How is it possible to "know" things without actually Knowing them? Just like the movies borrow heavily from books and stories, so TV and movies (and probably other media as well) borrow from music. It seems I know a song or sound without realizing it is part of something more. So, giving credit where credit is due--Sergey Prokofiev, did you know that your music was going to be borrowed and usurped and pulled into other works? Would you mind? Maybe you did, and you don't (mind that is)? I know you without actually ever having been introduced. And I have, in this case, Terry Tempest Williams, to thank.
I mentioned before that my friend Cath gave me a copy of her book of short essays When Woman Were Birds. This is a collection of fifty-four variations on "voice" which I am reading slowly and with attention. Her writing is beautiful and thoughtful and these are "variations" which should be savored slowly.
Today she writes about the days when her father was away and she and her brother were alone with her mother. She would settle the pair down to Prokofiev's Peter and the Wolf, a story told through music. Do you know it? I must have come across it somewhere at some point without knowing just what it was. Williams tells of whole afternoons spent sitting listening to this tale in front of the phonograph. They would listen and upon finishing move the record arm to the start and listen from the start all over again. "Peter and the Wolf was . . . an early lesson on how the balance of nature could be articulated through story." Each character's voice is presented by a different musical instrument.
"What I realize now is this: within those thirty minutes that took Prokofiev only four days to compose, I received my first tutorial on voice. Each of us has one. Each voice is distinct and has something to say. Each voice deserves to be heard. But it requires that act of listening."
***
"For my brother and me, the cycle of nature consciously or unconsciously was performed through the various voices of a symphony. 'And if one would listen very carefully, he could hear the duck quacking inside the wolf; because the wolf in his hurry had swallowed her alive."
"Listening over and over to the voices through a family of instruments allowed us to recognize and appreciate the dignity and uniqueness of each living thing in the meadow and forest."
I find this, the music, the way the story is told, those voices and more Williams's recognition of that fact, and now my own--pure magic. And since I am always interested in what others have to say about the act of solitude--
"Each voice belongs to a place. Solitude is a place. Mother left us alone to enjoy our own company while she enjoyed hers and reclaimed precious time for herself. When she wasn't living her solitude, she was contemplating it."
So much to reflect on in this book. Variations to think about and let simmer in my mind and another to look forward to tomorrow.