sometimes it sings.

I stole fifteen minutes in the sun by the pool today. I wish it were ours. Before too long, there was company, and everything got louder and more social; more social and relaxing don't seem to be my thing this weekend. I retreated. I retreat. Sometimes I have to find the quiet or I'll go mad. Today, during band practice wasn't a good time to need quiet--in fact, being in a band is so much the opposite of 1. what I thought it would be, and 2. peaceful and/or evoking harmony both within me and among members. As for the latter, it does happen, but much more rarely than I expected.

What I did anticipate is that it would be hard work. Not difficult work, but hard work. Like play until you sweat...until you lose your voice pushing forward and really feeling the music. As in, in the present. How I feel music isn't likely the same as how everyone feels music. I hear something, and maybe it has a line that sounds important, or a line that says something I didn't know. Maybe the melody is sad or the harmony is bright. In fact, maybe one line can mean everything to me, or has at one time. From there I like to savor it. Relish it before it can be something that becomes implanted in my memory, at which point it will evoke memories of days past, distant and recent. I study it from the inside out, and hear all of the parts separately and then occasionally as one. This is my curse. Because I can't love everything I play. I don't have enough time to savor it, and I cannot become a consumer of it. I listen the same way as I eat. I am mindful. I eat slowly, and stop when I'm full. If I were to keep consuming beyond that I would become sluggish and most of all disinterested in food. I leave a little room for dessert. I breathe. When my heart is full, I stop and listen to it beat. This is not a want. It is a need. Both in life and in music.

I've always been fairly confident in my ability to articulate what I think and what I feel. I would like to believe I am honest, but compassionate. For myself, I try to be objective when I know I'm in love with a song. In fact, that is when I'm the most critical of myself--I don't want to be blinded by my love and miss the fact that I haven't achieved the thing in the song that moved me to begin with. I played a song today that I thought was fun, and I know it's just not there. I'm o.k. with that. If someone else told me it wasn't working well, I am 100 percent positive I would agree. No harm, no foul. I'm not a fantastic singer--I just get by. I'll give myself a little bit of space there, because if I really feel it, I think it reaches farther than my own self-loathing permits me to believe at the time. I do O.K. I don't really push to do much of my own well-loved material, primarily because I'm learning how to use empathy to really get into other peoples' heads and feel what they feel. I want to give something I don't know a fair shake. I think they deserve that. A shot at meeting someone who can relate. A friend who if they can't relate can instead be there as a comrade in a fight they'd rather not go alone.

Someone after practice once said, "I just want to stop talking about our feelings so much."

This, now this has to be the most ridiculous thing that I never imagined would be uttered during my short tenure in a band. We are making music mother effers. And what the fuck are we doing if we're not feeling anything? And yet, I just can't make myself feel everything. If I did, I'd go mad, chock full of empathy and starving for one little iota of quiet. Of peace. Of me. What a fucking conundrum.

So tell me. Am I in the wrong place at the wrong time, or the right place at the wrong time? Do I feel too much, or is it too little?

I'm trying so hard to get to the answer, but the answer keeps changing. So I took a deep breath and came up for air. Maybe that's stupid. Necessary, regardless.

book marked.

I'm posting this partially for a friend, and partially so that I can remember to think about this when I consider art. When I consider writing. Most of all when I go about my business at work and at home. Makes me wonder how much of my business I'm going about, and how much of it is my male counterparts' business, which I seem to take up without question.

I've never much been interested in becoming a feminist. It's such a complex title to give oneself. I mean on one hand, I enjoy taking care of things like cooking and cleaning; on the other there are so many things I could do otherwise. I'm not sure I can even stop myself from liking them. In Psych class I learned about certain activities becoming culturally "embrained," in humans. So not only have I been somehow culturally coerced into liking these activities, I'm actually very, very good at them. Already I am confused about whether I am a victim of misogyny, or just a person who really likes taking care of things around the house. I mean, I love our house and I don't like dirt. But when my boyfriend's working on a project and the shit needs to get done, am I taking the wrong stance by doing it? 

Do I think he's a misogynist--no. For the record, I'm just exploring these ideas. The man pulls his weight. And honestly, I have no desire to perform activities that require heavy lifting and power tools. My max weight lifting limit is about 50 pounds on a good day. Putting things together makes me impatient. So that's his job, as un-feminist as it sounds. 

Still, I found this morning two interesting things on the internet. (Perhaps the WWW should be called the interestingnet?)

One is a zine project by feminists and for the rest of the world. The other was an article by Joyce Maynard about J.D. Salinger, which reminded me of someone and reminded me to think about the things I do and why. Her article can be accessed by clicking her name at the bottom of the quote. 


http://itscomplicatedproject.tumblr.com/post/61341010070/to-a-stunning-degree-for-a-period-of-over-half-a