Precautionary

Tears sting my eyes, and my chest heaves with weight and freedom. Grief and peace. Loss and wonder. An old tale. Anew. A Precautionary.

I haven’t known why I named this peace Precautionary, until perhaps now, listening to the final mix, days before publishing. The name, like the tale knows fear, and longing. What we all long for. A place. Family. Home.

It is hard to live with loss. It is stressful to live with lack. It is debilitating to live with the possibility of having everything you ever wanted…as long as the chaos is silent for once. As long as you don’t lose it, or crush it.

Precautionary is a pandemic story. 2020. The Covids. A dozen or so minutes of music in April, recorded in a tiny living room, with twinkle lights, in a tiny little yellow house. It glowed like love in the midst of desolation. I sat at my keyboard and played this, then that, then this other thing. It fit together in a strange way, if I held it just right. These very different feelings, vibes, stories.

Turning a dozen or so minutes of playing piano into a symphonic story took hours and days, then weeks and months, here and there over two years. I played and studied new instruments, read books on orchestration and composition, trained on multiple software, bought plugins, wrestled with technical problems, and listened to it over and over and over. Analyzing and imagining.

It is orchestrated as a symphony, but it is not classical music. There are no rules that govern its form, its direction, or its voice. It is not particularly original or bizarre. Except maybe that bit in the middle. But every note pulls at me. It’s my story. Pictures of the life unfolding to me in 2020. In the midst of devastation. In the midst of illness. The pieces of a mysterious puzzle just starting to finally come together and show what was possible. The fear that brought went deep…that such beautiful futures may not flourish in the chaos.

This music takes me through wonder and tentative exploration, into harsh clumsy failure, down to childish joy and earnest intention. It carries me on through rushing leaps and wild adventure. It cascades into chaos, and rides it down to an invigorated, ambitious peace, and tries again with a gentler, more tender touch. After all is done, and all are tucked away into sleep and rest, it drifts me through home and love, fulfilled, satisfied with how precautionary possibilities have bloomed into lush realities.