But we have music
Sketchbook textures | Poem in two alphabets © Laurie Doctor
When I saw Laurie Doctor’s poem in two alphabets yesterday, it reminded me of what emerged at choir this week. Laurie is a gifted calligrapher, painter, storyteller, teacher who lives and muses in Kentucky. Often her work evokes ancient runes. This piece, for me, suggested musical notation.
I belong to a community choir. We’re a small group, mostly women. Confluence, our name, is a nod to the rivers that meet and then flow together in this paradise we call home. Just as we, the choir members, meet and sing together on Tuesday nights.
I see a similar confluence in Laurie’s sketchbook page: two rivers of words merge to describe the emotions that coexist in today’s chaotic confluence of events.
Oh joy, oh grief
oh sister-shifting-sands
where shall I stand?
And you say:
sit here
take my hand.
–Laurie Doctor
The leader of our Confluence choir, Beth Larsen, is another gifted teacher. Last Tuesday night Beth led our group in a songwriting workshop. While Laurie writes “the muse cannot be rushed” and that is generally true, we amazed ourselves by composing a song in under 30 minutes.
First, we brainstormed themes we see around us in this moment. Our list included
spring
change
new life
awakening
overturning
strife
Next Beth guided us to find a rhythm.
To this she added a word from our list: awakening.
Dividing the group into two streams, Beth pulled another word from our list. As the first group clapped the rhythm, we in the second group took up a simple refrain: It’s spring.
Beth then layered gorgeous vocals onto our stream. After one dry run we recorded our “Awakening.” Take a listen. It’s unpolished, unrehearsed. Heartfelt.
Laurie Doctor writes: The world depends on our participation. This has never been more true. Daily we are witnessing the destruction of our institutions, our communities, our partnerships, our guardrails, our planet. It is hard not to be overwhelmed by it all. How do we avoid being sucked into the maelstrom?
Maria Popova says:
I don’t think it is possible to contribute to the present moment in any meaningful way while being wholly engulfed by it. It is only by stepping out of it, by taking a telescopic perspective, that we can then dip back in and do the work which our time asks of us.
In a beautiful post from 2017 Popova describes the music that journeyed into space on the Voyager, and how a camera on the Voyager telescoped out and captured “the now-iconic image of Earth known as the Pale Blue Dot — a grainy pixel, ‘a mote of dust suspended in a sunbeam,'” in Carl Sagan’s words.
As I closed the post, I was offered Maria Popova’s original poem, “But We Had Music.”
In talking with Beth at the end of the evening, she explained why she offered the impromptu songwriting workshop:
“While it’s great to sing other people’s songs and there is so much wonderful music out there to choose from, I wanted us to remember: We all have music in us.”
The world, as Laurie Doctor says, depends on our participation. We all know this is true. All around me I see us waking up, reaching out to each other to do the work our time demands.
We may not have the answers, but we have each other. We have poetry. Art. We have music.
“Another world is not only possible, she is on her way,” Arundhati Roy insists.
On a quiet day, I can hear her singing.
Leave a Reply