Swimming Sound Waves

Music has always been a larger part of my life than I would have thought possible for someone who doesn’t sing or play an instrument. I have always had an eclectic and varied relationship with music. For the most part I will listen to anything and everything. You are just as likely to find my voice twanging on some Dixie Chicks as it is snarling out a line from Audioslave. There are definitely some genres that I have been unable to incorporate into my life’s soundtrack but not because they are bad – they just don’t work for me.

My first tape was Cindi Lauper, quickly followed by Billy Joel and Michael Jackson. I used to wait patiently by the radio, tape cued for that one song to be played. My early mixed tapes were filled with songs caught in mid line. Later, I would have the luxury to access a collective library to create mini soundtracks. The last mix was the last break-up album. There is a line from a movie (Dog Park?) where the character is told that when he can listen to the break-up tape without crying then he will know he is over his ex.

I used to get dragged to noise shows above the Smash Gallery. I would inevitabley fall asleep on the couch. I guess my ear was not sophisticated enough to appreciate the music coming from the front. As a teenager, I spent a lot of time at the Commodore, getting into concerts with my fake id and paying $8 dollars if we had missed the opening act. There was also the Cruel Elephant good for a Punk show and then the variety of booze cans whose location if you asked me today I would not be able to place.

I often play a game with myself trying to create a soundtrack that would encapsulate the specific moment that I am in or a memory that I have. Like scents, an opening bar can propel me back to a specific place, time or person. I Touch Myself by the Divinyls conjures up an ex, a fitting song for a megalomaniac who wanted me to be at his beck and call – his trophy that he could bring out and show off on special occasions. Other songs immediately send an endorphin rush to my cells and if I close my eyes it is 2 am, I am sweaty, dancing and surrounded by a safety net of beats and bodies.

I have begun to introduce my daughter to music. She falls asleep best to Leonard Cohen and likes to play with her ball in time to Blur. I move around the house singing made up songs about what I am doing. Some of the songs are on repeat. I sing her songs that my mother sang to me. I sing her songs that I love, Summertime and Somebody. I listen to mum sing to her granddaughter some of the songs I remember from when I and my siblings were young, others have obviously been held in waiting to be shared only with her granddaughter.

A new melody is being overlayed my own. Together, for now, the two melodies will play together. As she grows older, they will pull apart and become movements to be played independently. I can not wait to hear her life’s symphony.

Ripping Off the Scab

While I was looking for something else today, I came across my notebook that I had used while working on my Masters. As I leafed through it, I began to cry. That tiny nondescript notebook was a reminder of what I hadn’t completed. While I did walk across the stage to accept my degree, it wasn’t the degree that I had imagined I would accept. I also cried because of the pain that I read behind the words. Not the girls’ pain but my pain, the ache that I had carried with me, held close to me. The anger that made my bones brittle.

“I am having difficulties writing about body and space. I feel like throwing the whole thigs away, walking away from it. Bury my head, my body and disappear.

I feel like I am being held together by tiny webs – I expect to see hairline cracks all over my body, like clay when it has no more water left. One quick step and I’ll fall into a heap of dust. Pieces too small to be put back together. Broken beyond repair. The heat of my anger evaporating my remains. I want to cut into my shin – peel back the top layers – expose the blood, membranes and bones beneath. Feel the rush of pain – the pieces of flesh underneath my nails. The cakiness of blood on my shin, the fresh running blood underneath. I want to tear it open again and again. I want to scream. I want to hit. I want to break down the walls. I can see myself through them – throwing myself against the walls. I can feel the screams, see my mouth open but I can’t hear them. I watch as my body, my hands slide down the wall over and over again. I watch and then I think ‘good girls don’t yell.’”

I read this and realise just how much it hurt to force myself to be continually thinking about girls, body, space, place and identity. How often when I read the literature and the studies I would feel sick. Looking back now, I should have changed my focus. My gaze should have shifted to me rather than an external analysis. At the time, that felt too self-centered, too egotistical.

Ultimately, I did write about myself and my experience researching and writing:

I was eleven when I was sexually abused by my softball coach. For the next two decades my body remembered what my mind chose to forget. I still can not remember fully what happened. All I have is the image of the sun shining through the leaves hanging above the van, the taste of bile in the back of my throat, and the world becoming still. I remember when the other girls mentioned that the police had come to their house but I don’t remember talking to them. I don’t know at what moment I remembered, I can’t place the trigger. It’s as though I woke up one morning and it was just there. I would look at pictures from my childhood and search my younger self’s face to see if I could witness the change. It became painful to read or hear the stories of adolescent girls. How could I listen to other’s stories when I was having difficulties listening to my own? Each time I sat down to write, read, or listen, my stomach would clench, I’d feel the tears well up and I would turn away.

This is a story about my journey.
(“Pandora’s Box” 2006)

I haven’t opened the document since I sent it off. There are only two people who have read it – my advisor and my second. I don’t think that I did myself justice or the topic justice. It might be one of those things that I have to go back to and do it right.

Next Tuesday, I have a meeting with my advisor. I don’t think that I am finished this journey.

x365 – A Year Long Journey Through Your Life

In my time spent strolling randomly through the internet, I came across this, x365.  Since finding it, I have been mulling it over.  As I move through the day, I will find myself adding another person to the list.  I haven’t decided yet whether or not I will actually play this game.  Partly because as much as I say that I want to write essays when presented with the commitment to write 34 words a day I become panicky.  (Side note – this post is already at 105.)  I also don’t know how I feel about naming people.I would also have to include people that I don’t actually know and who are already dead or never actually lived which doesn’t really fit in with the rules but then I am not very good at following rules.

What it has been is a good exercise for my mind.  I like inner reflection.  I could spend hours inspecting my inside toes.  I have become better about not becoming bogged down in it.  On down days I do still have a tendency to dredge up some moment when I said said or did something stupid and poke at it continually all the while squirming.  It’s like playing “why are you hitting yourself” with myself.  I have managed to stay away from self-degradation, instead I have been re-tracing my steps.  Stopping at various rest stops or sign posts along the way, I am realising how much ‘place’ plays an important role.  For example, the Gallery Lounge, is pivotal in my life.  No Gallery Lounge no L, no A, no J and the list goes on.  In fact, the Gallery Lounge had far more influence on my life than any of the professors whose  classes I was missing while sitting in a booth.

If I do decide to do this, I will include it on another page.  It will also be open to people, real or imagined, alive or dead, met or unmet.  It will be open to places, songs, books and any other piece that has made me who I am today.  Look for it.