On the Road Again! Part 1

I love a good road trip! It's my preferred method of travel most of the time. It may take longer sometimes, but when you factor in how long it takes to get oneself to the airport, in the hour and a half before a flight, and if (and you know it will be) it's delayed, or you can land on time, get a car and get to your destination...unless its across the world, I'll drive! But I digress...

How does a road trip have anything to do with creativity? I'm sure you can figure it out. But here are some things that you may not have thought of. If your like me, you crank up the tunes! And you sing at the top of your lungs. Your in another county or state, so no one is going to recognize the crazy woman rocking out behind the wheel! I think this behaviour is essential on many levels! I highly recommend it.

If the trip is long, you have time to revisit some artists you may not have listened to for a while. My taste in music is very eclectic. I seem to love everything but rap. (opera, not so much either) Country has special appeal to me on a road trip. "looong neck bottle, leeggo my hand!" and "I dug my keys into the side, of his pretty little souped-up, four wheel drive, carved my name into his leather seats - took a louiville slugger to both headlights, slashed a hole in all four tires, maybe next time he'll think before he cheats!" , "where the whiskey drowns and the beer chases my blues away...and I'll be o.k." I mean, who can argue with that? And I cannot listen to Rascal Flats "my wish") without tears. Good a Capella Harmony makes me cry as well. Yes, music moves me.

But I was thinking about how much creativity goes into what we hear. The lyrics, the vocals, the instrumentation, and how we really don't think about what it takes to get it to the radio. We enjoy and appreciate, but not being involved in the process, we miss a lot. My musician friends get this. I can appreciate, but not fully. But they do it because it's their passion. And we listen because on some level it speaks to us. The musicians need to speak in that creative way, and we hear what they are saying!

So, my point? And not to be redundant here, but, EVERYONE has a creative voice of some kind. We may not all speak the same creative language, but we should visit other creative "states" along the way. It may lose something in translation, but we will be richer and broader for having taken the trip! Audit a journalism class, if you read the paper. Learn to cook french food if you like to eat it! If you get into it, you might understand and appreciate it better, even if its not your language. Or do what I did, think about it real hard...

So hit the road people -Visit a new "creative state" -Life is a journey!