„If played for the wrong ears, every melody is going to drown“, my witch agrees as we close the window with the first thunder in the distance.
“And then what?”, I ask her as the rain starts pouring. I love heavy rain!
What happens to melodies unheard and unnoticed? What happens if the last one remembering them runs out of breath and ears turn away?
This tale is an innocent one. It is not about her sitting by the window and luring people into her dark and twisted tale (although she is so good at it!)
This one is about me. Or, about me without Layla. This one is about a rejected melody.
As a young teenager, I was in love with the story of Avril Lavigne. I liked to listen to music from this rebellious and boyish girl, moving out of a protected small town with her singing and her guitar. It felt warm and cozy, and gave me the energy I needed.
That matters for this post.
When in 2021 I had not visited my old home for so very long, I had also not been to the church I grew up in, and up until the pandemic still helped with a music project, and I was missing it.
I was missing having all of this people around that I had known all my life. I was missing playing music together, eating together, taking care of the children the project was for.,
When I then heard that the founder and head of that project was in hospital, I began writing a song.
I began writing a melody for the choir, the different instruments we had always had, and I poured all of my emotions into it. It was a simple melody full of nice memories and nostalgia.
When I was done, she had been back at home for a long time, so I sent her a letter with the music sheets and the story behind that melody. I used paper with cat motives printed on, because we both had always had cats.
I knew these things because she had basically helped raising me. My mother and I had barely made up a whole family, and so we I had been at that church very often. Although later I played in a band and also made it into a bigger orchestra with my violin, I always came back. I saw generations of children growing up there just like I did. When I had moved away after school was done, I always took a leave from class or work or whatever else I had been up to to help out with her music weeks.
Also, I remembered how we played songs the brother of a friend had written, or even those her son had composed. I even felt a sparkling excitement when in early 2022, I drove all the way back home to join the music week again. Just the thought of our children choir singing my melody made my heart melt.
But she had ignored my letter.
And when I asked her about it, she said that it was not playable.
That was all.
And in that moment I realized that something about myself.
At first it was tough to put it into words. It was a feeling that made me pack my things and leave. It also was a feeling close to anxiety.
I remembered that before I as 20 years old, I was used to people looking at me with a wrinkled forehead. Sometimes I even felt the negative reaction before I had entered a room. I also remembered that I barely had any friends, before I attended university. I was always known as difficult to handle, and sometimes the esoteric Yoga friends of my mother called me only to tell me that I need to be a nicer daughter to my mother.
Then I remember my first band, where I was the singer but left after a fight with the bassist over one high note had somehow gotten out of hand. I remembered the years at the theater, and how I felt like a failure even when I was on stage in front of 1000 people, and sometimes had to throw up afterwards. And I remembered touring with a professional orchestra, only to hide in the last row of the 2. violin, although I could play all pieces in both versions.
This reaction of my music teacher was no surprise. It‘s the reaction I was used to, because I had no supportive people around me before I was in my 20s. I was the one people were confused by, the one with the backstory people didn‘t know but also didn‘t want to be involved with. I was the one alone in the back, with a mother reminding me of my boobs being too big in everything I wear.
That I wrote this letter to my music teacher only shows one thing: I got used to being accepted and lifted up. I thought she would react more supportive, because that fits the world I live in now. The world that I came from still is another one, and the reminders are painful.
I only remember this now, because there was an update on that story.
Recently, that music teacer told my mother that she should have let me play it with a few children, only to realize myself that it would fail.
Fuck you. I won‘t fail.
If something doesn‘t work out as planned, I adjust.
I am a musician and an educator with special ed. Skills. I know a good deal about music, and I guide children to do difficult things in my day job as a museum educator.
I would not have failed.
As for the melody I wrote for the choir, here is my own version of it.
Totally unsingable, right?
I was so alone when I was growing up.
I saw it as a sign that I could never do the things I wanted to do most, because for that people would have to react more positive to me, and they never did.
And I wonder where I would be today had I not stopped singing at 16, quit the orchestra at 18, stopped acting at 19, and wrote in secretive silence from age 20 to 25.
Life would have felt better without pretending to be dead for several years.
I think I loved the story of Avril Lavigne so much, because it was the opposite of me. I was never protected, and never found the energy to do the things I wanted to do.
At least until now.
It’s a dark place unheard and lonely where melodies die, but I won’t let mine end up there. Not yet.
Mistress witch writes 