vacant dreams

April 9, 2006

An empty page.

It glares up at me like I'm guilty of wasting the trees that were cut down to somehow formulate itself. There's a pencil in my hand, and something in me is crying out to write something, but no words will come. Sighing in annoyance at my lack of originality, I pick up the notebook and rest it on the higher octaves of my piano keys to use later when words will come. I adjust the mic stand so that it rests a few inches short of my chin, and I routinely go through a check of the keyboard.... power on... reverb off... classic and modern piano combined... the mains are on... it is finished.

I take a sip of the chai that rests a few feet away on a desk, and then turn to face the monster that is my own lack of genious. It couldn't have been this hard for all those bands that have come before me to just come up with some stupid lyrics to sing. Why does it suck so much for me? I wonder as I chuckle a little, thinking of all the people who admire my few songs.

Good Lord, I haven't done this forever. The light is subtly reflecting off of my guitar [Lailani] resting in the corner; I'll tackle that later. For now the mass of black and white keys is what concerns me. An empty audience of chairs and moniters and music equipment watches me as I tentatively graze the surface of the keyboard with my fingertips before letting a melody fill the empty corners of the garage.

It's my typical progression (C, Am, G, F, and C again) that I always use when just starting out with a new song. To find my pitch. To figure out whether I want to let my voice ring high or reverb low. That might be the hardest part of this whole thing. Thinking of how I must look makes me feel a little dumb. Just standing there in my all american rejects shirt and torn up and faded jeans, my hair pulled up into something messy, just waiting. For what, I'm never exactly sure. But I probably look odd regardless. Unsure.

What will it be like someday, if everything is how I want it to be? If I finish college and get to just sing for awhile? If I get to do concerts again and sell CD's again, and get to just write. When the lights fade and the curtain falls will I still feel the same? When I sign a few autographs here and there like I got to do last summer, will it bring back the same adrenaline and spirit that it brought me before?

My dreams seem so vacant sometimes; like they aren't mine anymore, they're just things that have to be done. Like trying to write a song today. Who am I writing it for anyway? How many worthless pages will I have to go through until I find another song that actually means something to me? I have a few that I love to play; that make me feel something when I sing them; that make me relive the way I felt when the words were first poured out. But the rest are just... missing something. And I wish I knew what it was.

Empty pages are the bane of my existance.