Nothing is at last sacred but the integrity of your own mind. If we follow the truth, it will bring us out safe at last. - Ralph Waldo Emerson
When did you feel most alive recently? Where were you? What did you smell? What sights and sounds did you experience? Capture that moment on paper and recall that feeling. Then, when it’s time to create something, read your own words to reclaim a sense of being to motivate you to complete a task at hand.—Sam Davidson
Speaking of the task at hand, I think this #Trust30 exercise is getting out of hand. It’s beginning to interfere with my work (which is why the last couple posts have been so short). I am ready for it to be over, not because it has not been valuable, but because there are other things I want to focus on.
Have we not talked about feeling alive before? In case you missed it, read this post. Or this one.
*sigh*….With that off my chest, I’ll move on to writing.
The guitar sits in the corner, its case in plain sight, waiting for me to get done with my other work. It seems like other priorities always work their way in ahead of the music. But then, one evening, I find myself done early, with no responsibilities or obligations that can’t wait until the next day. It is a delicious opportunity. It is time to let the songs that have been reverberating inside my head all day finally go free.
I walk over to the heavy black case. The buckles pop as I flip their silver tabs upward. Folding back the top half of the case, I grasp the smooth, rosewood neck and lift the guitar gently out of its soft green bed. Raising the guitar upward, I press my face to the opening in the guitar’s flat top and inhale deeply. The sweet smell of spruce and rosewood fills my mind with visions of the shop where the guitar was carefully fashioned from freshly-milled lumber.
I start playing, slowly, some low, mellow songs to get in the mood. At first, both my fingers and my voice resist my mind’s direction, but they warm up quickly as the harmonious vibrations resonate through the hollow body of the guitar and into the room around me.
Gradually, the pace and the intensity of the songs picks up to where I am playing and singing more freely. The music starts to resonate from within me, from somewhere deep. The force of the songs continues to grow until I abandon myself to the music. Time slows down, and I forget where I am. I sing without inhibition, without fear of being heard or being judged. It is my voice, my song, my release, and nothing else.
The moments of this kind of freedom are rare, but when they come, they are renewing. They make me feel alive.