Sometimes you need a little night music … a little live music to remind you that you’re alive …
Here in Peoria Wednesday, I attended the opening 2022 concert of the Time Out series featuring five amazing female songwriters of the Blue Bird Cafe in Nashville, TN. It was a fundraiser for the Picket Fence Foundation, and I had a great seat behind Jim and Laura Janusonis Sniff, of Picket Fence and Blue Ridge Community Farm … as they were silhouetted by the stage lights.
I’m usually the roaming photographer at Blue Ridge and Picket Fence events, but this night, my body remained glued to my seat while my mind toured the universe of possibilities … and highways of my mind that had been under construction for far too long.
I can’t sing but I have a confession: I’ve secretly aspired to be a songwriter much of my life. I’ve been a poet since picking up a pencil as a child … penning such classics as “My mother has a nose, the color of a rose …” What? You haven’t seen that on a record album jacket?!?!?
Shame on you! No, wait, shame on me … I should have done it long before now.
This evening of listening to and watching songwriters bring their words to life struck a chord so deep within me that it pierced my tear ducts … in a way real life should. I typed on my phone blurbs of inspiration of the stories I’ve yet to tell, that I’ve been hiding from …
And I saw myself on stage telling stories through my poetry and compilation of words. People yearn for truth … the roots of life … our reason for being … the raw ingredients of our very existence. God has been tapping His foot for a long time, waiting on me to start thinking like the creative soul He created.
I’ve overwhelmed myself recently with the reams of handwritten and typed stories and poems I’ve rediscovered from my childhood … the intense desire in 1971 to understand a world I didn’t comprehend … the 1976 high school essays with compliments from my honors English teachers on my creativity … the early newspaper clippings with “well done!” scribbled by the publisher …
As one of the songwriters last night shared: just put it out into the world. That’s all I have to do.
I had to get past the image of “A little song, a little dance, a little seltzer down your pants,” from the Chuckles the Clown’s eulogy … to let my heart sing and my soul dance a lot more … before my song ends.
I’m spilling my soul and no longer thinking I need to mop up the “mess” I was leaving behind … No, it will dry and shine when I have the courage to leave it exposed to the wind that will carry it to someone who needs to read or hear it at the exact moment they need to find it …
And sing it in THEIR key of life … with no expectations or the need to be in tune with everyone else …
And you’re welcome that I’m not singing …
Hey, drop me a line at [email protected] or leave a comment below. I’d love to speak to your group, organization or company about working our way through the pain and challenges of everyday life. You want straight talk? You got me!
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