lean in again. and let it go.

Listening To: The Way it Was by Brooke Annibale

Line Obsession: "It's easy to forget now, how effervescent and free we all felt that summer. Everything fades: the shimmer of gold over White Cove, the laughter in the night air; the lavender early morning light on the faces of skyscrapers, which had suddenly become so heroically tall. Every dawn seemed to promise fresh miracles, among other joys that are in short supply these days. And so I will try to tell you, while I still remember, how it was then, before everything changed -- that final season of an era that roared." - Anna Godberson, from the prologue of Bright Young Things (If all prologues were this gorgeous, I'd never skip them.) 

I'm sitting at the corner table at a Starbucks in Somewhere, South Georgia. The storm clouds just rolled out but the wind still has a rain-memory caught up inside it. The air is cool and breezy. White clouds are blooming across the sky. Tall pine trees are rushing together whispering, "Shhhhhh...." all around me. I love these lullaby woods.

There's a man sitting at a table close to me who has an unlit cigar tucked between his teeth. The guy across from me is wearing a grey knit hat. His guitar is plugged into his computer and he pricking the strings, watching sound-waves flicker up like wild heartbeats across his screen. I might scoot closer to him to try to catch whatever whim of inspiration he has obviously managed to find. I wish that's how inspiration worked. Maybe it does? Maybe sometimes it is contagious. It has to be. 

Because he's getting to me. And not because his music is too loud or off-key. His music is cool. 

But his eyes are closed and he's leaning down low over his guitar, the way musicians do when they're caught up in the right song. When they've waited and wondered and tried and stopped and started again and then finally they find it: that loose cannon of a chord they've been trying so hard to get just right. 

There's this thing I've seen guitar players do - famous ones, infamous ones, ones that just jam in the garage with their friends. They arch over their guitar like they're trying to keep something safe. Do you know what I'm talking about? Am I making too much out of posture? Some guitarists stand tall and let the music ring out of their hearts and mouths all wild and unruly-wonderful. It's after the song is over that they fold in on themselves a little bit. Ray LaMontagne is my favorite example. He screams out a song and then the song ends and he's soft-spoken and shy, like he's embarrassed that people are giving him a standing ovation. Like he can't decide if he should tune for the next song or just go ahead and walk off stage.

But sometimes musicians get really, really vulnerable about what they're playing while they're playing it too. 

Their bodies curve around their guitars like they're trying to protect a song, or protect their heart maybe, even though they're obviously turning something loose. Even though they've already hit the point where they can't hold it in anymore. I think it's that tension that makes the song so beautiful. 

Sometimes you have to let the wild thing inside of you grow wings and go be whatever it wants to be.  

A few months ago I was listening to a sermon and the pastor was talking about how to get back to a place where you've got momentum again, particularly after you've been through a very difficult season or experience. Like, when you've been disappointed to the point of giving up. Or when you've given up. When you've been rejected. When you've climbed out of some goopy pit of discouragement that's still clinging hard to you. I assumed the pastor would say the usual: "Press God's Word against your heart. Pray like a juggernaut.* Get out and love more." That kind of thing. He got to all that (sort of). But his first suggestion was: 

"Find your song." 

He talked about how music gets inside you and revs you back up. How music is this wonder of a thing that starts pumping through your veins and sticking in your memory; it sets your mood, whether you realize it or not. So he said to find a song that stirs your heart back up and then to wear that song out. Listen to it first thing in the morning. Listen to it when your mood starts to sink. Make it an anthem. His example was a song by U2 (I don't remember which one). I've decided my song for this season is Needtobreathe's "Slumber."

I think that's good advice - find your song. 

I also think, sometimes, when you're finding your way back to a place where you've got momentum in your life ... you should sit near a musician. Not to compare your work or your life or anything dumb like that. But sometimes when you're sitting close to someone whose heart is really in what they do - someone who completely lacks the cool marketing gloss, the branding (... someone who doesn't seem to care if people around him love his music or hate it)... it's like your heart flickers back to life again. And you want to make something beautiful not to get applause for it, but because, dagnabit, you've got it in you to make something good. And fear and self-doubt have been holding you back for way too long.

Lean in again. And let it go. 

That's not what the knit-hat-guitarist is singing. For all I know, he's just jamming to the Black Eyed Peas or something and I've made it sound like he's writing the most amazing song of all time and always. But that's what's rolling through my mind while I'm watching him play: lean in again and let it go. This too: 

I want to make a mess of a story. 

Make a mess of a song. 

I want to do whatever it takes to get it out of me. 

I want to lean into the lyrics again

and whisper over the words I'm most afraid of.

I want to find my way back. 

and sing my way through. 

I'll let these words be my map to someplace good. 

That's all they've wanted to be all along, I think. 

Is there a song right now that sums up the season you're in? A song that's you've listened to so much lately you could (or do) sing it in your sleep? I hope you'll tell me what it is! I'm in some serious need of new music. Hope you're having a happy spring : ) 


* "Pray like a juggernaut" is something Mark Batterson kept saying in The Circle Maker, and it's a quote that stuck with me ... but the sermon I'm referencing wasn't his.