It’s a new year resolution, not a new year’s resolution, right? Like it belongs to me, not to the year? I guess I don’t know (and I taught Advanced Grammar at the college level last year). Other things I don’t know:
How to consistently blog
Who it is I’m actually talking to right now (this is a real know-your-audience challenge)
What good any of this will do
Which leads me to my next point: Who cares? This is what I’m learning about making things in my middle age—the question what good will any of this do is really only an excuse to not do anything. It does me good to make stuff. Just ask Sarah what it’s like to live with me when I don’t make stuff. Which leads me back around to the beginning: My new year(‘s) resolution is to make something every day. Like this post. Done. (I usually start my resolutions in May, so really I’m on top of this by making this blog post on January—checks calendar—seventh). And to pay for my lateness—something I made last November, but didn’t offer to the world because I wasn’t sure what good it would do.
In November, I went up to my neighbors cabin for a couple days to try to do some writing. It was slow going—I told Sarah it felt like busy-ness detox. One of things that I did to jumpstart the process was to use this new(old) guitar I got to record acoustic versions of The Birth of Birds. The process was fun—I tried to think as little as possible about it, to give myself a lot of grace, to take only a couple of passes at each one. When I got done I uploaded them to a private playlist on Soundcloud and sent the link to Sarah (and to the guys) and began wondering what to do with them—whether or not I should release them, how to release them, etc. etc. Scheming.
Then in early December my computer turned off and wouldn’t turn back on. Brand new one, too—or two months old anyway. I had dropped it once, but nothing seemed to happen, and then a couple week after the drop—black screen. Nothing. Hard drive was going to have to be wiped. And it was like a weird and dumb sign: Stop overthinking it. Or maybe stop overthinking everything. Sometimes it’s best to just make something and let people in on it. I imagine sometimes that’s not true too, but for something like this, I can’t quite imagine a situation. Anyway, I’m obviously still thinking about the ramifications of the sign, but it felt extra heavy at the end of a really long year and so my resolution became: Make something. And then share it.
And even now, I think: Why? (And also, “But one of the songs got cut short!”) To which I respond: It certainly won’t cause any harm. And that’s a surprisingly high bar—putting things into the world that won’t cause harm. But also, it might do some good for someone out there. And that’s reason enough, I think. So here is the incomplete and only copy of The Bones of Birds. Special thanks to the Lief family for use of their lovely rustic cabin. You can find it on Air BnB…
In case you missed the link above, here’s The Bones of Birds.
