Reflections

 

 

http://bradkunkle.com

"...if a bird with a broken neck could fly away, what else might be possible? Water may be older than light, diamonds crack in hot goat's blood, mountaintops give off cold fire, forests appear in mid-ocean, it may happen that a crab is caught with the shadow of a hand on its back, and that the wind be imprisoned in a bit of knotted string.

And it may be that love sometimes occurs without pain or misery."

- Annie Proulx, The Shipping News 

On Being Not Dead/That Thing

There are people that you know, you just know, that if you met them you'd feel that thing. That subtle click of easy compatability, of moment-by-moment understanding, of eager rhythm, of total yes. People that see the world with the same set of eyes and heart that you do.

These are the kind of people you lock eyes with across a crowded room at a party when something awful or funny or sad just happened in another corner. Right then you look up in embarassment and catch this person's eye, and they know exactly what you're thinking, and you know exactly what they're thinking, and the relief that floods your chest is big and warm. In that moment the world feels a little less like chaos and a little more like art.

That feeling is terribly rare. I've learned that when you find it, you should grab it with both fists, no holding back. What's the point of restraint, anyway? Life is so stupidly short and senseless. Moments like that - people like that - sometimes feel like the entire point. They are my navigation in the dark.

If I met the writer of this op-ed piece in the New York Times, I'm sure I'd feel that thing.

Read it here: On Being Not Dead

Annabel Lee

It was many and many a year ago,

   In a kingdom by the sea,

That a maiden there lived whom you may know

   By the name of Annabel Lee;

And this maiden she lived with no other thought

   Than to love and be loved by me.

I was a child and she was a child,

   In this kingdom by the sea,

But we loved with a love that was more than love—

   I and my Annabel Lee—

With a love that the wingèd seraphs of Heaven

   Coveted her and me.

And this was the reason that, long ago,

   In this kingdom by the sea,

A wind blew out of a cloud, chilling

   My beautiful Annabel Lee;

So that her highborn kinsmen came

   And bore her away from me,

To shut her up in a sepulchre

   In this kingdom by the sea.

The angels, not half so happy in Heaven,

   Went envying her and me—

Yes!—that was the reason (as all men know,

   In this kingdom by the sea)

That the wind came out of the cloud by night,

   Chilling and killing my Annabel Lee.

But our love it was stronger by far than the love

   Of those who were older than we—

   Of many far wiser than we—

And neither the angels in Heaven above

   Nor the demons down under the sea

Can ever dissever my soul from the soul

   Of the beautiful Annabel Lee;

For the moon never beams, without bringing me dreams

   Of the beautiful Annabel Lee;

And the stars never rise, but I feel the bright eyes

   Of the beautiful Annabel Lee;

And so, all the night-tide, I lie down by the side

   Of my darling—my darling—my life and my bride,

   In her sepulchre there by the sea—

   In her tomb by the sounding sea.

I take writing classes through an organization called Gotham Writers' Workshop. They held a contest, which I did not enter, for 91 word flash memoirs. This is the winner, highlighted on The Daily Beast's website.

This tiny little snippet of words, of a human life flawlessly encapsulated, makes me so fired up/angry/hater/jealous that you know it's just amazing. Amazing. Find a word that isn't powerful and perfect and right. I dare you.

It's probably unflattering to admit that I get the jealous writer angries, or the jealous singer angries. However, if that is your opinion, shut up. The best work from others inspires you to get your hands dirty, to work harder, to be better, to fucking fight. I love this feeling. It's where I get work done.

I wanna punch something.

"I’ve often thought there ought to be a manual to hand to little kids, telling them what kind of planet they’re on, why they don’t fall off, how much time they’ve probably got here, how to avoid poison ivy, and so on. I tried to write it once. It was called Welcome to Earth. But I got stuck on explaining why we don’t fall off the planet. Gravity is just a word. It doesn’t explain anything. If I could get past gravity, I’d tell them how we reproduce, how long we’ve been here, apparently, and a little bit about evolution. I didn’t learn until I was in college about all the other cultures, and I should have learned that in first grade. A first grader should understand that his or her culture isn’t a rational invention; that there are thousands of other cultures and they all work pretty well; that all cultures function on faith rather than truth; that there are lots of alternatives to our own society. Cultural relativity is defensible and attractive. It’s also a source of hope. It means we don’t have to continue this way if we don’t like it."

 

- Kurt Vonnegut

The flying cloud, the frosty light:
The year is dying in the night;
Ring out, wild bells, and let him die.

Ring out the old, ring in the new,
Ring, happy bells, across the snow:
The year is going, let him go;
Ring out the false, ring in the true.

Ring out the grief that saps the mind
For those that here we see no more;
Ring out the feud of rich and poor,
Ring in redress to all mankind.

Ring out a slowly dying cause,
And ancient forms of party strife;
Ring in the nobler modes of life,
With sweeter manners, purer laws.

Ring out the want, the care, the sin,
The faithless coldness of the times;
Ring out, ring out my mournful rhymes
But ring the fuller minstrel in.

Ring out false pride in place and blood,
The civic slander and the spite;
Ring in the love of truth and right,
Ring in the common love of good.

Ring out old shapes of foul disease;
Ring out the narrowing lust of gold;
Ring out the thousand wars of old,
Ring in the thousand years of peace.

Ring in the valiant man and free,
The larger heart, the kindlier hand;
Ring out the darkness of the land,
Ring in the Christ that is to be. Ring out, wild bells, to the wild sky,
The flying cloud, the frosty light:
The year is dying in the night;
Ring out, wild bells, and let him die.

Ring out the old, ring in the new,
Ring, happy bells, across the snow:
The year is going, let him go;
Ring out the false, ring in the true.

Ring out the grief that saps the mind
For those that here we see no more;
Ring out the feud of rich and poor,
Ring in redress to all mankind.

Ring out a slowly dying cause,
And ancient forms of party strife;
Ring in the nobler modes of life,
With sweeter manners, purer laws.

Ring out the want, the care, the sin,
The faithless coldness of the times;
Ring out, ring out my mournful rhymes
But ring the fuller minstrel in.

Ring out false pride in place and blood,
The civic slander and the spite;
Ring in the love of truth and right,
Ring in the common love of good.

Ring out old shapes of foul disease;
Ring out the narrowing lust of gold;
Ring out the thousand wars of old,
Ring in the thousand years of peace.

Ring in the valiant man and free,
The larger heart, the kindlier hand;
Ring out the darkness of the land,
Ring in the Christ that is to be.

"Go for broke. Always try and do too much. Dispense with safety nets. Take a deep breath before you begin talking. Aim for the stars. Keep grinning. Be bloody-minded. Argue with the world. And never forget that writing is as close as we get to keeping a hold on a thousand and one things - childhood, certainties, cities, doubts, dreams, instants, phrases, parents, loves - that go on slipping, like sand, through our fingers."

- Salman Rushdie

The Fusion Of All That I Love: A Musical Rant.

Last winter, my choir did a whole concert devoted to literary works, mostly poetry, set to classical music.

This is pretty much my peanut butter ice cream on a stupid hot August night, my puppy-snuggle on a rainy day, my arrival in a new city armed with a fresh map and comfy shoes. That is to say, this is my fusion of all that is good and holy and beautiful on the earth.

Yes, this makes me a big, huge mother of a dork but I don't care. I'm pretty sure that if all of our human bodies faded away into the ether one day, and all that was left of each of us was a little dust and grit in the shape of our most precious things, our most pure and holy and relentlessly beloved things, mine would be a wobbly musical note with an exclamation point fused into it. Or something similarly stupid and 14-year-old girlish. Hey, we all have our things, right?

Hearing eight professional hired soloists sing Tarik O'Regan's The Ectasies Above, an arrangement set to the words of Edgar Allan Poe's Israfel, is the kind of moment that makes you realize that music can be so beautiful, so relentless, that it actually feels like you are being attacked. It is somehow physically painful to be so close to such glory - it's the equivalent of auditory sun glare. In moments like that you understand that no matter how capable of a singer you might, on a particularly confident day, fancy yourself to be, you simply will never be magnificent. And this moment is somehow both one of the best and the worst that's ever happened to you.

These singers stand in front of you, four men and four women around 25-35, perfectly ordinary looking with their little cups of Starbucks tea and their music folders and their reasonable shoes. They walk around like regular humans, but clearly they were birthed under a musical star or some other explosive celestial event because there are actual golden violins humming away in their throats. Nothing has ever, ever, been as simple and clear and discordantly beautiful as them singing this song of poetry. In this blazingly clear moment you cannot help but be aware of what you are capable of as a musical person, and what you are not. The envy is so great it boils and cracks, and your self-loathing when you open your own wretched human throat to croak out the background notes is strong enough to knock over the entire cityscape.

But it's also the best moment because at least you get to be in the presence of this magnificence. On stage with it, even. You get to stand right there, on a stage/altar-like thing in New York City, in Greenwich Village, in a dress and sparkly jewelry and pretty shoes. You get to hold up your trusty black choir book and provide some good, solid background notes with a bunch of other talented folks who love it as much as you do. Who, by the way, also feel like big fat talentless lumps around this level of divinity, which makes you all laugh together, which of course makes it better.

This moment is the dream you conjured up when you were eleven years old, rocking out to Whitney Houston with your bedroom door securely closed. Back then you sat crossed-legged on the floor, hiding behind your bed, facing the back corner so no one would hear you try to hold the long notes in I Will Always Love You. It's true that back then you imagined you'd be famous one day. Saw yourself on a stage, sparkling and strong under hot lights, singing for an audience of thousands. And of course that never happened.

But at its core, the only thing that sweet childhood dream meant was that you wanted to sing forever. And today, even if you are not magnificent, not luminous and celestial and divine, you are still singing. This is important. Maybe the very most important thing. It's vital to hold onto the things that bring you joy and light.

So, I am not magnificent - which of course I always knew - but this still sort of sucks when you're an art-lover or performer of any kind. But I'm fortunate enough to be around true heavenly talent from time to time. I'm lucky to be a part of things, to be always learning new skills, new facts, new pieces and composers and styles. And in the company of friends who love it, too. I understand now that for me, this is enough. This is all that I need.

Listen here to a recording of The Ecstasies Above, if you have time and an open mind to classical music. (Skip around to minutes 6-8 to hear the best parts, and then again around 10-12, if you must. If you MUST skip the majority, then just listen to minutes 15-17. Yes, it's long. That is the classical way!)

And then. And then! In the very same night, we swung over into music by Eric Whitacre, the most mind-bending composer I've ever sung. We sang his composition The City and the Sea, five settings of poems by e.e. Cummings, one of which is Maggie and Milly and Molly and May. 

The poem is simple and beautiful to begin with, of course. But if you set it to music what you end up with is an April who can't finish the piece because every time she tries to sing the second-to-last stanza she ends up choking back sobs. Listen to this one, which is blessedly short, here.

If you're not into clicking links, my dear audience of three souls, let's do this because I must, I just must:

maggie and milly and molly and may

maggie and milly and molly and may
went down to the beach(to play one day)

and maggie discovered a shell that sang
so sweetly she couldn't remember her troubles, and

milly befriended a stranded star
whose rays five languid fingers were;

and molly was chased by a horrible thing
which raced sideways while blowing bubbles:and

may came home with a smooth round stone
as small as the world and as large as alone.

For whatever we lose(like a you or a me)
it's always ourselves we find in the sea.

Most people fall apart over the last stanza, but for me it's the one before it. Lovely to read, gorgeous to listen to in music, impossible to sing if you are weeping, wailing me.

That's it, that's all I have tonight. My enthusiasm this evening has exhausted me. Happy listening, if I've caught your interest.

Reluctance

Out through the fields and the woods
and over the walls I have wended;
I have climbed the hills of view
and looked at the world, and descended;
I have come by the highway home,
and lo, it is ended.

The leaves are all dead on the ground,
save those that the oak is keeping
to ravel them one by one
and let them go scraping and creeping
out over the crusted snow,
when others are sleeping.

And the dead leaves lie huddled and still,
no longer blown hither and thither;
the last lone aster is gone;
the flowers of the witch-hazel wither;
the heart is still aching to seek,
but the feet question "Whither?"

Ah, when to the heart of man
was it ever less than a treason
to go with the drift of things,
to yield with a grace to reason,
and bow and accept the end
of a love or a season?

I wanted to pick just one or two of these, but lost all sense of composure instead. I'd like to formally thank this week's issue of The-April-Darcy-Sunday-Night-Tumblr-Vortex for helping me find this guy.  

I mean, come on. Just come on. 

"The most important things are the hardest to say. They are the things you get ashamed of, because words diminish them -- words shrink things that seemed limitless when they were in your head to no more than living size when they're brought out. But it's more than that, isn't it? The most important things lie too close to wherever your secret heart is buried, like landmarks to a treasure your enemies would love to steal away. And you may make revelations that cost you dearly only to have people look at you in a funny way, not understanding what you've said at all, or why you thought it was so important that you almost cried while you were saying it. That's the worst, I think. When the secret stays locked within not for want of a teller but for want of an understanding ear." 

— Stephen King