on response (from the archives)

The best songs are ones that make us want to sing back - in whatever voice we can muster.

Perhaps that is the task of artists - not to create something brand new, necessarily, not even to self-express, but to inspire and encourage others to sing. To find their voice, their story; to unlock doors they might not have been aware of.

I can appreciate a work of art, even enjoy it, but I know it's hit a target only when it sends me reaching for a pen, searching for a word. In that moment, the painting, the story, the song ceases to dangle outside me; it slips into my immediacy and begins a conversation.

In part, these notebooks are the keepers of such conversations. Whether I admit it or not.

August 17, 2007.

[As an exercise in courage, I am going to attempt to force myself to put out some of the entries from my private journals. This was pretty much the first installment.]