Margin
The Edge of Find Your Music & Play
The music doesn’t care what I look like;
It just wants me to play.
G.S.
Find Your Music
When I hear the word ‘Find’ I figure something has been lost and I begin looking. Flipping through sheets and scores of music brings my heart and soul to life. Reading the title or the transcription of notes, the song plays in my head. My emotions rev, and depending on positive or negative reaction - this is ‘my music’ or not my music.
In 2015, I built a music project called Ruby Road US. My lifetime career in advertising graphics was coming close to retirement. My wish to follow my dreams brought me to the spot to write motivational processes for musicians / singers. So I did.
The project took 5 years to create and build. From music lessons for a year to focus workshops to 7-day trials - the site launched on December 25, 2020. My digital courses became available to the world. My heart and soul, encapsulated on a digital platform, was filled with hopes and dreams of helping the shy and disorganized musicians to find their music. It launched. It sunk. It’s still floating out there.
The endeavor taught me some life lessons. I found out I love music but I do not love running a music school. I am a gypsy who must go where the wind blows - I must play the music that speaks to my soul. Of all my creative endeavors, the music must be free.
With myself in mind, I wrote digital programs to inspire myself as an experiment to see whether the courses would work on me. I needed to hear Find Your Music.
START | SPARK | FIRE : My target: Me. My Dream: Do Music {again}.
The Goal of GO: from the Dream Of to the Start Of - make your music a life practice.
The search for authentic Self continues to be my creative life endeavor. But instead of continuing to throw things up on the wall of Life to see what sticks, I heard a suggestion. I followed the suggestion and asked God: “Who do You say i am?”
This is my game changer. When I feel stuck, I ask my question. When I feel off-track, I ask my question. When I catch myself brainstorming in madly, I ask my question. I am not in this Life-thing by myself. I am not alone with my creativity. And that is my joy!
So who am I?
I am a multipotentialite - An Artist of Muchness.
& Play
As I am writing my book of the discovery of all the places where I lost my wonder and joy, it brings me to a scenic point called Great Hope. I have a great hope that I will reach the other side of trauma. I will find my wonder and joy. I will discover how Life is lived without running from the darkness, without pretending. Even with so many voices in the world shouting advice and programs to follow and guideposts to read and To-do lists and Don’t-do lists and Turn here’s and Don’t turn there’s - I can play.
I can play with words.
I can play the mandolin.
I can play the violin.
I can play the piano.
I can play with paints.
I can play with makeup.
I can play with my cat.
I can play with my family.
Most important,
I have not forgotten how to play.
Here is my go to resource for igniting / re-setting my creative mind flow. Just listen:
This is Dave Monk, The Old Guitar Monkey. He plays the songs I grew up hearing on a stereo record player and then performing the songs in our family’s Big Band Dance ensemble.
The former angst I felt while first hearing Dave’s music, washed with grief and loss of my family music life, has turned and become something new. A new respect and joy for the music and my participation by listening. Respect for the man’s decision to not turn his back on music upon suffering his own losses. Joy that Dave chose to keep playing his music and share it with the world. He loves playing and by golly it shows.
I listen with my heart & soul to my new day and my new life.
The Wonder Habit Prompt & Ponder
Margin (at the edge)
margin. (noun) in the sense of edge. edge. border. boundary.
When hurricanes make landfall, they push the ocean past its margins. It’s called a storm surge. It is one of the most dangerous parts of the storm.
Margins are where clarity lives. They are both boundary and invitation: a gentle reminder that space is not emptiness. It’s room to expand1.
In the margin. I have sense of edge as I set my boundaries. The Alice in Wonderland quote “If you don’t know where you’re going any road will take you there” reminds me of the saying I use as a buoy to my writing life - “To get lost is to find the way.”
I set boundaries. I have a margin between activities in my day so I don’t get lost in the chaos. My therapist described it as a process of movement:
Activity Ends: stage curtain closes → I re-set / calm breaths → Activity Starts: enter stage curtain opens.
I can recall this process as a Dressage lesson:
Stage 1 / preparation to enter the Arena → Stage 2 / enter the Arena to perform → Stage 3 / exit the Arena → Stage 4 / dismount and remove tack → Stage 5 / grooming
I love this. It works. It helps to keep a buoy line for mindful creative flow throughout the day being prepared for interruptions, mental freezes, potential upsets / sideways whacks and all such forms of detours and diverts.
I believe that instead of filling my margins with endless thoughts and blurbs, I will enjoy the white space and rest.
But, I have questions:
What is the name of My New Lifebook?
What can happen in the margin?
Is this a new beginning or a storm surge overtaking me?
"Memory is a way of holding on to the things you love, the things you are, the things you never want to lose." - C.S. Lewis2
Next time: MUCHNESS / A BRIM(MING OVER)
I was told I cannot sing.
So, I shall sing.
And, I shall sing loudly.
~ Ginger
My gratitude to The Wonder Habit™ with D. Michele Perry for inspiring me to return to writing and creating a new compilation of art; searching out things of darkness in my past and discover my joy is alive, while shining the bright Light of Courage on all.
C.S. Lewis, The Wonder Years