There are two ways to approach a creative project. Either by thinking up an idea and then working to create what you imagined or by simply sitting down and spontaneously creating something new. Despite my need to think through nearly everything else in my life before I act, I usually fall into the second category when I create. I have learned that there are many ways to process life, and while I have been trying to learn how to journal better for the past several months, I believe that when I sit down to write music I am usually subconsciously putting my thoughts and feelings into my work, which is basically what journaling is.
I wrote the song “Dragon in the Distance” during the spring of 2016, and while it just felt like another song to throw on top of the stack of other songs I had written that year, I soon realized it was more. I wrote it pretty quickly, in only a few evenings, after long days of college classes. But while the aware part of my mind was busy keeping track of my schedule and the assignments that were due, my subconscious was tackling other things.
Earlier that year my maternal grandfather was diagnosed with non-smokers lung cancer. He was getting older and was starting to show signs of dementia, so we knew that in one way or another he was going downhill. We just didn’t expect him to die less than 6 months later.
It’s hard to know what to do while you wait for someone to die. But my decision was made for me because the school year wasn’t going to pause for my family emergencies. That week I went about my usual activities, with added visits to the hospital in between commitments. Usually with big life events, I force myself to become numb in the moment so that I can process the feelings later, and this was no exception. Little did I realize, choosing to sit down and write a song with my sporadic moments of spare time would serve to capture and remind myself of the feelings that I didn’t know I had.
The day after I wrote it, it rained; no news from the hospital. The next day he died.
I named the song later, after I came up with the concept for the album. But the title and meaning behind the song ended up fitting together like two perfect puzzle pieces. The dragon in the overarching story of the album refers to the threat of danger, trials, and pain. The dragon is in the distance, you can see it. Life is filled with trials, and they are painful. We must prepare ourselves for the looming threats that we see in our lives and in the lives around us. Much like a warrior preparing for battle against a dragon that may or may not be on its way.
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