Wednesday, January 16, 2008
Odyssey on Geary Boulevard: Theory and Practice
While I was writing out my last post longhand in my little notebook, I found myself having a conversation on the bus that has stuck with me. Lucky you, I’m sticking it back right here:
As always, I took my usual seat and glanced sidelong at the empty space beside me. I knew it would be, as always, one of the last to be filled, for whatever reason. And, also as always, I wondered idly who would take that dive and dare to contiguate with me. Another office-worn deskjockey with redrimmed eyes and a bulging briefcase? An elderly shopper from Stockton street, laden with clumsy bags of fishmaw and bitter melon and herbs that make my clothes smell strange the next time I put them on? Or even – dare I wish it – some young hottie, impervious to and dismissive of the world, with perfect makeup and a tiny clutch bag? All these people were boarding at every stop, and still the seat beside me remained empty. But as soon as I saw the tall guy get on board I knew that he’d be my neighbor for the rest of the ride.
He was, as I mentioned, tall, and dark, with a tidy pencil moustache and a conservative light-brown sport jacket, plaid business slacks and well-worn leather oxfords. He carried a small green canvas attaché case and held a small cassette player to his ear in an archaic posture of attentiveness. He wove his way from the front door of the bus right to my seat and almost passed me by; I was ready to admit error in my prediction when he turned on his toes and lightly settled in beside me, still listening intently, his eyes focused on some inward target. So much for the shopgirl hottie option, I thought, and settled in, listening to my own music and writing a story in my notebook.
I stole a few discreet peeks at my neighbor, out of curiosity. I noticed that his attaché case was almost new; he’d filled its little tabs for holding pens with pencils of a sort I’d never seen, seemingly made of tightly rolled paper and topped with pristine pink erasers. The man’s eyes were focused up at a steep angle as he listened raptly to his cassette player, regularly stopping, rewinding, and replaying it. Well, he might not be my idea of a fun seatmate, I admitted to myself, but he seemed sufficiently inoffensive. I would permit him to remain beside me. As if I had a choice.
Blocks and neighborhoods spun past the window; I scrawled; he listened. Eventually, with an air of resignation, he clicked off the cassette player and took stock of his surroundings. The bus had somewhat emptied; ambient noise was at a reasonable level so I had turned my iPod’s volume down a bit. I glanced around, as is my wont, and our eyes met. I saw his lips moving at me and I tried to hear him over my music.
“What (doo doo doo doo doo)?” I wasn’t picking up much of what he’d said, but it seemed to be a question and under the circumstances there was a very good likelihood it had to do with my notebook. I answered the question I assumed he’d asked, as I popped out my left earbud:
“Writing a bit of a story; it’s about an accident to my car.”
“Oh, to deliver a claim to the DMV?” Now I could hear him more clearly, and discerned a distinct accent. India, I wondered?
“No, just to write about it.” He seemed inexplicably crestfallen by my answer, as if it had been a test and he’d failed it. I tried to assuage his discomfort by deflection: “What are you listening to?”
“A vocal part for my church choir. I am in a choir for my church. It’s a Catholic church.” He paused delicately. “Are you Catholic?”
My immediate misgiving, that I was about to be proselytized, evaporated as I looked into his curious but somehow anxious eyes. “No,” I responded. I was willing to speak to him, but this was a conversation he’d have to drive if he wanted it to go anywhere.
“Do you attend any sort of church, or, um…” His question trailed off like wet footprints evaporating on a hot sidewalk.
“I am Jewish,” I told him, with quiet self-assuredness. I didn’t think he would try to get me to switch teams, but I didn’t want him to think he’d be able to, either.
“Oh very good, yes, the Jews are, um… a peaceful people. Like the Catholics. We’re very like each other.” In the pause after he spoke I saw him recognize the essentially ludicrous nature of his statement. The silence between us was a bit strained.
“I think,” I replied after a moment, “they’re all basically peaceful if applied properly, and none of them work very well when you do them wrong.”
“Excuse me?” I repeated my comment a few times till he was able to hear it, or to process it. “Ah yes, yes, yes, it’s all in the application, too true, too true.”
He paused reflectively, then turned toward me in his seat. “The others in the choir have known for years how to make music this way, it’s all they know so even a new piece of music is so much easier for them; I’m learning the music, the composed music, the theory, everything all at once – this is why it’s two times harder for me.” He looked genuinely pained as he confessed this to me.
“It will become more natural in time,” I consoled him unconvincingly.
“It’s not that, it’s twice as hard for me, it can be so difficult to be a supporting voice, you’re singing something entirely different. You don’t understand.”
“Do you mean you’re singing a different song, or a different part of the same song?”
“Yes, yes, yes,” he answered enthusiastically. I’m not sure he understood my question but I let it drop. “Because I see all these people everywhere, singing,” he continued, “but they are singing whatever they wish, however they wish, with no regard for the composer’s work; it’s not about singing up at the lead all the time, it’s very very difficult to sing the supporting parts, you really don’t know how difficult it is, and I’m learning it for the first time you know.”
“I do know, I’ve done musical theater and it was always very difficult for me to learn harmonies.”
“Ah, so you read music?”
“No, one of my biggest regrets is not learning to read music when I was younger.”
“Did they teach it in your schools?”
“Yes, but I didn’t really pick it up.”
He seemed agitated by this comment. “In this country you have so many resources and you do not use them – music classes and art classes and such – no one had that in India, and here you have them and you don’t even take advantage of them. If I had been able to take music classes and art classes, and… I’d…” His voice was becoming tense and choked. I tried to move things along. I didn’t want him having a breakdown right there next to me.
“Just reading music is only a piece of the whole. Reading music is just a technical skill, but music is an art form. Even if a musician knows technically how to draw, if he’s not an artist his drawings will just be drawings, not art. Only true artists can make visual art. These are different gifts, to be able to engage in these various modes of communication. As for me and my little story, so many can read written words but so few can write them well.”
“Yes, not all can learn to play music even if they can read it, only true musicians can make real music. It is, as you said, all in the application.” He seemed to be back on track.
“Did you sing as part of a formal practice in India?” I queried gently.
“Of course.”
“Then I’m sure you have a vast body of training and perspective that can help you. It looks and sounds unnatural now but if you commit to it I’m sure you will grow to see the natural rhythms and connections that underlie it, you’ll internalize it and it will feel not only natural but inevitable. Just so long as you embrace it and are willing to let it lead you.”
“Yes, well, hm.” He seemed unconvinced, and peered out the windows into the darkness beyond. “I must be getting off the bus shortly. My church is nearby.” He rose. “It was good to speak with you on these many subjects.”
“Likewise. Good luck, and don’t forget to breathe from your diaphragm!”
He had walked away and was stepping down the stairwell as I almost shouted that last farewell to him down the aisle of the bus. Several sourfaced commuters turned to see who’d been hollering a nasty word like “diaphragm” during their commute but I ignored them. My mind was on harmonies and concordances. I hadn’t sat beside a silent siren as I’d dared to dream when I boarded the bus. Instead, I rode with a voluble Odyssus, fighting his way through foreign perils far from his familiar home. He was just as eccentric as I’d predicted he’d be when I first saw him boarding, but, as I should know by now, that just made for a much more interesting ride.
