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Places
For as far back as I can remember, I have occasionally
experienced a recurring awake vision. Or perhaps it is better described
as an epiphanal mental image. Certain things trigger this cerebral event.
A time of day can do it. Usually it is just before dawn or immediately
at sunset, when the day makes a dramatic pause to consider either what
is about to begin or just concluding. Sounds, like the swell of cicada
rising as a prelude to a chorus of tree frogs, or the distant lonely
echo of a train whistle or even the profound absence of sound in a snowy
twilight moment can also call up what I see in my mind’s eye.
But music is the most common prompt, though not any old music will do;
it must be passionate and emotional. For this reason, I have always
loved classical music.
I don’t recall why but, when I was eleven, my mother
bought a set of LPs from Readers Digest - Music of the Masters. There
were twelve albums in all. The best-known, greatest works by composers
of the classics were well represented in this collection. Through the
compositions of Chopin, Beethoven, Bach, Liszt, Debussy and others I
discovered the soul-preserving oasis of harmonious music.
Thinking back, I marvel at what a strange child I was.
My favorite way to listen to Peer Gynt, by Henrik Ibsen, was on roller
skates. My place of choice was in the carport that my father had enclosed
to make another much needed room in our small post-WWII home. In the
evenings, while the rest of my family were off in the living room watching
Milton Berle on TV, I moved all the furniture to line the walls, including
my mother’s stylish chrome and vinyl dinette set. I strapped on
my skates–the ones that required a key to adjust to your shoes–turned
on my portable record player, carefully lowered the arm, gently placing
the needle onto the first grooves of the spinning record. Then I positioned
myself at the top end of the narrow room, squatted down, hugging my
knees, and allowed the natural slope of the linoleum covered concrete,
assisted by gravity, to pull me in a slow steady roll to the sofa under
the glass jalousie windows at the other end. Immediately I scooted back
up and started over to get as many roll downs as possible. As the last
strains dissolved of Ibsen’s dynamic symphony (written to accompany
a bitter–sweet play about a Norwegian anti-hero) I felt as though
I had traveled somewhere;I had gone someplace else for a time. Transported
both by movement and sound, it brought me closer to the vision that,
even then, had begun to beckon me.
Over time, no matter where I have lived, or what my circumstances
have been, the vision has remained the same, though the music that invites
it has often changed. When I was fifteen, I discovered Adagio for
Strings by Samuel Barber. The album I had was by the Philadelphia
Philharmonic String Orchestra. I think I literally wore that one out.
I recall finally having to buy a new one. I wrote a lot of schmaltzy
poetry with that symphonic masterpiece underwriting the words. Now,
of course, in this digital age, I have downloaded it from iTunes to
my computer, along with other inspirational music by Kurt Bestor, Artists
of Windham Hill, Michael Gettel, Jim Wilson, Michael Hoppe, Tim Janis
and a host of Contemporary Christian musicians to make a unique and
eclectic playlist; my self-created soul-restoring oasis.
I have always assumed, even until recently, that this
image in my head was a place because accompanying the visual is an overwhelming
desire to find it, to be there. In the vision
I am standing on a high cliff looking westward. I have no idea why I
know it is westward, I just feel it. But I don't know how far west because
I once stood on a beach in northern California, looking out to the edges
of the Pacific Ocean, and observed, with vague disappointment, that
even that spot was not quite far enough. But in the vision I can see
forever, even beyond the horizon. There is a sense of calm purpose,
permanence, belonging and fulfillment, it is a place where who and what
I am begins and ends. In my passionate youth, the place more or less
defined my personal questing toward an unknown future. If nothing else,
it continuously motivated me to “get there”.
But this place, this visual that I have hauled around
with me like an old trunk in this life journey, has now suddenly become
something else in my more mellow senior years. Having accomplished nearly
everything I was able, though certainly not everything I desire to do,
I still can see the horizon stretched out before me. But now I don’t
think it is a place, nor was it ever. I think it is a time. Or perhaps
it is where a time and place merge. Regardless, it belongs to me, personally.
It is perhaps the only tangible thing I own that I can claim to have
brought with me the whole trip. Be it time or space or a combination
of both, it feels less and less like a mysterious pursuit.
It feels more and more like home.
