Musings

“Be open to whatever comes next.” 
~John Cage

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“Music is God’s reminder there is something else besides us.” 
~from the movie August Rush

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It seems to me that music, or any art, is the expression of the tension that is a result of being human. The tension between having our feet on the earth and our head in the sky. How to love life passionately and at the same time let it go where it is bound to go.

This pull is always present – the backdrop of our being, even in our happiest moments, like the hum of a fridge we don’t notice until it switches off. How we feel about this tension is ineffable, which only adds to the sense of a sweet sadness, wanting two to become one – earth and sky, you and i – a tension of longing. 

And art is to that longing as a scream is to witnessing horror, as a tear is to witnessing a birth, and as a deeply smiling sigh is to seeing the sun rise, yet again. There’s really no other way to tell it. In that way art isn’t about experience, it is experience.

Art can also be the sound of the breathless belly laugh that happens when we think we’ve got it all figured out and down pat, ready to sign on the dotted line, and life comes along to tell us, “Look again, my friend.”

– Lou