Allow Me
Information:
- Source: Music and Life Notebook
- Key: D major
- Measures: 35
- Parts: Piano
- Duration: 3:07 min
- Pages: 4
“No one ever told me that grief felt so like fear.”
— C.S. Lewis (A Grief Observed)
FROM HELL AND BACK
According to Wikipedia, “Grief” is simply the direct response to pain or loss, whether the response is physical, emotional or both; it is directly connected to how we behaved during the calamity.
I have been experiencing grief, and for me, what can I say?, it’s been a year from hell and back. I read in a unfamiliar article that, there are five stages of grief, in another similar article they added two more, and that is not all, some other article dare to identified twelve. I am not an expert, however, I can tell, with no doubt in my heart, that there are at least one hundred and forty five indescribable stages of grieving. The devastating lost I am experiencing, is making me exhausted.
ASTONISHING CONVICTION
Since the very moment we are born, we are place in death row, we all know this, and yet, when the moment comes, we cannot make ourselves ready, because is not in our system to be ready for such dark predicament, on the contrary, we feel with astonishing conviction to the very last moment, that we are going to live forever. That thought itself, should suffice, in a way, to feel perpetually in some kind of emotional grief.
This contradiction of knowing and the refusal to accept the inevitable is what makes me deranged. The unsatisfactory answers and the unbelievable freedom some people take to explain comparable nonsense is excruciating to my core.
Denial
Bargaining
Anger
Guilt
Depression
USELESS SHELTER
This piece of music for piano that I composed, is the result of grieving the death of my companion of twenty two years. The melody allows me to be strong and explore all the phases of grief, although, at the same time, it feels similar to a useless shelter that intends to protect me from a storm; because, the horrible state I am, will not disappear just by playing the piece.
The color of the melody gives me the opportunity to express different ideas and because of the rubato tempo, it provides the anticipation of something good about to happen but it never does; instead, I feel denial, I discern guilt and, I detect depression and I perceive bargaining inside me, but above all, I sense anger taking place and gaining territory. Pain cannot be fixed. and as I play the inexcusable measures I know that is going to be a long way, before I began to feel like myself again.
I do not think my composition is a depressing piece of music, some might hear melancholy instead, others might hear romance, yet, others will hear joy; but in my present condition, what I hear when I play the piece is vastly unpredictable.
INTENSE FRUSTRATION
Of the above phases, anger is what I experience with more intensity. I would like to think of it more as a profound frustration and disappointment. Who am I kidding?, yes, of course is ANGER. It takes time for grief to diminish, there’s no time set for my poison emotions to heal. But with all honesty, sometimes I think I would be angry and sad for the rest of my life. I read in a 2018 The New York Times article title: Understanding Grief by Jane E. Brody: “You never get over it, you get on with it, and you never move on, but you move forward.’”
ALLOW ME
Thus, allow me to feel pain. Give me space, I am not the first nor will be the last to experience the death of a love one, therefore, I do not need your pity, I am not a victim, keep your religious believes bury deep inside your mind, I don’t care for them. They are not pleasant. Above all, keep silence, don’t_ I will be clear on this_ DON’T pretend nothing took place, wrongly thinking, I should be happy on your own terms, because you cannot handle my misery.
Know this, when I play this piano piece: I allow myself to be in the moment, I allow myself to be me. There had been moments of which, I let go of my big frustrations and play Fortississimo; as if I am screaming at the whole world: FUCK YOU, without being afraid I might be, in all consent, out of line.
Written by Javier Anaya