Warming up to the Idea

Every day, I try to take this beautiful walk for about 20 minutes to maybe a half an hour. 

A giant field has been set aside as preservation land. When the grass grows tall enough, it is cut and baled as hay for the local horses. Meanwhile, it provides beautiful, unobstructed views of the local mountains and hills. Some of it reminds me of Montana and the Bearpaw Mountains (which are much smaller than the Rockies, and jut out from and otherwise lightly rolling terrain.

Very little traffic comes along the road, and so many people use it. 

Walking their dogs, or strolling with children. Joggers, bicycle riders, and in the winter cross country skiers and the occasional snow mobile rider show up. 

 

I'm starting to get a feel for the energy around here, and it's already had a creative effect on things. Writing songs, always playing an instrument. Writing in general (like here) is a healthy outlet during these COVID times. 

 

 

Start Making Sense

 One of my favorite quotes from Wallace Stegner is "We write to make sense of it all"

The truth to that is what has helped me over the past several years.

It was this time a year ago when I was saying goodbye to my father for what would be the final time. He had been living in a memory care facility for the final year of the nearly-five years at River Ridge in Avon. The last few years were very hard to watch. But watch I did, just as I did with my mother several years earlier. Fortunately, my father and my mother both went peacefully. It was just getting there that was anything but peaceful. Literally, the day after my father passed, COVID-19 was forcing rest homes to shut down, and it was a struggle just to get his belongings out of his room.

 I had two shows that weekend, and then all clubs were shut down. I had nothing to do but sit at home and wait for several months before I would play any sort of working events. I didn't write any songs however. I was learning a lot of cover songs, but no material of my own was coming out, until nearly a year into the shutdown, when I was tagged in a songwriting challenge that takes place every February around the world. My partner and I jumped in, and together we came up with over 10 songs in less than a month.Writing quickly forces me to draw inspiration from all kinds of places. Some I want to go to, but don't know how to express simple (or complex) emotions. Some I would rather not go to, but have been waiting to be expressed, and now I had a chance. So I went for it. All of it. 

In a few short weeks, I dove deep into a pool of sadness, and joy - I wrote about my father, I wrote about my grandfather, I wrote about the breakdown of my previous relationship, and the journey I had gone on after that.to find myself ready to write new chapters in my life, and find love anew. After much soul searching, I ultimately discovered I was in a happy present, but was still carrying around some very sad memories from the past. I guess, once I start writing, it's like the floodgates open, and all that volume spills forth. 

But it is a strange process. When I read back a lot of my lyrics, they often don't align with specific events in my life... they often merely capture a mood, and the details within the rhymes could be about anybody.

Another Stegner quote that has always struck me was, "To write good Fiction, you must be Truthful"

Maybe my quote should be, "Write about something you know, and you could be writing about someone you've never met." 

Winter on the Wane

 

Temperatures are ready to soar into the 60s this week. It certainly feels like Spring is on our doorstep.

 

A few weeks ago, things looked like this. 

Making it through another winter is never easy for me. I am no fan of shoveling snow, or driving in it. We ony had a few major snowstorms, luckily, and I didn't have any shows, so there was no worries about driving. I manage to do a fair amount of walking, and taking pictures. Also wrote over 10 original songs with my partner.

I also spend a lot of time playing guitar.

I own a bunch of them.