Standing On The Edge

There I was on the massage table face down. A place where thoughts and facts have no gravity… where ideas float in and out of consciousness. 

I know you’re supposed to try to clear your head when you’re getting a massage, but I can’t. I think about stuff that makes me cry. The loss of my parents…the passage of time…I’m sure it has everything to do with being in a place where you are supposed to give up control. 

On this particular night I was thinking about being a songwriter. “Why is that sad?’ you might ask.  Well, the business has changed so much I feel like I hardly recognize it any more and I am confused. Am I writing what I think they want me to write instead of what I feel? Is what I feel in fashion? Are there so many more writers now than places to sit in this game of musical chairs? Have I overstayed my welcome? And then I had the scariest thought of all: Songwriting has been the love of my life.  Is it time to break up?  

My tears fell through the hole in the table onto the floor below unbeknownst to the lovely Thai lady who was trying her best to take my troubles away. 

But the next morning I felt better. Things are always better in the morning no matter what. I realized I haven’t run out of gas.  I just need to put some fuel in an additional vehicle. I could never stop writing songs. There’s so much more to say…it just doesn’t necessarily rhyme or include “whoa whoas” or post hooks. 

I ask myself…what if I wrote that book and nobody read it?  But then I reconsider…Isn’t that the way I felt when I wrote my first song? I wondered if anyone would hear it. I was navigating the same uncharted waters. But I kept rowing. Is fearlessness only for the young? Maybe in order to stay young,  it’s imperative at any age… to stand on the edge of a cliff and dare yourself to jump.