Music from other side of happiness

Nov. 18, 2004

Dear David,

Whenever it feels like I'm floating around in my head and living too little by the instincts that serve animals so unerringly, trouble comes. The days are not long enough, the nights infinite. Music annoys or is too good, a bower of sound inviting you to lose yourself inside.

Galway Kinnell's words are an antidote.

"There are things I tell to no one.

Those close to me might think

I was sad, and try to comfort me, or become sad themselves.

At such times I go off alone, in silence, as if listening for God ..."

Another antidote is the earth. Helping DC spread mulch around some plants feels good. Sunshine feels good. Running feels good. Trees and buildings and people move by, like in a motion picture, but your mind stays in one place, viewing the spectacle.

Physical acts roil the blood, charge the light in your eyes, remind you that breathing from your gut replenishes your spirit. Your gut is where you want to live.

Playing with dogs is an antidote.

Sleep is no antidote. Neither is nostalgia, but it is attractive.

Elvis Costello interviewed Joni Mitchell in a recent issue of Vanity Fair magazine. I wondered what the retired but not forgotten godmother of sensitive singer/songwriters might have to say to Mr. What's So Funny About Peace, Love and Understanding?

She said Neil Young knew how to rock, but he didn't know how to roll.

The new movie about Ray Charles portrays someone who knew how to rock and roll.

Seems to me that knowledge is an antidote, too.

When you start wondering what happened to Joni Mitchell or anybody else who meant something to you long ago, the next step is to start wondering about yourself. Where have I been, where am I going?

Joni Mitchell sings: "Things that you held high/And told yourself were true/Lost or changing as the days come down to you."

These questions are pertinent in the middle of your life, demand asking. Answers come only to those who pay attention.

DC surrounds herself with the dogs, the four of them sitting on a red chaise. They look like a painting by a Modern Master. I am looking at the TV without watching.

Sometimes people aren't actually staring. They're listening.

Galway Kinnell:

"... I say 'God'; I believe,

rather, in a music of grace

that we hear, sometimes, playing to us

from the other side of happiness.

When we hear it, when it flows

through our bodies, it lets us live

these days lighted by their vanity

worshipping -- as the other animals do,

who live and die in the spirit

of the end -- that backward-spreading

brightness. And it speaks in notes struck

or caressed or blown or plucked

off our own bodies: remember

existence already remembers

the flush upon it you will have been ..."

Love, Sam

Sam Blackwell is the managing editor for the Southeast Missourian.