Tales and Journeys

Now and then, I hear symponies playing in my head. Today I bought a book on composing music, so that I might be able to do something about it. As this ability returns time upon time, it makes me believe I was born with some kind of gift. Other attitudes of the community I grew up in, would rather denounce all possibility of me having any significance or ability in any field, but I spitefully believe otherwise. I might not have amazing abilities in performing music, but with training, I can make music. I will be an artist.

Music is just one of the things. Ideas pop up in my head frequently, around moments of inspiration. Those are moments of strong emotion; not necessarily intense, but clear. I can picture elaborate movies and dances while listening to music. Dreams are also interconnected into this complex construction. The core part of any inspiration, to me, is an atmosphere of another world, a subset of this world’s extremities gathered into a package. I find deep meaning and vitality in dealing with these packages — gathering,nurturing and creating them.

I even apply the abilities to my own future. When I am in love, which is one of the highest states of inspiration, I can’t help but picture special moments, somewhere in the future, that would make my life more complete. A touch, an exchange of emotion, a display of deep love, a fundamental understanding. Things I know I need and long of, things I understand the workings of, but things I have never experienced or managed to produce.

So perhaps inevitably, it comes coupled with a longing, and that longing turns into a sadness. Then I try to make these things happen, but I find my abilities cut short, like in the playing of an instrument. I see what could be there, but am unable to create it. This all boils down into a fear, the fear of failure and insufficience. This I deal with daily, sometimes, and it is the dark side of the coin that is my dreams of love.

She had been told that long ago, before these beings — no, these phenomena — were known to us, humanity thought it knew all about music: That it was based on harmonious vibrations in musical instruments, and that it invoked a sense of rhythm in the masses.

That and a million more words would never be enough. Even understanding and appreciation of all the principles of music that we had learned throughout our thousands of years upon the globe, would never be enough.

The world stood still for a while. She was unaware she had just been thinking about something. A restless kind of glow surrounded her, reminiscent of the excitement before a rollercoaster ride or an urgent kiss, except it was embedded within the very glow itself. Tangible and not fleeting. It was not her own emotion, but the emotion that was there was not intruding to her. It was more like she was allowed to take part in its discovery, trusted in to understand.

A beat appeared. It was not heard and it was. A moment later, she could see the glow reacting, synchronising itself with the beat. Not only a sync in time, but in emotion as well. A soft beat, gradually clearing the mist in careful and gradual nudges.

In front of her, a denser part of the mist was beginning to take form. Was she was beginning to see, she felt she knew already, but only as clearly as the outlines of that form. Then, coming like the excitement before, a realization that what she saw, was the music itself. It was the face of this musical piece, as it had defined itself thus far. The shape was beyond any geometry she knew. She was not certain she should be able to see such a shape at all.

It proceeded to break up into pieces and become mist yet again. This time, however, there was another kind of anticipation hanging in that mist. She nodded, a sign of her acceptance. And she felt as if a flow was directed into her own soul. She found she could feel the music as if in dance, but she wasn’t dancing, she had never mastered that art. And this was so much more. No, she was expressing the music in some other way, an invisible way.

The mist changed, and she responded, her role in sync with the roles of the mist, together forming a clearer picture of what was being brought forth. Several shapes were beginning to take form now, veils of mist wrapping around them. She could not determine any color, only that there were just enough of them. There were also smells, changing conditions of the air, and sensations she did not know she could even register. All of it playing many roles: discovery, reminding of what has been discovered, and lighting up the path to what lies yet to be discovered. Each moment, each movement, with its very own revelation.