A Beautiful Mess…

• Ini Olulope, Grade 10
• Short Story
• 2016

I’m sitting in front of my computer. My eyes dart across the screen, watching each member of this band make music together. Music is my passion. Unfortunately, with inspiration, comes intimidation. But it’s not like they have anything that I don’t. It’s just the fact that they are so talented.
Each person has their own discipline. Each person has their own song. Each has something to say.
I sit at my guitar. My discipline. Ignoring the fact that I am so intimidated by the way these people can play. Regardless of the fact I’ve attended guitar lessons for 5 years, I don’t think I have mastered my craft. Yet. I’m always seeking new ways of improving and challenging myself. Composition is my next task.
I’ve heard that the best songs are created from tension. Music doesn’t exist without tension. Tension of the heart, tension in the soul, tension of relationships, tension in the guitar strings, tension in the drums. Maybe this is why song writing has been my greatest challenge. Because I hate tension. I avoid it at all cost. Its uncomfortable, it stretches me. But it is also so beautiful. It’s the state of holding back before the flower blooms.
I want to write. I feel a song buzzing within me. I don’t understand it. There is something happening in my life that I need to release.
What is flowing through the midst of my being? Uncertainty.
Four chords strike me. A Major, F Sharp Minor, D Major, D Minor. I’ve used these chords to start a different song. It didn’t fit. So I played notes. It came to me. I got a picture, almost a vision in front of me.
I look at the horizon, and what do I see? A cloud of uncertainty… Plaguing me.
My life is out of my control, and honestly that scares me. I’ve never needed so much hope, for the person that I’m going to be.
Aha! My verse, my interlude. But my chorus. Why can’t fit I just fit a chorus?
* * *
Writers block doesn’t exist. It’s just more tension. That’s what I tell myself. I look at my lyrics. What is the essence of my song? Confusion, uncertainty? It’s missing something…
Maybe I should write a song about how I can’t write a song. Typically, me though. Trying to take a creative approach that is really just lazy.
Wait! Mess. It’s about mess.
It’s about the beautiful mess that we call life. The way that we try and figure out how it works and we put the puzzle pieces together.
I run to my guitar, and pull out my iPod and I record the guitar. Playing the notes I formulated before.
Oooh, I must confess, all of it turned into a beautiful mess. And ooooh, I’m in the process of being created, moulded, I’m putting, putting all the pieces together.
I run the notes. I add some auto played piano. I am happy. I am content.
I am tense.
It’s good though, I am OK.
Because this is my song. This is my beautiful mess.