Being the Music

Being the Music
January 22, 2002
By Peter Stair

From dreaming, I wake up. The sun touches me. I feel energized. I breathe the trees. I feel at home. I drink some cool water. From dry and stale, I become lubricated and refreshed.

I pace myself. Not too much movement. Not ready to breathe heavily yet. Not too much sound. Still listening to silent dreams. Too much of almost anything and I will become grumpy.

So: slow, please, I’m tuning up. I’m going to make music today.

I pace myself. I walk. Stretching out, loosening up. From dream to ground. To left from right. I’m finding the rhythm. I find it . . .

. . . and I begin gliding. From discrete steps to a continuous flow.

I notice more rhythms around me. The rocking of the trees. The zig-zag of an insect. The rapid hum of a machine. The whish of a car. The bouncing of molecules against my skin (a slow beat means “cold”) The frequencies of the sky. These are the vibrations that comprise the world of my perception. Today I find a harmonic collection. This part of the country makes some beautiful music!

Class. My professor speaks, emphasizing and pausing in clarifying ways. He is singing. I temporarily don’t understand his harmony. I sing my own version of what he’s saying, but I end with an up-note, as if I’m waiting completion. I am a question mark: raised shoulders, raised eyebrows, leaning forward. I’m waiting for him to bring us back down from my up note and eventually back to the tonic home note. When he does, I get a subtle rush of relief, and I nod with a rhythm and depth that says, “Thank you. I understand.” He ends the lecture on a concluding down note. We close our notebooks in applause.

I walk through a briar patch of other people walking and biking, each at different angles, speeds and awarenesses. If one person were to direct all of our movements, many of us would crash, or not move as quickly. But, when we feel each other, the most effective thing is anarchy. If we expect the other person to change their direction and speed too much, or if we change our own rhythm too unpredictably, we struggle with each other, and we become trapped in the briar patch. Today, we don’t dodge. We harmonize.

I stop to talk with a friend. She is beautiful. We make music. I say something brief. She says something longer, in her higher octave. I say something brief again. She says something brief. I listen to her, I see her, I smell her. I feel the melody of our conversation. Another friend gracefully enters and pipes in. We more than look at each others’ eyes.

I walk back to my home — returning my music to a tonic note. I eat. One bite at a time. I chew, one chomp after another. I drink, one sip, then another. I become a rhythm.

I am a permanent flow. Within a couple weeks, I will have entirely rebuilt my skin. Within about two months I will remake my red blood cells. A few years from now, I will finish completely reconstituting my bones. Within a few more years, I will have replaced the molecules that make up my DNA. I will eventually breathe, sweat, poop and pee the contents of my body.

I am simply the information that directs this flow. I am the score.

Between the “in” and the “out” is the energy that is me. Thinking, talking, smelling, smiling. In between are the movements that comprise my day. These movements are the dance of my life.

The day is getting warmer, and my pace is getting faster. I decide to rush to class because I want to finish composing an e-mail, and I think I will enjoy the rushing of wind in my face and of blood in my muscles and gliding on my bike and humming fast music . . . and then sliding, panting, into the classroom.

I do this, and I enjoy it. There’s something profound about myself that I don’t really understand, but it’s also something I’m willing to accept without thinking much: being alive feels good.

Today I will learn to be more alive. I read, and I learn. I talk with other people, and I learn. I watch other people interact, and I learn. I feel my body, my little sorenesses and sadnesses, and I learn what I can avoid doing again. I will learn to be less stagnant, more alive.

The discussion section I attend is an opportunity to improvise. I have the ability to speak at any moment, but I choose to speak when certain cues are right. I can let my TA finish, or if it makes better music, I can interrupt her when I don’t understand. I can walk out anytime, but I leave to go to the bathroom at a certain moment, and with a certain, more harmonious body language.

Every moment is another opportunity for me to improvise. More than other organisms or natural processes, I have the ability to change my melody rapidly. Like a vocalist or a soloist in an orchestra, I have leeway. The sun, the plants, the insects create the beat and underscore that allows me to do some interesting things on top. I can do a hand-stand right now. I can stop breathing for a few moments. I can sit over there instead of here. It’s not all instinct.

It’s especially interesting how I play music with other humans. How well do we support each other? We spontaneously create a soccer game before dinner. We talk sporadically, harmonizing our desires to listen, speak and move.

But! I fail to pass the soccer ball where I wanted it to go — I’m off-pitch. I interrupt someone in a disruptive way — I’m off-pace. I continue to eat more chocolate chips than I feel good eating — I’m a broken record. I can easily make bad music.

So, feeling sluggish, I clean out my filters by exercising. I rush blood, sweat, air and heat through my pipes. I stretch, loosen and become a clearer vessel. Now I feel more like smiling to the stranger I pass.

I shower off my exterior, feeling far from stagnant.

I reorder my room, reducing the dissonance of the pathway across it.

I prepare sleep. But I play slow music on my computer before I get into bed.

Sleep is the long, deep tonic note that I must always, and will ultimately, return to. From movement to rest. Tension and release is the repeating story of the universe. What a day I’ve had!

I dream, as usual, of a double helix. From what angle do I see it tonight? It is a circular / linear, unified / binary, yin / yang universe I live in.

From dreaming, I wake up.

The sun’s excess touches me. I feel energized. I breathe the trees’ extras. I feel at home.

Peter Stair is a junior studying human ecology. If you read his column last week (available at The Daily’s Web site) you would understand what he means when he says he’s schizophrenic. He’s never written a column, or anything, quite like this. Will it sound “on” or “off” pitch to others? E-mail him at pstair@stanford.edu.