Calling all you caregivers–be part of our creative team (the Ortiz treble makers) and help us write a song that matters.

We work alone most of the time, Skylar and Alexandra don’t need me to write a song and publish it on their YouTube channel, and I stick to what I do best: writing my blog. But we do our mightiest work when we join forces. And it’s a heck of a lot more fun that way, too.

There are no first, second, and third prizes here. It’s a process, kind of like going through a car wash. The water and the brushes don’t start up until the car gets lined up on the tracks.

It all starts with that car. So, in this case, I decided to write a song about what it means to be a caregiver. Typically I’d write a poem (a very primitive and unfinished one. It doesn’t even have to rhyme or make much sense). It gives us a starting point–a dirty car.

Skylar takes those suds and water and rubs off all that dirt to find the actual color of that car–the lyrics.

Alexandra then is like the wax phase in the car wash assembly line. She waxes those lyrics and composes the music that makes us want to tap our feet and sing along.

When the car comes out brand-spanking clean, it doesn’t matter who did what part. It’s the shiny car that makes us feel so darn good driving down that street.

So here I’m inviting you in on the process. Be the research portion to the song we’re going to write together.

But I’ll get you started. It’s called Mean Well. It’s from the perspective of caregivers–those on the other side of a health scare.

You’ve been in their shoes too. You’ve had to help someone through hard times and be in a position of tough love. How did it feel? It wasn’t always easy, and sometimes it must have ripped you apart, but you kept it together because you cared.

Help write the song that you’d need to hear. The words that would have helped you when you had to stay positive no matter the uncertainty of the outcome. When you had to watch a loved one suffer, how did you stay strong?

Write it as a poem, or prose, a story, as a comment, or an email. It doesn’t matter how you share it; if it rhymes or not, be part of the soul of a song that means something powerful to every one of us.

Maybe I’ve been writing too much about myself, and not enough about you. But together we can find that missing voice.