Monday Morning Confession
I confess I want to flow freely, like a river, like the currents of my daughter's double bass.
As I stood singing into the microphone on Sunday, the deep notes from my daughter's double bass spread through my body tangibly, like I was standing in front of our wood stove. She moved her bow across the strings and the vibrations seemed to wash through and over both of us.
I understood then what she had tried to explain to me some time ago when she described her love for the double bass: "The vibrations move from the strings through my fingers down through my body to the bottoms of my feet. I love everything about it," she said, her eyes lit with passion. "How big it is, like a person, how I can feel it as well as hear it, its deep sound. . . ." As I watched her speak, I realized that I was witnessing a careening, unstoppable love--a falling in love.
For love of the bass, she has taught herself painstakingly, sticking with her electric at first, then moving to the school's upright, and finally proudly bringing home her own from the music store like new parent coming home from the hospital. We never cajoled her to play; Martin suggested it one day and she picked it up and never put it down for long after that.
For love of the bass, she has spent countless hours with bleeding, blistered fingers. A blister pops while she's playing and she keeps on going. "How about a bandaid?" I've suggested, but she scoffs. What? And stop the callous-building? No way.
Watching Merry play bass is awesome. Literally. It fills me with awe in the same way that watching joy and determination pump through an athlete, or a scientist, or maybe, if I could stomach it--a surgeon working at the top of her game. You know what I mean--like what Eric Little said in Chariots of Fire: "When I run, I feel God's joy." When Merry plays bass, I see that.
Merry lives a lot in her head, in her expectations of how well she should perform or how deeply or profoundly she should experience something. When she was tiny--just over two, it must have been--we strapped her into a swing. She flew through the air, a thoughtful frown slashed across her sweet little face. When I took her out, she said seriously, "I can see that I was enjoying that." In the years that followed, we've together mulled over the great strengths of this gift of reflection and circumspection--and the great weakness therein.
"You are a thoughtful person, Merry," I've told her, "You have great compassion for others and a deep grappling to understand what lies beneath the surface. But sometimes you just have to let loose and get crazy in the present moment!" She lays her head down on my shoulder or sometimes just keeps walking next to me. She knows what everyone has told her since she was a wee thing, that she is an old soul.
But, but, but! When she takes that bass in her hands, she may be an old soul still but her spirit is flowing wild like a river. I can see it. And standing next to her, I can feel it. It is a great thing.
What unstops your spirit? What pops the cork from your bottled fear and circumspection and blows you right into the air like a geyser--wild, forceful, and full of love?
As I stood singing into the microphone on Sunday, the deep notes from my daughter's double bass spread through my body tangibly, like I was standing in front of our wood stove. She moved her bow across the strings and the vibrations seemed to wash through and over both of us.
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| Mer with our lovely friend, B. |
For love of the bass, she has taught herself painstakingly, sticking with her electric at first, then moving to the school's upright, and finally proudly bringing home her own from the music store like new parent coming home from the hospital. We never cajoled her to play; Martin suggested it one day and she picked it up and never put it down for long after that.
For love of the bass, she has spent countless hours with bleeding, blistered fingers. A blister pops while she's playing and she keeps on going. "How about a bandaid?" I've suggested, but she scoffs. What? And stop the callous-building? No way.
Watching Merry play bass is awesome. Literally. It fills me with awe in the same way that watching joy and determination pump through an athlete, or a scientist, or maybe, if I could stomach it--a surgeon working at the top of her game. You know what I mean--like what Eric Little said in Chariots of Fire: "When I run, I feel God's joy." When Merry plays bass, I see that.
Merry lives a lot in her head, in her expectations of how well she should perform or how deeply or profoundly she should experience something. When she was tiny--just over two, it must have been--we strapped her into a swing. She flew through the air, a thoughtful frown slashed across her sweet little face. When I took her out, she said seriously, "I can see that I was enjoying that." In the years that followed, we've together mulled over the great strengths of this gift of reflection and circumspection--and the great weakness therein.
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| Mer making a wish on the Wishing Bench, Bloedell Reserve. |
"You are a thoughtful person, Merry," I've told her, "You have great compassion for others and a deep grappling to understand what lies beneath the surface. But sometimes you just have to let loose and get crazy in the present moment!" She lays her head down on my shoulder or sometimes just keeps walking next to me. She knows what everyone has told her since she was a wee thing, that she is an old soul.
But, but, but! When she takes that bass in her hands, she may be an old soul still but her spirit is flowing wild like a river. I can see it. And standing next to her, I can feel it. It is a great thing.
What unstops your spirit? What pops the cork from your bottled fear and circumspection and blows you right into the air like a geyser--wild, forceful, and full of love?
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