Quiet is like music to me.
Music, on its own, is delightful. I live and breathe music. Always have. Hopefully, I always will.
I feel music in ways, I think, most people can’t. I say “most people,” because I am fully aware there are those who speak music to such an extent that I envy them. Often, they are musicians.
I am not a musician.
I am merely an appreciator of music.
To be precise, I am an appreciator of beauty. True; I am also continuously aware of the ugliness. Even within great beauty, there are murmurs of dark despair; with every flood of brilliant, bright light, there are deep shadows. This is simply how I am and who I am. I can accept this.
However, there are moments in my life, thankfully more frequent than I prefer to admit, when I’m absolutely captivated by a scene – or a sound – and I can barely breathe, much less think. All I can do is surrender myself to the beauty of the moment.
They are never the same. The moments may be similar (how often do I revel in the colorful panorama of a sunset?), but they are never the same. They usually catch me off guard. But would it be as beautiful if I were preparing myself for it? Would I appreciate it as much if I knew it was coming? Would I be able to enjoy it for what it is instead of comparing it to my disappointment in what it could have been?
I once read in a book, written by someone rather wise and long dead, that the melody is the only thing that matters. That pure melody is what is key, and we shouldn’t muck things up with harmony (I realize this is a vast paraphrase, but it was many years ago since I read this, and I can’t remember where I read it, or I would look it up).
I just remember being deeply disturbed that this bastion of wisdom could say such a thing.
For it is in the harmonies where I dance.
Melody is grand, don’t get me wrong. It envelopes the entire movement and stands strong as a steady guide throughout the tapestry of sound. It ties everything together. It is the outline.
But harmony is the color.
And music without color is soulless.
Quiet is like music to me.
Deep quiet, where nothing moves, nothing whispers, and you realize that you are the only person in this room, right now, and perhaps forever, but you don’t really care where you are or who you are or about anything else in the world. It has all vanished behind the cloud of beauty. Or is that the curtain of the world is finally stripped away to reveal the beauty that has been hidden all along?
The quiet seeps into my very marrow, my heart tries to soften its loud thud-thud-thud so as to not disrupt the drowning sea of silence, and I drink deep.
In the quiet, I hear harmonies.
And my soul dances.
love
