Just One Thing with John Shakespear

Our January flash comes from John Shakespear, and if you need a breathless, one-sentence story in your life (and who doesn't?!), then "Origin Story" is the perfect match for you. Take a peek at John's workspace and learn more about the origin of the story:  

"'Origin Story'" was the first thing I wrote after moving to Nashville in August 2017. The night
before my partner and I left Boston, I played one last gig with a band called Atlas Lab that I’d
been with for a few years. It was a fun night, a sweet gig, etc. I said my goodbyes, threw all my
stuff in the car, and left. The next morning, about thirty minutes into an eighteen-hour drive, I had to pull over at a rest stop on I-90 because I was blindsided by emotion—by pure happiness, because I’d been able to make music with people I loved for so long, in that band and others, and because all those people were going to keep making music—but also by a sense of loss I wasn’t prepared for.

A few days later, during a workshop led by Lorraine López, this story poured out. It felt like an extension of whatever I’d been feeling in the car, a way of sublimating those feelings and paying tribute to how lucky I’d been. It’s not autobiography, not the true story of a single first encounter; rather, it’s a collage of several happy meetings."