today I must ask a different question:
can my music help me forward or hold me back?

if it can help me forward then I must continue with it.
if it only holds me back then I must not.

tonight I came across a sea of despair
unexpectedly.
or perhaps you turned on the light and that's where I found myself.
cut off from my music
cut off from others
how can I know where I am?
how can I get my bearings?
only through you.
and if I am not honest with you
then of course all is lost.
if there really is despair then I must speak it.
this is what my music has always done -
until now . . . or rather then:
its months already . . . . .

the despair is a strange one
because it is not the whole truth
not at all.
I have known joy have I not?
these past difficult months?
only through you.

I remember in the past how my music was a go-between.
perhaps I have underestimated my need for it to continue to be that.
a means of saying how it is . . . . .
presently lost to me
and potentially disastrously so.
it is essential that I search diligently
for a voice
any voice
heard or not
but I must speak and speak it as it is.
otherwise the journey will end more abruptly than I can imagine.
life or death?
possibly.

I was going to finish there but it occurred to me:
the gift that you gave me:
my music
my piano
these were not given frivolously -
the fact that, for great swathes of my life,
I have not understood the nature of that gift
(however limited my talent -
this isnt the point, if only I could remember that!)
does not detract from the fact that you gave it me:
to bridge the gaps
to heal the wounds
to speak the unspeakable [however incoherently]
to touch the unknowable [however fumblingly] . . .
presently, it is true,
I have learnt a little to touch the unknowable (you of course)
in other ways
but my soul cries earnestly to sing again
to sing for healing and smiles . . . .
to smile again and join the party again.
my music has helped me do that hasnt it?
bridging the gap then.

perhaps above all I need colour.
without music I cannot see colours.
colour may be all around me but until I find it in my music
I might as well be blind.
perhaps that is presently what I am:
blind. [well colour-blind at least.]
deaf. [certainly]
dumb. [not quite by the looks]
slowly dying.

tomorrow I will read this post and be horrified at it's moroseness.
but it's not how I feel.
you can run away from despair
but it will still be there until you walk on through.
the valley of death then.
and my music will be my walk
and you will be my crook and my staff.

but one final thought:
music is not sound.
I can hear sound,
I can see colour.
but at the same time I cannot hear sound
and I cannot hear colours.
when I touch the piano I hear it but I cannot see it . . .
it is hidden from me. . . . .
what is it that is hiding it?
what is the wall between me and the music?
is it because the valley of death is so dark?
is it because I have actually died already:
limping along like a frail ghost?

I know this isnt true.
there is life, there is joy,
there is also a great deal of sorrow.
and I cannot speak any of it!

I can feel it but not say it!
feel it but not say it.
because noone is listening?
you are listening. it was only you who ever listened.
the rest was pretending.
perhaps I have just woken up to that strange fact?
don't expect anyone to understand:
they won't! they don't!
that sounds a little hysterical perhaps.
it rings true nevertheless.