Tuesday - The Maestro
Jun. 13th, 2006 01:53 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
ninanevermoreToday on my drive into work, I was thinking about the way my son speaks in musical notes rather than words. Even the few words he says, such as "Hi!" and "Bye!" come out sounding like musical notes. Each note is a seedling for words that will grow into his speech as language takes root in his mind, but for now they float through the air like the light white seeds of a dandelion, turning and spinning and settling in random patterns in my ears.
I can't even type or transcribe the notes that he says, or sings, to me. How do you type a musical note? It's not like a bird song that I can apply an onomatopoeia to. It's not like the "chick-dee-dee" of a chickadee or the "tea kettle, tea kettle, tea kettle, tea!" of the Carolina wrens that are nesting in my yard right now. They are not a "chirps" or "tweets" or "squawks" or any other sounds that I can wrap letters around.
Most of them are like the tones of a chime, high sweet sounds so pure that you hold your breath rather than risk having your exhalation mask the next note. He opens his mouth and music spills forth, tinks and plinks and chords and harmonies. He looks at my face, cocks his head and speaks a little symphony, then nods when he is finished and is sure that I must understand what he has said.
"Is that so?" I ask him, and he smiles. Yes, mother, what a silly question. Of course it is so, or I wouldn't have said it. How can music not be so?
I suddenly have an appreciation for those renowned boys choirs that tour the world. I never understood before how beautiful a child's voice can be, how perfect of a sound that their small vocal chords can produce. The simple truth is, I never paid attention before. I was too busy and preoccupied with the sounds of traffic and the tapping of keyboards and adult voices droning on about things that are supposed to be important, but that aren't when it comes down to it.
In the coming years, my son's seedling notes will grow into words and lose some of their ethereal purity. But for now I have his song, composed of music unbound by words. It is a song about discovery, about new horizons and new experiences and unbridled joy.
Nothing I can write in my lifetime can come close to sounding anywhere near that beautiful. It turns out, I'm nowhere near the poet that he is, trapped by the restrictions of language and words the way that I am. He has set a new standard for me. If I can write one line as pure and as beautiful as his song, I will be remembered as the greatest poet who has ever lived.
I can't even type or transcribe the notes that he says, or sings, to me. How do you type a musical note? It's not like a bird song that I can apply an onomatopoeia to. It's not like the "chick-dee-dee" of a chickadee or the "tea kettle, tea kettle, tea kettle, tea!" of the Carolina wrens that are nesting in my yard right now. They are not a "chirps" or "tweets" or "squawks" or any other sounds that I can wrap letters around.
Most of them are like the tones of a chime, high sweet sounds so pure that you hold your breath rather than risk having your exhalation mask the next note. He opens his mouth and music spills forth, tinks and plinks and chords and harmonies. He looks at my face, cocks his head and speaks a little symphony, then nods when he is finished and is sure that I must understand what he has said.
"Is that so?" I ask him, and he smiles. Yes, mother, what a silly question. Of course it is so, or I wouldn't have said it. How can music not be so?
I suddenly have an appreciation for those renowned boys choirs that tour the world. I never understood before how beautiful a child's voice can be, how perfect of a sound that their small vocal chords can produce. The simple truth is, I never paid attention before. I was too busy and preoccupied with the sounds of traffic and the tapping of keyboards and adult voices droning on about things that are supposed to be important, but that aren't when it comes down to it.
In the coming years, my son's seedling notes will grow into words and lose some of their ethereal purity. But for now I have his song, composed of music unbound by words. It is a song about discovery, about new horizons and new experiences and unbridled joy.
Nothing I can write in my lifetime can come close to sounding anywhere near that beautiful. It turns out, I'm nowhere near the poet that he is, trapped by the restrictions of language and words the way that I am. He has set a new standard for me. If I can write one line as pure and as beautiful as his song, I will be remembered as the greatest poet who has ever lived.
