night

Alright. Maybe the heroic act of signing up for a blog isn’t enough to get the fires of motivation burning. It’s been weeks (okay, months) since my last post. Hmm. The work, however, has been quite active within my skull. It bounces and moves, like swaying bodies in a dance hall. The first sentence for that story I’m going to start, the perfect description of her hands. Of that feeling that comes over you at dusk, when your off-duty life can either blossom or wither. The sun is slipping away, bringing calm. I can make my noise now, the sounds I’m denied during the day. The measured, practiced, focused screams and flutters that somehow add up to music. The average toddler laughs 300 times a day; the average adult, 35. This is what I do instead of laughing. I bring sound to poetry that otherwise stays silent on the page. I have a treasure, a discipline, and a belief. It takes me above my colleagues, the other young people who spend their days in silence like me, clicking and thinking, and waiting. I shop, haunt new restaurants, fill my weekends with culture, just like they all do. But it’s my sound that makes me different, brings me closer to the Divine. I shouldn’t call it sound. The music is really a byproduct of the sensations. Expansion, pressure, movement, balance, breath, focus. This is what fills my nights, and my waking thoughts as I walk down the stairs for more water, as I allow conversation to sweep around me. It’s all sub rosa during the day. It’s only afterwards that my energy really comes to, and I carry out my work to the audience of my kitchen cockroaches, and my suffering neighbors.

Suffering? That’s not what they say. They recognize me instantly in the elevator, neighbors I’ve never seen, who live nowhere near my floor. “Are you that opera singer?” Hey, I look the part. I can’t help but think that they loathe every minute they’re forced to hear me. It’s only an hour or so – I justify – I’m not as loud as a trombone. But what’s really going on is this: I’m yet another mouth in a crowded slew of mouths, all barking towards the same goal. You have to be a visionary to sing well, to communicate. That doesn’t count the details, the tone, the weight, the........ pitch. It’s all got to be there, and every time I fail in some way, I fell farther and farther from my goal. My treasure brings me closer to the Divine, which is where I must believe I belong.

So this is the struggle that keeps me from writing this blog, that keeps me on page four of the teach-yourself fiction writing book. But sometimes even my music discipline fades, and I slip into the pages of a magazine, swim through some red wine, or marvel at how fast the hours can career by, as if it didn’t matter if I accomplished something or not.....

I’m working towards a concert right now. It will soon be evident to me and everyone else listening if my hours were used wisely or not. I have exactly two weeks to get more comfortable with the 23 songs I have planned for a recital. There is no one making me do this, no college credit or big career step. I decided to put myself through this all by myself, so I can only blame me if I forget the words, miss a beat, sing way off pitch, or stumble (and there are so many ways I can). But it’s a project I’ve wanted to do for a long time, and only now do I feel I have some of the tools to do it. I’ll be working at it every day, and doing the very best I can on September 18.