The Comfy Corner

"White, a blank page or canvas." These are the first words spoken by George in "Sunday in the Park With George." I've never really understood the depth of that first sentence until recently. There is nothing more magical than that silent moment before a band starts playing, the blinking cursor before the first word is typed, the empty staff before the first note is written, the moment before an idea becomes a physical reality. The blank canvas. It is my favorite part about art and I didn't really understand that until very recently.

I am not much of a composer/lyricist but I have written a few things and that moment when the idea in my brain becomes a song that someone else is singing or playing - that moment is more powerful than anything else in the world. I remember in college, when my class sang this group number I had written, I sat there in awe. I could have cried. I didn't write anything down or record anything because I was so mesmerized. It was the first time I've ever heard a made up song from my brain exist in real time with real people. Where there was nothing, now there was something. I also remember my very first day of marching band in the eighth grade and hearing that first downbeat of the first song of our show for the first time. I got chills. I. Always. Get. Chills.

The show I'm in currently in, "The Drowsy Chaperone" has an incredible moment when the overture is being played on a record player and midway through the song it seamlessly shifts from the record player to the live orchestra. That moment always gives me chills. Always. And this is my third time doing this show. I'm currently working on a solo show and I've turned a bunch of my blogs into songs. And that moment when I just sing a melody to my music director and he lays down an accompaniment out of nowhere. That moment is so magical. I hate to use the world "magical," but that's what it is! Harry Potter magic doesn't exist to my knowledge, but that "group mind" where two artists can be on the same page about something without even describing it in words - that be nothing else but magic, right?

So when you are hesitant to start something. If you're hesitant to write that first word, sing that first note, drop that first downbeat, take that first stroke - don't be. Because you are about to create something out of absolutely nothing. And that is magic. And that in itself is a miracle. And that feeling is incomparable to anything else in the world. Stay comfy y'all.