point it suddenly began to feel really important that I made that flight.
I made it to Bristol airport, checked in, and ran. I made it to the flight in the nick of time. I was the last person to board.
That journey was also calming and soothing. It felt good to keep moving. If I ever go through a shock like that again, I'll take a bus, a coach, a train, or a plane. It felt like a holding place for my grief, a kind of limbo where for a while I didn't have to do anything. Just exist. Just stare out the window and not have to talk to anyone.
Manhattan
Arriving in New York was surreal. I was grateful that I'd landed in an English-speaking country as I didn't have to do any unnecessary thinking. It was enough just to have to find my way to the apartment room I'd booked in Manhattan.
The first few days in New York were a whirlwind. I met my team of mentors: Grammy award-winning producer Mike Mangini, with whom I was learning music production; platinum-selling songwriter Coley O'Toole and industry vocal coach Melissa Mulligan, with whom I took a day's songwriting workshop the day before the showcase; and Skip Glogan, production wizard and synth master and another of the incredible tutors on the music career mastermind course I was doing. I also got to meet so many other like-minded artists and musicians who were also performing at the showcase on my second day in NYC. After the showcase, a few of us went to eat together and then went to a beautiful rooftop bar with an epic view of the Empire State Building.
As you can imagine, it was quite a lot of things happening all at once. I was grateful for them, even though it was exhausting as well. I loved Manhattan, but I didn't find it easy. I struggled to meet my dietary needs, I couldn't find anywhere that sold health foods. It was lucky I'd brought my meal replacement shakes with me. I survived on them for the first few days. It was so helpful. I didn't have to force myself up and out to buy breakfast every day, I could just add the powder to water and drink. It dealt with both my hunger and thirst without me having to struggle to face the world too soon each day.
The place I was staying in was weird. It looked nothing like the photo, which made it seem cool and comfortable, but it was very basic, just a room in a shared apartment. It was what I could afford. At first I didn't see any of the other people staying there, but later figured out they were night workers. It felt really weird being in such a transitory space, and I wasn't comfortable.
But I had friends in New York. I'm part of an online women's group, and many of these women were living in or close to New York. When they found out I was coming over, they were keen to meet me. Whilst I was in Manhattan, I had a friend come over from New Jersey and we took the ferry together over to Staten Island so that I could see the Statue of Liberty.
It was totally exhilarating and totally exhausting. As you can imagine, I was carrying this underlying burden of sadness that most of the time I couldn't even share. I didn't want to bring others down or make it all about me. So I canned it and made the best of it.
After three nights in Manhattan, I was fairly exhausted with just trying to navigate the city whilst carrying this extremely heavy heart that I was so effectively masking. But my friends held me so well.
The morning I left the Manhattan apartment, I had several hours before I'd be able to move into my next stop in Brooklyn, and I had no idea what I was going to do with my luggage. But my friend Claudine welcomed me into her home next to Central Park for breakfast, where I was able to leave my luggage for a few hours before I had to move. This buffered my transition from one difficult place to my next stop, which would be much more soothing.
But more than this: I was finally able to be honest about what I was going through with someone who understood. I was able to be vulnerable and soft and open my heart up about what I was going through while she showed me around Central Park. I was held in my pain, and I'll never forget that moment of kindness - the healthy breakfast after eating sparsely for days, the gluten-free bagels, the blueberries, coffee and juice, and the soft, kind-hearted friend who took me into her home and heart. I started to feel a real connection to America.
Brooklyn
From here I moved on to the most perfect apartment in Brooklyn, which thankfully I had all to myself. This was my time to grieve.
The evening I arrived in Brooklyn, another amazing woman arrived to greet me: Jen. She came to the apartment I'd moved into and we went together to a local restaurant and chatted over a couple of glasses of wine. It was so nice. My friend is a doula and she had that nurturing, motherly energy that I needed right then. I felt held. That night I slept like a baby. It had only been a few days since my father had died, and I needed that friend right then.
The next few days I got to explore Brooklyn. I also had a lot more friends to meet and a lot more travelling up and down that beautiful island to do, but right then I just needed to sit with my feelings and grieve. I was so tired and so much was happening so fast.
During my time in Brooklyn, I managed to relax a lot more. I fell in love with the leafy streets, the parks, the venues. I felt really at home there. I made friends with the subway and realised there was no way to navigate New York without it. I also discovered the ferries, and being so close to the port, was able to make good use of them.
I also managed to meet an old friend of my family, Joris, who was living uptown by the Hudson River. Although it was a long journey, it was worth it for me. He told me things about my dad that I'd never have otherwise known.
Like, I never knew how much I was wanted. It had never even occurred to me, probably because my dad had never talked about it, that he was yearning for people who he shared blood with. So he really wanted kids. And I was his first, so I would have been the first person in his entire life that he shared a blood connection with.
I guess it can be tricky to put yourself in the shoes of another, even one so close. When I think back to my early years, I remember feeling a close and special connection with my father. But things became difficult as he became depressed and angry with his life. I felt that connection become severed. And I internalised that, typically, blaming myself for the distance, for not being loveable enough.
Gosh, writing this is tough. It's difficult to know where to move. I'm telling the story in a very linear fashion, but my thoughts are not like that. I'm travelling down so many lanes as I try to piece this all together.
Rockaway
My final stop in New York was Rockaway Beach.
The day I had arrived in New York, I had received an email via the MyHeritage site. Earlier that year, my brother and I had received DNA results which revealed who our father's biological father was—our father had been adopted. Since then, I had been in contact with various cousins and uncles from that formerly unknown part of the family.
It had taken me a good few days to acknowledge this new email with the whirlwind I was experiencing. But when I got to Rockaway, I opened the message. It was from another family member, and within a couple of messages back and forth, we established that we were connected—that she had been close to my biological grandmother, who I had never known anything about before.
I arranged a call with this cousin and walked down to the beach to take it. I felt the need to be by the sea.
As I was talking to her, my cousin began to tell me all about my long-lost grandmother, explaining to me that she had been a singer, like me. That she had also travelled to America. That she had been working as a singer in the 1940s, singing on the radio every week.
It was a very touching moment. I was amazed to hear all this about the woman I had never got to meet—would never meet, as she had long since passed. But I was overwhelmed at the connection between us. That she had been a singer, like my father, and me too. That the musical connection had been passed down to me. It was a relief in some ways to know who she was, although also extremely sad that we never knew each other.
The Dream
When I got home after the holiday, my grandmother came to me in a dream, singing softly. The very next day I woke up and started turning the dream into a song.
That is how my song "Lonely Part of Me" was born and I am releasing it on Christmas Day as a gift to everyone who has been patient with me, this song has felt hard to release, due to the amount of emotion connected to it, and I have found it hard to let it go. In the end though, everything has its time and now is this song's time. I hope you love it as much as I do. Merry Christmas 2025!
To listen to the song on Christmas Day please click here: https://marymina.hearnow.com/lonely-part-of-me
All images courtesy of RD Smith Photography www.instagram.com/racheldsmith_ports
