[Preface: It's been a really bad week for reasons that have nothing to do with this. Death of a loved one. But stress, and trying to distract oneself from stress by writing about something else, can make one post poorly edited or completed things. Just in case this is poorly edited or thoughts are left dangling,]
~Music at the Very Edge of an Endless World~
[The Giverny
Life quod vide]
Nemo surdior est quam is qui non audiet
For years,
I've tried to recollect a tune that came to me one long summer’s afternoon as
darkgrey lake waters lapped over my bare feet and the sun practically bedazzled
my eyes even when they were closed and protected by very dark sunglasses. Far out in the boondocks of the Appalachian
foothills, we found a place frequented by only the hardiest of hikers. Which was just us, that day. Driven more by enthusiasm and general lack of common sense than by actual hardiness, we
made the trip down jagged deer trails and frequent underbrush unmarred by anything
resembling a path. It was often slow going. In a few places, it was all we could do to keep our balance as we stumbled and
jumped down steep hillsides. The soul-chilling realization that we would have to ascend these same hillsides on our return journey left me with the sense that the universe was a place of ineluctable dread ruled by the sort of cosmic horror a particularly-morose beadle might find infiltrating his day-to-day duties.
Once we
finally arrived, we waited scarcely 30 seconds before racing down to the lake’s
edge, stripping naked, and walking straight into the water. Me first of all. *Hennie and *Luis, who’d known how to find
this place, cheered me on as they stripped down as well. Soon they’d joined me, though, as the only
official couple there, they had eyes mostly for each other. *Mickey, being bashful as a bearcat, and
twice as furry, removed his clothes at a somewhat more-tentative pace. Eventually he managed to strip off the last item, a hilarious set of boxers that clearly weren't intended to be hilarious, and celebrated this most personal of achievements with a frenetic dash to the water as fast as he could to manage without falling flat on his face. Having concealed his
nakedness beneath the surface of the lake, he smiled and waved at me. I looked around for *Gala1. She was nowhere to be seen; then, out of the
corner of my eye, I discovered her climbing up on a large hanging rock nearby,
her black hair in a pony-tail and her skin, her impossibly pale skin, taking a slight
golden hue under the sunlight. She
looked beautiful2 as she glanced at the rest of us, gave a wide smile that made clear she couldn’t imagine a better reason to smile. With a nod and a slight crouch, she dove into the water, as lithe as though she’d been born to do this and had finally
discovered her true destiny there on the edge of a mountain lake.
A perfect midday turned into an
even more perfect afternoon. It felt
like nothing better could possibly exist.
Maybe, just for that one exact moment at this one exact place in the
midst of the infinitely subdivided arrow of human time, this was completely
true.
Stranger things have happened,
right?
Hell, certain theories in
physics require that stranger things
happen. Who am I to accuse
highly-educated and possibly overly-excitable scientists, with potential access
to all manner of formula for dangerously unstable substances from their buddies
over in Chem, of being wrong?
The temperature hovered around
80ºF3, the lake was neither too cold nor too warm, and the foliage
would have done justice to the Happy Hunting Grounds themselves. Because autumn still lay almost three months
and about 20 degrees away, green and brown still dominated the landscape;
nevertheless, enough incidental colors and rioting splashes of hues filled the
trees and undergrowth that it almost seemed like the warmest Appalachian October
ever. We swam lazily around for a bit,
just to get a feel for the water and the perfection of such an afternoon.
I want to say we frolicked just
because I’ve always wanted to do something that any random observer would
describe to friends and family as a proper ‘frolic’; mostly, though, we just
idled about on a beautiful warm summer’s afternoon. Nevertheless, I hold onto the dream that somebody passing by took one look and raced home to inform everyone of this unexpected turn: “Hey, momma?
best buddy? baby sister? I was at
this lake today and saw some people, all nekkid as hairless cats, and, hand to
God, they were frolicking!”
My dreams may be small, but
they’re all mine.
This isn’t about my dreams,
though. I haven’t gone to all the
trouble of setting up the scene just to discuss my occasional indulgences into
weird ideas.
It’s about a moment.
Just a moment, understand. A
fraction of time like any other. Not
even a momentous moment. In final
analysis, few moments can truly be called momentous.
Around midafternoon, I was
backstroking languidly near the shore, my eyes closed, the pitch-black lenses
of my Ray Bans diffusing the sunlight, my mind dwelling on nothing in
particular and going a mile an hour in the process. I could hear *Hennie and
*Luis nearby, yelling as they enjoyed splashing water at each other. At the time, I had little notion of how few
years of being able to hear such things remained to me. Something in their voices, so happy and
fancy-free, evoked a few isolated notes in my head. Nothing I could really string together for a
second. Just a pitter-patter of music
splashing around like the lightest drips of rain on the surface of still
waters as I relaxed barely on the waking side of a contented afternoon drowse. Though I was careful not to slip over the
divide into actual sleep, I was also careful to swim in water shallow enough to
touch bottom with my feet almost immediately if I started to sink if I started to sink while slipping over the divide into actual sleep. You know, just in case, because I'm unreliable.
Then the notes came together. Still drowsing, I wasn’t really thinking about
music, just letting sounds plunk about in my thoughts. Suddenly, I began humming a tune. A short one, like a brief interlude between
two much more significant movements. I
murmured the sounds over and over, each piece maybe eight seconds in length. Not wanting to share with the others just yet,
I did it quietly, under my breath as I floated around.
This sound, this random little
tune that came from nowhere and went nowhere, felt (for lack of a better word) meaningful. Only a little. Like trapping a sliver of a moment in a
sliver of a song to enjoy on some other lazy summer afternoon, a bit of ice
forever frozen inside a crystal.
Just a moment, though. Not even a momentous moment.
And yet wouldn’t a moment you
could capture be intrinsically momentous?
Ontologically-speaking, that is? Most
of them slip away into the past, constantly shunted further and further away by
the inevitable progress of time. They
become unreal. Memory is ephemeral,
after all. That’s the way the universe
was designed, and probably for the best.
If we could hold on to memories so easily, how could we ever move
forward?
Sadly, I
cannot remember the tune anymore.
I am quite cognizant of the
ironic disconnect between this statement and my previous ones about memory. On the other hand, I’m also quite cognizant
of the fact that I stated in the very first sentence that I need to recollect
the tune in question and you really should have remembered that yourself. So I think it’s
fair to suggest we all share some of the blame for this situation.
Usually, I’ll start with a note
that I’m pretty sure occurred at or near the beginning of the tune. Let’s call it a D-flat major, just for the
hell of it, because I have no idea and haven’t read music since middle
school. I’ll hum this D-flat major and try to continue, like
giving a broken-down car a push start, and then…nothing. Or, perhaps worse, something that seems like
a parody of the right tune. It’s like
getting a broken toy, one that is almost
right and you can’t figure out how to fix it.
(Sometimes, for reasons that I
actually know, even if I can’t really explain them intelligently, I often end up humming
Vangelis’ “Chariots of Fire” in the attempt.
That’s a story for another day and another lifetime, though.)
I don’t know where or when I
lost the tune. In the moment, you never
quite see how meaningful – albeit in the smallest of ways – something might
turn out to be. After all, I’ve had many
such moments as the one there on that lake.
Many happy afternoons, many contented drowses, many well-loved friends. Occasional gratuitous nudity of
the sort that accompanies occasional gratuitous skinny-dipping. Losing the tune formulated in that particular
moment isn’t actually all that important in itself. I have no problem remembering the day. That is, in a large part, why I set the scene
here – to emphasize that the memory itself survives just fine.
(Also, and I won't deny it, I just like talking about gratuitous nudity.)
It’s not about that day, or
those people. It’s not even about that
tune, strictly speaking. Memory is just
memory, and I’ve quite enough of it not to need some idle soundtrack playing
along. I didn’t take the time to write
this because I felt some urgent impulsive desire to describe a time that means nothing to
anyone not personally involved.
Instead, it’s about something
else. It’s about the world as is, not
the world as was. It’s about questions I’ve
recently started to contemplate.
But first:
Later, I found a smaller rock on
the shore next to *Gala’s leapin’ rock and lay in the sun. It was just wide enough to fit my towel, and
low enough that I could see everything going on in the water without lifting my
head.
*Gala swam nakedly by and waved
just as nakedly Hi with an excessive,
if quite pleasant, enthusiasm, as though we were seeing each other for the
first time that day rather than having spent most of the last 18 hours in each
other’s company. Hell, she’d stolen most
of my fries at dinner the night before, and half the bowl of ice cream I’d been
eating for breakfast4. I
don’t know much, but I’m pretty sure that qualifies as having spent quality
time together.
I smiled fondly – because it was
just the sort of day to feel fond – at her enthusiasm. My
lazily raised hand in response just barely qualified as a gesture. She laughed.
About what, I didn't know and never bothered to ask. I smiled again, closed my eyes and hummed
that tune, that somnolent sound of an afternoon wisely wasted doing nothing in
particular.
The sun warmed, then nearly scorched, my body as the day went on. Even
in the foothills, Southern summers can get pretty hot. At one point I was forced to roll over to
preserve some very sensitive and deeply loved parts from incipient sunburn. The towel beneath me was a ratty thing, so
thin I could practically feel each pebble and each grain of the shore’s sand
through it. It was *Hennie’s spare
because I’d forgotten my own much thicker, much fluffier towel back at my
apartment, hundreds of miles away. My
clothes formed a reasonably comfortable pillow once I adjusted them to prevent
the seams from facing upwards; the breeze across the water blew a bit chillier
for a moment, cooling my skin like a whisper of uncertainty across my
chest. Smiling, I closed my eyes, hovering
just at the edge of sleep as that hint of melody from earlier teased its way back
through my thoughts again. It was an
idle sound, a prickling across the half-dozing mind as I heard *Luis splashing
around with fervent yells and *Hennie giggling so coquettishly that one would
have to literally score a zero on the most basic Turing Test ever devised not
to notice they were approximately three seconds away from consummating something
quite unspeakable in a place too much in my line of view for comfort.
Given that they were both as
naked as me and *Gala and, more furtively, *Mickey, plus whatever prancing
dryads were roaming the vasty woods on that day5, I wondered idly
why one of them didn’t just grab a pertinent and very available part on the
other’s body and carefully explain that they had designs on it and would be
ecstatic if said designs were reciprocated.
If I rolled my eyes a bit while
listening to them, and I’m not saying I did and I’m not saying I didn’t, I’m
sure the universe would understand. Some
people just can’t handle casual nudity with any amount of dignified restraint. Then, it occurred to me that we’d left
dignified restraint long ago, right around the time we started whooping and
stripping down to our Edenic glory and shame. The best we could hope for now was not showing overt signs of arousal.
As *Hennie and *Luis made it to
the far side of the lake, they wedged themselves between some rocks as they
continued to play with each other. And,
yes, I do mean that in fairly non-platonic ways. I could no longer hear them, but, then, I
probably didn’t want to hear them at that particular stage of their burgeoning
afternoon delight.
In final analysis, though, those
were momentary – and very hormonal – sounds, of no particular relevance to me. I
might have rolled my eyes; still, I honestly kind of hoped they’d manage to hook
up6. It was that kind of
afternoon, wishing the best for everyone.
Even those members of ‘everyone’
who were being very silly and tentative in the face of, well, lots of
gratuitously exposed flesh.
Nevertheless, I remember the
sounds very well. That’s very important to keep in mind here. Even when the memory of their
faces has faded ever-so-slightly, that sound remains untouched, unmarred. In theory, that is, given that I can’t
actually remember it.
The previous sentence makes sense, even if I can't actually explain why it makes sense. So just take my word for it and let's move on.
The tune in my head slowly
morphed from an idle ditty to something akin to a smoky cool jazz. While I do not recall the specifics, I do
remember thinking it was more Mingus than Coltrane, with some elements of hard
rock accentuating the heavier notes.
Addictive, keeping me murmuring it without even thinking.
It was a good song, you see.
Here are the
questions that I’ve recently started to contemplate, the questions that made me
think of the tune on that random afternoon all those years ago. Or maybe thinking of the tune raised the
questions. I honestly couldn’t tell you
how the causality went.
If
(or when?) I go deaf, will I ever manage to find that tune again?
And:
Will I
forget the music I still hear in my head if I can’t hear it very well out loud
anymore?
And, in the occasional moment of
paranoia:
Will
I forget how to hear music in my head?
I’m not certain if that last concern
makes sense to anyone besides me. On
some, likely-irrational, level, it makes perfect sense to me. I’ve always been good at noticing those rare
moments when I’m bordering on irrational.
I can generally pull abruptly back.
That doesn’t mean the original thought goes away, though.
Somehow, one lost tune on a faraway
afternoon during a faraway drowsing dream represents the genuine concern that I
will lose all music. It’s the Platonic
ideal of that question, you might say. At
least if you were fuzzy on how Platonic ideals actually work7. The essence of the tune lies in what it could
be rather than what it is.
At the time, even when I lost the
tune, I always assumed I would find it again at some point. More precisely, it never occurred to me that
I would still be thinking about that lost tune all these years later. Another good afternoon would come, or another
peaceful situation, or even another lifetime, in this world or the next. And more good afternoons and peaceful moments did come, so many I can scarcely tell them apart anymore.
Time marches on. Ain’t nothing wrong with any of it. And, as sure as the sea and right as the
rain, I honestly can’t complain.
Yet I still have to confront the
question. Perhaps sooner, perhaps
later. Don’t know yet. I want to say it worries me, this look
straight into the abyss of a music-less world.
I’m not so sure it does, though.
Obviously it concerns me. The fact that I’m writing this gives
testament to that. Worry, though? All manner of
nuance and misunderstanding of how my mind actually works complicates that
possibility. I’m not a fatalist per se.
In theory, I’m willing to believe – if a little sardonically – in all those cat posters and parables about changing
your path, and rising above the metaphorical muck of whatever metaphorical
concept you find yourself sinking into, and any other shallow homilies one can
find in the writings of W.E. Henley and Norman Vincent Peale.
Okay, more than a little
sardonically. It takes either the love
of a good woman or the airing of a heartwarming Christmas movie to really curb
my sardonic outlook.
But I’m not given to excessive
thought on the burgeoning inevitable either.
It’s a waste of thought and energy.
While I won’t pretend I haven’t wasted vast amounts of both of these in
my time, I take a certain comfort8 in the notion that I rarely waste
them on anything meaningful.
So…where goes the message when the
medium disappears?
If I can’t hear it anymore, does
music still exist for me?
A few years
ago, while visiting Raleigh, an old friend – yes, one of those type friends, should auld acquaintance be forgot and some we’ve loved, the loveliest and best and
all that rot – asked me an odd question for someone who’d known me for so many
years, though, given my various peregrinations over those years, not exactly consistently
across the time period:
What kind of music do you like?
Well, he actually had to repeat the
question three times before I knew what he was asking.
But that’s the life of losing one’s
hearing. You grow accustomed to it, that
unscratchable itch that fades into ambiguity, always lurking as it waits for
circumstances to call your attention to it once again. And circumstances tend to call your attention
to it fairly regularly. Virtually everything happens on repeat,
rewinding and playing it through again and again until you understand or give
up or, if you’re lucky, the other person is willing to write down what they
want you to know. Unfortunately, giving
up happens far more often than the other two options. The frustration becomes normalized, if never
quite accepted with any degree of serenity.
When things taking three times longer than necessary, three times as
much of your life is being pointlessly devoured by rote repetition.
When you think about the
implications, you realize that, to a deaf person, existence shortens far faster
than it should.
I wasn’t thinking such thoughts
there at the table, of course. At least
not on any conscious level. And I certainly had no idea why he was asking this seemingly-random and unsolicited question. It sounded like bad dialogue in YA novel. One thing you learn, though, as you age and experience the world, is that much of life seems to recall all the worst aspects of generic YA novels.
In any event, I was caught off-guard. My mind was just occupied with enjoying the three mugs of Guinness Stout in my belly, plowing through a
fourth with unabated enthusiasm, and watching my friend as I struggled to
follow the conversation with the same ease I did of old. The motion of the head, the furrowing of
brow, the barely distinguishable rise in pitch at the end of the sentence –
even a person losing his hearing at a rapid rate can usually tell that a question is being asked. I tried to fight the temptation to just agree
or disagree depending on what expectation I could make out in his expressions. Some days you just can’t bear to ask the
other person to repeat himself too often in a row, however, and this was one of
them Instead, I would succumb to the
ease of uncertainty, murmuring in manners that I hope will be taken as
agreeable to whatever he said, regardless of whether he expected assent or
dissent. A proper murmur with the proper
facial movements can mean both Yes,
absolutely and I wouldn’t think so,
no and I agree, you should feel
whatever the hell you happen to be feeling about whatever the hell issue you
happen to be discussing, depending on the context.
Though I desperately wished the
chessboard – a beautiful beige and dark crimson patterned folding case with
very pretty marble pieces cushioned within9 – would come out to
allow a certain focus to our interaction, it stayed planted firmly inside his
messenger bag. With chess, we always
concentrated and stuck to pertinent observations and chatter about the game in
front of us. Even when I couldn’t
understand exactly what was said, I would be able to generally deduce the
nature of his comments from what sounds I did catch and what activity had just
occurred on the board. I knew this
because I’d actually played with someone else for a bit when I lived in
Michigan and it worked out okay.
Unfortunately, he seemed in no hurry
to pull the case out, and I couldn’t suggest it without seeming to want to end
the current conversation. And so the
conversation grew increasingly uncomfortable for me. While we quite liked each other in general, having
spent many a long weekend afternoon together in our primes, we weren’t the sort
of life-long friends that made me feel comfortable with the inconvenience I
subjected him to during that conversation.
Very few people actually have that distinction anymore. Death and distance and the slow decline of
social entropy have seen to that.
This, too, is the life of losing
one’s hearing. You frustrate and addle
everyone you interact with, and, in turn, you grow frustrated and addled. There’s really not much way around this. You find yourself shrinking away from people
you once knew well, or avoiding meeting new people. Knew or new, it all appears to come to the
same thing, really. While I’ve never
much cared what people thought of me, I grow ill at ease when it becomes
apparent the people around me have become frustrated with my disability. I’ve always been a very independent person. It’s who I am. Having to depend on their generous indulgence
and ongoing patience makes me very uncomfortable.
But that’s just how things go, and
all the agonizing and recriminations in the world can’t fix it. So there’s no point in complaining. In any event, my friend put on a reasonable
show of slipping right back into the comfortable suit of old friendship as we
discussed various topics with the laconic ease of two people who’d spent many a
day doing so over the years.
Just as I resolved to get down on my
knees and beg him to play chess
(well, maybe not a literal begging, because that’s a bit much and I just suck
at the wheedling parts of life), he leaned back and glanced in the general area
of the eaves of the diner beside us. He
nodded at something without explaining, and then he asked me the question. Three times.
For a moment that probably lasted less than the moderate
to longish medium kalpa10 it
felt like, I actually stared and blinked.
My first thought was that he was feeling particularly random that day. Other than the occasional unexpected chess
move, however, I’d never known him to be a random sort of person. What I’d always had in rambling digressive
lack of focus, he always made up for in, well, focus. That actually made him a slightly better
chess player than me overall (assuming you call him winning 7 of 10 games on the average "better," and I reluctantly do call it that.) I therefore quickly dismissed this theory as being improbable.
Or perhaps he just genuinely wanted
to know. Idle curiosity is not an
unheard-of aspect of our species, let alone our cultural zeitgeist. As he had to come to grips with this new
dynamic between us, I suspected, he was wondering exactly what the parameters
of my situation, and our relationship forthwith. Until that day, we hadn’t spoken in years,
after all. Being
something of an amateur picker, the subject was somewhat dear to his
heart. While I can’t recall any specific
conversation we’d ever had about music in the past, I’m sure we managed a few
during our rambling conversations over chess and beer.
Or perhaps it was something a bit
more obvious. Sometimes (or 90% of the
time, depending on whether it’s a sensible person, or me, making the search)
the obvious is the last place we look. As
we sat outside a casual eatery on a late July afternoon, buffalo wings and
tortilla chips and spinach dip and beer mugs emptied almost as quickly as they
were filled covering the cast-iron grate table between us, we leaned back
during a few moments of silence of the sort we used to share back when we played
chess against each other at this exact table, the furthest to the left of the
eatery’s front doors. He cocked his head
at the music coming from the PA system, music I couldn’t even hear, let alone
offer an opinion on. Perhaps something
in my expression as he glanced quickly at the speakers sparked the question. Just an obvious question brought about an
obvious cue.
And perhaps the fact that he frequently
had to repeat himself at least once, and often two or three times, while we
caught up on each other’s lives, had something to do with it. He tried to be patient. He really did. Even when I suggested we go to texting, he
shook his head, determined to make the conversation work.
Or maybe he just liked the music and
wanted to know what I would think of it, could I but hear it.
I suspect at least two of these, and
possibly all of them, led to what should have been a normal, innocuous
question.
For such a vivid moment, my memory
of how I answered is surprisingly vague.
I suspect, with some confidence, that had a lot to do with the two
pitchers of Guinness we’d consumed between us.
If I worried about such things, and I don’t, I’d find
it a bit worrisome to realize how many of my less lucid moments in life can be
attributed to excessive consumption of Guinness on tap. Though I no longer drink, and haven’t in
years, sometimes I do find myself craving a nice cold mug on a balmy August
evening. Sometimes that craving includes
a game of chess. Sometime it includes a
group of friends talking all kinds of nonsense.
And sometime – perhaps even more so
than chess and crazy-talking friends – this craving includes some nice jazz or
rock playing over the PA system.
Beer aside, though, I don’t recall
what I did say. Odd, isn’t it, that I
would remember that moment so well but be unsure of my exact reply? Perhaps I replied Punk and Jazz and Classic Rock, with a touch of Classical thrown in for good
measure. Certainly those would have been
the most likely answer. But maybe I just
gave that answer in my head, shrugged, and smiled noncommittally. I suspect the beer we consumed before and
after played a part in my uncertain recollection.
Doesn’t really matter at this point.
Though I cannot recall whether I
actually answered his question out loud, I recall what I had the impulse to
say, were I inclined to be completely straightforward. Like a thirsty man on a hot day grasping at
any drink capable of quenching his thirst, my answer would have been:
Any
music I can still hear relatively well.
And that just about strikes a nice
little ornate dagger right at the uncomfortable heart of the matter, doesn’t
it?
~***~
Obviously,
the situation is a bit more complicated than that. This is always true of life and all those
messy messy parts of life that inevitably muddle things up. I’m not sure if he’d have realized the level
of intentional glibness in my reply.
Sometimes it occurs to me that my ability to deflect personal questions
is entirely too well-developed for my own good.
Frequently, considerable prodding, cajoling, and occasional pummeling
are necessary to get me to talk. Threats
of violence or promises of sexy good time might be required if all else fails.
But
it’s not about rehashing the moments so much as about finding the right moment
to live in when you do rehash them.
No healthy person ever lives
entirely in the moment. That would be a
sign of genuine brain damage. To be
human is to remember, measure our present against our past, see the permutations
of life unfolding. We are not momentary
creatures, and nor should we be, no matter how momentous the moments might
prove to be.
And, as I said earlier, most
moments simply aren’t momentous.
So when I hear the word music, I don’t simply cock my head and
try to catch some strains of song as they grow increasingly faint. My memory of music hasn’t gone away, after
all. Old songs still play in my
thoughts, mostly unchanged, undiminished, though my memory of lyrics can be
occasionally fuzzy. So when I try to
recapture that tune from that afternoon years ago, it’s not just about
sentiment. In a very unexpected way,
it’s about need.
I knew this tune. I could hear it perfectly, and would have recognized
it if anyone else had hummed, vocalized, player, or gargled it in my presence.
Revised answer: Any
music I can still hear relatively well or
any music I used to listen to because
it’s quickly becoming a necessity.
That’s the thing about growing
deaf, at least for me. – if I know what’s being said, or remember the tune of
what I’m hearing, I can make it out much better. Some song from the callow days of my youth
might become a favorite simply because I knew it back when hearing still seemed
certain, if a bit unsteady. Classics
from the ‘90s11 remain favorites, not necessarily because I don’t
want to move on and evolve in my musical tastes. I do.
But losing my hearing proscribes many things, and that includes learning
new and interesting music.
Relatively recently, I
discovered that I sometimes remember old songs wrong.
Or maybe I just think I
do. Either way, given what I’ve written
about thus far, it’s not hard to see why that would be disconcerting.
To wit: a few months ago, I downloaded a song I
hadn’t heard since college. “Drive”,
from REM’s Automatic for the People. Not some beloved favorite. Had it been, I would have listened to it at
some point since college. Nevertheless,
I had certain fond memories associated with it.
So when I happened to think about it one day, I made a point of tracking
it down. Thanks to the magic of Modern
Technology, specifically downloadable music, this proved to be an extremely
simple task.
I was in my car the first time I
got around to playing it because, well, “Drive”. I leaned back in my seat as I cruised down
the highway, and the music started. I
let my eyelids drift downwards, relaxed and smiling broadly, before realizing
that I was currently moving at 75 miles per hour and in sole control of a
vehicle that had no ability to take over for me if I decided to ignore basic
safety. Under such circumstances,
relaxation seemed like an indulgence I would probably need to put off until I
reached a less mobile state of affairs.
So – quite wisely, I feel – I
just stuck with smiling instead.
After a few moments, my smile
started fading, the corners of my mouth drift down without any deliberate intention
on my part. Something had gone terribly
wrong with the song. I grabbed my phone
and paused the music before checking the screen to make certain I was actually listening
to what I had intended to listen to.
Much to my disconcertion, I was.
(Well, it wasn’t so much disconcertion as annoyance, but I wanted an excuse to use the word ‘disconcertion’
because I honestly cannot recall ever using it in writing. I wasn’t even entirely confident it was a
valid noun variant of ‘disconcert.’
Mostly, but I had niggling doubts.)
So I reluctantly started the
song back up again. After a few more seconds,
I recognized the notes, though in that vague way you recognize a friend you
hadn’t seen in many years.
I was appalled. That friend I hadn’t seen in many years had
gained enormous weight and had for some reason chosen to get plastic surgery to
make himself much uglier than he was when we knew each other. In other words, it sounded awful, almost a
parody of the song I’d had in my head for so long.
Three immediately obvious
choices presented themselves as I switched between watching the road and
glaring balefully at my phone screen:
1)
Conclude that, at
some point since 1992, a Cosmic Prankster of no small power and ill repute had
methodically changed each and every copy of the song in every format imaginable
for his (or her) own perverse reasons and pleasures;
2)
Conclude that I
simply misremembered the song all this time and, ancillary to this conclusion,
had absolutely awful taste in music back then;
3)
Conclude that my
copy of the song, my aging phone, my earbuds, or possibly some combination of
the four was flawed.
4)
Conclude that existence
had become utterly meaningless and nothing really mattered anymore. Nothing.
Life is just the piling of the absurd upon the absurd by the absurd and,
hey, what would happen if I accelerated to 120 mph up an off-ramp? Would I fly when I reached the top? I saw it work on in the credits of that show
about the streets of San Francisco.
I decided the fourth conclusion,
while potentially valid, suffered from being an overly grim reaction to the
relatively mild disconnect of the situation at hand. That would be throwing the baby out with a
small tumbler of apple juice. The first
one, while also certainly potentially valid, begged the question in the
classical sense, given that I hadn’t yet proven it true, and likely never could12. The third seemed a bit more likely, and I
tested it by re-downloading the song, since the other three possibly-defective
components all worked just fine for the rest of my playlist. As it turned out, the copy of the song was
just fine. Unless they’re all defective and nobody noticed because
a Cosmic Prankster had...but I’ve already dismissed that possibility on its own
merits, or at least in the best interest of babies. Trying to wedge it into yet another theory
seems a sure and rather painful path to madness.
So, door #2 it must be. While not an obscure song by any means, I was
at a loss regarding who I might know that could confirm the authenticity of
what I was listening to. None of my
friends, family, or acquaintances sported obvious ‘REM LUVAH 4EVA ESPESHLE
THERE ERLY 90z STUFF’ tats about their person.
It’s possible they had such a
tat concealed beneath clothing. Though I
concede this, I lacked the courage or intellectual resolve to interrogate them
along those lines. See above regarding
‘sure and painful path to madness.’
So I had to ask myself – if I go
completely deaf, and if my memory can’t be trusted, how can I know whether I’m
remembering music or just idly composing what I think is music? Of course,
remembering a wrong version of a song isn’t necessarily a killer. Maybe I actually like the wrong version
better than I liked the original. My
subconscious could be subtly changing the memories to something even better
than reality.
Surprisingly enough, I’m not really
okay with my subconscious screwing with me.
If that turns out to be the case, me, a certified Cognitivist analyst,
and my subconscious are going to sit down together in a locked room and nobody
will leave until we’re all very clear on what appropriate boundaries my
subconscious should be observing.
In any event, philosophically-speaking,
this entire line of thought is little more than a particularly pessimistic gedankenexperiment. Intellectually, I always knew it was a
possibility, at least in the sense that I would stop hearing it. Forgetting it, though, seems more
problematic. But I tell myself, in a
mental voice as sardonic as it is sincere, that clinging to this issue can only end badly
Living too much in the moment is
unhealthy; living too much in past moments is worse. Nostalgia and regret alike burn a mind
out. They take life’s current and dam it
with such brutal efficiency that one is trapped in the swirling heart of the
resultant flood.
Obviously – and I assume anyone
who is reading this has already muttered Obviously,
all you need to do is…. – obviously, there’s a fairly simple solution to
this question. Just find someone who has
lost his or her hearing and ask. Direct, to the point, and, assuming you don’t
go out of your way to ensure they can’t understand what you’re saying – say, by
asking out loud with a hand in front of your mouth just because you’re a complete
jackass– they’d probably be more than willing to tell you about their personal
experience, about what happened to music in the transition.
I’m not stupid, generally
speaking, though some might argue the point for petty reasons, like thinking I’m
stupid. I figured out the obvious long
ago. But I don’t avoid the obvious out
of sheer capriciousness. Some subjects
need to be pondered, worried at, poked and prodded until you have worked things
out for yourself. If I am to lose my
hearing, I don’t need blandly sincere reassurances that I’ll still remember
music (and feel the vibrations of the louder and occasionally percussionistic
types of instruments.) Reassurances
merely give me a reason to stop thinking about the issue, and I need to think
about it.
Thinking is my wheelhouse. Being told not to think on it, well, isn’t.
What I really want to do is
remember that tune from back on that perfect afternoon swimming nakedly about first, like a shibboleth, or an answer key. It’s all mine, you see. I don’t say this with proprietary or
acquisitive intent. It’s just a sound,
after all, and not even a momentous one13 I say this because I know exactly where it
came from. I know the story, the
connotations, the denotations, and some of the implications. It’s pure memory, and once I find it again, I
will recognize it immediately and absolutely.
So what kind of music do I like nowadays? In the most sincere expression of a largely-sardonic thought, music that can survive its own
destruction.
~Fin~
Footnotes
1) That was not
her real name, of course but, my God, it should have been and I blame her parents
for their shortsightedness. Not that she
was a party girl to any particular degree.
She was just...a Gala.
2) You wouldn’t
pick her out of a crowd for being a supermodel, certainly, and she’d be the
first to admit that (which is the only reason I’m willing to say it.) There was, to call upon the old cliché, just
something about her. Something in the
way she stood, and walked, something in that little head-tilt thing she did
when thinking, something in the way she smiled without holding anything back,
like whatever she was smiling about at that exact moment, it was the smilingest
thing in the history of our poor old planet.
I loved her only as a friend, but don’t mistake me – I would consider
any guy (or girl, she sometimes vacillated) including me to be lucky to be with
her in more intimate terms. So I say
this as a friend – there are all kinds of beauty, and she was at least a
half-dozen of them all by herself.
3) You would not
believe how much time I spent searching for that damned degree symbol. Microsoft was kind enough to inform me that I
could use a keyboard shortcut…if I had a number pad on my laptop or a magic
wand blessed by the Right Hon. William Gates Messquire himself. Unfortunately, while my last laptop did,
indeed, have a number pad, I chose portability over giant keyboard this time
around.
Also,
I use Fahrenheit because Celsius because Celsius is a tool of the Devil. Says so in both the Bible and the Rig Veda.
4) Now, some
might say ice cream is a horrible choice for breakfast. Those some clearly didn’t go with us on that
trip, because not only did we all eat ice cream at a diner for breakfast that
morning, we dipped huge spoonsful of vanilla dripping with hot fudge,
strawberry preserves, and walnuts into our coffees. I think the point I’m trying to make is that
coffee was sufficiently breakfast-y to justify any other items we may or may
not have consumed.
5) Said dryads
might have been hallucinations or they might have been an authentic remnant of
the Old World, but I’m not ready to commit.
Some
might suggest I was just using a rhetorical device and no dryads were ever seen
or imagined in this place, but some need to stop looking for logical answers in
an inherently illogical world. That way
lies madness. Or, worse, sanity. Why risk either?
6) In case
you’re wondering, and I can't imagine you’re reading this with anything but bated
breath, I have no idea if they ever hooked up.
There are just some questions I don’t care enough to ask. Indeed, there are a whole lot of questions I
don’t care enough to ask, many of which a rational human being intent on
staying alive should be asking as loudly and frequently as possible. I’m pretty sure I’ve managed to survive this
long despite this, but if I happen to be in a Sixth Sense sort of situation,
the baristas at the coffee shops I frequent all have uncanny ability to
interact with, and make the order for, little ol’ ectoplasmic me.
7) I’m not fuzzy
on them, though I do sometimes get my Platonism and neo-Platonism mixed
up. Neither do I feel much obligation to
be completely true to the original concept.
Everything is mutable. Nothing is
sacred. Life is a cereal. Yadda yadda and so on until the end of all
things.
8) Yes,
comfort. That’s the right word. Don’t look at me like that. I am what I am, and that’s just how it’s got
to be.
9) He absolutely
refused to tell anybody where he’d acquired it.
I couldn’t say whether it was out of a desire to have the only one in
Raleigh or because it had been stolen from the scene of a bloody murder and he
didn’t want to become a person of interest.
Probably
both.
10) The concept of a kalpa is central to
Hinduism and Buddhism. It’s a Sanskrit word that
means, generally, a long period of time.
It has been defined as (according to every source I’ve seen, since my
knowledge of Hinduism is mostly academic) 4.32 billion years. In other words, a longish sort of time period. A mediu kalpa...ah, just look it up. Things get complicated.
11) That’s
right, Baby Boomers, we have redefined classic rock-n-roll to cover songs from
when you were middle-aged. We don’t
apologize in the slightest. Sic transit gloria
mundi or whatever describes your hoary hearts breaking.
12) Technically,
as a variant of noumenon, it couldn’t
be proven, at under the experiential world as we know it. Though MS Word insists no such word as noumenon
exists, it does. One of my favorites,
even. Research it. It’s a great $20 term to amaze and frighten
your friends during late night drunken philosophy sessions. }
13) Yes, I’m
gonna hammer on that point until Judgment Day or February 31st, whichever
comes first. Stop interrupting me with
pointless questions so near to the end here.
It is, was, and shall always be not momentous.
