pianos, cellos, and writing

Last Saturday we took our oldest son and my best friend to a Jon Schmidt and Steven Sharp Nelson concert. (Those of you reading this thinking "I'm your best friend and you didn't take me to any concert on Saturday. What's going on here?" never fear. I am lucky enough to have several best friends, just like I have three favorite kids, and those best friends who didn't go to the concert are still my best friends. Though you may be annoyed that I didn't take you to a concert. I'll make it up to you with a Dr Pepper. Or Red Mango.)

If you don't know who Jon Schmidt and Steven Sharp Nelson are, check them out here:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xXtVBJDPs6k

It was an amazing evening. Truly a highlight to be remembered forever and not just because of the music. My son doesn't emote a lot, which can be nice in comparison to his brother and sister who hide not their feelings under a bushel. Ever. His 'blow-ups' are so mild compared to his siblings that you have to know him to know that he just blew up. On the other hand, as he said it once himself, "I am excited. It's just that my excited looks like everything else." Saturday night he hugged his dad several times and said how much he liked the concert. That is an unqualified success in my book.

Aside from the music, which was beautiful, and the actual playing of the music, which was unreal, was the joy of creation that filtered through the air and gave me goose bumps. Because of where we were sitting and how the stage was set up, I couldn't see Jon's face very well (unless he was actually looking at the audience) but Steve's face was right there, and there were times while he was playing that it shone with an almost holy bliss. And it made me think about writing, because that is the part of me that is creative. That is the place where I think I share that joy of creation that was so obvious Saturday night. Sometimes, when the words are coming and the plot is falling in place and I realize that all along I have been setting things up for the perfect solution without even realizing it, that is when I feel a little floaty inside, like I have done something magnificent, or maybe something magnificent used me for a lightning rod and this spark of brilliance came to earth in this place and this time because I was there to channel it.

Both of these men played their instruments supreme excellence, but they also didn't just play by the rules. Jon played the piano upside down and with his toes. Steve played the cello with every part of his hand except the back, and once even moved the cello instead of the bow. Undeniably, they were having fun. They knew what they did so well that they could play with it, and that is where a little, tiny ache crept into the concert for me. I have so much to learn about writing. I haven't honed my skills to the point where I can be given a word or a topic and write a story or poem off the top of my head. I still have to stress and think and work and think before I've got anything. I don't even tell my kids bedtime stories because I can't make things up that fast. So I have a lot of practicing to do before I become a writer on the level that they are musicians, and even then I don't know that I'll ever be 'like that.'

Last, but certainly not least for me, was the friendship between them. Many of the goofy mash-ups they played they had come up with at 2:00 in the morning. And that brings me to my friend who was there with us. Writing is often a solitary endeavor, but I never would have made it this far on my own. An extraordinarily close second to that high of being used as a conduit is brainstorming with someone who gets how you think, and that's Anne. She doesn't think exactly like me, but she thinks enough like me that she can take an idea and carry it forward in a direction I would want to go if I was only smart enough to get there myself. Those are some crazy awesome fun times, often at 2:00 in the morning.

So those are my thoughts on writing gleaned from a piano and cello concert. I hope someday to have more skill and fluidity in my writing, but mostly I want to work for more of those moments of bliss, when writing fills up the now to overflowing and I know it's exactly where I'm supposed to be.