How/who/what tf am I? Chapter 1

An origin story.

As always, you can listen to this essay instead by clicking the link below.

Chapter 1: Childhood.

I was born in Raleigh, NC to two philosophers and their gang of chosen family. This upbringing was a joyous one. I was encouraged to have opinions on everything, and great pleasure was taken in debate while making a good semantic distinction would earn you praise far greater than getting a good grade in school. My parents helped me dissect the lyrics of Joni Mitchell and appreciate the humor of Steve Martin. We went to plays and concerts all the time, and everyone practiced their instruments every evening. My parents instilled in me a ruthlessness of meaning that still shapes my songwriting today.

I was obsessed with performing as a kid. And luckily, I went to an incredible public elementary school that had an extensive arts program. We did a musical and a Shakespeare play every year. We had a dance teacher, drama teacher, music teacher and a strings and winds program. In elementary school! It was insane. I took piano lessons, flute lessons, Irish dance and modern dance outside of school, and in the summers I went to a musical theatre summer arts program.

The stage has always felt like the right place for me. Why? A theory I’ve entertained is that it’s a place where my social hyper-vigilance can actually be allowed to do its job. Something in me is always trying to take care of a large group of people and shepherd them through a collective experience. Being on stage allows me to do just that. My friend Charli once said, “I need to regulate the room to regulate myself,” and I felt that hard. I’ve never felt nervous on stage. It’s the opposite. It’s like part of me that’s stressed all the time can finally chill out. Here’s another way I think about this. When I’m on stage, the worst thing that could happen is I mess up a performance. Some people find this terrifying. I find it comforting. That’s the WORST THING that can happen? How many times in life is that the case? Usually WAY worse things can happen! But when everyone’s calm, looking at the stage, having a shared experience, that’s truly the worst case scenario, and having lived through the reality of messing up on stage many times, I can tell you firsthand… it’s fine.

As I left elementary school and went to middle school, a change occurred. Part of it was the school, part of it was me, but I began hating school and embracing an identity of “bad kid.” My grades plummeted, along with my trust in authority figures. I still participated in middle school band and practiced my instruments every night, but I was definitely becoming disillusioned with formal education of any kind.

My middle school in Raleigh was called Carnage Middle (I kid you not) and it was a large public school with metal detectors on the doors and rules about not wearing gang colors. This public school was split into “academic teams” like so many public schools whose high-SES parents had successfully advocated for their kids to be treated better than others. So there was this palpable class divide situation. Multiple schools existed within one building where some kids got different teachers and different classes, ostensibly because of they were “academically gifted.” I was in the “highest achieving” academic team, but had I stayed at Carnage I probably wouldn’t have lasted long in that echelon. By the end of sixth grade, I despised the place and my report card was straight D’s.

When I was 12, we left Raleigh and moved to Columbus, OH, perfectly dividing my childhood and my teen years geographically as well as temporally. After touring several possible schools, I told my parents I wanted to go to the private all-girls school we’d seen. It was sort of a surprising choice for me, but I was under the impression that this was a school where students took academics seriously, and I wanted to be around intellectual peers, and find a way to like school again. Looking back, I REALLY should have tried to go to the arts middle school we toured. But I didn’t. I went to CSG (Columbus School For Girls). And I fucking hated it. It wasn’t a serious academic school. It was just a rich girl private school. We had to wear uniforms, and I’d test the general appearance norms and policies by adding insane jewelry (like a combination lock I wore around my neck for a month) or makeup, or taking the “free dress days” way too far by wearing fishnets as undershirts and black lipstick. It was the era of JNCO jeans and long wallet chains and I was INTO IT. My bad kid persona only solidified more in an environment that was so intolerant of it.

I still practiced flute and piano every day, though. And I would teach myself Fiona Apple, Tori Amos & Joni Mitchell covers and play and sing constantly. My brother, Paul, played guitar and the two of us would sing harmonies on our favorite alternative rock songs of the moment. Our Lady Peace, Jump, Little Children, Incubus.

It was an era-dividing year for the world as well. On September 11th, 2001 I remember a teacher coming into our class to tell us that there had been a terrorist attack on the U.S. and we all needed to gather in the big central room of our grade’s floor. They wheeled out a tv and turned on the news RIGHT before the second plane crashed into the World Trade Center. The whole grade screamed in unison.

In addition to a sharp analytical lens, my parents instilled in me the values of radical politics and activist participation in social justice movements. I remember one day, somewhere around this time or maybe a little later, when my parents wanted me to go with them to an anti-war march, and I didn’t want to go. My mom said, “This is church for us. When you’re older and live alone you can decide what you do, but in this house, we march.”

I just looked up the date for when the technical beginning of the war on terror was. Turns out it was October 7th, 2001. That was the day the U.S. bombed Afghanistan and began what would be a 20 year war, depending on how you define such things.

That was also the day I wrote my first song. I didn’t record it, and unfortunately, I don’t remember it. But I remember tiny snippets of it. It started… “My breaking voice is calling you to me…” and it was a plea for peace; a wish that we, as a country, not multiply the harm by bombing another country.

That would be the last political song I’d write for a while.

In Chapter 2… we’ll talk about the teen years where this kid wrote a lot of really intense songs about really lame guys…

But before we end this edition completely, let’s talk about my hopes and dreams for this space

This is a place for me to write, to share, to think out loud. To recount anecdotes, to offer opinions, to whine, to synthesize, to make comparisons, and to be as honest as I can be.

I want to find that balance between in-process and finished. And I want a place to dive deeper into my reflections than I feel called to do / able to do / allowed to do on social media. I want to share snapshots of my ruminations with you, ideas that are finding themselves, moments that seem significant, even if I don’t yet understand the significance. I want to share in a way that genuinely helps me reflect and learn more about myself in the process of sharing. Writing does that for me. Writing is how I think.

I will only write about things I find interesting, and over time I hope to understand what you find interesting, too. Please talk to me. The void is so loud when it’s silent.

What you can expect from The Larkstack

I’ll be honest that I’m still learning substack and finding my flow. This will be a process, and I invite your feedback about how it’s feeling for you on your end!

For now, here is my plan for content.

1. Every Monday, I’ll be sharing a weekly essay/newsletter that will be free to everyone!

2. These posts will also include ✨Bonus Content✨ at the end that’s only available to paid subscribers. It might be 📝 more writing, ✅ content recommendations, 🎙️a voice memo, or 🖼️ a piece of art I haven’t released anywhere else yet.

3. I’ll also share announcements about my artist life, like shows & new music releases.

4. All of my writings will also be recorded on voice memo, so you can listen to me read what I’ve written if that’s how you’d prefer to digest my thoughts and opinions.

I invite you to tell me what content you’d be excited about! I genuinely need your help figuring out the overlap of what kind of content I like making and what kind of content people like consuming.

Here we go. Announcements!

I have two brunch shows coming up!

April 21st Pajama Brunch Show in Oakland, CA - almost sold out
May 12th Pajama Brunch Show in NYC

Hooray! Come see me and say hi!

And with that, I bid you adieu, and leave you with this ✨bonus content✨ which is the first recording I ever made.

In debaucherous camaraderie,
🪶Rachel Lark

For more…
🎶 Spotify | 🖼️ Instagram | 💝 Patreon | 📹 Tik Tok

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✨Bonus Content✨

This week’s bonus content is the first song I recorded. I wrote and recorded this song when I was 14. It’s called Happy With Me. We’ll get into the story of its recording in Chapter 2. Paid subscribers can listen to the song below.

Get bonus content and even more perks by signing up on Patreon🔥