***Penguin Cafe Orchestra: “Music for a Found Harmonium”***
For my mother, the sun did not rise with choirs of angels, but with an alarming beep, beep, beep, beep. That moment, when her slumber was cut short, began the repetitious tedium of a mother’s daily schedule which wore on her like a song on repeat, or a melody without dimension. The score for this part of my mother’s life was “Music for a Found Harmonium,” a song of few notes and even fewer instruments. The song’s almost monotonous recurrence of the same few quickly paced violin tones could be heard playing over and over as she lifted loads of laundry, chauffeured anxious children, and scoured daily dishes. But my mother heard this same song differently than I did. “Listen, listen,” I remember her saying. “Here comes the change in the music.” Her eyes would close, and a small slit smile would cut across her face as she soaked in the variation of melody heard within the same “Music for a Found Harmonium.” A few key changes and the occasional trill brought my mother pleasure. The music was simple but she enjoyed it nonetheless. She found magic hidden in the ordinary; and she discovered its power. My mother didn’t get bored with a simple violin like others, because it wasn’t about the violin; it was about the music as a whole. Violins aren’t what remind me of my mother, but the changes in melody like those she heard when no one else could. And I won’t find her in the monotony of washing daily dishes, but in the occasional plastic popsicle stick leftover from homemade popsicles—the trill that caused the smile. She taught me to find harmony through the magic of ordinary days.
***Blue October: “Into the Ocean”***
But I don’t want you to get the wrong idea. While I can always hear the sounds of my mother, it’s not constantly through sweet changes in violin melodies while happily doing the dishes. Sometimes, she would spin, “colliding into sound, like whales beneath me diving down.” I can remember the days the black hole mess in our bedrooms would suck her in and consume her, when “the lighthouse beam [had] just run out.” It didn’t matter how many times we all worked on organizing the girls’ room; somehow a whirlwind managed to sneak in every night. Shoes were in the bed and dolls were under it, and no one knew where the bed blankets were. By ten o’clock at night we were all frustrated and even mom was near tears. Again and again the black hole would try to eat my mother. But instead she would fall “Into the Ocean,” and drift on the waves of a heavy beat; the rhythm took her away with drums and guitars and men with liquid voices. She would listen to it in the car and in the kitchen, and she would listen to it in full volume; the beat of the song helped her conquer the abyss.
***Imogen Heap: “Hide and Seek”***
However, more often than not, I tended to out-stress my mother. At times of high tension, a different tune was sung and happiness seemed like a game of “Hide and Seek.” I remember coming home from school very frazzled; and frazzleness often came in the form of Brittney B. It didn’t matter how hard I had tried, she always had to be better than me. I can remember the way she would turn and flip her dirty blonde locks around in Dance Company. Strands of hair would fly, and then settle as she cocked her head to catch my eyes with a sideways glance. She wanted to see if I had watched. I would come home completely exhausted from play practice, Dance Company, and class with Brittney; lack of sleep and high stress easily overcame my emotions. All I needed was to let off a little steam with my mom. She would crank up Imogen and I would sing the words I couldn’t say: “Where are we? What the hell is going on? The dust has only just begun to form crop circles in the carpet. Sinking. Feeling.” I would dance around the kitchen; most of the time this resulted in me hitting some appliance or dish with either a foot or an arm. One kick to the back, right into the cupboard, and a flick of my own hair, right through the spaghetti sauce, and a sideways glance to see if mom was watching. She always was. We played “Hide and Seek” after school, and she always knew just where to find me.
***John Butler Trio: “Better Than”***
She taught me lessons from my stressful moments, lessons I’m still working on learning today. Sitting on a bar stool with my elbows pressed into our lime green countertop, I listened to the sound of my mom sing words of wisdom: “All I know is sometimes things can be hard, but you should know by now they come and they go. So why, oh why do [you] look to the other side? 'Cos I know the grass is greener but just as hard to mow. Life's not about what's better than.” The “grass is greener,” but on my little patch of shriveled grass, I could giggle with my mom, my best friend, about John Butler Trio’s “hot hip-action;” somehow that was fertilizer for my soul. Life wasn’t about being “better than” Brittney Bowman; I will never be able to raise my leg up above my head the way she can. But sounds of my mother became the power by which I got through the hard times.
***Matt Nathanson: “Come on Get Higher”***
***Eurythmics: “Here Comes the Rain Again”***
***Safety Suit: “Someone Like You”***
***Loreena McKennitt: “The Mummers’ Dance”***
The sounds of my mom pick me up and carry me. When I walk across campus alone, when I lie in bed at night, when I turn on my music “I miss the sound of your voice. And I miss the rush of your skin. And I miss the still of the silence, as you breathe out and I breathe in.” “I want to walk in the open wind. I want to dive into your ocean. Is it raining with you?” “If I were strong enough, if I were wrong enough to be someone like you, would you have let me come to be with you?” I can’t remember a time when I didn’t hear the sounds of my mother. And together in the music, we will always “link our hands and dance round in circles and in rows.”
For my mother, the sun did not rise with choirs of angels, but with an alarming beep, beep, beep, beep. That moment, when her slumber was cut short, began the repetitious tedium of a mother’s daily schedule which wore on her like a song on repeat, or a melody without dimension. The score for this part of my mother’s life was “Music for a Found Harmonium,” a song of few notes and even fewer instruments. The song’s almost monotonous recurrence of the same few quickly paced violin tones could be heard playing over and over as she lifted loads of laundry, chauffeured anxious children, and scoured daily dishes. But my mother heard this same song differently than I did. “Listen, listen,” I remember her saying. “Here comes the change in the music.” Her eyes would close, and a small slit smile would cut across her face as she soaked in the variation of melody heard within the same “Music for a Found Harmonium.” A few key changes and the occasional trill brought my mother pleasure. The music was simple but she enjoyed it nonetheless. She found magic hidden in the ordinary; and she discovered its power. My mother didn’t get bored with a simple violin like others, because it wasn’t about the violin; it was about the music as a whole. Violins aren’t what remind me of my mother, but the changes in melody like those she heard when no one else could. And I won’t find her in the monotony of washing daily dishes, but in the occasional plastic popsicle stick leftover from homemade popsicles—the trill that caused the smile. She taught me to find harmony through the magic of ordinary days.
***Blue October: “Into the Ocean”***
But I don’t want you to get the wrong idea. While I can always hear the sounds of my mother, it’s not constantly through sweet changes in violin melodies while happily doing the dishes. Sometimes, she would spin, “colliding into sound, like whales beneath me diving down.” I can remember the days the black hole mess in our bedrooms would suck her in and consume her, when “the lighthouse beam [had] just run out.” It didn’t matter how many times we all worked on organizing the girls’ room; somehow a whirlwind managed to sneak in every night. Shoes were in the bed and dolls were under it, and no one knew where the bed blankets were. By ten o’clock at night we were all frustrated and even mom was near tears. Again and again the black hole would try to eat my mother. But instead she would fall “Into the Ocean,” and drift on the waves of a heavy beat; the rhythm took her away with drums and guitars and men with liquid voices. She would listen to it in the car and in the kitchen, and she would listen to it in full volume; the beat of the song helped her conquer the abyss.
***Imogen Heap: “Hide and Seek”***
However, more often than not, I tended to out-stress my mother. At times of high tension, a different tune was sung and happiness seemed like a game of “Hide and Seek.” I remember coming home from school very frazzled; and frazzleness often came in the form of Brittney B. It didn’t matter how hard I had tried, she always had to be better than me. I can remember the way she would turn and flip her dirty blonde locks around in Dance Company. Strands of hair would fly, and then settle as she cocked her head to catch my eyes with a sideways glance. She wanted to see if I had watched. I would come home completely exhausted from play practice, Dance Company, and class with Brittney; lack of sleep and high stress easily overcame my emotions. All I needed was to let off a little steam with my mom. She would crank up Imogen and I would sing the words I couldn’t say: “Where are we? What the hell is going on? The dust has only just begun to form crop circles in the carpet. Sinking. Feeling.” I would dance around the kitchen; most of the time this resulted in me hitting some appliance or dish with either a foot or an arm. One kick to the back, right into the cupboard, and a flick of my own hair, right through the spaghetti sauce, and a sideways glance to see if mom was watching. She always was. We played “Hide and Seek” after school, and she always knew just where to find me.
***John Butler Trio: “Better Than”***
She taught me lessons from my stressful moments, lessons I’m still working on learning today. Sitting on a bar stool with my elbows pressed into our lime green countertop, I listened to the sound of my mom sing words of wisdom: “All I know is sometimes things can be hard, but you should know by now they come and they go. So why, oh why do [you] look to the other side? 'Cos I know the grass is greener but just as hard to mow. Life's not about what's better than.” The “grass is greener,” but on my little patch of shriveled grass, I could giggle with my mom, my best friend, about John Butler Trio’s “hot hip-action;” somehow that was fertilizer for my soul. Life wasn’t about being “better than” Brittney Bowman; I will never be able to raise my leg up above my head the way she can. But sounds of my mother became the power by which I got through the hard times.
***Matt Nathanson: “Come on Get Higher”***
***Eurythmics: “Here Comes the Rain Again”***
***Safety Suit: “Someone Like You”***
***Loreena McKennitt: “The Mummers’ Dance”***
The sounds of my mom pick me up and carry me. When I walk across campus alone, when I lie in bed at night, when I turn on my music “I miss the sound of your voice. And I miss the rush of your skin. And I miss the still of the silence, as you breathe out and I breathe in.” “I want to walk in the open wind. I want to dive into your ocean. Is it raining with you?” “If I were strong enough, if I were wrong enough to be someone like you, would you have let me come to be with you?” I can’t remember a time when I didn’t hear the sounds of my mother. And together in the music, we will always “link our hands and dance round in circles and in rows.”
No comments:
Post a Comment