Dedicated to the Destroyers of Worlds

And, equally, to the builders of new ones

My diploma hanging on the wall of my apartment

Sometime last year, I put my diploma from Indiana University in a blender. Actually, it was a food processor I got for free from someone who was moving and it was more than just my diploma. You need water, of course, to turn the paper into pulp. And there were bits of sheet music torn out of an old music theory notebook I’ve kept all these years (why, I don’t really know, because there are so many artifacts from that time that were intentionally destroyed), and some fresh, blank sketchpad paper as well. It felt right. Something old, something new. Borrowed. Blue.

Next, you dump your emulsified paper water into a tub and pull some sort of sieve up through the floating pulp, catching enough of it in one go to make one solid, continuous piece. My makeshift sieve was a plastic mesh produce bag I safety pinned around a metal photo frame I got at the thrift store. One cool afternoon I sat on my knees in my bathroom, leaning over the tub, no distractions, stirring the water around with one hand so I could catch it with the sieve in the other.

The meditative nature of the task reminded me, woefully, of all those wasted hours in practice rooms not much larger and far less pleasant than my bathroom. Side note: I had a boyfriend once who thought I was insane because I liked to practice scales with the metronome for upwards of an hour and a half to two hours, starting at 40 beats per minute, then up to 50, then down to 45, then up to 55, following this pattern so on and so forth until the metronome was so fast I couldn’t keep up.

Was it constructive? If practiced as a brief warm-up, sure, but that’s not what I was getting out of it. When I was younger, I loved the repetitive, predictable aspect of practicing an instrument. I liked to keep my hands busy so my mind was not so much. I still do, but often need a stronger supplement in conjunction with the physical task. I don’t find the limited physicality of typing on a computer keyboard to be an adequate replacement, and creative writing does require thought, frequent pauses and deciding what comes next, all of which are dreaded opportunities for the PTSD to rear its head and immobilize you.

I miss running, like an animal, flying through the scales and feeling the instrument thrum against my chest in mechanical time. I miss the suspension of fear. I hate that the one thing that brought me peace is now the quickest port for the disturbance of it. I adored Angelina Jolie’s performance as the opera singer Maria Callas in the eponymous film Maria. Her sister says, “Close the door, little sister.” “I can’t,” Maria replies. “That’s the only way the music gets in.”