Week #13 Take a Step

Starting a new project can be overwhelming. I’ve heard of several people embarking on new projects during the past year of the pandemic, many who finally found time to try new things they’ve been meaning to try.

This is the first time that I can think of in my lifetime that we as all humanity have experienced the same life-altering changes – to various degrees of course. Some have had a horrible year, with losing jobs, homes and loved ones. Not everyone has had the luxury of staying at home or working from home, they’ve been out on the trenches facing horrors in emergency rooms or on the streets and are too exhausted to learn a new language or plant a garden.

I think no matter what the situation, this past year has affected nearly all of us in some way. I’d like to hope that we all come out on the other side kinder than before, but a quick scroll of a social media newsfeed shows that we’re not there yet. (Although I do have to say, in my newsfeed there are some amazingly kind and good people who have done so much to encourage and help others this past year.)

Although I wrote this song at the beginning of last year – before the pandemic hit locally- it’s timely right now as people are feeling lost and confused and trying to figure out what to do next. Whether it’s recovering from a difficult experience or embarking on something new, one way to approach either situation is to take one step at a time.

Do you know where you’re going?
Do you have a plan?
Are you running in circles
Ending where you began

You don’t have to know
Grab my hand, let’s go

Take a step, a single step
Put a foot in front of the other
Take a step and then another
Take a step, take the first step

Sometimes we feel that we need to know everything before moving forward. But it’s OK to get started and make an effort before you are 100 percent sure what you’re doing. (Unless you’d be putting a life in danger of course – I’m not advocating taking a chance on someone’s life without proper training.)

Have you figured it out?
You don’t need all the facts
There’s no moving forward
If you keep holding back.

Take a chance and go
Or you’ll never know

It’s not easy and the path may be longer than you anticipated, but keep moving forward. (For example, I was sure I’d have a good recording of this song on my DAW by this week, but nope – just vocals and guitar again because I didn’t have a chance to finish it… But hey, we’re already in the second quarter of 2021, so progress is being made!)

If your path looks too steep, keep on keeping on
If your journey feels too long, remember you’re strong
Darkness turns to dawn

One of the reasons I wasn’t able to work on my song this week as much as I would have liked to was because we took a little trip since it was my sons’ spring break. We spent a couple days and one night in Lake Havasu. One of the spots to see there is London Bridge – the founder of Lake Havasu purchased a bridge from London and they shipped it to Arizona in 1968 and rebuilt it brick by brick.

To get to the top of the bridge from the sidewalk below, you need to climb a stairway. Not too be too cheesy, but you take it one step at a time.

The reason I’m actually sharing this tidbit though is because of the number of steps it took to get to the top of the stairs: 52, which fits in nicely with my 52 Weeks in 2021 project: 52 Weeks, 52 Songs, Turning 52 and for this week, Taking 52 Steps.

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(Header photo courtesy of JorgeArturo Andrade/Pexels)