Some of the hardest memories for me to access have been my memories of Emma as a musician and of the music she created and shared. Perhaps this is because these are some of my most recent memories. Maybe it’s because she had a future planned in music and it’s been lost. Or, maybe it’s because it’s those sensory reminders; the feel of her hug, the brightness of her eyes, the smell of her perfume, the sound of her music, that makes her loss most concrete and harsh.
When Emma was alive our house was filled with music. She had become an accomplished flautist and afternoons or evenings usually included practice time. Our house would be filled with the beautiful strains of the pieces she was working on. I often didn’t even know the names of the pieces, but I would carry them with me like old friends. I’d hum them in the shower and they’d run through my brain in quiet times at my desk or when I was having trouble sleeping. I told Emma that I had learned to appreciate classical music from the music she exposed me to and brought to life for me. I was changed by her gift for music.
Maybe that’s why I have avoided music since Emma died. We don’t listen to it in the house anymore. We always had show tunes or some other favorite CD playing in the car, but no more. I haven’t been able or brave enough to recall a single one of the pieces Emma played in the last year, even though I had probably heard them 100 or more times.
Last night I had a hard time sleeping. I was anxious and troubled and sleep just didn’t seem to be in the cards. I can’t pinpoint when it happened, but at some point when I was wrestling with whether I should just get up, one of Emma’s flute pieces started playing in my head. It was a beautifully mesmerizing piece that she had practiced for several months last year, but which I had not been able to recall. As it ran through my brain, it slowed my heartbeat and breathing and relaxed me. It was like a warm embrace from an old friend. I drifted off to sleep with the song in my head and woke up in the morning with the song still strongly secured in my memory. A piece of her was back.
These are truly the hardest memories.
ReplyDeleteNancy, this reminds me of a place in Anne Lamott's book, Traveling Mercies, where two unlikely people who didn't like each other very well, came together during the singing of hymns during a church service. An older black lady, Ranola, and a young gay man who was dying of AIDS. She says, "Ranola watched Ken rather skeptically for a moment, and then her face began to melt and contort like his, and she went to his side and bent down to lift him up--lifted up this white rag doll, this scarecrow. She held him next to her, draped over and against her like a child while they sang. And it pierced me.
ReplyDeleteI can't imagine anything but music that could have brought about this alchemy. Maybe it's because music is about as physical as it gets: your essential rhythm is your heartbeat; your essential sound, the breath. We're walking temples of noise, and when you add tender hearts to this mix, it somehow lets us meet in places we couldn't get to any other way." Emma's music was magic - IS magic. Perhaps it can let you be together now in a way you couldn't get to any other way. - Ann Marie