the power of a song

It is cruel, you know, that music should be so beautiful. It has the beauty of loneliness and of pain: of strength and freedom. The beauty of disappointment and never-satisfied love. The cruel beauty of nature, and everlasting beauty of monotony.
- Benjamin Britten

I need to learn better, I think, how to judge what I put on my playlist. Because for me, music has never been "just music." Sometimes the most beautiful things turn out to be traps, as words I didn't notice before strike home. The translation of this particular song, for instance, rough though it might be, conveys a message as lovely as the music, and as soft.

There's a sadness that isn't a sadness, a melancholy so sweet that it's almost a treasured experience in itself. It colours the memories, wraps a gentle film of wistfulness around us, and lulls us with remembrances into a different awareness. The soft rustle of cloth over skin, reminding us that under the layers, we are nude, and not only nude but naked. The feel of a curl against a cheek, unnoticed till that moment. This moment.

There's nothing to do but to give way before it, and emerge softened, brushed with the light of angels' wings and the laughter of the flowers. To spend the moment, no matter where it occurs, wrapped in the soul of your lover. The whisper of the breeze... and where did that come from? ... is a compelling invitation to give in; give in to the pull of your thoughts and the sudden tug at your heart. Give in to the music, the memory of loveliness... give in to yourself.

Like blossoms shaking in the wind and falling, the song says, life is only fleeting... so stop, stop... and taste it. So much has already fled by, but this moment is still here. And if there is a warning, an edge of sadness to the sweetness, then it is only the song-bound memory of those other moments that slipped through your fingers, and the picture of the you that you used to be, when you wore a younger skin. Sleeping within warm arms,the music warns, wanting to take eternity into her hands, a woman becomes an apparition. Turn quickly enough to catch it, and out of the corner of your eye, lost immediately to the darkness, the remembered self fades with the last notes... and is gone.


Random Acts of Journaling, Jan. entry.

(no subject)

For the record, I hate uncertainty. I would much prefer my life to march along the way I order it, include just the things I want in it, and even when it doesn't, I want above almost everything else to be sure. To know what I can expect, be it pain, pleasure, or a mixture.

But life doesn't work that way. And it seems that this is going to be the first major challenge of 2002... learning to respond to uncertainty in a more positive way. To respond with the right attitude. The instinct, you see, is to lash out at whatever it was that unbalanced me, including people who were only unlucky enough to be on the fringes of the matter. And then to avoid the issue until I'm sure of my footing again, or until I move on to another path where I'm sure, whichever escape seems most likely to ensure that I won't be thrown off-guard again.

The workaround for this, of course, is to do everything in my power to anticipate all the possibilities. To have thought of every single way the matter could possibly end, most especially the worst case scenarios. However... well, what do you do when the worst case scenario is a prolonged period of uncertainty? Too much invested, come too far, to walk away without a backward glance, without a real attempt at having it work out right. And not knowing how long it might take to make it work out right... so unable to judge whether letting go would be the wisest thing. Worse, not knowing if you'll ever be sure... how long to wait, not wanting to give up and then be left wondering if the solution would have come, had you only held on.

This needs to go on a back burner for awhile, I think, though it won't be forgotten; the issue is an irritant I can't seem to be rid of, since it's popped up in a few places just lately. (2002 may be a good year, but I don't think it's going to be an easy one. There's work to do yet, that's plain.)