This Musical Score
I love music. All music.
Sometimes day dreaming of my days at shows. Beck. Snoop. Prince. Beastie. Rage. Jose Gonzalez. Santana a few times. Once in Puerto Rico, 100k people in a field singing Black Magic Woman under the stars. So many shows.
My father’s home always had jazz. My grandmother’s Kirtan. My mother’s Janice Joplin. So many shows, so many homes.
Sometimes a history lesson accompanied a song. John Coltrane’s Alabama, a composition to mend his broken heart. Why did four little girls have to die for the color of their skin? Billie weaving her tragedies into her uncanny ability to phrase.
This journey with music started with a teacher, Fauzia. Running into her home with five year old legs for music lessons. First stop to pet the turtle. Then her echo, “time to focus Sahana.” That’s how she said it. Sahana just how it’s spelled. My name Muslim, named by traveling musicians. A name when pronounced Shahana becomes an Indian song in itself to only play in the evening. A raga.
Every trip back to India I would ask to see Fauzia. Negotiating the streets of Calcutta as a teenager walking to her house. Confidence, freedom in every step. She taught me Debussy, Rachmaninoff, Chopin. As she played I played. She gave me the courage to step onstage. Terrified hearing her whispers “you’re ready Sahana.” Her patience shining in every wrong note. So many of those too.
She’s in her 80’s now and we text. She refers to herself as the reluctant octogenarian. Her heart permanently broken as her only child passed but her granddaughter close by. She tells me how she has a walker. Her nemesis but it gets her to the piano. Gratitude there too. Her students are her family. So many shows. So many homes. Fauzia is home too.
A little girl and her music teacher. She the bridge to the other side where notes appear in dreams. Rhythms in the washer. Melodies in winds. Intonation in breath. Sanskrit lyrics drifting with tides. Setu bandasana. Bridge pose. A moment to reflect. What’s on the other side.
When the outside too loud my thoughts too many, I listen. Lost in albums. Making playlists. Music, a direct access. Banishing the dark with its flames but it’s there where hope grows again from the tiniest spark. Dancing and writing flourish there too. Inside of myself. Where I’m my happiest. My home.