time and space

I’ve been trying to understand which stories I want to tell, need to tell.  Sometimes everything seems sharp and clear and I know exactly what I want to say and do, and other times nothing is at all clear, just a confusing mass of possibilities good and bad, where no direction feels like the right one.

It used to be so natural when life was overwhelming to grab my guitar, reaching for that elusive, delicate balance of words, rhythm and melody that would aspire to sound like what things felt like.  The alchemy of creation seems to me as deep a human need as the need to eat, sleep and breathe, and making something, no matter whether your medium is food, paint, words, fabric, wood or [insert your favourite raw material here] has a profoundly transformative effect.

I know why it’s been difficult the past few years to take refuge in the songwriting process, and I’ve finally come to accept this reality as part of my journey, which means I’m free to decide, or discover, what the next steps on that journey will be.  My guitar is out of the case again, and there are a few new songs, some of which I might record.  Plus I’m dabbling in a bit of collage (which has obsessed me from afar for most of my life) and some rudimentary printmaking … it feels so natural to just play with no preconceptions and just let the process lead me, and I’m starting to truly understand how necessary that is.

I encourage you to grab some of whatever turns your creative crank … and make something that’s just for you. (I would have put a smiley face emoticon here, but WordPress keeps inserting an emoji instead, so I guess I need to dabble in some rudimentary coding next.)

xo Lis