Messiaen wrote this piece called Visions de l'Amen after being released from a prisoner of war camp in 1943. Seven movements, each an Amen. Hearing it played live just last week by Daniela Mineva and Ryan McEvoy McCullough ,I felt displaced from the mundane, emotionally and physically moved beyond the little box I call my life. I got bigger and I contracted. Messiaen was a synesthete.He saw music in color. I see letters in color. Like so much else in my life, I can almost taste the brilliance the world can offer but it is like a small tongue touch of the tip of a mint chocolate chip ice cream cone. A is red, but I cannot hear the color of A in blue (sky, eternity) as did Messiaen.
Prisoner of war camp Stalag VIII-A was probably a cold place. While there, with cold fingers, he wrote Quartet for the End of Time. When released, he wrote Visions and played it with his student and later his wife Yvonne Loriod.
When I heard Visions I was not quite sure what could possibly come next and knew, sitting in my audience seat as the piece neared completion, that I needed a plan of action. Thus I declared that we would have a bowl of ice cream when we got home and it would be "The Eighth Amen".
Eight is my favorite number. It does not perhaps carry the spiritual significance of seven, and three, but if you turn it on its side it is infinity so something mystical therein lies. If an eight was turned on its side it would likely bounce right back up again, much like a Weeble Wobble. By age 8 I knew I would be a concert pianist. By age 18 I knew I would not be a concert pianist. By Age 48 I didn't care and just played piano anyway. 8 is a great age when you have kids. Benjamin has at least 8 years more in prison.
Eight by eight is sixty-four Someone's knocking at my door I think it might be Messiaen More likely him than Benjamin. To hold my son at home again, That would be the Eighth Amen.
Speaking of empty nests, my last dragon flies away soon. Six and change years old when I met her, she has added infinite richness to my life, and eight new gray hairs for each day I have known her. Imagine being dropped on planet Arcata from planet Hunan. Our town, though professing to be progressive, can be racist, I have learned. It has lovely trees and mostly very lovely people. It rains a lot and when I look at the ocean I get bigger and I contract. When I run for hours I listen to books and music and the waves and the rain and the rednecks shouting at me and I think about my children and how I used to think it was just about love and a good nest but now I know only each person can find their own happiness and path, no matter how precise a map you draw for them
Home from China at half-past six Pale new parents just perplex, Yet their only aim: Her words like fire saying "I know exactly who I am" That would be the Eighth Amen.
When I run for hours I get excited about chocolate milk. At about mile 18, I start to text my husband with a place we might meet when I am done, and can he bring chocolate milk in a glass bottle, the local brand that can then be used later to hold the flowers that one patient always brings me from her garden. These look nice on the window sill in the kitchen, as you stand rinsing your coffee cup in the morning and watching the birds at the feeder. Next to that window is a crayon drawing, framed, done by eldest daughter around age 8. It is a portrait of the mother with a large cup of coffee, larger, in fact, than the mother herself, and she is declaring "I can drink this." I lead by example in all important matters.
April makes her twenty three Which makes me Older than I was when I could run Sub one thirty for a half marathon If only I could do that once again That would be the Eighth Amen.
Since I was a twenty six year old new mother I have learned eight things. Seven of them are irrelevant and the eighth is that I know nothing. Speaking to my wise Godparents on a recent visit we discussed, in reference to the Messiaen piece, whether truth and beauty must always be paired in Art with a capital A. It is a worthy question, but the only answer I can honestly give is I don't know what truth or beauty is. I mean I don't know for sure. I have some speculations and opinions. The Messiaen seemed to have both but it wasn't pretty in the way things can be pretty. The trillium are out and certainly pretty. The outfits Beyonce wore at her concert were gorgeous. The smell of my husband's fresh baked bread hitting me upside the head when I walk in after a day at work is divine. The Messiaen Vision de L'Amen was excruciatingly beautiful and maybe even true. He wrote it in the color blue and played it with his wife to be. After leaving Stalag VIII-A.
This year makes it twenty seven Married-years and today, my significant other, I proposed again And you said yes, even knowing How I act on call. Married my best friend. Also known as the Eighth Amen.
Spiritually speaking, I feel best when I run in the redwood forest. Spring mist is inhaled by the trees and they stand in attentive disinterest. I am so small and they make me contract further but my heart expands and my standard poodle pants and I dodge mud and slugs and it is better. Better to be in the rain and to have to clean the dog in the bathtub later than to miss it all.
The Eighth Amen only needs to be invoked. The Eighth Amen is a prayer, a song, a declaration. Something blue and eternal. A dragon's breath, a warm place to reflect on everything that just happened or that is happening now or will happen next. True and excruciatingly beautiful. Like an ice cream headache.
