Recently, a friend wrote me and asked about my creative process. I am surprised by what my own hands typed out in response. I found myself exploring the relationship between healthy, loving community/ partners and the creative process unfolding of service and products. I decided to share it here. Enjoy the buried treasure.
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HI Friend
You ask great questions! Thank you!
Ah, the creative Process.
For me, songs come from living life. They “show up,” like a cat that comes over to you while you are having coffee at a cafe. They brush up softly. You notice them. They give you those eyes. “I’ve been waiting for you.” They call to you. Maybe they show up every time you eat at the cafe. Maybe they follow you home. Then, they follow you around. They start to take a shape and form. You become friends, you and these musical notes.
That is how songwriting is for me. Actually, that is Life for me.
What I am saying is, this did not begin as a song for anything or anyone. It did not start as how to I write about “XYZ.” It began as I was “living and breathing” in the Community. As I experienced, harmony, conflict, laughter, stress, resolution, clarity with in the community over time, I started tickling the ivories. Ask John, he watches this happen all of the time. A few notes become a melody. I plop on the piano bench for 20 minutes. Then I walk away. Days later, I am drawn to write again… and play over and over.
When a song grabs my heart… I play it over and over. I become obsessed with it. I only discover later, “oh, this what I am expressing. This is who it is for.”
In this case, as I felt the dynamics of the song, I realized it was you and me in our group, or my late nights crying as I listened attended to my own healing process, or tension I witnessed between others or within myself as the community “gives birth” in a raging storm or gentle seas. In the song, you can hear either the “resolution” of either stoney silence or tender open-hearted communication. It’s never “done.”
So earlier this week, this song asked to be shared. I have no idea when this is going to happen. I just respond. By then I knew it was a song for the community. I often feel great resistance to releasing a song. I hesitate. But, then the call to respond kicks in. When the video was “complete,” it felt incomplete. That’s when I dedicated it to my friend. The very last second. I often bounce the final whatever off my husband, John. It just felt authentic, vulnerable and rooted when I added his name.
There it is dear one.
Hope that is helpful.
Love and Hugs
SusanJoy
Healthy, Loving, Relationships Enhance our Creativity
