On reclamation
Turning back towards who we are
On Sunday I debuted my latest solo burlesque act to Debussy’s Clair de Lune. I’ve considered creating to this piece of music for a couple of years, but until now, have backed away from it.
I fell in love with Clair de Lune aged sixteen, a year older than my daughter is now. When my piano teacher pulled out her tattered copy, and began to play it through, I closed my eyes. I had never heard anything so beautiful. I felt as though I was flying and falling at the same time. After that, my scales and arpeggios seemed even more of a chore. That magical piece was all I wanted to practice.
Six months later, I walked onto my school’s stage to perform it for the first time. My legs and hands were trembling. I adjusted the piano stool to exactly the right height and took a deep breath. When I touched the keys of the piano, they felt like an extension of my body. Time slowed. There was no other sound in the concert hall. I felt the presence of the audience, and it was as if they weren’t there at all.
I still have the sheet music, with my name on the cover in my piano teacher’s handwriting. But I can only play some of the passages now. The complexity of the trickier phrases defeat me. I cannot recreate the flow and feeling I used to have as a girl. I have left it too long. I have neglected the talent I had and cannot (for now) find the energy to practice enough to recapture it.
The last time I attempted to play it was this summer. Afterwards I cried. I grieved what might have been if music had continued to be a constant in my life. After my music degree I embarked on my corporate career, as I sought a taste of the ‘real world.’ For years after that I only played the piano at Christmas, when I visited my Mum and Dad.
A few months later, soon after beginning to choreograph my burlesque act to Clair de Lune, I felt inspired to join an open choir rehearsal in my local town.
As I drove to the rehearsal, I had butterflies in my stomach, but I needn’t have. I was warmly welcomed by the members of the choir and my nerves fell away. Singing with them that evening, after more than twenty years away from making music with others, was divine. My voice forming part of the sound we made felt like breathing. The most normal, natural, necessary thing in the world. Music would finally be a regular part of my life again. All I had to do was pass the audition a few weeks later.
Unfortunately, I did not succeed. I received a polite email stating that the competition for places was strong, and that I would be welcome to try again in the future, should a place become available.
Grief is a frequent visitor on my journey back to creativity. Its appearance is becoming predictable. Perhaps this is why the journey can take so long and is one I avoided for too many years.
We are not designed to move towards grief. There is enough cause for it in the world already, without actively seeking it out in our own lives. But I am also discovering that when it shows up, it is usually pointing to something worth paying attention to.
Choosing to create an act to Clair de Lune was a gentle reclamation. It nurtured a younger part of myself. The part of me that wants to play, and experiment, and move through this world with more lightness. It also allowed me to experience that heavenly piece of music as I am today, without carrying the burden of regret. It allowed me to enjoy being carried by its beauty, without wishing anything to be different in the circumstances of my life.
When I shared my act with the women in the audience on Sunday, I felt like I did at the piano all those years ago. The flow I used to experience is still possible. It is not conditional on being able to meet any technical requirement. It is within me. The places and ways I can experience it have evolved, and I expect will continue to do so. Who knows, one day, I may find it at the piano again.
It is easy to criticize the choices we made in our past, but our younger selves were doing the best they could.
Learning to accept the paths we have travelled can take time. But when we do, the pathway to what our soul is longing to create today can emerge, and we can take our first steps towards it. It is never too late.
With love and gentle shimmy,
Claire
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Deeply touching. Thank you!
As always, feeling touched by what you share so personally and beautifully with words, dear Claire! And you name something so important for anyone wishing to reclaim the innate, buried creativity: grief. I love your suggestion: to welcome it as a messenger of what really matters instead of avoiding it. It makes the journey all the more poignant and precious ❤️