Inspiration

To write. To suffer. To relieve. To focus. To complete. To care.

James Baldwin: “Something that irritates you and won’t let you go. That’s the anguish of it. Do this book, or die. You have to go through that. Talent is insignificant. I know a lot of talented ruins. Beyond talent lie all the usual words: discipline, love, luck, but most of all, endurance.”

This month, for the first time in over 10 years, I finished a complete song. Three verses, a bridge, and chorus. It was easy. But it’d been so hard for the last decade.

For many reasons, composing was anguish.

Rather that creating beginnings, I created ends,

Finishing stories before they’d even had the chance to begin.

And so, light would become dark, every word to the page.

30 years endured, persevered, survived.

To write, to grow, to share, to be, to live.