Just Squeeze, I'm a Sponge


Recently I was ranting (yes, I do that!) to a friend about some issues in my life. I was analyzing ad nauseam this situation about this guy and my wise friend asked something that was quite profound....

"At a certain point, does it really help to analyze? Isn't it better to forgive, forget and move on?"

It took me a minute to respond.

It really did.

But then I said what I've been saying for years. Writers are sponges. We soak up every fish tale, every sunrise, every warm cookie, every puppy-breath kiss, every scraped knee and every crush that turned into a crash. And it's not just the details of our lives we're collecting. We notice that the person ahead of us in line at the grocery store has a tattoo of Texas on their leg, and we probably will ask them what the story is behind it 'cause it might make for a good song sometime (and yes, that's the truth).

We do this because we have to access something when we face the blank page. So, even though it may have been years since that (insert bad thing or happy thing or awkward thing here) happened to us or to you, we 'squeeze' our brains and some memory always comes out.

So, basically what I'm saying is that songwriters don't really move on. We just soak up everything, and store it somewhere in our fibers. Maybe we squeeze it out- and maybe it just drys up for a spell, but it's not really ever gone.

What do you store in your sponge?