Music on the Walls

At 1am, one is not usually awake, creating a collage, or reading through sheet music. I, however, was doing all three. Dozens of papers strewn across the floor, I sat near a window seat and cut through Handel’s Messiah (only cutting the sheet from the book, though, so the actual music stayed intact). I thought that inspiration “striking” you was a metaphor, but though I’ve never had the experience of being struck by lightning, this was the closest I had been to it. Ordinary paper, ordinary ink; but this could create something extraordinary.

From an otherwise organized shelf, a disorderly stack of paper called to me. I have the habit of saving dull and useless files, but I had saved these for a different reason; they were memories. Each time I picked up a piece of sheet music, I could hear the music playing inside my mind. I was back on stage; my heart was in my throat and in front of me was not a room strewn with paper but instead a concert hall, or an empty theater, or simply my voice teacher’s studio. A stack did not suffice to hold a collection of memories. So I took to the scissors.

Symphony after symphony audiated in my brain as memories flooded from each note. One sheet was my first musical. Another stanza was from the song I sang last year whose melody never really left my mind. I had decrypted the thick stack of Beethoven that February and each thin page reminded me of hours of sight-reading. The snips and sticks of the paper to my wall created the beat in which these memories played: Cut, fold, tape. Cut, fold, tape. No thoughts, just flowing music. Each memory, each piece of music that only I can hear, healed me a little bit. The papers collected on the walls surrounding my window, stretching taller and taller, until they covered every inch of paint from floor to ceiling. Unique memories and moments plastered over the pink wall that has been there since I was six. Ordinary paper, ordinary ink, expressed more than words can. And I was no longer scared of forgetting.