I once was a great musician, with
pois, grandeur, and aesthetic precision. My colleges esteemed me with great
honor, and I’m sure the crowd here loves it. For every sharp note follows a
cheer and clamor, and for every flat a somber woe. You, my people, listen to me
in this auditorium as my music resonates and reverberates, as my words bounce
to find ears to fall on. Of course, if not for you, my loves, who would I be
but a bustling busker at the brink of suicide, playing for commoner and the
uncultured ears. Unbeknownst to everyone, you have given me a life worth
living. And for that, I would love to tell you about my life’s journey to
standing in this stage, in front of this willing audience.
I could say that life begins at
conception, but mine began the moment I heard a soft and delicate chime coming
from the lips of my mother. She aspired to be a world-renowned opera singer;
their criteria did not accommodate for tall, lanky, wire-hair maidens in a
contemporary setting. I begged to differ in my child mind; every night she put
me to sleep with that one song. It was repetitive and it tires me at this age,
but then it was the song of angels coming down and letting me rest on a bed of feathers,
laying my head on a pillow of petals. She told me that it was a song she wrote
and gave it a concerning title: Amor mortis. Love death.
My childhood consisted of hours of
music theory, hours of practice, and hours of rest. Mother taught me everything
I know to this day in the same home I slept in. Being raised with an absentee
father and a home that could accommodate an entire class of children made the
study sessions feel empty, devoid of joy. But I admire that she stuck through
and gave me the education she thought was worth learning: how inspirational
music can be, the self-discipline that entails, the importance of listening to
others. Hear me when I say that I could not have been here if it were not for
her sacrifice. The sacrifice only a mother would make for her child to follow
the dream she could not achieve.
My teenage years felt like a breeze,
a flute sonata that swiftly transitions into Latin jazz; a turn none of us
expected. She died in her early forties, two weeks after my eighteenth
birthday. I was devastated to say the least, as the autumn leaves fall, leaving
the branches bare. She always had a frail complexion to her and yet she never
spoke of any illnesses she had. The doctors told me it was cancer; I did not
want to know the specifics other than the cause. I did get to meet my father at
the funeral for a second or two, before he vanished again without a goodbye.
I decided to take up college since
my knowledge solely focused on music and having one near that centered around
it gave me hope that I could achieve her dream still. Of course, it was
challenging since being homeschooled did not prepare me enough for adult life.
Mother taught me to play the most commercial instruments such as the flute,
piano, violin, saxophone, trumpet, and the guitar, and I used that knowledge to
play at bars for some living expenses; most of the instruments were rented or
borrowed which did not leave much for myself. It could not pay for the classes,
but it did pay for my day-to-day meals; the classes were paid anonymously; I
had not spoken to any sponsors or know of a secret rich uncle. Later on I was
told that my estranged father paid for my university.
After graduating, searching for an
orchestra that would accept another violin out of the select few was a hurdle.
Mother never told me I was a savant, she made it seem natural that I could play
all those instruments with ease. I was only applying for violin yet did not
consider the possibility of playing another and that’s when a director saw me
play at a bar session. Of course that one session was not enough, but he
considered me for the next open space, later working my way up to the soloist I
am today.
I love mentioning the time I made my
first blunder in front of several dozen people just like you. Luckily I
recovered quickly. The instruments were tuned, the floor hard and resonant, the
air clean and cool, and my hand dry and ashy. My heart could almost align
itself with the beats of the piece, a quick cadence humming like a bee in
ecstasy. This did not help at all because every time I held my breath it would
take me out of rhythm and midway through the piece I play a note a half step
up—a noticeable one—and subsequently getting my bearings in check.
After telling the blunder story it
always reminds me on my crushing love struck that could never happen. We
usually invite a guest soloist at the orchestra, or we are the ones that are asked
to play for them; this was the former. The moment she walked to the front I
knew that I loved her. She wore a baby blue dress, long and flowing, bedazzling
the eyes that planted themselves on her, a minimalistic earpiece, and simple,
glossy lips. Her eyes unfortunately clashed with the dress as they were a
bright hazel, almost hinting at green, but I could not care less for it
heightened my experience of her existence. The skin was fair, like a golden
dream of a Cuba libre in a gloomy tavern. I never got to see her again after
that one performance.
Never married or took up on a
partner, only short nights of leisure and a long period of loneliness. I wish I
could have remembered their faces, but it would not have been the same,
completely unfulfilling to try and remember those that give me that tiny bit of
serotonin to make it through another day. To be honest, I was mostly married to
music, the love of my life was the sound of the orchestra and the cheers the
audience made to our posthumous finales. Sure, it was not a physical thing that
I married, and finding someone at this age would be useless, but I live a life…
…Full of regrets. My dear listeners,
I have lied. I am but a buffoon in black and white, mimicking a sense of self-importance.
This is merely my suicide speech to you. But I’m well-aware that no one is in
the crowd, not a seat has been taken. It is only me, my instruments, empty
chairs, and this rope. Am I craving one last moment of attention as a
postmortem jest? Am I playing a final piece only I can appreciate? Would I be
callous enough to leave evidence of my failure to prove I was worthy of
something and deserving of recognition? The answer would probably be yes to all
of them.
I never really achieved my mother’s
dream of being a world-renowned musician, just moderately known as a one-trick
pony. At the age of forty-one I consider myself a fraud, a letdown, a nuisance.
I made no spectacle to inspire, nor did I try appealing to an audience, I
merely played what I was told to. All I saw were aimless notes cascading in the
pentagram. The bars were mostly empty the nights I played, like roaches running
from the light. The beautiful soloist probably did not like my playing—or so my
mind tells me.
And now a last hurrah to this world.
I’ll tire myself by playing Amor Mortis with every instrument I know. Break my
fingers if I have to playing so many times that annoying song, repeat after
repeat, note after note, chord after chord, beat after beat. Of course,
starting with the least I appreciate is the norm, so the flute begins with a
wistful delight, a cadence of wishless desire. The waltz my mother sung me to
birth played by a wind instrument means nothing to me, reminds me of the times
I could not sleep in insomniac depression. The guitar is less grating than the
prior, the plucking and stepping distracted me from its meaning: boredom. The
trumpet has no worth, only the fact that it remains as an ambivalent
instrument, loud and obnoxious yet smooth and assertive. The violin, much like
the guitar, stepping and sliding, a slight difference yet a noticeable one; the
strings give a change in meaning, like hope. The piano, oh the piano, more
stepping to give callouses to my fingertips, but the meaning I find is love;
the love I wished could reside in my heart.