Concerto in January: Writing in space and time

“Imagination is more important than knowledge.”    Albert Einstein

 “I have been found guilty of the misdemeanor known as making light of Einstein”                  ee cummings

“The purpose of art is to lay bare the questions which have been hidden by answers.”                   James Baldwin

“Just because we don’t know about them
doesn’t mean that things don’t happen to the gods….”     Nancy Rullo

 

There are tulips in a glass vase on the table, two dozen red and yellow extravagant tulips, not quite open, leaning toward the large window that faces south onto the birch trees in the front yard. Snow is falling again, typical for the end of January. A CD of Jacqueline du Pre is spinning Haydn’s Cello Concerto in D. The temperature outside is about 7 degrees. The house is cool but bright in spite of, or because of, the snow this morning. On the table near where I write are several books I am currently reading. I am never happy unless I have a wide range of material to choose from: magazines, literary journals, novels, nonfiction, British mysteries, to delve into for any mood.

I read to understand the world. And then I write to understand my position in this fleeting and often tumultuous life we all lead, while I try to take right action, to understand the actions of others, to live with compassion, and to, most of all, be true to myself and my own fullness of creativity. I do not find this an easy task. I am not always successful, in my writing or in my life, but it is impossible for me not to struggle along, sometimes joyfully, but sometimes grumpily, searching for those moments when theory and practice meld.

The books I am reading, “Exuberance,” by Kay Redfield Jamison; “Art and Physics,” by Leonard Shlain; and “All-Night Party: The Women of Bohemian Greenwich Village and Harlem, 1913 – 1930,” by Andrea Barnett, I have noticed, as I sat down to write this essay, are all about those who have in some way broken a mold, for better or worse, lived in their own fullest way, and followed passion. Being snowbound in the interior Catskill Mountains can bring on a certain ennui, not necessarily depression, but a lack of ambition, a lack of interest in how well one can shovel snow or cook another stew. Will one’s clients be able to trek up the mountain for an appointment? Will there be any money in the bank in February? Will I be able to get out to visit a friend? These tiresome thoughts make me feel like I have a severe head cold, which I also do actually have. It is January of course. My books are my Sudafed, my Vicks and humidifier. But ideas start to trickle back in as I read.

The physics of cosmology has been the main impetus for my writing in the past few years. The most wonderful part of this obsession is that my mind seems to retain little of the information I study; only the awe remains, awe at the breadth of life and the minds that have imagined it, and recreated it for me in their writings. But while I read about the space/time continuum, and the purported edge of the universe, or the multiplicity of universes, I also remember Mary Poppins, telling Michael and Jane that nothing out of the ordinary has happened after they step into chalk drawings or float to the ceiling on laughter. The awe of life: imagination: expect the extraordinary. My simple days, teaching, reading. gardening, being a mother and wife have always seemed so ordinary, away from the world of ideas. I write to join the world of Bessie Smith, singing her way out of poverty, to greet Richard Feynman as he looks for the simple ways of understanding complexity, to grasp how my existence fits into this world of wonders I read about.

The joy and beauty of the Haydn is inside me and I cannot sit still. I orbit the little rooms of my house, past the dishes waiting to be cleaned and the gift that needs wrapping. I stop at the refrigerator, of course, and find a last piece of very dark chocolate, which I pop into my mouth although I have not had a decent breakfast. The Haydn crescendos and I stand next to the computer, not able to sit down yet, humming and watching what seem to be the last flakes of snow. Already I can see the opposite mountain, outlined by thinning clouds. The sweet adagio of the second movement begins. I’d like to dance, but I sit and think, imagine what it is to write this music, or to play the cello, wrapped around the curvature of sound. If the music inhabits me from a plastic recording, how must it pierce the soul of the cellist.

Imagination is the crux of all discovery, of invention, of creation. The awe I feel in reading about the theories of light is what I attempt to re-envision in my own life, when I imagine being outside at night while the silent hunter, the owl, plummets to its prey, or when I transform memory into a formal poem about marriage. I also write to transform my life. How much of this essay is true to my life this morning? How much from my imagination of how it could be, of how I desire to see myself, to have you see me? I reach out my left hand and rub the covers of the three books, each cool and with varying textures, as if rubbing talismans, as if I can pull myself to the surface of life and allow myself to soar to the ceiling with Michael and Jane, and write from what I see there, imagine that I can create one more scene, or make one idea burst into life for an audience of readers or listeners.

And now the first slow deep notes of Elgar’s opening to the Cello Concerto in E enter the room. Jacqueline recorded this extraordinary performance with the London Symphony Orchestra when she was twenty years old. How could she have known such depths, at such a young age? Only six years later her multiple sclerosis began to prevent her from continuing her art. An oboe punctuates the bars of the adagio.

Questions arise. Why? How? If the universe is still expanding, growing at speeds we cannot imagine, should we be noticing? Is there a reason for our lives? Are we simply bacteria or are we real creators as well as creations? Is there a prime hand that smacked our world into its first breath? Is there anything out “there,” for lack of a better description of the space beyond earth, that has emotion? Am I just getting old and cranky when I don’t know the answer to something? Is it too late to discover God? Why bother? I could just turn on the TV. Watch the Weather Channel.

The top of the birch tree closest to the window broke off during the last ice storm and its thin jagged trunk is now a perch for a squirrel who can’t see that I am busy. He would like to come in, bold fellow, but I don’t want to hear his chattering. It punctuates the slow cello, so slow now, as if the cellist were putting a child to sleep.

I hope I have not put you to sleep because I am finally going to tell you the real reason why I write. In writing this essay this morning I have invited you all here and, by bending space and time, you have arrived even through the snowstorm, and are sitting around my table, smiling at the tulips as I type away. Perhaps you want some different music. i don’t mind. I am glad to have this time with you. I don’t really understand how it happens but I love the surprise and the company that arrives when I write, especially in January. When the snow ends tonight we will be able to see the stars. Because it will be very cold they will seem incredibly bright and close. I don’t remember why, of course, but it will be awe-inspiring.

 

This essay was originally published in Tertulia, a Literary Journal from California about 15 years ago. I seem to have lost the original edition. I miss Tertulia, a compelling and thought-provoking journal that I felt privileged to appear in.