Currently Reading Parched By Heather King see related

My, this post was long in coming...

December 24, 2007    

            Pleasure rarely coincides with logic.  That is probably on account of the fact that the underlying foundation, the irreversible nature of logic is of a moral nature.  And morality condones (or permits in a rather limited way) sensual pleasures. 

            My grandpa, my father’s four uncles and his grandpa, my brother, and my father himself were all admitted alcoholics.  One could logically deduce, then, that I too would be highly susceptible to alcohol abuse.  The pleasure of inebriation, however, leads to different kinds of logical deductions—what parental minds deem to be justification.  Drinking results in the stripping away of inhibitions.  And my fear of forever being inhibited surpasses my fear of potentially becoming an alcoholic.  Drinking, for the most part, has been harmless (granted, immature) fun.  

            But what if these, along with countless other “logical deductions” are not—in fact—all that logical?  What if I really am justifying my actions because of personal pleasure and social enjoyment? 

            An alarming thought occurred to me three days ago while at a family Christmas party.  Aunts, uncles, and cousins all tipped the bottle.  Fine wines and beers were in abundance.  As I watched each person with their Pinot Blanc and their Miller Lights—all laughing at this or that joke or this or that shared personal incident—I could not help but wonder if their carefree joviality perhaps masked alcoholic dependency, whether known to close friends or unbeknownst to even the drinker.  Silly me, I thought to myself.  Stop being an Edgar Allen Poe.  It’s called social drinking.  Not everyone carries an addictive personality like you, you know. 

            But, really, how many people can control their drinking appetites?  How many drink to such an excess that memory slips actually do occur?  Turning over the well-earned dollars, at what specific point does a person become tolerant? 

            Heather King’s memoir, Parched, was the engaging (albeit depressing) read of my Thanksgiving break.  King was a smart-ass law school graduate.  King was an aspiring writer, who wrote with refreshing clarity, humor, and intellect.  King was also a hopeless alcoholic for twenty years of her life.  Parched is the story of her struggle through—but mainly with—alcoholism.  When I closed the book days after I had purchased it, I sat for a long while, pondering its message, impressed at its raw, but wonderfully crafted delivery. 

            I think I feared its message more than anything else.  I was reminded that humanity can sink to unimaginable depths of addiction and for unimaginable lengths of time.  Not that I needed such a reminder.  For I know, more than anyone else, that I am an addict to almost everything that I pursue.  But, since I already am enslaved (so to speak) to several addictions, would alcohol prove to be a problem?  Or is that yet another potential justification?  I know myself better than anyone else knows me, excepting God of course.  And yet, I do not even know how to assess who I am in regards to drinking.  

Currently Listening Minutes to Midnight By Linkin Park see related

One Set of Keys

     This room echos emptiness,
     And I am more lost than ever before.
     I turn my head, so as to avert that stain in the carpet,
     So as not to relive the memories of that night.
     No more locking the door,
     No more nights knowing you slept in the same bedroom.     
     The rawness of pain, of abrupt, uncontrollable change
     Settles in.
     Medicine in the form of oblivion in the form of addiction
     To numb the loss, to try and forget the reality:
     People will abandon you.
     Release in the form of anything--destructive or not--
     Is, to me, a far better alternative to mulling over broken,
     Fucked up life.
     For a season, I believed, I hoped, I dreamed naively,
     And then the day arrives when your whole life changes,
     As you turn in the two keys to the college secretary,
     And she jokes, 
    "So you're all alone now."
     I feel the loss over my entire body, over all areas of my life,
     In all that I once sought enjoyment in.
     She is gone, and I have no choice to take up that glass,
     To open that Ziploc bag, to fudge my way through my practicing,
     To simply survive for the next 168 hours. 

Currently Listening Konvicted By Akon see related

A Humbling 26.2

     Marathons are easily feasible.  That was my intial assessment of 26.2 back in October of 2006, when I ran my first.  Every mile of it was enjoyable--I was accomplishing a goal that had long since been restrained.  Immediately following the Grand Rapids marathon, in sheer excitement and impatience, I signed up for two marathons: Traverse City (May 26, 2007) and the infamous Chicago (October 7, 2007).  My training was not as intense as previous experiences, but I did finish my 20 miler in training, and with a fairly impressive pace at that.  Then came race day, which happens to be today.  The Bayshore Traverse City marathon consists of 13.1 miles of flat asphalt, and then turning around and following the exact course that brought you there.  We (my parents and I) drove it the night before, and I expressed my concern over the monotony of the course.  Running 26.2 miles can become monotonous, but even more so if the scenery remains essentially the same throughout the entire four + hours it takes you to complete it.  That was my first mistake.  I hated the course even before I set foot on it.  It would prove to be a mental challenge to push past the ennui of continual repetition.
     My second mistake was made, or rather not made, at 6 a.m. this morning--an hour before the start of Bayshore.  I decided to not eat, as it might cause digestive problems (i.e. trips to the Port-a-Johns) that would of course slow my pace.  No matter the warnings I had read multiple times concerning the importance of fueling your body before a marathon.  
     Finally, my third folly is shared by the vast majority of runners: I started out way to fast.  I remember two ladies behind me remarking on their time crossing the first mile marker: 8:45.  I had intended to shoot for 9:00 mile pace.  I tried to reason my way out of what seemed to me to be an insignificant detail.  It turns out, those fifteen extra seconds can cause your body damage that you will not begin to notice until hours later. 
     All this to say my second marathon experience quite literally proved to be hell on earth.  My body was racked with pace from mile 6 on out--especially from mile 16 on.  My body cried for food--any food to fuel my worn muscles.  It was a cry that had to be suppressed as the race officals deemed food--on this course--to be an unnecessary commodity.  I am most ashamed to write that this marathon beat me, not the other way around.  By mile 19, I had no choice but to walk, as the heat and my weak body prevented continous running.  And when I did return to running, I did so at a painfully slow pain and with frustration.  I had naively believed that running marathons is an easy, beautiful process.  And certainly they can be, as my Grand Rapids marathon proved.  But the reverse can also be true, if certain factors do not align properly (weather, training habits, pace habits, diet the day of, etc.).  I made some poor choices today, and suffered because of them.  But tomorrow is another day, and the Laselle Bank Chicago Marathon is less than five months away.  Who really can predict what that day will hold?  For today I was humbled in realizing that marathons can just as easily break you as they can inspire you.  I choke down a shot of cheap vodka to numb the physical pain, and am reminded that I am not always strong and worthy enough to be called a marathoner.   

The Absence of Productivity

     I hate Sundays.  I tend to be a productive-minded, A-type personality, work-a-holic.  Sunday has been deemed a day of sabbatical rest.  Therefore I hate Sundays.  I shouldn't...rest is, after all, a necessity.  I never wanted my life to be defined by rest, but by vigorous activity producing effective results.

     I hate this semester, for it too has, most unfortunately, been deemed a "sabbatical" semester by the academic leaders of this campus.  For a student accustomed to juggling 4 + classes, sports, my never-ending training for marathons, work demands and practicing, this sudden "lessening" of the load has caused a certain degree of insanity to develop. 

     Plain and simple, I am not a content person unless I am a productive person.  I will forever be defined by what I do; actions and accomplishments drive me more than anything else.  This drive is always fulfiling during the midst of the training, working, and practicing, but once I have ran that 26.2, worked that measly four hour shift to the best of my ability, and focused for months on conquering one...one damn piece of music, then what?  New desires have to be birthed.  Now is the time, for the thousandth time, for that uncomfortable birthing process to begin.  To prepare myself, to brace myself for the end of certain pursuits, and the beginning of new ones. 

     Training began yesterday; it began today; and it will begin tomorrow.  It's a glorious ambition to be forever productive, I suppose...but down-right frustrating when the absence of the conditions and the environment for productivity presses down on me.  Godspeed the end of this semester, and the end of the coming summer until the fall 2008 semester, when I can, once again, be crazy busy...and content.

Currently Reading Letters to a Diminished Church: Passionate Arguments for the Relevance of Christian Doctrine By Dorothy Sayers see related

     I miss xanga terribly; it holds much more, and I stress much more, intellectual potential than myspace.  Myspace is such an American pursuit--filled with the glamor of "Rachel has 142some friends" and "New Comments!"  It's all about an artificial, very subtle fame element, absurd as that may sound to those who are addicted to it.  I'm not going to lie--I myself have grown addicted to myspace; it's human nature to quickly grow comfortable with an environment that doesn't require thinking, mulling over, and actively becoming a part of your writing.  And someday myspace will be what xanga currently is now: a grown-out, out-of-style, outdated fad.  Still, I find myself missing the grown-out, out-of-style, and outdated, and cursing the current system I have willingly become a a part of.  Here is another "essay", in memory of those days when honesty presided over superficiality, philosophy over elementary grammar, real friendships over those that are casual--those days when xanga was the newest, greatest thing...The following words are, I confess, random thoughts poured out first on notebook paper.  There really is no underlying theme; there's many.  But it came from my heart, and it required a deliberate pausing of the mind from distractions, a deliberate purpose behind the pen, behind the hand, behind the eyes.

     Music, for so long, has been an outlet for emotions and feelings that would otherwise remain suppressed.  This may account for some apparent social inhibition I have caved into over the years.  To be truthful, I think it goes with the field; musicians--if I can make what seems at first to be a very illogical concept transform into concrete fact--fall in love with their instrument.  The tone, the delectable harmonies, the escape into a world of near perfection after years upon years of practice--all these produce quite the satisfying, long-term relationship.  Only it's a relationship that it entirely demanding, entirely obsessive, entirely jealous of intruders.

     Behind the closed doors is where you will find them, learning their craft by practice--continual practice.  I wouldn't say that they meant to reject their own kind, but it is--almost universally--a necessary sacrifice.  Beethoven slaved over his works; I dare say no one was more effective, or a harder working recluse in the history of music.

     I want to retreat into that world of constant effort and constant improvement only to step back out to share with the world my heart--my burden--my passion.  Music is, in part, an intellectual pursuit.  But the music that reaches people's hearts, even their very souls, comes from a musician whose heart was moved and whose soul was stirred long before the people heard it.

     I feel it every time I play Beethoven's Pathetique, and I must find a way to balance the unique combination of passion, rage, lonliness, and sorrow that suffering (pathos) necessary entails.  I must enter the very mind of the composer.  I feel it every time the thirds in Debussy's Clair de Lune flow beautifully and perfectly.  Every time my intellect takes over my emotions during Bach's Invention No. 13.  Trepidation, tranquility, and frustration respectively.  It's a world of powerful, raging emotions, all of which are expressed without a single word.

     I want to share my story and other's with those who listen.  I want my passion and my genuinity to be so strong that people will say, "She plays--first and foremost--with her heart."  I want, as my piano teacher and hero would say, to "play the best I can for God's glory." 

     I can't wait until, someday, trills become as easy and as fluent as quarter notes.  Or octaves cease to be monstrous obstacles to my technique.  Or rhythm becomes such an internal, never-ending drive inside of me that it is the very fire that keeps me going.  I can't wait until a classical piece can be conquered in a week, as opposed to six months to a year.  Until then, I'll be practicing, struggling, crying, rejoicing over every piece I play.

     "The melody everywhere pervades the musical thought; all rapid passages and figures are only employed as a means, never as the end; and if many passages are found which demand the so-called brilliant style of playing, this must never be rendered principal.  He who should only display his agility of finger therein, would entirely miss the intellectual and aesthetic, and prove that he did not understand..." 

     As always, the primary end of all music, the sole element that shines through is...the melody.