The New Upside Down

This was supposed to be my best musical year; my biggest tour schedule, the most packed songwriting workshops, the year I padded my songwriting partnerships with new co-writers. Well, I am living proof that the best laid plans can be overturned by the will of the world. Since March of 2020, I have watched with horror as all of my tour dates have cancelled. With trembling hands I had to send back thousands of dollars to hopeful workshop students and cancel them until life is safe again, and who knows when that will be. Co-writing is not happening for fear of being shut up in small quarters for most of a day with other writers. We are all at the mercy of this thing that showed up and decided to kick like a mule. So, what was a girl like me, filled with the urge to write supposed to do with this much free time on my hands?

A Brighter Approach
Shortly after the major shutdown on March 12, 2020, I decided to take a brighter approach and create a gratitude list on my personal FaceBook page of five things I was grateful for or just five mundane things going on in my day. I also asked folks to join me on this journey. At first there were a few brave souls that wrote but little by little they let it go and I forged on alone. I thought I might let it go by the wayside too but I started getting private messages telling me how much my encouragement meant and to please continue them. I am now on day 237 (or farther along as you read this), and it’s so much a part of my new routine that I cannot imagine giving them up at this point. Each morning I brew a cup of strong coffee, lift my little dog up and put him by my side, get my keyboard in my lap and start the challenge of talking about the ordinary.

I am finding the more I do the daily writings the better I get at taking the nearly boring ingredients of my everyday life and gleaning the humor that shimmers in my world. I see a laugh in most everything I do. Suddenly I am not a dull person. In a split second, a stray goat shows up in my back yard with a pot bellied pig and starts eating all my bird food and voila, I have so much to write about the next day. It’s just that easy, lol. There are faithful readers that love the posts, leaving comments and thumbs up every day and I realize in some new twist that I am entertaining an audience in a whole new way.

Keeping You Engaged
When the world starts back up again and music is ready to hit the road, I wonder how different we will be. I wonder if things will ever truly go back to the way it was or will we be so used to the way it is by then that we just morph into the “new” way of things? I guess we won’t know until we get there and most likely by then the world will know most of how things run on the Wee Farm. I’ll wake up tomorrow and let you know what my yesterday was like and hopefully keep you engaged enough to seek me out every now and then. The songwriter in me is always looking for a way to spin the words rattling around in my noggin, to tell a story even if the words come down without rhymes or chords. Maybe this new upside down world has a plan for me…just maybe. Stay safe, stay healthy and be grateful!

Written By Donna Ulisse