1:14am March 15, 2013

The song I hear

There’s a song in my head. It has no words. I can’t sing it. Maybe I could play it on the violin, if I weren’t so weak and exhausted from hospital visits and illnesses. Enough to make me feel like I’m in a nasty downward spiral I don’t know how to pull out of.

But the song continues. It is wild. It couldn’t be tamed by notes and measures. It dances its way through my body, even though my body isn’t dancing.

The song is never the same twice. And it is not confined to my body. It tells me where my body is, where I am, in relation to the rest of the world. It tells me where I am and it tells me where I come from. It sings the shape of every tree and needle and cone and toadstool and salamander and dirt and owl. It sings my connection to all of those things and their connection to each other. The song changes constantly, because so does everything it sings about.

At first glance, this song is a celebration of life, and indication that I am part of the world of living things. Connected to where I was born, no matter where I live, as well as my more visible surroundings. And that being confined to bed most of the time changes nothing. All of this is completely true.

But be careful. The truth has many facets and the song captures all of them. The song is about death as well. When I die, I will not disappear, the song says. Pieces of the song that was me, become picked up in those surroundings, so that a little of my song is in the trees, the mushrooms, the dirt, all at the same time. Death inspires mourning for a reason, but it also has a beautiful side, that lets you literally become part of your surroundings. The song reveals both.

It says that no matter what happens, I am part of the world, I will always be part of the world, and I will always have existed at some point as I do now. But even now, it weaves me into all other parts of the world that my life is connected to, both obvious parts and parts that are less obvious. Connections of love and responsibility, that go both ways. Connections most people have forgotten to see. So I not only have a place in the world, the world needs me. Even if actual human beings call me useless and dependent, that is not how the song depicts me, because that is not how the rest of the world sees me. Only a piece of the world is human. Of course, the human world needs me too. Perhaps especially those who see me as a useless eater. But I have trouble seeing “the world” as only human beings, the way some people do. It’s always been rocks and trees and dirt that taught me who I was and where I belonged.

And the song says all of that and more. It never ends. It’s simple and complex at the same time. To hear it, you have to let your mind go quiet, and listen for something that’s part of you and beyond you at the same time. But you have to be quiet in just the right way, alert in just the right way. And then you will hear the melody, the harmony, all the wild strands of song that tangle together and somehow make it work. You will hear how it threads its way through everyone and everything you’ve ever known. And you will understand where you come from, who you are, and where you belong.