A 10 o’clock Dissonance

by rrim17

 

dissonance [dis-so-nance]: a simultaneous combination of tones conventionally accepted as being in a state of unrest and needing completion.

 It is ten at night, and I am downstairs playing my guitar. No, I am being played by my guitar. The notes sound momentarily–a refuge of beauty–and then fade back into the quiet darkness. I let the music play and the melody is my security that I exist, that I exist, that I exist, that I am not like these notes, that memories will not be my only legacy, that every tensing of my fingers is my inhale and every releasing of the pressure is my exhale. I exist, I exist, I exist…I am more than what is here. And just like these notes, perhaps I can sound in a moment of imperfect beauty, and perhaps—if I am lucky, if I am very lucky—someone will be there to listen. And my music will not go unplayed. It will not go unheard. I will not go unheard. I exist. I exist. Please God, let me know that I exist.

That I exist.

That I have a purpose.

That I have meaning.

That love is safe to trust.

That You are safe to trust.

That I am safe to trust.

I need to know….

How I need to know.

Please God….

You know that I need to know. I need to know these things. These questions are my existence right now, and I wonder if questions will always be my existence, if there will ever be a time that I am defined by an Answer. An answer…if such a thing exists.

God, I need to know that I am here, that I am alive, that I am here in more than just a physical sense. I need to know that there is still beauty left, untouched, unspoiled, a beauty that is still beautiful, a beauty that is perhaps so beautiful it can atone for some of this pain. God, I need to know that there is beauty in me—that there is worth in me, and meaning… And I need to know that the music will go on playing, that it will sound even if there is no one to listen, that the music itself will be a testimony. I need to know that the music is valuable even if nobody can hear it, that it is so valuable it must be played even if ears did not exist and listening did not exist; I need to know if dissonance can be beautiful, God I need to know because I am that music. I am that dissonance. And I need to know that I exist even if nobody is listening, that my music is still beautiful even if it is broken and absonant, that it is beautiful even if nobody is there to claim that beauty. That even as I breathe and speak, live and love and sound like a misplayed chord for an infinitesimal second into an isolated silence, that the meaning is still there.

And Father, I wonder—if I play well enough, play long enough, can this music break through the shell that is my loneliness? Can the notes pierce through the coating and reach through the silence to comfort me? Can the notes speak, can they say that you exist, Rachel, and you are not alone, you have never been alone. Then why does it feel like I am, Lord? Where is the comfort, God? Where is the balm for this hurting? I play and I play and I play, and I am so afraid, and this broken melody is my only hope, may it heal…may it heal…

I am playing God, and I am letting myself be played. Into this 10 o’clock darkness the music sounds, but my fingers are aching with callouses and my heart is aching with hopelessness and a cold penetrates the notes. My eyes are growing blind, and my notes do not sing anymore, they do not sing… But I cannot let the music die. As soon as these notes end, I will end, and I am afraid God, so afraid… And so I play and I sustain my life, and I play and I rob myself of life, and I am a paradox that perhaps even You cannot solve. If there is truth in this Lord, if there is truth to anything I’ve written or anything I’ve played, God I ask that You’d keep the truth true.

I exist, I exist, I exist… There is a soul—whole, uncracked—somewhere inside this tired mess, and though I cannot find it now, it must be there. It has to be there. I exist. I must have a soul. I must. I must. I must.

But I wonder—could a soul write words such as these? Could a soul touch your heart and beg you to please, please listen to the music. It is all that I have…. It is all that I am.

I play, God….I play and I play and I play, and I let the dissonant, incomplete notes escape these strings and I wait for a day when the dissonance will end and the unrest will be at rest and the incomplete will be made complete, and I will know–surely and steadily–that I exist, I exist, I exist, and that my existence is beautiful.  

“Dubito ergo cotigo; cogito ergo sum”

[I doubt, therefore I think; I think, therefore I am]

-Rene Descartes