Beautiful Solos

It’s 4am. I’m up. It's not that I can’t sleep. I’ve discovered morning—the early morning before anyone, before the sun. It’s the beginning. It’s the start. The day is clean like new snowfall where no one has yet walked. It’s a church and a cabin in the woods. It’s immediate transportation to my childhood. It’s a magic carpet. I can be inside my head, I can fill the space I am in with my thoughts, my imagination, my wonderings.

Thinking long thoughts is like deep breathing or stretching wide and tall with a yawn. When I put the music on to write, I understand creativity. I hear the rhythm of life. No conflict interrupts me. I have the luxury of time. I can play and write, write and play. My fingers can tap and dance across these keys, and those words can sneak right past my internal editor to find their way to the screen.

The self conscious and the selfish need tight spaces to thrive. The stressed and cranky need to be pulled tight. The awful, the painful, the feeling sorry for myself slink away. They don’t like all of this blissful space. They fade away when I have room to think long and deep and wide. The big thoughts and the funky music get me typing in tune and in time. I become the music. I know joy, especially when I’m living in the middle of it.

If you want towrite a better song, give yourself the space to think those long, deep, and wide thoughts. Then play your heart out.

Some songs are for orchestras. Some are for string quartets. Some are for rock bands.

Some songs are beautiful, magical solos played in the early morning before anyone, before the sun.

—me strauss Letting me be