Yesterday I had a show. It was outdoors, a mild and windy fall day, with most of the audience seated many yards away, gathered around fire tables or under umbrellas. Not the best place to share nuanced music without the metronomic assistance and high-end sonic clarity of a guitar. But thankfully, at this point – now two years into my experiences performing as a singer-songwriter – I have come to expect the unexpected, and I’m able to make my thing work in spite of minor challenges and less-than-ideal performance situations.

So I did my job. I made the older women in the front row cry, I sent ripples of laughter through the crowd, and even had a mountain biker take a break from his ride to stop, listen and then wait to say hello afterwards. I also shared a song about my discontent with the nation’s politics, and although I could see the women in front squirming with discomfort as they disengaged from me, checked their phones and avoided eye contact, bless their MAGA hearts, they didn’t get up and leave. In fact, they came up later and told me how much they’d enjoyed my set. A win in my book. Message heard, if not received.

As I wrapped cables and loaded up my car, I was feeling content, and had a smidge of that post-show energy. Not quite ready to go home. I checked the Caffe Lena site and saw there was a singer-songwriter there, starting in just a few minutes. It would mean a chunk out of the money I’d just made, so I hesitated at first. Then, as I did a bit more research on my phone, I learned that this fellow had a congenital eye disorder. Like my son. Actually, just the opposite – this guy’s losing his rod cell function, and my son has no cone cell function. Either way, low vision and the diminishment of it has been a main theme of my son’s life, and at the forefront of my concerns as a mother. Easy decision. Let’s go hear this guy.

Being on a budget, I don’t often go out to hear what’s going on in the musical world. There are world-class musicians at Caffe Lena numerous times each week (I knew Lena Spencer as a child; the room has been a part of my life for as long as I can remember), yet I simply can’t afford to attend. A couple of years ago I took a chance and just decided to go there on one random, unplanned night. I had no idea who was playing, but I had a bit of cash and felt like splurging. I sat in the audience, mesmerized. Was that what a real singer-songwriter sounded like? Could you really tell stories in between your songs like this? People listened? Where the hell had I been all of my life? How was I only just getting this now? Having spent my musical life as a sideman in pop and rock bands, this folk world hadn’t appeared on my radar as an adult. And since I had just written my first handful of songs at that point, Grace Pettis got me thinking… This looked so satisfying, so gratifying. Seems strange that it was all so new to me at the age of 60. Ignorant old newbie.

Once, a year ago or so, an old friend of mine in LA texted and said that a fellow who he’d produced was playing in my town – did I know the venue? – and if I did, he’d get me a comp. It was Caffe Lena. So of course I went. The singer I heard was Chris Pierce. It was the second big step in the expansion of my songwriter’s mind. By that time I’d written over 30 songs, and I’d begun to do solo shows, so I had a different perspective from the year before. Meeting him afterward was also enlightening. Me, I’m often a bit short with folks after I play; I kinda want to get my car loaded and just go home after a show. But that’s no way to build relationships. Honestly, it’s just not being very nice. From Chris I learned the importance of warmth and connection. He was patient and unrushed, listening to folks telling their stories of when they’d heard him before, or how much a song had meant to them. It was a beautiful thing watching him hang afterwards. It was a lesson in humility for me. A huge gift.

And then there was last night. The fellow I went to see was Mark Erelli. I wish I could say that it was inspiring, but actually, it had me feeling like a clodding fool of a writer. I’ve come to be a little jaded about songs; even though I myself employ all the standard conventions and forms, I’ll sometimes think to myself, when hearing a songwriter, “here comes the bridge”, or “here comes the six minor” or some such nod to the next likely move. Last night, as I struggled to convey my feelings about the show, I blurted out that the fellow’s bridges were somehow “bridgier”. Seriously. Every one of this man’s songs was a profoundly beautiful surprise. Though I’ll admit that I still don’t listen to a lot of songwriters even now (most of those who I do listen to have me checking out after the first chorus), last night I was enraptured (as was everyone in the room). Plus, his duo partner James Rohr played not only the most sonically gorgeous piano sound (from a keyboard) I’ve yet heard, but he supported Mark with just the loveliest and most economic comping, fills and solos. The composite sound of the two of them was a warm bath of rich, deep, pure sound. What a lucky thing I decided to go out last night.

This morning, in an attempt to feel a bit less disheartened about my abilities as a songwriter, I turned my attention to the song I’d written most recently. The ideas had been in the back of my mind for a few months already, and I’d just been waiting for the right moment to try and get them all together in the same song. I sat on the couch in the warm morning sunshine last week and scanned through a couple of notebooks, reviewing the lines and ideas I’d written down. Somehow (as it often does for me) the song came together within a couple of hours as I sat down at the piano began to play and sing. And, as with most songs, it wouldn’t leave me alone for the next two days. This earworm of a song on repeat sometimes convinces me that I’ve just written something really good. But then today I had to remind myself that “good” is relative. Yeah, my songs are mostly good, a few are great, but many are (maybe they feel even more so now in the wake of hearing Mark) just placeholders. Experiments, moments in time caught on paper and in my memo app. And while it’s tempting to feel down about my lack of subtlety or ingenuity, I’m going to choose instead to remember that I’m new to this. That I am expressing myself in my own voice. Hell, I suppose it’s a minor success that I’m even writing. I’m not disappointed in my work so much as I am aware of how much room for improvement there is.

I’ll never be Nashville slick. But I have so much more on board than I did at the start of this new chapter. It may well be the main endeavor that sees me to the end of my turn on this plane. When Elihu left home I didn’t know how I’d make it through or what I was even waking up for, but now I think I have a better idea. And after hearing some truly great songs, I am humbled, but not deterred. Writing and playing songs has been a fine use of time. My ending became a beginning.

And I’m happy it turned out this way. (Hey – now there’s a good line for the notebook…)