vitreous humour
n.
1. The clear gelatinous substance that fills the eyeball between the retina and the lens.
2. The vitreous body.
A while back Zack, out of the blue, said that he thought I should write a book and for every chapter have a song to go with it. I laughed, then thought about it, then laughed and then kept thinking about it.
Unrelated to his crazy idea (of which he has many, and often, it makes life very interesting...) I had been mulling over and thinking a lot about how people see. Not just in the literal sense either, but other's perceptions of what is happening or what is in front of them.
Let me try and explain.
I love that there are four Gospels because it provides an almost three dimensional view of the person of Jesus. They are all very different views but all recognisable as the same person. Or, for instance, if I were to find a model to sit for a portrait in front of ten different artists the outcome would be, I think, remarkably interesting. While the model would be recognisable by their basic form, the pictures painted would all be very different. I wonder then, which portrait is the TRUER portrait? Who is really seeing the model as they are? Seeing as how we are all so very different ourselves, with our own "filters", how can we know what we're seeing is really how it IS or is it how WE see it? The possible, and known, misconceptions that can take place are mind boggling to me. I, myself, have been a victim of, and a perpetrator of, this very thing.
I began to form an outline in my head of how I would go about trying to illustrate this and, with Zack telling me to, "Write what you know.", decided to go back to the death of my mother as my point of reference, her death and her person being the central force around which the rest of the "characters" orbit. Or, her death and her person being the model of which the "characters" are painting their view of her. In this way, I hoped to show how several different perceptions of the same thing can end up being vastly distorted from one another with similar instances even though everyone is perceiving the same thing/moment/person.
Am I making any sense?
I have the following characters/chapters:
The Preliminary Discourse
My Mother/Brendan (baby boy who was stillborn)
My Dad
Myself
Erin (sister, 18 months younger than I)
Brett (brother, 4 years younger than I and who has Downs Syndrome)
Caitlin (sister, 8 & 1/2 years younger than I)
Guardian Angel, to be sung in french (when I was 13 I firmly believed that my Guardian Angel was french. It wasn't till later that I met Mimosa in my dreams)
The Church -- (I'll need many voices for this, I want to try and capture the night some of the church members prayed that she would be raised from the dead.)
My Aunt Linda
My Grandmother
My mother and baby brother's chapter will be blank, at least I think so now, as the thought of attempting to write their perspective is daunting to me. I'm already challenged enough by the idea of attempting to write everyone else's perspectives too! Obviously, I can go to my dad and say, "Is this about right?". Not so with mom.
There will be a few melodic themes that will tie into each other, most not even noticeable to most people, but I will know how they flow together. The most noticeable will be between my mom, my dad and my brother, Brendan's, songs.
Right, so that gives a basic idea. The songs are coming faster than the words for the book are. I have parts of the book written, some with words so sparse they almost seem sad on the page but I am not in a rush. This is a labour I do not intend to bully out of me. Just like my sweet Hawke this "baby" can take as long as it needs to.
All that to say I actually quickly (and badly) recorded one of Erin's songs as a melody that sounded like her. It came to me from out of the blue and I just hit record using GarageBand. I didn't bother to correct the piano mistakes. I then sang over top of the piano the first words that came into my head. The structure of the song isn't necessarily set yet. For those of you who are songwriters you will get this and for those of you who aren't, and who are possibly thinking, wha?, it just means that, for me, the foundation has been laid but I haven't yet decided on the way the "place" will be laid out.
When I grow up
I want to be
Just like her
It's her I want to see in me.
I will take care of you
'Cause no one will care for us
One day I'll be taken care of
Someday I'll be worth enough
This goes here
And that goes there
I will keep us all together
I will tidy up our fear
Here is the song if'n you want to hear it...headphones are best.
After our mother's death Erin fell into, whether rightly or wrongly, the maternal role of the household. She clung to the routines our mother had made and desperately tried to keep things normal. She is dear and sweet and good and feisty and I admire her so much.
Just thought I'd share. Remember to take the recording with a grain of salt. Or with a grain of something equal in size to a grain of salt. In other words, don't expect too much. ;-)
Soon and very soon I will be able to really start properly recording the songs in their entirety, along with the other instruments that each one calls for. They really do, by the by, you know, call.
Ring ring...
"Hello?"
"Er, hullo. This is ah...the song you were just humming? The one you haven't named?"
"Oh, HI!"
"Um, yes...so, might I suggest a french horn to be added to me, please?"
"Request noted, I'll get on that. Finding someone who plays it, I mean."
It's 3:24am and in 6 hours I have to drop of my beloved at the airport where he will go to the Big Apple and capture beauty with a seeing black box and I will stay here and hold down the fort that isn't a fort it's our house but oh my perhaps I shall build a fort in my house.
G'night.