Shut Up, All of You!!!

There’s nothing more frightening and exhilarating then the inner dialog where the heart speaks up telling you “you can do this”. How many things, great and small, would we have missed, had it not been for the little voice between the ears?

Michelangelo staring at the ceiling and scratching his head when the little voice pipes up and says “Go ahead man. We got the scaffolding in the wagon, the Monsignor gave you the keys to the place, and we’re not scheduled to be anywhere for the next decade or so. Go ahead, you can do this.”

Maybe it’s the Middle-America working class family of four, solvent, but stretched, finding room for the orphan from Uganda because mom heard “There’s room. You’ve got all the baby clothes in storage, car seats in the basement, and Jimmy and Jack can share a room. Tom would love to build the bunk beds anyway. You can do this.”

Little Joe carrying a bad report card all the way home on the bus knowing what waits for him at home steals himself up for the inevitable by the mantra playing in his mind like a looped recording “Don’t lie. You earned it. Playstation is gone for a while, probably going to have to quit the ball team for a semester, but you can do this.”

Great and small.

Recently, very recently, like within the last 18 months, my looped recording keeps encouraging me to write. Not songs, strangely enough, but fiction. Without much warning and forethought, I’ve been burdened with several rich story ideas that I would very much like to get down on paper. In truth, they’re coming faster than song ideas. Burdened is a good choice of words. I can tell the stories, sure. I can get them down on paper, but I can’t “render” them like the ideas deserve. Make sense to anyone? No? OK, yeah me neither really. Suffice it to say that I think encouragement is rounding the final turn and abilities are back at the gate. Good times.

Do you think Michelangelo, flat on his back a hundred feet in the air, with paint from elbow to butt hole, ever heard that same voice utter, “Whoa! You know, there’s no shame in being a farmer” or maybe “Hey, Mikey-baby, is that..it’s that’s aunt Cecelia from over at Paloma isn’t it. She needs to be a little fatter and with a bit of a mustache, but that’s not bad..no wait, is that a cherub? It’s a cherub isn’t it? My..my bad. Keep going. You’re doing great.”

I hear momma again. Funny how and when she shows up. “If your friends told you jump off a bridge would you do it?” Momma’s got a point. As usual. The voice can say all it wants. Doesn’t mean I have to listen. Then again, maybe there’s too many competing voices in my head. Ooh, that’s deep and kind of interesting. I should write about that. You know, I think I can do that…