I woke up with a throat full of razor blades and the day didn’t get better from there. I couldn’t hear. I couldn’t taste. I couldn’t be nice. I was short-fused and longed to just be left alone.

As is often the case when I’m emotionally and physically under the weather, my head filled with melodies and lyrical fragments. Inspiration always strikes me when I’m the least available to play along. I hung Christmas lights, blowing my nose every other trip up the ladder, and sipping hot herbal tea just as frequently, while a piano ballad plodded in my brain. Then a mid tempo alt folk thing. And another. And another.

Songs have lost so much of their power for me. Music feels more and more often like a spreadsheet than a prayer. When inspiration erupts I feel more and more like a secretary taking dictation than a craftsman of any kind.

But not tonight.

When the house was still, the kids in bed and Becky at the store, I sat at the piano and prayed the melodies out. One by one. Nonsense words mixed with fortune cookie-like scraps of wisdom. Wrong notes rose from the old upright accompanying the right and beautiful progressions in my head.

And when the garage door opened and rumbled the floor under my feet I stood to go downstairs and help unload the car. No less sick. No less grumpy. But stronger somehow. Empty and full.

This is what I miss about making music. It’s what hasn’t happened to me in years. It’s what I started out being: a person praying through a piano. I want to be that person again. Tonight I was convinced I can.