I'm sitting in the library after a particularly full week. I don't want to call it a stressful week, because it contained good elements, as well as elements that caused a great deal of anxiety. It was a week full of ups and downs, and I couldn't help but feel as though it was a week of concentrated time - so much more was stuffed into each hour and day.
But I took time out from errands to sit in the library with my computer to write for a while. I was typing along when I took out one of my headphones and heard that from the other room, someone was playing the piano.
And not just playing the piano - this stranger was working in harmony with their instrument to create art. There's a difference. My sisters and I have all played various instruments since we were little, and I've seen the violin and piano become artwork in their hands. It's incredible.
To my sheer enjoyment, the song choices ranged from Music of the Night, to Edelweiss, to The Rainbow Connection - all songs that I could sing along with if I so chose (no worries, i'ts a quiet library and I'm still sane, I did not so choose). But they were all songs that I could listen to and be filled by - relating with them with nostalgia instead of enjoying them abstractly.
I think all great art is a collaboration of sorts. The pianist's music in the other room is made more beautiful by the enjoyment I (and others) derive from it. The book that I have safely tucked away in my bag is just a collection of ink and paper until I take it up and collaborate with the author, settling into their pattern of thought and the universe they've spun.
Art imitates life, and thus our lives are made richer the more we collaborate with others. Our lives become more meaningful the more we take time to enjoy the beauty of what others are creating, the more we attempt to understand their stories.
The world isn't always a beautiful place, but it's wrong to think there is no beauty in it. It's just that sometimes beauty is something we have to look for in order to see - in people, the art of their lives, and in the complexity of this great earth in which we get to live.
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ReplyDelete"until I take it up and collaborate with the author, settling into their pattern of thought and the universe they've spun."
ReplyDeleteSo true. It's a teacher's truism teaching writing: Consider your audience!
I never made much of a deal about it when I taught ENG 101 because for most students their only audience was me, and I wore two hats: teacher and the guy you have to interest, amuse, or inform. And that split audience was hard for most beginners to navigate, especially when most of what they knew about me was that I was gaga about dogs.
In the creative nonfiction courses, though, I was always pushing the idea that writing is a two-way street between reader and writer. The reader expects to be wooed and won by words, wit, wisdom, and narrative somersaults of all sorts.