I have not written, a new blog entry or pages of AK, in over a week. It would be easy for me to let this go, except that Sophie Speaks is out there. This project is no longer an idea, a spark, but a real thing. I see it in the notebook paper building up in my binder; I hear it in the comments from friends and colleagues who have read my posts. It is real, as real as the need to arrange carpool, go to work, and cook dinner. It has value to me. Only I can make this work. Only I can pick up my pen and write, five or six lines at a time if necessary. If I stopped writing, no one would make me go back to it. The idea would disappear like a white sock at the bottom of my laundry pile. But it is possible that if I stick with it, if I can see it through to the end, it might make a difference to someone else.
A few days ago, I took a trip to Nashville with my daughter and two of her friends. For them, it was more like a pilgrimage. We went to see One Direction, the current boy band phenomenon. I confess that I was not exactly looking forward to trip. I am not much of a joiner, as moms go. I wished that I could send 12 along without me, but some part of me also knew that I couldn't do that to her. She needed her own person there.
The concert was pretty much what I expected. Screaming girls, bored parents, overpriced sodas and beers and long lines to get in and out. What I didn't expect was to be schooled in the less mainstream musical culture. One of 12's friends insisted that we visit Third Man Records, a small shop and production studio founded by Jack White of the White Stripes. How can one girl be equally obsessed with Liam Hemmings and Jack White? I still don't have that answer. But our visit to the small square building, painted black, was worth the entire trip. I bought White's documentary, It Might Get Loud, a series of interviews with guitar players sharing stories of how they got into music. They did whatever they had to do to get their hands on crappy instruments and play, without lessons or parents reminding them to practice. They put replaced their beds with amp and slept on foam mattresses. They moved furniture to barter for guitars. They ignored the people who told them that what they were doing was not important.
Of course, there was the ever-present gift shop. When a friend of mine found out that we were going, she asked me to buy a sticker. I let 12 pick that out, and I chose one for myself. (Normally I buy pencils as souvenirs, but Third Man Records did not sell these). I put the sticker on my Sophie Speaks binder, as a reminder to myself.
12's friend told me this is a line from one of Jack White's songs. I looked up the lyrics, hoping for some insight, but I didn't find anything other than what I had already gleaned, that Love, even Capital L-Love, pure white LOVE, cannot keep me from this work. I will continue to come back to it, in the hope that someday, someone will read one line of what I have written and find a spark of inspiration.
Posted with Blogsy
No comments:
Post a Comment