OH BACH, DEBUSSY IS CHANGING ME

Key facts change the story. 

I've taken issue with Debussy, his meandering ways of composing. How anti intellectual of me.  But Bach has been my rock and roll session, inspiring my attitude, style, and language.  It's predictable, yes, but not quite classical-lite Mozart.  Layered and layered with sound and rhythms, countermelodies. Upswings so high I can touch god's fingertips. And it is finished when it ends.  The lingering feelings-satisfaction.  

bach in outerspace

Skyping with my dad today: "I played Bach for you on my recorder (I was taking a college music class) before you were born. I knew only one song. I played it over and over and over and over..."  Dad on a recorder. ha! Same dad who talks of lungs collapsing at a certain altitude. Shit, Mary, i won't die in a nursing home. Find me instead an old man, passed out in the  mountains from climbing too high.

Aha! The meaning of life, with a passing comment suddenly made clear. Had he played  Debussy and maybe different songs every day, I might be an artist, who could float into the clouds without needing a conclusion. I could have run long distances slowly with no need for a pace, a finish line, a prize at the end. I could have enjoyed a relationship effortlessly, let it unfold for its own sake, not needing definition.

"I am a lawyer, it's my rebellion to my artist family," my tag line before this summer, was started by forces outside of me. Rock and roll defined an age group. Gave kids a sense of belonging, even when feeling alone. Bach, you've made me lonely.  Debussy come rescue me.

Give me order. Give me intellectual depth. Give me artistic beauty. I'll get to them in life in that order, unclip the cams, strap em to my belt. Amass, don't abandon. Unless it's wasting too much time. Then, leave the stuck ones behind. 

Climb on.