I feel like it’s a really common thing for us singer/songwriter people to sometimes just need to take a little break from ourselves. As a solo folksinger/songwriter for nearly 15 years, I find myself going through my musical life like an old mine train. I’ve hit lots of peaks and valleys and while it’s always a shaky, bumpy ride, for the most part it’s a lot of fun. Discouragement is my biggest enemy and I find myself battling it constantly. Whether it’s playing a gig with nobody there or venues that won’t communicate or book me, I find myself working really hard to try and not let myself get discouraged.
Sometimes my musical life just gets a bit heavy and when I start to feel that discouragement and disconnect with my music, I just put the guitar in it’s case, put it in the closet and just let it be for a bit. For many that might sound like giving up but in all honesty, it’s not giving up at all. I feel that stepping away from it and giving us some apart time makes me remember all the good things about music. It’s like that old saying: “Absence makes the heart grow fonder.” Just like any relationship, time apart gives you the time and opportunity to reflect upon your relationship and allows you the chance to analyze things and remember just what it is you love about that relationship.
Playing every Wednesday at the Red Light Cafe Open Mic has been my constant and stress free connection to my music but I’m feeling that love again. I’m feeling that lil sheepish grin whenever I look across my room and see my guitar case. I’ve started getting to know her again and we have been enjoying some great times together. I managed to complete a song that I stared 6 months ago and never finished and wrote a brand new one as well. My relationship with music is one that started some 26 years ago and the older I get the more I’m finding myself understanding just what makes this relationship last. It’s not even “like” a marriage. It IS a marriage and it’s a marriage that I have managed to make last through thick, thin, good times and bad and all else in between. So to all my “creative” friends out there, don’t let creative walls and droughts get in your way. Maybe it’s just time for a little break. Trust me, it truly does work and you just may see for yourself that absence makes the heart grow fonder and no matter what you will always find your way back to where you need to be.
