The Scary Moment of Having No More Excuses to Create Art
For a five months, my wife and I were negotiating with a bank to close on our dream house.
“Dream house” might be an odd choice of words for folks to hear, for our dream house isn’t a giant mansion or lake front property. Rather, we simply dreamed of having a large enough, cute, quaint home in Ann Arbor that we could afford.
In the spring, we created a check list of 10 things we wanted to have:
1. four bedrooms (office for Natalie!),
2. a yard (space for our pup Lois!),
3. a basement (music space for me!),
4. a garage,
5. 1200+ square feet,
6. a decent sized kitchen,
7. Ann Arbor locations,
8. Ann Arbor schools,
9. historic charm, and the biggest kicker:
10. affordably in our budget.
We looked at our list and assumed we would have to compromise. Home prices in Ann Arbor are expensive, and home sizes are rather small. To put this in perspective, our rental house was 800ish sq. ft, and the rental price was being raised to $1500.
But luck shined on us! The first home we saw, had every thing on our check list! We went to other house showings during he summer, but nothing compared to that Cape Cod.
After multiple delays and two mess ups caused by sellers, we finally closed in September.
The wait was worth it. We’ve been living in our Cape Code for a week. We wake up each morning with smiles on our faces. Do we really live here?
Today, I realized that I no longer had any more excuses to not be working on music every day. If I’m not creating, I couldn’t blame the procrastination on feeling cramped, on being too busy, on being homeless (which we sort of were all of August and September).
I now have the space to create.
And honestly, I never should let myself believe excuses not to create or reach goals. There is never a perfect situation for the artist or musician. We must always fight procrastination, distraction, and life getting in the way of art.
In January, I created a goal to write a song a week. 27 weeks in, I had to abandon ship as Natalie and I moved out of our rental before closing. Two songwriters have kept our game alive; Jon and Manny have written a song every week, reminding me that we can beat excuses. It’s time for me to get back on the horse.
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