Hope and Music

Hope and MusicThe traffic is directed by the road, signs match the maps which guide the way. Symbols are the language of this steel and glass swirl formed by hand and concept. The business of man is conceptualization to rein in tomorrow. Office towers stand blocks from the ramshackle homes of the lost. Senseless and disabled from the evident unseen, nature has been rendered invisible by conceptualization. Nothing rhymes. Writers use the words ‘ebb and flow’ as easily as their predecessors would pen ‘once upon a time’. Ebb and flow give rise to notions of a rhythm we try so hard to find and want to believe we feel. A rhythm attached to an idea, an idea conceptualized, perhaps not rhythm at all. As we have attached numbers to time, rhythm too is measured by labeled vibrations, by recognizable landmarks kindly defined on our behalf. In retreat of quantifiable irons, rhythm, music and hope have found higher ground from the flood of concepts.

Sound is a wave. It can be measured in frequency and decibels. Music can escape the graphs and scopes on occasion, it can be something other than sound. Like the writer taps into the absurd, the beautiful, the soul to present to the senses and remove ourselves from the steel and glass to the octaves no formula finds. Like the sculptor and painter who see colour and form beyond what they’ve seen in galleries, who’ve seen with their own self and convey. We name it art, and sometimes it comes from somewhere other than the apparent, other than imitation. It comes from a source that is beyond a gesture. It comes from something that can’t be defined or measured and thenceforth it is other than physical, chemical, or mathematical. It does not travel on a wave, pulse or beam. Perhaps it does not travel at all.

Hope and music share the same phenomenal presence. Both outside of concept and measure. Hope is not concerned that the next card in the deck be an ace. As music becomes mistakenly defined by volume in a conceptualized world, likewise hope can become a concept, a destination. Hope is not attached to destinations, it is a conduit to a perch in the soul and tunes without words that never stop at all (Emily D). With hope, we can hear the music. The word ‘hope’ appears on Canadian Cancer Society paraphernalia. The daffodil represents hope. There is hope for a cure. Equally important, finding hope leads to moments of being. Moments of being where the quality of the journey replaces the meaning of the destination. True hope is not a precipice to be carefully navigated, hope allowed let’s us be, we can see and hear. Hope is growth and discovery. If hope were a destination or series of events it becomes something definable, which is like describing music in terms of notes and changes. Hope and music are far less tangible. They smile harmoniously with light, breezier unhemmed eyes.

If hope were an idea and if music were sound could we look at the night sky and think of symphonies? Could we be drawn off the surface of the earth, slip gravity, and dwell in possibilities that can only be sumptuously imagined? Could our dreams include music? Those moments, night skies and children discovering, let us shake off the overlays of concept and expectation and bind us with hope and music. Bind us to something bright and more genuine than anything measurable. All that can be measured has an end. Atoms decay, stars fade, waves dissipate but hope and music are always. Always yet fragile.

Shock and awe, the biggest, the loudest, the escalation mankind surrounds itself in to define and plan. In shock, we answer with greater shock. Why? Do we stub our toe in order not to notice the sore thumb? In the noise, answers are accessible as everyone has our answer. Music and hope can sadly become something measured. We balance, the demands we face versus what could be. Hemmingway wrote that if we approach the world with courage it must break us. It will try. But we go on, understanding victory is in moments, in bringing light and growth to others. In civility and celebrating possibility. We fight gravity to do this, but on occasion, on a breeze above we are carried to a majestic view, on the wings of hope and music.

Hope and music are neither notions nor nicely drawn blueprints. Music is, it let’s you simply be, you don’t have to cup your hand to your ear to hear. You just have to shake the overlay and listen. Hope simply is as well. It is born in you and envelops the universe. Like water, it goes anywhere boundaries release. Hope is there when you see discovery in a child, when you hear a cheery symphony, when you breathe more deeply in the calm of nature and when you are fully granted the magnificence of a moment and ready for what may come next. Hope gives you those moments, denying their loss at the whim of uncertainty. Destinations can change or possibly lost, but hope is unassailable and will grant you every moment. Hope and music are what let you feel restful even when you are not tired. Music asks nothing, it lives to share, and it shares its purpose with hope. It is found in us, emits from us, and gives to us - scientifically impossible, still hope and music share beyond graphs, scopes, and blueprints. Never fear being more, join the fight against cancer, stand next to those living with cancer so they know you are there. Allow hope, emit hope, share and create hope – do so by becoming part of possibility. Experience your hope.