Building Blocks

Remember those wooden blocks we played with as children?  I loved them.
I loved the limitless number of things I could create with them.  I loved the different shapes, the different colors, the feel of the smooth, painted wood in my hands.  Most of all, I loved the sound they made when, after you built them up too high, they came tumbling to the floor.

I miss those blocks.

After a few blissful months of feasting on almost too much musical work, I now find myself in the inevitable period of famine.  I’m used to this ebb and flow of my artistic life, but I willingly admit, I don’t love the famine bit.  Usually during this period, I start creating whatever is to come next.  Now, though, I find myself staring at the proverbial blank page, and I just can’t seem to get going.   I’m… blocked.

Grown-up blocks aren’t nearly as much fun as those kid blocks were.  They’re frustratingly intangible.  They seem to build themselves up when you’re not paying attention.   One day, you’re strolling through your life, feeling pretty good about things, and then blam!  You walk right into a wall.  Just like that, you’re lost in a veritable forest of obstacles.  And, as if merely being lost isn’t bad enough, you realize you’re lost inside a world that you built… without even knowing it!  You think to yourself, “Hmmm… this looks strangely familiar,” and yet you have absolutely no clue how to find your way.  Map, anyone?  No?  *Sigh*

When I lose myself in one of  these self-created maze worlds, I spend a few-too-many days feeling down in the dumps.  I feel hopeless and helpless, despite knowing better.  I cry.  Every doubt and fear I have about myself and how I’m living my life rears its ugly head and roars a deafening roar.  In trying to find a way out or a way through, I analyze everything… every sight, every sound, every interaction, every thought.  I over-think every single morsel to such a degree that my brain crashes.

Reboot.

Today, I realize that I can’t fight who or where I am.  Nor should I.  Who I am now, and who I am to become, is the sum of everything I’ve experienced right up to this moment.  If I try to short-cut this process, I short-change myself.  So, tomorrow I will begin picking up blocks and placing them on the wall that stands in my way.  I will reconnect with how much I love those shapes and colors, the feel of the smooth, painted wood in my hand, and the limitless number of things I can create with them.   Before long, I’ll have built that wall up so high that those blocks will come tumbling down to the floor.   Oh!  What a lovely sound that will be!

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Songs of the Day:
Child In Me Again – Annie Dinerman
Pick Yourself Up - Dorothy Fields & Jerome Kern

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