THE PASSAGE
A few years ago my husband asked our friend Jessica Ostrander to create a painting of a sailboat in the calm before it encounters a storm. Jessica showed us the art techniques she used to flick paint and add water droplets onto her painting, adding layers of color and texture to contrast the calm and the storm. It hangs in our loungeroom and I still smile when I look at it. This painting inspired the creation of my instrumental track ‘The Passage’ on my “Rather Have You Wild” album.
Picture the scene: The sounds of boats of different shapes and purpose rocking in the harbor, water lapping, a fog horn blares. My sailboat ventures out to the open sea. The weather shifts and changes. Sails flapping. Salt water chopping. Stormy skies brewing and thickening with moisture. Heavy rain drops. Wind. The storm rises to a climax. Sails full, straining against the wind as the boat rides the waves until finally the storm breaks and subsides. My sailboat, anchoring deep into fortitude, strength and courage, has lived to tell the tale.
I loved creating music for ‘The Passage’ specifically using strings to build the intensity of the imagery. Of course, drums and bass guitar help drive the slow crescendo but the strings hold their own as far as taking the listener from the first peaceful melody to adding layers and rhythmic texture. I love the way the cello’s rocking 5ths at the beginning and end emulate the sailboat rocking peacefully in the harbor. The push and pull of the strings’ rhythm against the legato melodic line gives the feeling of the wind against the sails and the waves against the hull of the sailboat. Strings are such versatile instruments!
Just yesterday I worked with 3 classes of 3-6 year olds mimicking a storm on bucket drums. They began by rubbing their drum with their fingertips and nails, adding more fingers, one hand, then two to grow the crescendo that first began with their ‘rain drops’. They are well acquainted with Mr. Brown’s ‘dibble dibble dop dop’ and one of my favorite children’s book about a storm that’s more than welcome, “Big Rain Coming” by Katrina Germein. They delight in making the decrescendo as much as the crescendo using only their hands to command the sound. But it’s their eyes that give them away, lighting up when they realize what power they hold in their hands. There is something intangible and wholly satisfying feeling the collective calm after the storm and even a 3 year old can feel this.
The message of ‘The Passage’ is ‘You WILL get through’. How do I know this? I’ve traversed it, unexpectedly finding myself in my own anxiety storm for a period of about three and a half years from something I did not instigate nor welcome. Storm wild, I felt tossed by intense, rolling waves at times grappling for light under the darkening clouds. Then, as suddenly as it started (a mere three and a half years later), I distinctly remember the night I yawned, feeling truly tired for the first time since that period began. (During that time I had felt too wired to sleep.) Ironically, that yawn felt like an exhale. In that yawn, I felt I was surveying the damage, post-storm. Gutters overflowing. Garden chairs blown about but now struck by glinting sunlight through the dispersing clouds. The smell of fresh, crisp air in the residue of rain on leaves. Glistening grass. The last spots of raindrops a welcome farewell as the storm subsides. Calm.
It was a fight to maintain my peace at times and most difficult was my inability to feel the presence of God in the hardest times. I knew God was right there and had not abandoned me but frustratingly I felt alone. There were other times where the compassion of God was palpable and I vowed to continue to rely on the Holy Spirit to remind me of the words of Jesus: “Peace I leave with you; my peace I give you. I do not give to you as the world gives. Do not let your hearts be troubled and do not be afraid.” (John 14:27 NIV)
What was the storm? It was merely a passage.
You can purchase the album through iTunes via this link