Something has been brewing in me for quite some time... something that I've been wanting to say, but has spun itself into such a tangle that I now find it difficult to grab onto the words. I have a story to tell, and I hope it's not too convoluted to follow. Please bear with me, as these ideas are only half formed. I hope that in the process of writing, some of it will become clarified in my own mind.
It starts with breath itself.
"Do you have anything you can stick on your tongue?" he asked.
"Um... I think I have a hair clip in here, or something." I fumbled through my purse, into my makeup bag and came out with a long silver clip. I use it to pin up my hair when I blow dry it. (I had come straight to my voice lesson from N's place and my bag was overflowing).
"That'll do."
I slipped the clip into my mouth like a tongue depressor, gently applying pressure, and I breathed again. Up the scale I went, higher and higher, my tongue fighting me as I rose, a powerful muscle lifting in the back of my throat. I jammed the clip down on my tongue. The muscles of the pharynx tightened. Shit. The note was squeezed.
We tried again.
Not much better.
We tried again.
He cut me off before I began.
"Nope. I didn't like that breath. Get a better inhalation."
I focused my brain. Into the sides and back. Keep the throat open; expand the waist; chest up; shoulders down; keep the knees relaxed; now, sound! Keep the stomach coming in steadily; don't tense your stomach muscles; don't tense your chest; don't help with your head; don't close off the throat; get enough space; modify the vowel right-- Shit. My tongue had gone up again.
Try again.
Again.
Again.
Again.
And then, somehow it came. The note floated out without feeling. A high G. Did I ever think I could sing that sound?
"That's it! That's it! What did you do differently that time?" he asked.
"I don't know. I mean..."
"Well, what did it feel like?"
"It felt like nothing," I said.
"Can you do it again?"
"I don't know. It felt like nothing."
It felt like nothing, but it was physical ecstasy-- the transcendence of every effort, every thought, every struggle, every way we interfere with our bodies. To sing correctly, the body must become nothing. It must be allowed to be. I doubt most people have ever experienced that. And how could I get it back? Do nothing. I told myself. DO NOTHING. Only, how to repeat it? It seemed impossible.
To be physical nothingness and absolutely whole. That's what I've been thinking of. The Beethoven concert I did last month has changed me. It has irrevocably changed me. I think I lived an entire life in the day of that concert. It was January 23, 2006. I woke up that morning with a broken heart. I ended the evening in a "ring of fire." (FEUERTRUNKEN! Fire drunken!)
The concert was at Carnegie Hall. The choir sat on the stage for the entire symphony. I was in the front row, perfectly in line with the conductor. To my right-- the double basses, bows rising in rumbling vibrations. To my left-- the percussion. (The principal timpani player was also the section leader of the Met Opera orchestra. I thought of the "curse" in Carmen. ("I will FORCE you to follow the fate that binds your destiny to mine!" NDN would say.)) In front of me-- the French horns. And all around me, ecstasy for all... even the lowly worm.
Freude trinken alle Wesen
I swear, the universe was recreated in front of me that night-- the theme passed from instrument to instrument, the chandelier a halo, the ceiling shaking as if it were on hinges. The very air that I breathed, the force of life, was all music, sound, and heavenly sound at that. Not because it was beautiful, but because it was whole. A wave, a breath, an idea materialized and realized two hundred years later, pulled out of air as if it had been there silently at every moment. Be that wave; be breath; be Beethoven.
And then, through the fog of the universe came a voice-- a human voice... a godly baritone. I was in love with him for the evening. (Charles Temkey is his name-- a young singer just out of MSM.) The whole world existed on a day that had been supreme loneliness. I was still alone. The events of that morning, that weekend, hadn't changed. But I was part of something else. Part of the ENTIRETY.
That voice pierced through the fabric of my entire reality, calling, kissing the millions, the whole world coexisting with my isolation, everything woven, linked, but in a way, it was nothingness... called out of thin air the way my magical breath had transformed air into music-- by doing nothing.
Everything and nothing are simultaneous, I thought. How perfect.
Everything and nothing. Everything and nothing.
N wrote to me after the concert: How was Beethoven? he asked.
I couldn't really answer.
All of these things were in my head when I went with Hammer to hear Bernard Henri Levy give a talk at the 92nd street Y. Levy talked a little bit about Emmanuel Levinas. It's a little hard to explain in a few sentences here, but he emphasized Levinas' notion of "exteriority." If we define ourselves in relation to "other," we shatter the totality of "Being" as an ontological whole (in a Heideggerian sense), and we are somehow reoriented towards the "infinite" in an ethical relationship to those around us. While the idea was not entirely new to me (I read Buber's I and Thou back in the fall, and it touches several of the same principles), at that moment, it rocked me quite a bit. I've been so solipsistically self-indulgent over the past few months... especially when my heart is broken.
On February 7th, Hammer tried to remind me. Remember Levinas, she texted me. You're the best you outside in the world instead of just in your own mind.
BHL talked about Judaism as antithetical to ontological totalitarianism, as it stresses the "unfinished." I liked that. He went on to describe ontological totalitarianism as a necessary precursor for political totalitarianism-- something I had never thought of before, but which makes perfect sense to me. We are defined by our debt to others when we allow for "exteriority." I tried to think about it in terms of the "liberal tradition." (Liberalism in the classical sense of the word). In my view, liberalism has always stressed the individual over the social relation. We improve ourselves and others through Enlightenment reason on an individual basis. Ethics arise from the protection of the individual. How does that individual stand in relation to the whole? (The same question on my mind as I sang Beethoven. The same question on my mind when I tried to learn how to breathe again. The same question on my mind when I tried to stop my heart from misdirected love.)
I don't know the answer to that. But I wondered about it again when I saw Les Miserables on TV at N's house in late January. I have always loved the story of Les Mis, and I think it's because of the possibility it acknowledges in humanity. It is a story fundamentally underpinned by religious love, what I consider the only kind of true love-- a love that is hopeful for humanity-- a love that allows us all to radically surprise ourselves and one another. I'm not particularly religious within any organized religion, but I am a religious person. When I watched Les Mis, I saw the transcendence above ontological totalitarianism. Jean Valjean is both brute and saint. He is able to transform because he is given the opportunity to defy expectations.
It frightens me how repetitious people usually are. Dr. Phil always says that "the best indicator of future behavior is past behavior." And he's absolutely right, in a practical sense. But that leaves out room for miracles. I believe that infinity is within each of us. We usually tap into such a small percentage of our possibility because we have found what "works" for us. (Repetition compulsion, repetition compulsion!) But when directing ourselves towards others, I believe that we have to give one another the chance to tap into that other percentage-- the seemingly impossible choices. That's where miracles grow. It's the gift that the Bishop gave to Valjean-- possibility.
In our everydayness, we see people as ontologically complete. At least I do, if I don't stop to think about it. The world is known. People are essentially known. But it's a mistake. The world is not known. And people can defy expectation. In Les Mis, that possibility is religion. However, unfortunately for Javert, he can not see around ontological totalitarianism. (And this furthers BHL's notion that it sets a precedent for political totalitarianism).
So, I've been thinking about the balance between solipsism and exteriority. Those who fail to define themselves in relation to others end in isolation and self-victimization. On the other hand, "exteriority" has its own dangers-- it presents the risk of a warped reality. It makes me think of my relationship with B. We seem to exist only in the spaces between each other. We have nicknames for each other (his starts with a "B," mine with a "K") and when I'm with him, I'm no longer "Hyde," but "K." The energy he directs towards me changes me. It's me, of course, but it's a B-me. And it can't exist with anyone else or in any other area of my life. This transformation is surely a "warping" as much as it is an "uncovering" and it poses a problem for both of us. Of course, my energy with him is not an open "exteriority" directed towards the world, it is funneled towards him, but even though I only ever feel like myself with him (in a certain way), sometimes I believe there to be more truth in my solipsism.
And it returns me to the Ode to Joy. In setting that to music, Beethoven sought to diminish the spaces between beings-- to dismantle the happy coherence of the ontological individual and place us on par with the lowly worm and the exalted cherub as life itself. What I felt in that music was the vast space of eternity-- potential within each individual.
It's quite an emotional gamble to let yourself expect someone to defy your expectations. If you've been a long-time reader here, you know that I've been waiting for someone to surprise me. It's how I know how to love-- that "religious love" I mentioned above. Maybe it's stupid... it's certainly not practical... but without it, I would become a totalitarian thinker, and I can not let that be. (It appears, for me, that Pope was right-- "hope springs eternal in the human breast.") So, I have tried to let it be. But it's changing me. My gamble appears to be in vain. And I feel myself hardening... becoming more cynical... believing in the static. I've been sensitive-- a naive, vulnerable and hopeless romantic, but I like myself that way. It allows me to find God. This way, I see only man. (Muss ein lieber Vater wohnen?)
I want to believe, again, in that individual eternity... in the span of the universe in the span of the mind, the arms, the heart.
And finally, I've been thinking about "boundaries." To assert ones boundaries is to assert oneself. But "boundaries" are a difficult issue for me. Only when I can trust the relationship, is it easy for me to assert my boundaries (as NDN knows!). At other times, I find myself so frantic to please that I entirely compromise myself (as all of you know). I seek the answer that the "other" wants to hear. "Yes," if the other wants "yes."
"Sometimes you think the other wants 'yes,' but what he wants is 'no,'" my therapist said to me this morning.
"What do you mean?"
"I mean that people respect you when you assert your boundaries. They can feel you as a human being that way. They have a sense of your selfhood. That's what people fall in love with--not shapelessness."
I think that she's right.
I've always said that I wanted libestod, or sublimation into the "other" through love. But for Levinas, merging into infinity leads to totalitarianism. Exteriority is how the "finite" individual transcends infinity. The self is separated from Other. And the self must be separated from the Other in order to have the idea of infinity.
I love infinity. I love merging love. But perhaps neither is possible without the assertion of my own boundaries. All of this is a long-winded way of saying that I'm starting to see that I've been going about it the wrong way. I've never much been one for "self-love," or the idea that "you can't really love anyone else until you can love yourself." But perhaps what I'm saying here is that you can't really love anyone else until you can separate yourself and keep yourself separate by having the guts to assert your values, needs, and wants. Quite often, my conscience says one thing and I do another. In doing so, I'm trying to merge. But infinity evades me. Perhaps this is why...
We are now nearing the edges of my thought where ideas have become a blur... ill formed and unready to be processed. So I'll stop writing now, for all of our sakes.
I'm not sure if any of this makes any sense, but it has helped me reach a very practical conclusion... It has helped me rationalize a behavior I've been loathe to attempt... self-assertion and self-love.
Music is to pull the self out of the air... to pull the individual color out of infinity. To breathe properly, to breathe musically is to taste infinity.
