(2 min read, 4 minute listen. Trigger warning – death mention)
Sometimes I wake up in the night. Someone recently asked me if I get enough sleep. I said yes. I lied. I think I burn bright – sometimes like a candle, sometimes a star, sometimes a wildfire, and then when I’m consumed I sleep hard. And when you’re in that creative flow of ideas, who wants to turn out the light?
Last night at some ungodly hour – before the dawn, but it looked like the dawn as the full moon was out – I was thinking and there were sounds and words in my head, and there was something about that moon that triggered a memory – and when the morning did come I went searching for an old recording. I’ve never shared it. There are lots of things I’ve never shared, and that’s interesting because I’m writing about perceptions – worries, fears, our minds – and how things get in our way and stop us doing things sometimes. They stop the #YesICan. So I am sharing this. It’s a shame it comes some 11 years after the guy in the video with me passed. (damn you, Mark)
People don’t really leave us though, do they?
Mark and I would record stuff – for hours. We spent hours. Sometimes there would be no talking at all, just playing and then maybe a frantic scribble of a fragment on paper, and, well some more playing. A friend of his from London recorded this as part of some educational project I think – I don’t even know his name. This video was one of the last things Mark gave to me – this and a copy of a piece called Ave Verum that we did and redid, and he finally finished early in 2009. I lost that CD, and I still look for it in the hopes that I’ll find it one day.
I was his string orchestra for years. I never really knew where the stuff I did ended up – he did something for National Geographic about mongooses and there was a film score and various music tracks. We both burned like candles and went for hours. Listening, playing, – just one more line – maybe I could be a violin this time, or use another bow, or different vibrato to sound like more people? Yep, why not? (just after 2 mins here you can hear all the cellos. -the violin-cellos too. I’m the strings.)
I don’t know why today I thought of you so strongly, Mark, but really – damn you for leaving. You taught me an awful lot and got me to do a lot of musical letting go and just being. I think you knew that. I’m sure you did. I’m telling the world on your behalf anyway. Those were good days, or nights rather, and I don’t think I slept enough then either.
There are so many wonderful people who come into our lives and leave footprints. It is good to remember them when they are gone, but I’m reminded more so than ever to celebrate them now.