Sometimes I am envious. There, I’ve said it. I am envious of my artist friends. Yes, I am. All of them, I think. And this is because in my perception of things (an important phrase, that), they produce art that they can finish. Complete. Accomplish. End.
I have painter friends and poet friends and singer-song-writer friends, and all of them finish things. Now I realize that I speak from inexperience here. I know (or I imagine) that a painting can take a Long Time. I think a poem can, too. And even when one has finished penning the words to a song, one has yet to create the music, or vice versa. But all of that seems brief somehow, especially when I am reading the poem or looking at the painting or listening to the song.
A novel, on the other hand, takes a Long Time to finish. A Long Time. Especially when you are giving birth every two years (well, for four years, anyway) and homeschooling your children and earning a Master’s degree and writing curriculum and teaching full time (okay, not simultaneously, but Still). A Long Time.
I’ve thought of changing my medium, but painting and music? Yeah, no. Occasionally I’ll try my hand at a poem. But being a poet? Or even a short story writer? Have you seen how much I write in this blog? Brevity, O Reader, is not my gift. I require Lots Of Words.
My father-in-law and my husband might suggest, in fact, that this blog is my problem. I write here, you see, and not in the vast blankness of my novel. This blog, one might suggest, is Impeding My Work.
I don’t see it that way, in all truth. This blog is Nothing Like my novel. Nothing Like. But it is a creative and meaningful space I can enter that doesn’t require a full-on retreat from the world. After the exhausting busy-ness of my days, I can enter the blog-world a whole lot more easily than I can the novel-one. The blog is a place to write and reflect and find out if I’m able to write at all in the first place. It is, in short, Good For Me.
And every once in awhile, I write something worthwhile here. I do.
Evidence: my friend Alli Rogers, whose singer-song-writer lyrics appear here from time to time and help me more often than I can say. Yes, Alli recently contacted me to let me know that she had written a song inspired by a post on this blog. One little line, in fact, at the end of what was, for me, a Very Important Post, apparently lifted her writer’s block and inspired a song. One Line.
She sent me a copy of the new record just the other day. We’ve listened to it countless times already– all of it. It is, in fact, in the player in the kitchen Right Now. She is a wonderful writer, and her voice has both a tenderness and an edge: she’ll rock you in her arms, but she’ll only speak the truth.
Go see her site. At the bottom of the page, in the center, is a place where you can select a song. They are all worth listening to (“Eden” is my favorite), but the one that was inspired here is called “Things We Can and Cannot Keep.” Do go listen. Do.
Okay, so my bragging will now come to an end. But there’s one more thing to say and (you know it, don’t you, Reader?) I’m going to say it. Alli was kind enough to list my name (My Name) in her “thank you” list. You know what I mean, right? That list that comes at the end of the lyrics sheet. She has lots of people to thank– because she’s like that– and most of them (I’m sure) contributed a whole lot more and a whole lot more deliberately than I did. But it did give me just the littlest thrill to see my name there.
Still, that’s not the best part. The best part is this: my name is right next to Frederick Buechner‘s. “Rebecca Stevenson, Frederick Buechner.” That’s what it says. It says that. It does.
