Music in the silence

Does time ever seem to get away from you, like it does with me? I’ve become much better at managing my time, but I’d still like more of it! At times I feel I need to forget about time and be in the moment. I listened to Bach, my favorite composer, here in my kitchen last night. I danced in place to the rhythms of violin and orchestra, waiting for my dinner to cook.

It was a moment where I wasn’t doing work-related items or worrying, as the music director I am, about the instrumental parts for the guest musicians, or how to introduce a new anthem to the choirs, etc. Still I don’t listen to the radio as much as I used to. I am often using the silence to “center down” as Rev. John Lilly preached in a recent sermon. I liked his description of how to achieve introspection since it rang true to what I’ve long been striving for.

For a musician, I love silence. That desire comes partly from growing up in a dramatic environment with nine other siblings. We all just wanted to get away sometimes. Some more than others. I wanted peace and found it in silence as well as music. Occasionally it felt like I could find silence in music: I would lay on my bed in total darkness, listening to my stereo, imagining a scene world’s away. I found peace then. I pray to become that peace now.

Music is also a form of prayer for me. And dancing. How I live my life is like a prayer. We speak a prayer out of all we are. Music, silence, dancing—they all ‘pray’ me. And time, at last, stands still as I rise on their wings.

True Feminine

“True Feminine,” 2010, pen and prismacolor pencil on paper

How do you get into the zone?

What’s the zone? A place where you feel most at ease and natural in what you’re doing—where time doesn’t matter. A place where it’s difficult to think of a negative thought because you are so involved and uplifted by what is going on in the now. Maybe it happens when creating art, music, or even engaging with your occupation.

I got a new water filter pitcher recently. Highly rated, affordable and supposedly effective (Clear2O, model CWS100A2). I struggled to get the hose attachment to connect to my faucet. Struggled. As in water-flying-everywhere, could-not-for-the-life-of-me-get-the-thing-to-work struggled. All told, I spent over an hour with calls and emails to customer service, all to little effect.

Finally I thought, “Alex, maybe this is easier than you’re making it.” I went back to the drawing board and tried to pull the hose attachment further up onto the faucet, which took a little doing. It worked. The pitcher filled like a dream.

Sometimes getting into that zone is as easy as stopping momentarily and looking within. Looking inside ourselves is seldom easy, however.

How easy can we make entering the zone? Does it have to be difficult? “Easy” has a way of being difficult before it becomes easy. We get in our own way most of the time.

One thing I’ve learned is that the process of making art naturally and easily results in better work and in more enjoyment. Making or doing anything is easier when we enjoy what we do.

How do you enter the “zones” of your life? What does it take to ease into the flow?

It’s often as hard as we make it.

The Danger of Being You

sams-point-vertical-img_3651_edited_edited Like a news feed, I looked up from my desk to see a man riding his bike, trailing a blue banner that read, “Trump Pence America First Again.” A woman followed, riding behind him. Moments later beyond that I saw a hawk smoothing the sky, only air beneath.

I despair of the segments of society who appear to want others to make things right for them in whatever way they think they need. I resist the same impulse in myself: to export my own sense of being enough. Our perception of ourselves is shaped in many ways. At least one of them comes from parents. “You need someone like me to tell you what to do and keep you safe.”

The parental impulse frequently comes from love. Sometimes it comes from fear, resentment or some other dark urge. Our sense of dependency is real at a young age. Still, maturity comes with age, but sometimes age comes alone.

The danger is not that we are inadequate in ourselves or that we need someone else to turn our pumpkins into chariots. We are the ones who limit ourselves or believe those who would. We are the ones that we’ve been waiting for, all these years. And that’s the scary part. For now.

Danger is only the perception: WE are the reality. You and I. And I. And you.