Something changed

80% of the time, lyrics came first. Always. I started making up songs before I could even play a note. It's what kids do. I just never grew out of it. But even when I began playing guitar, lyrics nearly always came first. Poems set to music. Occasionally a whole package would present itself, notes and words seemingly already married. Very rarely would a melody enter my head without a lyric attached.

Past tense. Something strange happened last June. On the night of the full moon, everything changed. I didn't know it then. It was chalked up as one of those rare occasions when a melody alone demanded attention, most likely precipitated by the phase of the moon. Until it happened again. Driving, humming, humming what? And again. Surely, it's something I've heard before that I am unwittingly plagiarizing. So I play it for my husband, a couple of friends. They can't place it either. So it continued. Creativity as I know it was turned on its head.

What could make everything change? Change nearly in an instant, over night, with only the full moon to blame? Was there actually an evolution so gradual that I just didn't notice everything slowly turning upside down? No. Something happened. An odd magic, a twist of reality, something drastic yet natural, something beyond definition. Something.