confession.

i like to listen to classical music on a staticky radio station.

sometimes i turn it up to hear the static more.

it's like a window in time. something in the way the music travels through the interference puts me on the same page as mozart or rachmaninov. something in it is timeless and transcendent, as if i were listening to it at the same time as say a soldier in WWII or someone in an elegant parlor in the 17th century.

last night i sat in my car for a long while in the parking lot. chopin's concerto no. 2 in f minor was playing on the radio, and i couldn't bear to turn it off. i had homework to do, dinner to eat, and people to call, but that was all put on hold because i needed to hear that music. i needed to hear something, do something that was bigger than me.

i used to think that i could survive on bread and water alone. ["that's a piece of cake," i would say. and undoubtedly one of my smart-alecky friends would say, "technically you won't be allowed any cake."] i've decided that i could survive only on bread and water....and chopin's concerto no.2 in f minor.

so i thought last night about how brilliant chopin was. i mean really brilliant. i spend my days learning about brilliant people, particularly musicians and artists, and i am constantly reminded of my hopeless mediocrity. (i think that my thirst for creating will never be fullfilled). and then i started thinking about the two or three truly brilliant people i know. they either don't know they're brilliant, or they pretend they don't know. sometimes the things they are capable of doing are also capable of wrecking them. and sometimes those same things make others come alive.