After watching a breathtaking, tear-jerking and passionate performance of Antony and the Johnsons with the Oregon Symphony, I quip to my friend, Joe: If you like DRUGS, you’ll LOVE the symphony! We walk out of the Shnitz with an extra hop in our steps and I have passion bubbling inside and I think I may explode. (And it’s impossible not to run-on my sentences!) Suddenly, I deserve a giddy, romantic and sincere love. I imagine a life with passion a part of EVERY day, like a drink at lunch. My friends, past lovers and future husbands flutter amidst the darkness of the night and the night tastes sweet, like cornfields after a summer rain.
Top Alive Moments, free-write list:
- This concert
- Train bridge jump, Traverse City
- Moments in love: cloves in winter, falling in love is like trees, midnight picnic, waterfront chatter, rooftop escapades
- Fluting in world premier of new composition, NE All-State Band
- Music… Andrew Bird, SF shows, Austin, my musical in my car, late night jam sessions, …
It’s true. As I search for those moments of overwhelming passion and aliveness, love and music dominate. And with music, it can be watching and listening, like the recent shows and festivals, and it can be the active participation and exercising of my vocal chords, arms, legs and whole spirit and soul. What’s even better is that music is cheaper than drugs (and I won’t even go into the health pro-cons) and won’t break my heart or drive me to crazy land.
There is the urge to weep. There is the force of creative vision. This pain? This isn’t a heart breaking; it’s a heart waking. The waking world is this one, where our senses clear and we feel the power of transformation, we see that the doors along the corridor of possibility are not, after all, closed to us, though they may be far away and heavy and frightening. We can face them and walk through them nonetheless.
– Luciana Lope, the Oregonian
