from Golden Rushes:

The still-bright and falling sun drives large shadows and small sunbeams through the tree and onto them and they relax and rest holding each other so tightly and close, from a distance they must look like one person. She looks up to him.

“I liked that song you played last night…”

“Which one?”

“The soft one.”

“Oh the soft one…Yeah I liked that one too.”

“Sing me the words again…”

There is such a difference between being a musician and asking to play and being known to be a musician and being asked to play. Though one plays for themselves, when one loves you for what you do, well…And when that person listens…The moments are rare, penetrating and unforgettable…

Proud of his work and his effort his eyes close to better see the lyric and with no hesitation he sings the song, his song, low and soft with a humming voice. It sprang from a hurt long ago and now he relives it gratefully distantly. Deep into his chest she rests her head and holds her hand on his stomach. She listens to the words and feels the resonance through him to her. Her own personal summer and private serenade—sometimes there is nothing better than everything that has to do with being a woman. It does not matter what comes after. Her song…

The song finishes, the eyes open and she hugs him tighter, digs into him deeper. Her eyes are closed and his eyes gaze above…Soon from summer trees will fall autumn leaves…

“Yeah, I really like that one.”

They hold tighter and their world becomes smaller and closer to being everything. Plans, thoughts, and dreams fade as can happen when one’s life becomes a dream. She caresses his guitar hand.

“You have a nice voice, it’s very natural. I feel like I fall asleep when I hear you but I’m not actually sleeping. It’s nice…What musicians do you like?”

“I really like Bill Evans…”

Bill Evans—the words alone can make him cry. If there are limitations, he has blown them wider. No one has ever stood more exposed before their art, their instrument before. He says more, digs deeper, and explores further the depths of feeling than a normal person should but he was not normal. He does not play the piano, he bleeds through it. A king of honesty, he is capable of saying exactly what he should say regardless of the consequences. Excessive sensitivity ostracizes. More than the first time he heard Bill Evans, he better remembers the first time he got him…

It was a strong record, one he had heard several times but had thought nothing more of but this time, not three notes in it hit him. He dropped his guitar and collapsed onto his bed crying. Here was feeling as it should be expressed—true to its source. Sprung from a man and a life, these were more than just notes. What he heard was not music but fearless effort and his disappointment in himself was that he too had great depths but he had not excavated them, he had not even tried. He had been satisfied and had ignored the hard road all true art takes. At the piano Bill Evans is free, at the keys he is more himself than when he is not there. And in this shaming light, the musician could be a fraud no more. He reached for his guitar but he could not lift it, his grip slipped each time. He could pick up a book, a shoe, a bag—anything—but not the guitar. He was not yet ready. He collapsed again to the bed. For a long while he did not play, he only listened and he thought. A sincere man, he could only watch as his fate unraveled and his doubts multiplied. Then one day it happened and he was ready—he could pick up the guitar, he could play, he was true. The artist life is not a joyful life, it is not a life at all. When one graduates to peak maturity, one becomes more a spirit than human—as thin as air and as fragile as melting ice. And you no longer have a life so much as other lives pass through you. For art destroys the life that creates it, though it never dies…

His Bill Evans, like a few other things, is like a dream to him. He is a reference point, he clarifies thoughts. He admires Bill Evans, he thanks him. He loves Bill Evans…

“I like him too. I studied him once. Those chords…Let’s walk some more?”

Next Chapter: Like a Puppy In a Kennel