Chapter 11

The Day the Music stopped (March-april)

Music: John Cage

Wow, I’ve been pretty upbeat since Thanksgiving, really giving thanks for all that’s been happening. And now it’s already March 22nd, the first day of spring break. I remember last year’s spring break like it was yesterday: the divorce, the pandemic, and all the heartbreak that went with it. But that’s all behind me- I’m embracing my new life and loving it! This afternoon I went biking and stopped off at King Soopers’ Starbucks for a caffeine pick me up, when an angry young man walks in holding a gun. With my earbuds turned up loud to KBCO, I didn’t see him until I turned around and was punched hard in the chest, knocking me to the ground, writhing in agony. Hands pressing over my chest, blood everywhere, hoping to wake up from this nightmare, until everything goes black, and it’s over. Just like that.

I’m sitting at the corner table when suddenly a policewoman hurriedly walks inside and tells everyone there’s an ACTIVE SHOOTER IN THE AREA! She orders a lockdown so no one can get in or out. I keep telling myself, ‘there’s a shooter; someone’s shooting people nearby. Oh my God, is this real??’

Feeling my whole body trembling, I call Mom just as we’re herded into the kitchen. When she answers I totally panic and blurt out:  “Mom, listen, I’m OK. I’m at Walnut Cafe, there’s a shooting somewhere, not here, we’re safe. I have to hang up, but I’ll call when I can pick you up. Are you OK?” I was pretty confused, but I finally got home safely.

That evening Mom and I sat on the couch together throughout the evening, holding each other, or curled up with my head on Lili’s lap between fits of crying. The terrifying scene in the first paragraph won’t stop playing out in my head, and I know: this is what it is to die. Truth is, I think I was supposed to die! Oh my God- I lock my bike, walk inside and five feet from the coffee counter I freeze. And in my mind I hear a voice, which stops me dead and whispers, “Why not sit at a café and relax?”  If I ignored it I’d be dead. Who or what was it?  God, my spirit guide, or maybe it was nothing more than there’s a time to be born, a time to die- and it just wasn’t my time.  Honestly I don’t know anything anymore.  

The next day, I’m at a memorial in front of King Soopers. Flowers everywhere, including bouquets all around a police car to honor the policeman who was killed, along with nine others, while an amplified cello on a platform is playing Bach. And as I walk with Mom among so many heartbroken people, I try to imagine the unimaginable suffering of never seeing your loved one again, because a madman gunned them down for no reason.

For the next few days, people kept coming by our house to give hugs, share love, cry together and drop off flowers and dinners. All the rooms have bouquets- it’s like being at my own funeral. The Boulder King Soopers shooting was national news within hours. Dad calls Mom in a panic, and when she hands me her phone and I tell him what happened. He’s in tears, his voice quivering. Saying how very sorry he was that things ended the way they did, adding how much he loved me. Asking several times to please let him come visit so he could throw his arms around me. God, it hurt so bad to hear him say that, my throat tightened up so much I couldn’t get any words out. My broken heart was cracked open all over again. Finally I promised we could keep connecting on Zoom, and said I’d fly out to visit during summer.

For several days I couldn’t even touch my flute or piano. But our living room was filled with music from Lili playing every piece she knew for me, including all the music she taught me as a little girl. She only stopped when she or I started weeping, and we couldn’t go on.

Then Friday morning the miracle happened. I get up right after sunrise and put a thick comforter over the closed piano lid to muffle the sound, sitting down to quietly play with Ebony. It was the first time since the shooting: a Satie Nocturne, a Gymnopedie, a Gnossienne. Slowly, deeply, just to feel the aliveness of music in my hands, my whole body. Not even the entire piece but only the melodies with occasional harmonies added. Quietly, gently, with such devotion that I’ve never felt before. Lili walks in to sit on the couch and listen. I remove the blanket and start improvising Satie melodies with the same slowness, shape and rhythm but different notes. Why I chose Satie I have no idea, except maybe it was his total simplicity, his transparency, like gazing out at a forest with infinite shades of green. Feeling Satie’s comforting presence and Mom’s unending love, I play for both of them. And for those who died.

Putting my heart into every phrase, I’m making an offering for the ten people whose precious lives were snuffed out, like blowing out ten beautiful candles all at once. I feel my teenage innocence slipping away forever- death will do that to you. And now all I can do is sit here, offering up my grief through broken melodies.   

Finally I get up to hug Mom and go back to my bedroom to take a nap, but I couldn’t. I sit at my laptop to do aimless wandering online, spending the morning typing dozens of word pairings into searches: Debussy-Water; Bartok-Flowers; Music-Walden; Satie-Thoreau. And there it was, I actually gasped when I saw the link. The title of a composition, Songbooks: We Connect Satie with Thoreau. I couldn’t believe it didn’t pop up until now. Ninety “actions” and performances by some composer named John Cage!

I sprint to the dining room to ask Lili about John Cage. She didn’t show much enthusiasm since she never played his music, but said his most famous piece is 4’33”. Four minutes and thirty three seconds of silence! Oh my God- I was in a daze. I return to my bedroom to start my detective work. I had to find out about this guy- it was calling to me! I find this picture of Cage in the forest collecting edible mushrooms, and I come across this quote about his being inspired by Satie’s music to write a piano piece called Cheap Imitation.

In the rest of my work I’m in harmony with myself. But Cheap Imitation clearly takes me away from all that. If my ideas sink into confusion, I owe that confusion to love (of Satie).

That sealed it. Could it be that his confusion and love for Satie was the same as mine? I was able to download and print up the score, and as I played it, I felt the same rush of spine-tingles that I feel when I’m with Drew, pressing up against his trunk on lonely nights. Cage based his entire piece on these slow, gentle melodies from Satie, just like I did this morning! We both change the notes but keep the phrasing and rhythm. He captures the feeling of simplicity and being inside every musical phrase, the same feeling I had the first time I began playing music again. And he actually encourages performers to add their own counterpoint or harmonies- to make the music your own! Mom was in the living room watching and listening to me, amazed and confused herself at how I could feel so overwhelmed with emotion from playing such a simple piece of music. Well, that’s because it’s not music, it’s Cage’s reflection on his love for Satie. And mine, too.

It’s now Easter- my life has been full of flowers these past couple weeks, with lovely fragrant bouquets everywhere. I’ve returned to playing my favorite composers, and now John Cage is asking to be included.

Yet there are still moments when I can’t continue- asking myself how can anyone play music when you feel so much pain and suffering for others, and for yourself, too? I’m so grateful to be alive, and yet so, so sad. It’s like my heart became so tender and vulnerable- a tender, broken heart of sadness. How do we repair it? How can we have faith in such a broken world, or even hope for a “new normal” when murders and a global pandemic are the real normal? How can love flower in such a world? How do we go on?