What Songs Travel Toward Us

 

I sat on the roof with my guitar, plucking at it. I wondered what the people passing by thought of me: was I a lazy bum, idling away my evening? Was I a hard-working man unwinding after a long shift at the factory or the office? Was I a slightly overaged student, taking a break from studying some esoteric point of paramecium anatomy or Venetian law?

Probably none of them thought I looked like a hard-working man who didn’t especially like his job, sitting at the office engaged at his work. There it was, though. I had long since reconciled myself to the fact that as a singer I would never be more than a fairly decent amateur who would be tolerated at a coffee shop or a Saturday market. The only way I was going to make a living in music was as a songwriter, grinding out tunes for other people to perform, much better than I ever could.

I could write music at a pretty fast pace, fast enough to bring in enough to live on. I did better when I allowed myself time to let the music come to me, though, instead of chasing after it. If I just sat here like this, comfortable on an afternoon in late May, and plucked at my old acoustic Sitting Bull (because if I ever got into a fight, he was sturdy enough to use as “a coup stick”), there was no telling what songs might travel toward me.

Besides that, it felt better to just leave myself open for creation. It was the best feeling in the world when a song came and sat in my lap and said, “Play me”, or tapped me on the shoulder and said, “It’s time I was played.”

So here I sat, plucking and listening and waiting. I’d give it another ten minutes, and then I’d begin grinding out unrequited teen love for Chicken Clock 

 

https://onbeing.org/poetry/cross-that-line/

The Magic Eight Ball says, "Cross that line."