It's a Post-Labor Day World

My deadline is here, at last

I am notorious for being unable to sleep in. I don’t use an alarm clock because I don’t sleep long enough for it to go off and wake me up. I haven’t been doing anything productive with my much-too-early morning wakeups, unless you count complaining bitterly about insomnia and not getting enough sleep, and if so, then I have been off-the-charts productive.

I told myself once Labor Day passed, I would just get out of bed when I woke up, regardless of time, go downstairs and start writing. This way, I could finally “find the time” to do what I’ve been desperately meaning to do, which is sit down and write. Well, Labor Day was yesterday, so here I sit. Family still sleeping, house quiet, cats fed, coffee made, computer on, substack activated.

I have no goal for this first post-Labor Day morning writing session other than simply just sitting down, logging in, and typing. Best to keep expectations low, and hope that simply the act of doing gets the creative juices flowing. This is similar to music, when you don’t feel like practicing, but you need to. In those instances, I simply unzip my violin case, take my instrument out and tune up. Just tuning the strings signals something deep in my brain, and honestly half the battle is won. I warm up with scales, arpeggios, bow exercises, left-hand drills, and by playing something really ooey-gooey just to draw out the richest and deepest sound, to find that core vibration that makes everything come alive.

Whenever I warm up, I think of this sketch of a Charleston home, pictured here. I was in Charleston, South Carolina, performing with the Spoleto Music Festival and a fellow violinist’s parents were in town to attend some of our concerts. My friend’s dad was an artist and while we were in rehearsals, he would draw, sketch and paint all the beautiful sights around him. But first, he would warm up, similarly to how we would warm up every morning on our violins. He would take his sketch pad and draw and paint while having his morning coffee. These pictures were just throw-aways, never meant to be displayed or really even seen by anyone other than him, the same way our scales and arpeggios weren’t meant for an audience to hear, or the songs we played to wake up our fingers weren’t meant for anyone else’s enjoyment. However, if I was warming up around anyone other than seasoned musicians, they would often interrupt and say how much they loved listening. How beautiful the sound was. How lovely it was to hear music being played, even if it was just etudes and drills.

I felt that way about my friend’s dad warm-up art exercises. I asked if I could have one of his practice sketches? He tore it right out of his sketch pad, with the fuzzy edge of ripped paper still attached at the top. I stuck it in my violin case for safe-keeping and when I got home a month later, I framed his visual warm-up. Over twenty-five years later, this warm-up watercolor painting, what this artist considered a throw away sketch, hangs in the hallway of my home.

Looking at this sketch, it gives me the courage to start this new habit of warming-up with words every morning. My hope with this post-Labor Day morning writing ritual is that I simply get in the habit of doing it. And by simply doing it, I get the creative juices flowing, and who knows what will happen next, who knows where my writing will take me. The goal is not perfection, it never is. The goal is the act of creating, however small, however inconsequential. If I wait for the perfect thing to say, I’ll be waiting a very long time. It feels like a completely subversive act to press publish on a simple warm-up exercise, arrogant almost. But if I simply unzip my case, rosin up my bow and tune my strings, music happens. My friend’s dad simply took a fresh piece of blank paper every morning, started painting and art happened. I’m hoping the same holds true with words on a laptop by simply keeping a promise I made to myself all summer long: starting the day after Labor Day, I’ll get up early, warm up, and see what happens next.