* * *
What was I saying? Right, the ‘way home’. You’ve got to be able to feel things, hey? I mean, even if it’s not that great, you’ve got to live on and through it. B.B. King singing, ‘I’ve been down-hearted, baby, ever since the day we met’. She must’ve been something to keep him hanging on and singing about it, you know what I mean? Would he have swapped his scene for the world? I doubt it. There are intensities worth their weight in CDs. Intensities that make you know you’re alive. Sinead, rising as a phoenix from the flames in her version of Troy. The opportunity to share something deep and private but, if you want, by yourself. Just like the writers of the olden days, alone in their cottages and garrets sharing a bit of their own humanity, passing it down to those who wouldn’t be born for another century – safe from the fame that eats people alive these days.
Music, its pulling together, can be one of the most sharing things and at the same time one of the most private things. And we get to choose how we want it. At massed concerts, in nightclubs, at home in our lounges. In quiet dark bedrooms, tuning in on our Walkmans and crooning along with Morrissey or the Waterboys, you know, Mike Scott singing, ‘I will raise my voice to the night-time sky, Hey, it’s me, I’m dynamite, and I don’t know why’ – if that ain’t the taste of eighteen, I don’t know what is.
My mother’s Irish and my father’s Indian, what splash the clash of their genetic pool made, I don’t know. But boy, can my sister write the absolute aloneness of the uilleann pipes against the cluttered, clamouring, overcrowded and elegant loopings of the sitar. My sister’s black in the head and I’m pretty white up top, I’m not that bright you see, and I’ve always thought of intelligence as black, I dunno why. I wasn’t great at school, I couldn’t wait till it was over. She’s got such depth and, in a funny sort of way, I’ve got a bit of height inside. I know I feel things at a centre that’s pretty far away, but I’m not a great talker, and even worse at writing things down. Essays, spew, I said everything I had to say in a paragraph and public speaking? Shite, I said more than I had to say in a sentence. I can’t stand a crowd of people looking at me while I’m talking, I fall away to water, but put a microphone in my hand and give me my guitar and I’ll sing your skin off. Funny, aren’t we? Pretty complicated in a boring sort of way.
I guess I get to be part of a more real world when I’m splashing around in a pool of music. No, that’s not quite right, it’s more like … it’s like music makes my world more real – that’s it. The world I live in, me, this skinny guy in a T-shirt. You see, I’m pretty well out of place in an office, bit out of place on the streets, even in clubs and pubs, it’s just not really me. I’m not ‘all there’ in groups, I kind of get a bit lost, withdraw a bit because I’m uncomfortable. But when some music’s on, or I’m playing my guitar, or singing, when I close my eyes, I know it’s all real. I don’t think my soul’s a solid thing, it’s a bundle of senses, and music is its medium – ‘scuse the boofy word, but I can’t think of a better one. When I close my eyes and listen to a real fine piece of music, it’s like my soul’s at home, the real part of me gets to come out to play, fly, cry, whatever.
I remember a visit to my sister in her office. What a nightmare. I felt like I had to whisper, like I would in a library. Anyway, she got called off to give someone papers and I had a year long, ten-minute-wait at her desk. Talk about uncomfortable – there wasn’t even anything to read. Hundreds of papers everywhere, and not a thing worth reading. I ended up filtering through the first eight months of the year on her desk calendar. Each day had a clever message at the bottom of the page. One of them nearly blew me out of my seat, it was by a guy whose name I forget, it said – ‘scuse us if I get the words wrong – it said something like, ‘Music doesn’t express feelings too vague for words, but rather feelings too precise for words.’ Talk about make the hairs on the back of your neck stand up. Not that you could see it on me back then, I had a mop of daggy hair. Now I’ve got a daggy crewcut.
I also remember a time when my sister had been alone in her room for hours trying to put something into words. I took her in a Coke and she explained what she’d been after. She’d been struggling for ages. I knew immediately what she meant. I ran off to my room, selected the tape, dragged in my blaster and played her the theme tune from ‘Betty Blue’. She simply said, ‘Yes, that’s it,’ closed her eyes and put down her pen.
It’s like that, music. But then again, she’s given me stuff to read that’s made me turn off my tapes, shut my curtains, close all the doors. Music, words, life – it’s like that.
A song can take you back ten years – it can take you back to a place, a time, a group of pals, happiness, misery. It can re-conjure the past in an instant …
I gotta go, there’s tons of rubbish to pick up still. Been chewing your ear off, haven’t I? It’s music, you know, it gets me a bit chatty, not my usual way … if you give me your address I’ll send you a cassette of my music – for free.
Look, sorry if I’ve bored you. I guess I’ve lived a pretty sheltered sort of life in some ways, a small town, a small life on the outside, but hey, it’s been mammoth on the inside.
See you ’round.
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About the Author - Karen Overman-Edmiston
People’s motivations and their interior life are at the core of Karen Overman-Edmiston’s writing. In addition, impressions and experiences gained while travelling have had a strong impact on her work. These factors are strongly evident in her 2010 Nautilus Award-winning novel, The Avenue of Eternal Tranquillity, as well as in an earlier publication, Night Flight from Marabar, a collection of short stories. Both titles are available in bookshops and online.
Karen Overman-Edmiston was born in the United Kingdom. Educated in the U K, Ireland and Australia, she gained a Master of Arts at the University of Western Australia. Having previously worked for the West Australian government, Karen runs her own consultancy business as well as continuing her writing.
Karen has written for the stage and has had competition-winning plays performed, including at the Festival of Perth. She is also a prize-winning short story writer who has had stories published in several magazines.
Find out more on the publisher’s website: https://sites.google.com/site/crumplestonepress/
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