Living creatively in the world can be tricky sometimes, but it’s not the creativity that’s at fault for this: it’s the expectations. Pour your heart and soul into a project, invest it with years and decades of love and learning, set it aloft with hope, and then what happens? Sometimes nothing. Or very, very little. What feels like a momentous event in an individual life is not even a ripple in the larger world. Resounding silence.
But not entirely, and here’s where the management of expectations comes in. I have been feeling the shadow of disappointment that my dear Irishy Girl has not met with all the warmth and welcome I’d hoped. The boxes downstairs are not emptying at any great rate (though of course, I myself am to blame when I forget to mention I have CDs at gigs!), and I wonder if I will ever pay it off and be able to make another.
On Sunday, a kind young man showed me his iPod and “The Irishy Girl” there between Jethro Tull and Led Zeppelin. Lofty company! He said, “I’m glad I got to see you today because I’ve been wanting to tell you that I listen to the CD almost every day. And also,” and this is what really got me, “thank you for being a musician.”
There’s miles and months in that comment, and heart-lifting faith to keep going.
