Writing Isaiah: Entry #5

Writing Isaiah 

Entry #5

May 20th 2013

Corbin Tobey-Davis

Music incorporates so much meaning into my own life journey.  From break-up mix tapes back in the day, to creating playlists for every year of my daughters life the power of music as narrative is palpable. I would love to hear your thoughts on the role of music and your postion as one of the primary "sharer" of music with your children. How does music move you while growing the child inside?  How do you share music with child in Utero, during birth, post birth, and what about their journey throughout their life? 

Boom!

And here is a new song I am really feeling.  I love the image of the Divine feminine in the video. 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8iTRRkOXIoI

Emily Joye McGaughy-Reynolds 

Gah, Corbin!--this is so you. This prompt. That video. The topic you've invoked. Your way of writing, introducing, giving it. Part of what I love about this pregnancy writing project is connecting to the spirits of my peeps in the process. You have brought your spirit here, to me, in this exchange. I revel in it, Corbin, I really do. You have a joy in your step, a power of ambitious engagement that I have grown to crave over the years. It was in the stuff we passed back and forth on Holy Hill when we threw parties or deconstructed classes or watched ball games. I miss it--that thirst of life in you, that zesty awake and aliveness. Perhaps I'm just getting older or maybe the miles between me and my friends are accruing with ever increasing rapidity, I don't know. But I do know that I yearn to be with my far away people more and more and that this writing is providing an entry, albeit an incomplete one. Some day our daughters will bounce together on the grass to Blue Scholars and Tribe Called Quest. But until then, the Logos carries us, huh? Thanks for giving me the chance to meet you in that carrying. 

To your questions. 

"The power of music is palpable." Yes. Yes it is. And how that power manifests, I've discovered over the years, throughout the threads of experience in my life, changes wildly given context, given relationships, given struggle, given what is here and now. I made a playlist for Aurora's birth. I never pressed play in the birthing room because I was too busy working my ass off to get that baby born. :-) But I listened to that mix for the weeks leading up to her birth and it prepared me spiritually for the work ahead, particularly a song that my friend Dominique shared with me called "Run til I Finish" by Smokie Norful. That song saved me in the last weeks of pregnancy when I was wondering if I could make it with a body so full, limbs too tired, mind overly excited and anxious. These lines "I'm going to run this race. I'm going to take my proper place in the winning circle" became the chorus of my life and it enable me to preserve. And then, for some reason, as soon as she was born, I began to crave the song "Trouble" by Ray LaMontagne. The title might seem strange, but there are some lines in the song that I needed to hear: "But I've been saved by a woman. I've been saved by a woman. I've been saved by a woman. She won't let me go. She won't let me go. She won't let me go." In some ways I think those lines had double meaning: I'd been saved by the arrival of this girl child, but I'd also been saved by the womyn I had to become in order to be her mother. The meaning just reverberated all over the place in that hospital room as the speakers echoed in our earliest moments of getting acquainted. Once I finally returned home and began nesting full time I went back to some oldies but goodies: Elton John's "You'll be blessed," and Stevie Wonder's "Isn't She Lovely." I danced with Aurora, especially to Stevie, again and again, sometimes full of joy and levity, other times sobbing because the hormones and happiness were too much to contain. These days I try to have all kinds of music playing. I want to share the diversity of brilliance of musicians near and far with Aurora. In fact, I think it's as important as sharing good books with her. I also try to show her videos--every morning if possible--of people playing instruments because there's a spirit-life connection in 'making music' that I want her to witness/vibe. And when church music is good, which it often is because I work with one of the most talented music ministers in the world (Tom Ryberg), I bring Aurora into my arms and sing as loud as I can, hoping that she can feel the momentousness of singing in community. 

One thing that I've been lamenting lately, in a big way, is how little I am dancing. I live in a body phobic culture. There isn't a single radio station that plays decent music where I live. Not one. I'm serious. The gay clubs here are so racist that they won't play hip hop music because of the "kind of people" it attracts. Wtf. And I don't do straight clubs for reasons I hope you understand without me having to explain. The parties I go to never include dancing. It's my living room floor or nothing. As you know, I am most alive on the dance floor. It is where I connect with the parts of me that will not be contained. It's always been a place/space where I can explore/express my physical, sexual and spiritual power in safe and wild ways. I crave that kind of movement. I need it to feel whole and connected to the pulse of the Earth. And yet, it's not here. I don't think I've had a serious dance fest yet with my new pregnancy. As I'm writing this, I'm feeling a sense of desperation. How can I not connect Isaiah (in utero) to this sacred part of me/life? There are huge things that I gave up when I left the Bay Area. People here don't understand because they've never experienced a plethora of options when it comes to queer embodiment, movement in culture/community, celebratory bodies joined in rhythm, etc. Those plethora of options were on the streets, in the parks, in dorm rooms, between us and all around us. Corbin, I miss it so much. I'm in tears as the memories echo...

One last thing about music and parenting. Or maybe it's just about music and being human.

I think we each have an instrument that mirrors us. An instrument that belongs to the "family of things" (to use Mary Oliver's language) in the same way we do. I think there's an instrument that is us, that we share its properties, capacities, and outcomes. Like for me, that instrument is the cello, though the oboe comes in a close second. For some people it's the drum, still others the saxophone. These instruments are composed differently, are played differently, make different sounds and evoke different emotions/response/power. Just like humans. And I think humans each have their correspondent instrument that most resonates because in its music they discover truth/recognition of who they are. Anyways, one of my great hopes for Aurora and Isaiah is that they find their instrument earlier than later in life. And that they either play it throughout their lives or find ways to incorporate the music of that instrument in their day to day. Is there any salvation, any divine power like the power of a musician set to her/his craft? I think of watching Yo Yo Ma playing the cello. Some days it makes me weep. Other days it arouses and pleases me in the waxing and waning of Eros. One time, one of my friends was dying, and in listening to the cello, I found a poem, gave birth to a poem, that needed to be written for her. This witnessing, this connecting, this morphic resonance (to use Rupert Sheldrake's language--do you know him, Corbin--he's amazing) of the musician with her instrument--it strikes me the highest kind of incarnation. Liberation. It is the kind of subjectivity one can cultivate in the generous space of music that I am alluding to here. How it can tip-toe you to the zenith of what you already know, cradle you there, and leave you breathless. How it can hype you out of your own skin. Or coax that skin with a magic potion capable of making you love yourself (if only for a second). I don't know. Words always fall short of the grace of anything real. God. Life. 

And music, music, for sure. 

Much love to you, from the stormy Mitten to the Rocky Mountains.

Emily Joye