2008•06•26 ~ Cutting Columbus
Editing is sometimes a painful process. Especially when you are cutting sections you’ve grown to love…Here is one such section from the new book, Columbus at 4AM.
Steinway
Where do I begin, he thinks. Where do I start to make sense of this? Intellectually, he can understand the journey of a thousand miles and the single step of beginning, but where is that step? What does it look like? Is it this renovation? Should he sell the house? Buy a condo?
“I won’t say it’s as simple as telling your story, but that would be a start,” she says. “Communicating your grief in some way. Death is an inevitable phase of life. So is grief. Jung said that when one encounters a crisis such as loss, the unconscious often breaks through to help us with new adjustments.” She smiles kindly. “Your unconscious went into protection mode. Now, you need your grief to transcend your everyday experience of life – to awaken you to your spiritual essence.” “How exactly do you suggest I wake up my spiritual essence?” “What about writing? Or painting? Or drawing little sketches. Anything to move the grief inside-out.” “I can’t even believe I said the words spiritual essence. What does that mean, anyway?” A week later, he is walking past a small jazz club on the Main. It’s mid-morning. Julian can hear the sound of someone tuning a piano coming from inside the club. He walks past the front door and is halfway down the block before he stops – acknowledges the pull of the piano. Inside the doorway of the Petit Opportun it takes a while for his eyes to adjust. The door was open. The front windows are pulled open so the club is essentially one big patio overlooking the street. Still, it was dark inside. The awnings and the trees filtered the light. The man at the piano has a full grey beard and a no-nonsense face. His focus is on tuning the piano. He looks up at Julian quickly, then back to his job. He says nothing. Julian stands in the entranceway, awkward but also drawn to the pure sound of the piano. The single notes ring out in the club – they hang in the air – Julian thinks of a raven, or a hawk, suspended in an air current, wings motionless except for a small flutter. Five minutes later, the grey bearded man is packing up his gear. He looks toward the entranceway. “Still there?” “I…” “Come and play then. It’s want you need, yes? I will take coffee with a little Courvoisier. It is my custom. And I will listen.” Is that a Slavic accent? Eastern European? Julian can’t decide. He doesn’t know what to do with this invitation. He doesn’t move. Fear makes him hesitate. It’s been so long since he’s played. It seems his feet are nailed to the wooden floor. “It’s what you need,” the man says. “I’ll make us coffee in the back.” He does not move like an old person. There is a lithe vitality in his walk. Julian sits at the piano. It’s a Steinway, a good choice for a jazz piano. Julian read in the Globe and Mail that Keith Jarrett plays a Steinway. Julian plays a single note; a middle D and lets it ring out in the dark room. Then he begins to unravel all he was taught as a child. He purposely forgets how chords work. He unremembers scales, theories and circles of fifths. He plays notes and combinations of notes that make no sense – he embraces dissonance, and yet, there is an ephemeral order. Julian draws on feelings and colours. If he stumbles upon a musical cliché, he will repeat it, warp it, ruin it to the point where it becomes original and new. He remembers scents. Rain. Patchouli. Sandalwood. Cedar. Leather. He plays weather. He plays the stars and Moroccan beaches. The colour of ocean. The way dried grasses touch the wind. He plays a woman’s long legs and slender toes. He plays a memory of a woman’s voice speaking his name – whispering his name over and over inside an absence of periwinkle. A half-hour later, he is improvising inside a 16-bar blues riff he didn’t know he knew. The grey bearded man is sitting at a table in the middle of the club sipping his cognac and reading the newspaper. Julian notices there is a cup of coffee sitting on the bench beside him. He stops playing, turns around on the bench and looks out into the club. “Thank you,” he whispers. The man pulls the newspaper down, away from his face. “It’s nothing to make two coffees when I am already making one,” he says. “No, not the coffee…” “…I know what you meant.” Julian reaches for the coffee and sips. It’s lukewarm. How long have I been playing? he thinks. “I’m here every morning. Come when you like and play. Or not. Just come for coffee and Courvoisier if your prefer.” “I don’t know what I…” “…Yes, you do. What I have heard this morning was beautiful, from the heart. What more can we do? Your style is reminiscent of Thelonious Monk. Not derivative, only suggestive.” Julian finishes his coffee and begins to put his hand into his pocket; he wants to pay for the coffee, at least. “I own this club,” the man says, his voice flattened out and matter-of-fact. “I can buy coffee for whomever I please. Besides, you gave me your music – this damaged heart music – this morning.”2 Comments
1. Michael had this to say: Jun 27, 2008 ~ 22:18 ~ #
If this is what will be cut, I can’t wait to read what you keep.
M
2. paulette had this to say: Jul 01, 2008 ~ 14:38 ~ #
I agree with Michael, and pray another book into which may softly, safely fall all the “babies you kill”. XOP