Desert Rain

After a very long dry spell, I think the music is back again.

I hadn't written a song—well, except for Not Dead Raccoon, which isn't a serious song and therefore doesn't really count—in over a year and a half. In fact, the frustration of sitting with my guitar and getting nothing had become to intense that I had not even sat down and attempted to write anything—even for just a few minutes—in at least a couple of months.

It was this creative drought that gave the lyrics section of my site its name, These Desert Lands.

A few weeks ago, I was inspired to attempt to write a song by a line from Whitney's journal that just seemed like it belonged in a song. I began to write the song, and it was done within three days.

I was utterly confounded. After a dry spell that gave every indication of making itself permanent, I had found the music again.

And I think it's back to stay.

A couple weeks ago, I had nothing. I could sit down at my guitar, and come up with nothing. Now, ten minutes brings fragments of a new song. Suddenly, out of nowhere, I have a new song completed and six more in the works.

It's funny; only a few weeks ago, I read a journal entry of Josh's about finding his lost quiet time again. I sympathized with his post, because I, too, have found that since high school, the large amounts of quiet time I used to have alone have disappeared. And I'm a person that really needs that time.

But like Josh, I, too, have found my quiet time again.

That's why I stay at the house for as many as three or four hours on Tuesday and Thursday nights. It's just me. Sometimes I clean. But ever since the music came back, most of that time has been devoted to playing and writing. On Tuesdays, Whit and Mo drop in on me for five or ten minutes before and after their choir rehearsal, which I enjoy a lot. And the rest of the time I spend alone, trying to capture the music in my head and translate it onto paper.

The music is back; it is a good day.