Art.
I work at a hotel. One of my regular duties is to set up tables for afternoon tea in the lake lounge. There’s a piano located in the room and it’s usually locked up to deter potential nuisances. However one day as I walked into the room, carrying a table under each arm, I noticed that it was particularly crowded. This wasn’t too unusual considering the house count was relatively high for the off-season, so I didn’t take much notice, and I went about my work. Then the playing started. My initial reaction was to approach the young man who had begun to play and politely ask him to desist. The décor is not a toy. However, by the time that thought was fully formed, I had noticed that my eyes had begun to well up. I managed to hold back any full-fledged tears, but my throat tightened, and while my fingers worked their way around the table, preparing it to be set, my mind was carried away by the melody hammered out by those skilled young fingers nurturing those aged keys, giving them purpose, unlocking a portal to a realm of emotion that only music can penetrate.
There is power in music; there is power in art.
I have a tendency to create artistic associations, especially with music and songs. I’m not a follower of bands or a fan of groups. I’ve been to a couple low-key concerts and I’ve decided they’re not my thing. (But I’d gladly accept U2 tickets.) It just seems like too much hero-worship for mere people. I know, that’s coming from an aspiring actor/writer/whatever, but musicians have a unique effect on people because their mode of expression is such a universal one.
I’m particular to love songs; heartfelt ballads professing passions and amour, love and romance; they nurture my hope; they nurture my hope for my Hope… sometimes. There are those times that they make me realize that my hope for Hope is still just a hope and a ways off from becoming the love that they, the songs, profess. I’m big on pictures that capture beauty and color and some natural emotion; the anger of the sky, the tranquility of an evergreen, the joy of a waterfall, the resolute mountaintop… the world is full of expressions not our own. I love audible and visual sensations, but sound and sight lead me to reflection, and reflection leads me to act.
I love to act. It provides me with a means to release all of the emotional baggage I have a tendency to collect and store in the recesses of my being. All that I receive from the limited relational inputs, and all that is infused from the ongoing bombardment of external artistic stimuli, is harbored until I find a spotlight or a stage. I think I’m most myself when I can don the guise of being someone else. I can profess my love as Romeo, I can be angry and confused reading Hamlet, the shame of Proctor, I can even cry, with a painted face, for all the agonies of humanity because I know how to express my own agony; hatred, fear, desire… I know how I would portray most every thought that traverses my mind had I a character to excuse the purity of my expression, because you never know when honesty will end up risking more than you’re prepared to risk. I have a problem with risk.
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