My son has brought music back into my life in two ways: singing and guitar. There is no doubt that having children alters your life is so many ways. Maybe you can’t go out alone anymore or you have to change poopy diapers or you gain some weight because you don’t have as much time to hit the gym. But children can enhance and enrich your life in ways you never thought possible. Music is one of those ways.
I started singing again when my son had trouble sleeping. My wife can tell you my ability to remember the words to even some of my most favorite songs is truly abhorrant. However, I still have a few tried and true classics. One of which is Otis Redding’s Sitting On The Dock Of The Bay. Kady was out for a school trip and he was having a hard time falling asleep. So I started singing this song. I sang it over and over until he relaxed, closed his eyes, and fell asleep. It felt good to sing and to use music to help sooth my baby boy.
My guitar sits in a corner of the living room tucked next to our piano. Lou is so curious about both. He crawls onto the bench and bangs on the keys which are horribly out of tune. But he also plucks the strings of my acoustic. And will point to it and want me to play. I’ve finally started playing enough that it doesn’t hurt to press the strings to the fret board. And I’m even getting some baby callouses on my fingertips. And I’ve started to get back into the kind of playing I used to do in college. Just messing around with strings and strumming and humming a tune I’d make up on the spot. His curiosity brought the guitar and that creative musical side of me back to life.
I’ve been thinking maybe I should start writing songs again. Songs about Lou. About my family. About missing loved ones. About being happy in my life and being grateful. Maybe there’s something more I can share with the small group of people in my life. And my son can see this side of me. And our new baby when he joins us in May.
Without Lou here to invoke the dormant creative musical side of me with his endless curiosity and energy maybe I would never sing or play again. It’s hard to say. But it has been years since I have. And here he came along and woke my spirit up. What a gift indeed.
