After I built the boat desk, I declared to myself that I am a creative type and I need to focus on that. I thought to myself, “Why did I always undervalue this facet of me? So I became introspective.
I started to search through the mental reels of my life to recall other times I had been creative but just took it for granted. I thought about the first thing I ever built. I was in high school and I ordered a kit for a canoe, which I built with a high school friend, in my basement. I christened it, the “Henriette”, after my high school sweetheart.
I launched it in a friend’s swimming pool to test for leaks before I took it out on the rivers in Missouri where I grew up. So the boat desk was the first thing I ever designed, but it was the second thing I ever built. Building the canoe was the first time I realized I like building things and I was good with my hands.
But I didn’t see the connection between the fun I had building it and the gift of being good with my hands. I didn’t realize that it was a gift I was given and I should develop and nurture it.
Then I thought back to the first song I ever wrote. I was on a bus and the music and the words just started to come through me. I quickly borrowed a pen and paper from the girl sitting next to me and I wrote the words down as I quietly worked out the melody. Since I didn’t have a recorder with me on the bus, I repeatedly sang it to myself in order to memorize it so that when I got home I could record it quickly,
I got home, recorded it quickly, and breathed a sigh of relief. Then I just sat and listened to what I had created. I don’t know how I did it, but I did it. It was a curiously awesome feeling. I called it, “Remembering Good Times”.The next day I figured out the guitar chords and harmonies to go with the melody. To hear it, click below:
For a moment, I was amazed at myself, that I could even do that. I had never written any songs before or even thought about it. But that soon became a passing thought too. I didn’t think about that being a gift either. But it was. It is.
These things that we are strongly interested in are clues to our gifts. We need to pay close attention to them and pursue them for our own great adventure and see where they take us.
