Searcher Thinker Singer Songwriter...Blogger?
The time has come…I’m adding a blog to my website, well, added if you’re reading this. It’s a funny thing, blogs and me, as I’ve attempted to start them before but could never gain any traction. Each previous attempt has fizzled, sinking deep into the mire of lost web content--all those thoughts and emotions gone forever--not just from me, but from the millions of others who thought they’d give blogging a go only to relent when they failed to achieve any reasonable semblance of readership. This blog wasn't really my idea, at least not at first. It began as a practical suggestion for my website, but as I sat with it, I remembered why I'd always wanted to keep one—not to chase traffic, but to leave a trail of the questions, songs, and strange turns that shaped my life.
A simple yet soulful blog
Still, after a few days of consideration I began to remember how I use to long for a successful blog as a creative outlet. Back then I had no aspirations to do music full-time (then again, one year ago today I had no such aspirations…wow, a lot has changed), but in thinking it over it occurred to me that a blog could be a very cool thing, for all those old reasons plus a few new ones. This year has been witness to tremendous changes in my life, by the time January 2015 arrived I’d decided that I needed to make a record and that I wanted it to happen by spring. I had no idea how this was done, which is why the release of A Good American Life was something of a non-release (truth be told I pretty much missed the boat there), I simply didn’t know any better. That said, the album itself is pretty cool, at least I think so. I feel it represents the songs well and accurately captures what was happening inside Mackinaw Harvest studio that cold, blustery Grand Rapids winter. A group of talented people tracked the album in just a few days, live, for the most part. I suppose that’s why they call it a record: “it’s the record of an event, the event of people playing music in a room” (FYI, that’s an Ani DiFranco lyric, not looking to plagiarize anything in this my first blog post).
Remembering the road less traveled
If there's a point to this yarn, it's that this year has been like drinking from the fire hose for me. It occurred to me that had I started a blog at the beginning of the year, it would now serve as a kind of record—not of accomplishments, but of questions, discoveries, wrong turns, and the small moments that are so easy to forget once life moves on. So much has happened so quickly that I already find pieces of it slipping away.
Maybe that's reason enough to keep writing. Not because I know where these thoughts will lead, but because I've learned that the path itself is worth remembering.
And so...here it is. Once again, I boldly blog.
