Several years ago, a liturgical songwriter I admire made the comment that he hardly ever wrote any music anymore. This is a man whose gift with words, and his music in general, are really powerful, and it made me sad, wondering what caused his dry spell.
That was before Alex was born. At that time, I practiced flute a little, and I spent an hour a day writing music before I allowed myself to work on my novel. Inspiration struck at all times and in all forms, those days. I had to keep scratch paper, a pencil and a pen with me to make sure I didn’t miss anything.
Every child and every developmental stage increases the amount of attention and time that I spend mothering—which is as it should be. But the final result is that pieces of me that I once considered immovable have now been laid almost completely aside. Flute practicing, for instance. I play at church, and a little during lessons, but that’s about it these days. And writing music. I’ve spent so much time and energy on prose the last three years—because I’ve had obligations to meet, to editors and critique groups—that I’ve had to let the rest of it slide in order to meet my obligations as a wife and mother.
I miss playing flute. While I was warming up for a wedding a few weeks ago, I was horrified to discover that I could not play B to C# without hitting C natural in the middle. My pinchers simply refused to coordinate with each other. I must have sat there for fifteen minutes going back and forth, B-C#-B-C#, driving my husband and everyone in the wedding party, who were taking pictures, berserk.
Even more acutely, I miss writing music. As much as I love prose, writing music is still the most fulfilling part of my creative bug—the one that makes my heart swell and my throat constrict. But inspiration strikes rarely these days.
I’ve been thinking about that a lot lately, and I realized: the creative muscle you exercise is the one that produces.
The solution, however, is not as simple as the problem would suggest.
The inspiration for prose comes from day to day life—from parenting three little ones, one with Down syndrome, and all the challenges and triumphs thereof. Musical inspiration, on the other hand, comes in the quiet, comes through a well-nourished reflective life, and there’s precious little that that when parenting little ones. And it’s not like I can just find quiet and poof, there’s music. Sometimes there are long, frustrating “quiet” periods in which I spend time but accomplish nothing. That doesn’t happen to me with prose, probably because I have so many projects underway at a time—but that assurance of productivity is why, with my limited time, I’ve focused my efforts there.
Once again, I’m navel-gazing. It might be a waste of time, except that I’m self-analyzing surrounded by a jungle gym covered with netting, foam wrappers and bungee cords…and approximately six gazillion kids, all screaming at the top of their lungs. So this is as good a use of time as any. Well…it might be better use of time to go climb around in the jungle gym with Alex. Hmm…
Hmmmmmmmmm….
Besides, while I was writing I came up with a strategy for spending some time at the piano this afternoon. So there!
Kathleen M. Basi 