In search of song

The dam is broken. The water is flowing freely. What held me back is gone, nowhere to be seen. The mad galloping crush of water passed long ago, there is no violence, no forced and adamant words. My spirit flows in gentle rivulets along its natural course.

These days, what excites me is music. It is almost the only thing I care about. Making it. Listening to it. Living through it.

This weekend, I performed in two mid-sized theaters, but my path to this point has been so erratic as to not even seem a path. I did not set out to get here and yet looking back I see how I was grasping for this all these years.

Here I am, a musician now, a budding songwriter, a happy-go-lucky minstrel. I would have liked to have traveled more directly to this point, but I am an extreme believer in things happening the way they must happen.

For many years, I have thought of myself essentially as a writer. Today, I prefer to think of myself as a songwriter and music maker. There is one central reason for this: I am tired of being alone and worn out by too many hours with notebooks and computers, jotting down my own thoughts which then go nowhere.

Making music, on the other hand, is a communal act. I enjoy rehearsing as much as performing. It doesn’t matter what kind of music I play, I just like the making of it.

And I love not being alone. I am so tired of being alone. I don’t think I can take another day of writing in captivity.

Hence, music. A new song goes out into the world and is the centerpiece for a beautiful moment. People, if they like it, can dance to it, sing along and sing it themselves. And most of all there is the music, which carries the words. There is no more powerful communication than music. Music cuts across all barriers, all languages, all cultures. It reaches people in the most mysterious ways.

I love words, but they seem so lonely to me without music and I am tired of being alone.