the zyx's of life "V" Van Cliburn

these 26 entries from z-a are meant as a tandem collection of short essays.  instead of the abc's of life, i'm writing backwards for two reasons.  t.s. eliot said that to make an end is to make a beginning, which i find true.  that and my grandfather could say the alphabet backwards faster than i could say it forwards.  now that's some wit.

v-Van Cliburn:  if we were a mixed tape

my favorite record is Van Cliburn playing Rachmaninoff (Rhapsody on a Theme of Paganini, Liszt's Concerto No. 2, accompanied by the Philadelphia Orchestra as directed by Eugene Ormandy, to be exact.) 

i take myself solo, as i often do when anything from food to music is too scrumptious to be distracted from by companionship, to see him play live.  perching myself in the top tier seating, because that's all i can afford, by way of binoculars i watch his fingers fly.  

when i think about music i think several things.  

in no particular order, how foolish i was to take my original turntable to the thrift shop thinking that digital music could or would ever displace it.  (dear wonderful 8-track of Debussy, i'm sorry.  please forgive me, wherever you ended up.  cooking along to you was always a delight).

playing darts with roommates while singing along to Chicago's Greatest Hits.

losing track of all time dubbing mixed tapes for friends and listening to theirs.

healing frequency of bees' humming and the birds outside my bedroom window (the bed strategically placed so as to wake to this.  that, and the rooster, who also crows all day long and for whom i have nothing but the fondest affection.) 

sonorous tones of the viola against my collar bone, on the left side closest to my heart. 

when asked, at age ten, which stringed instrument i want to play after Mrs. Nancy Neafie (Beethoven rest her patient soul) samples them, saying, "well, the cello is my favorite to listen to but it's too big to take on the bus.  the violin sounds like bees.  but the viola sounds like honey.  can i learn to play the honey?"

the gift of music being so deep and profound, it leads me to want to thank her, many years later, but sadly she has already passed away.

how we cruelly laugh at her when she cries during our rendition of "Terms of Endearment".  who knew the chord it touched in her already adult soul, in the life that teachers have that in our self-centeredness they couldn't possibly enjoy or even exist in outside of the classroom.  it doesn't occur to us that she is simply brought to tears by how badly we play it.  

the smell of bleached cafeteria floors as she turns the lunchroom into our makeshift rehearsal space every day.  rolling the piano out and giving the violins a tuning "A".  and then putting it all back again into the storage closet, a jumble of stands and chairs amid middle school jangle as we put our multitude of bracelets back on.  

bow rosin i buy from the student store for twenty-five cents that lasts over a decade.  the funny way the bass player furrows his brow when concentrating, forgetting for a while how bullied he is.  that, for one magical junior high class period, he is our ballast. that my stand partner also plays football and isn't afraid to carry his viola case on the bus, us orchestra students being anything but cool.  

concerts my flute-playing second cousin and i put on for our families, or any unsuspecting guest.  creating everything from concert fliers and tickets with construction paper and markers to makeshift backdrops pinned precariously behind the couch.  (no one is teasing her now that she is VP of marketing for Julliard).  somehow, even as sixth graders, we know nothing yet but peering out from behind self-trimmed hair bangs in our frayed homemade jeans to be true to joy as osmosis; imagination unfurled.  and in that awkward tenderness, everything.

years later how silent tears fall down my face during the first half of a Gustav Mahler Symphony No. 2.  only at intermission when the lights come on do i read in the program through blurry eyes what i already feel:  Mahler processing loss.  tears always being true, Mahler succeeds in communicating with me, across years and continents, the deep loss i myself could not yet put words to.  held in the air along with the last note is the tacit understanding of a composer i will never meet bringing me--wordlessly, instantly, exactly--the comfort i need.

the three Russian sisters and cellist that i tour with playing for weddings.  how our cartop falls off, splaying items along the road and how said cellist and i have no idea what the sisters are saying, just that it gets as fast as it gets louder, but that when we are playing together we know exactly what language and tempo we're in.

my Japanese exchange student prom date Naoto Abiko.  to this day the song "Black Velvet" can come on the radio and i'm back in the van borrowed by our double date that gets stuck in the parking garage.  and i'm wearing black velvet.

Prince's "Purple Rain" when the class president finally dances with me only because he thinks, in the dark--and he is drunk--that i am Brandee (voted "best body" in the yearbook.)  nope, no confusion there, sarcasm font.

in all of it, music.  eight notes on a scale rearranged to accompany, not just our lives, but generations.  songs like olive groves; plantings to surely outlive us. 

discovering you could mouth the word "watermelon" and it would look like you knew the lyrics to all the popular songs even though you didn't.  that watching "Lawrence Welk" at home was wholesome but didn't prepare for apt lyric knowledge acquisition skills and judged by peers as such.

if only i had watched "Jaws" with the sound turned off, it wouldn't have been nearly as traumatic.

twenty years sitting next to my friend and symphony stand partner, turning pages and making pencil notes for dynamics, "Doc" Bowman's hair flying.  attending Chamber Music Northwest.  cherry pit spitting contest picnics on the lawn.

monks hosting classical music nights, sneaking cigarettes from beneath their robes, pouring us wine and making references to Metallica, their eye wrinkles creased with joy and ours wide that they know Metallica. 

getting in trouble for bringing a camera to the George Benson concert and my friend missing most of the second half having to walk it back to her car.

the Steinway that lives on School Street that my friend turns into sheer magic.  playing while waiting for me to come over for dinner and me approaching the screen door trying not to make the porch boards creak, not wanting her to stop.

sitting at "Salome" (Richard Strauss, based on 1891 play by Oscar Wilde) in Leipzig knowing that something really bad has just happened to John the Baptist's head because, even if you don't understand all the German, the cellos are a most creepy tremolo and there's too much symbolic red paint down the stage walls to be for no reason.

putting my ear buds in and playing along to Clean Bandit and "Lark Ascending" (Vaughan Williams) vowing never again to take playing music together in person for granted.  

the lack of music in Dachau and on the bus ride there, silent as stone fruit.

fond memories of falling asleep to grandma's organ music, cracking open the bedroom door just enough that i can see her profile playing if i'm rolled over on my left side.  this is how i grow up thinking "Moon River" is a church hymn.  it still is to me.

measuring six feet with a yardstick outside between tables to put on a concert.

that i want to live so intentionally, that if someone were to ask what i am doing, i will be so happy to answer that i am listening to Van Cliburn play Rachmaninoff.  that it is not simply on in the background while something else is happening.  that it is worth devoting my active listening to; a portioning out of octaves in the swathe of time i'm given here.

and when side one stops and i put my teacup down, wondering who it is that is making new music today for future listeners, i meet them.  

spotify, the new mixed tape, playlists live from house to house.

yes, i think about you and you and all of you and send out soundwaves of my endless thanks.