Moving Songs

Published in The Christian Science Monitor

            We were getting ready to move from the Rocky Mountains of Colorado to a smaller house in central Oregon, so we trimmed our possessions. I consolidated the contents of two filing cabinets, two cardboard boxes, and three small bookcases into two filing cabinets. I investigated what I was packing in more and more detail, and that thorough investigation took me away from getting ready for our move.

            I found a folder with about thirty songs that didn’t become songs I play and sing. Now, more than twenty years after I set them aside, I page through them, and I ask myself, why didn’t they become part of my repertoire?

            I uncase my guitar, and I play and sing the first song. I remember the melody as if I wrote it yesterday. It’s a truck driving song. Maybe I put it away because I never was a truck driver, but then again, I’ve written plenty of songs about things I never actually did. That’s the way of song writing. It sounds to me like a good song, but I need to revise part of it. The paper the song is written on shows its age and tears easily.

            I sit down and keyboard the song into my computer files so it doesn’t crumble into dust, and I revise it as I go. I pick up my guitar, play and sing part of the song, make some changes, and play it and sing it again. I think the changes sound right. I sit down and revise my computer file on the song.

            I proofread the song on screen, singing it as I go, and then I print a copy. I put the printed copy on my music rack, pick up my guitar and sing the song again. “I been drivin’ since this road began./ I’m so tired of traveling,/ but I will get there if anybody can....” The song sounds right, more complete than it sounded when I put it away years ago, and maybe that’s why I put it away. It needed to rest until I was ready to add finishing touches.

            The strings on my guitar don’t sound as full-toned as they could. I have new strings in my guitar case, so I replace my guitar strings and tune the instrument. This is a beautiful instrument, mellowed by more than thirty five years of use. This day, heavily overcast, with more rain coming, needs the rich tones this instrument projects.

             I open windows and the sliding doors. I sing several songs. The big Gibson and my voice blend with the sound of hummingbirds humming and chirping at the feeder on the deck, with the sound of wind beginning, with the sound of rain blowing against the house in the wind and washing the forest where we live. After I sing several songs, I sit, my guitar quiet on my lap, and I listen to thunder on the mountain and all the sounds of the summer storm. Clouds that brought us much-needed rain begin to break up and dissipate into bright blue sky. The sun shines on washed-clean forest and meadow.

            We find time to go at a careful pace through all the processes necessary to move. Music, renewing old memories, revising old songs, adding human songs and guitar tones to bird songs and the sounds of a summer storm become a creative part of our move. Moving becomes a creative part of our progress toward our future.