Crap Mountain

A reflection on writing, songwriting, and tiny baby spiders.

On July 28, 2026, at the Des Moines Arts Festival during our Story & Song songwriter round, fellow Substacker and singer-songwriter, Chip Albright, asked me why I write songs, and I said these groundbreaking words:

“I don’t know.”

It’s mostly true: I don’t know. But I have ideas, too many to get out of my mouth in an orderly, efficient way when people are looking at me, though. I’d like to try again here, with space, time, nobody’s eyeballs, and my preferred mode of communication (writing).

Why do I write songs?

I know that I feel physically better after I write a song, even if it’s a terrible song - like a rusty joint got oiled. After I write a blog post, I feel like a messy pile of books got shelved, and my shoulders drop. After I write fiction, I feel a little more in love with the world, and my brow un-furrows.

I wonder how painters feel after they paint, sculptors feel after they sculpt, dancers feel after they dance, or landscapers feel after they plant. How do designers feel after they rearrange a living room or hair stylists feel after they create the perfect pompadour? How does a chef feel when the meal is served or a builder feel when the deck is stained? Do they feel a little more alive?

Maybe it’s about seeing the pliability of life that comes from moving energy. We are never as stuck as we think we are.

I listened to a podcast almost a decade ago that explored creativity as interplay between feminine and masculine energies along the body’s meridians. (Episode 175 of the Robcast: Kristin Hanggi and Natalie Roy Are Just Getting Started) Meridians, according to Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM), are the invisible pathways that carry life force - qi - throughout the body. There are twelve main meridians, each linked to a particular organ, each associated with either yin (feminine energy) or yang (masculine energy), and two additional meridians (Governing and Conception Vessels). These meridians and intersecting points form the basis for acupuncture (as I understand it, anyway), and in the case of Hanggi and Roy interviewed in the podcast, also provide an alternative way to understand creativity.

Yin (feminine energy) is about (among other things) receptivity, observation, intake; Yang (masculine energy) is action, doing, output. Everyone, regardless of gender, has both feminine and masculine energies, so this is not about that. Instead, it’s about being able to move between input and output. If you spend too much time in yin (input), you never produce. If you spend too much time producing (yang) without contemplation, you find yourself burned out at the top of Crap Mountain. To make anything – and to make anything of substance – you must know when to sit in yin and when to move into yang, when to hold ‘em, when to fold ‘em, know when to walk away and know when to run.

Or something like that.

I know that I spend a lot of time thinking and observing and not speaking. I spend a lot of time gathering information. When my joints get stiff, I know it’s time to move that energy with a song. When my head gets messy and scattered, I know it’s time to organize with a blog post or a journal entry. When I feel trapped in a world gone mad, I know it’s time to shuffle the pieces of a pretend one in fiction (to remind myself that everything bends and worlds are created). And when I find myself weary at the top of Crap Mountain, I know it’s time to stop and listen. That’s how it works for me, and because there is nothing particularly unique about my psychology, I assume it works similarly for others.

A year ago, I created an office space for myself upstairs under a small dormer window. This is where I write. This is where I am now. When the breeze is strong (also now), the silver maple in the front yard brushes against the gutters and sometimes the screen. It bends and shakes when squirrels jump from one limb to another. I am certain this tree calms my blood pressure and clears my vision. I am certain this tree helps me write. I am certain this tree is my cowriter. The tree moves, I move, and things get made. (Do I help the tree do anything? Or does the benefit only go one way? Contemplation for another day.)

In quantum physics, they talk about the “observer effect” - that particles change their behavior when they are observed. If everything we do is an act of creation – even the most subtle act of creating the world around us by observing it – and every act of creation moves energy, then what would we do or how would we think differently if we paid keen attention to how things impact the buzz in our own bodies? How would we behave if we understood that at all times we were co-creators of the world around us?

I really like the idea of moving energy, because it’s universal. It doesn’t matter who you are; if you’re alive on the planet (and some argue, even if you are NOT alive on the planet), you’re trafficking protons and electrons and neutrons. I wonder how our conversations about nearly anything at all – creativity, politics, spirituality, sports, neighborhood barbecues, talking to cashiers, buying socks, listening to music, petting dogs, waiting in lines — might broaden and/or deepen if we center them around how we move and move within energy. How are we influencing the exchange? And is it healthy and good? Or is it stifling and bad?

You know what fascinates me about this exact moment that I am writing these words? When I started way back there at paragraph 1, line 1, I had no idea where I was going. Truly, no clue. Somehow, like tiny baby spiders on silk balloons, the wind blew us to meridians, quantum physics, and the tree in the front yard. Here we are, and if I keep writing, we’ll surely land somewhere else.

In summary, I probably write songs in an effort to lubricate the joints.

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