I originally posted this as a thread on Bluesky.
Something I think about often because I'm really over capitalism and constant productivity; but at the beginning of this year, I had a flash of inspiration to write a narrative album/possibly a musical that pulled on my love of mythology, but also my love of self-discovery tied to loved ones truly seeing us and reflecting it back onto us. Yes, the reflections are shaped by who we are seeing that reflection from, but when the reflection comes from someone who looks upon us with love, with understanding, with wanting us to be our truest self....
Like art, who we are is not created in a vacuum.
So that's the main idea behind my initial inspiration. However, despite being moved by that, I've been having a hard time sitting down and fleshing it out, getting the music created. Partly because this year (like the last 5) has been really difficult for me with family things and a death on top of the stress and anxiety of these years having done a doozy on the way my brain actually functions as I'm slowly healing from the stress damage.
But also partly because I needed the world to help me cook this idea more.
To become something greater than the story of just these two characters, but also the people who they affect around them.
Connection is so important to me, despite being a bit of a hermit. We are all woven together, connected by threads to one another. Our stories shape the people around us, whether by the stories of our lived lives, or the stories we create.
My story needed the world to crash in through its unfortunate, unnecessary, cruel horrors to remind me that the microcosm of the two characters is a reflection of the macrocosm of all the people around them.
That their songs would be heard by the people, would call out to them; that the song of the people would call out to the two main characters. That the ripples off all these voices together could create an enormous wave to crash down upon oppressors.
This idea needed time to cook.
This idea needed the world around me to hear its song to know what story I'm telling here. To know our collective story that will be filtered through me.
The music, art, magic you make comes not just from you. It is a reflection of the whole. Sometimes you just need the right lens to see it.