Onward

Custer State Park, Wildlife Loop

Unsettled. That’s the best way to describe my recent feelings. About life, about writing, about everything. I’m unsure when it started. Maybe it was when I looked at my readership analytics and saw the size of my audience. Small. Tiny even. Or maybe it was when I danced around a subject because I feared offering offense. Or maybe it was just a day of doubt about a song, a thought, a word, an essay, a friendship. Doubt. The confidence killer. I was ready to quit. Sit home. Tend my flowers.

That’s passed, however. Last night, at a house concert I attended, a stranger thanked me for a song I wrote about my wife and for my writings on grief. And another couple complimented a recent piece on the floods. My resolve, which had been stiffening before, stiffened even more, and made me remember a promise I made to myself when I started. I was going to write. And I was going to write even if no one read. And I was going to write about things that interested me, concerned me, gave me pause.

So, going forward I’ll write my songs, and I’ll write my essays for whomever wants to listen or read them, even if it’s no one, or only one. And I’ll write and sing about things that interest me. And I’ll no longer apologize for my music as I’ve done before. It’s all art and I’ve been stringing words together for a long time and it feels as though I have something to say. I’ve seen things. Read. Lived. And it feels a nice way to spend my final days, writing, making music, and occasionally helping someone make sense of the world.