I love the moment just before the performance
when the orchestra is tuning their instruments.
I love the immersive chaos of it,
just like I love waves breaking on a shore,
or the rain whispering at the casement,
or the cascade of ornamentation
as the congregation responds to the precenter
lining out the psalm on a Hebridean sabbath.
There is freedom in the inevitable.
The chains of volition dissolve
in their own irrelevance,
the abandonment of appetite,
the surrender to a truth that emerges
only when we hear all voices together,
one no individual could express.
For all our attempts to be strong
and reliable and in control
what ultimately endures is our weakness,
our errors and uncertainties,
our vulnerability and helplessness,
the condition we discover ourselves in
as we are born and as we die.
In between we may perform an interlude
for an imaginary audience,
that is, in the final analysis, ourselves,
follow notes from an absent director
whose existence we infer as a necessity
to steer our somnambulist manoeuvres,
hit our mark, speak our lines
in the spotlight, centre stage,
but any applause is part of the show.
The auditorium is empty,
and we must learn to be at peace
with our own insignificance,
and have nothing but compassion
for the others we encounter on the stage,
even if their role is to harm us,
especially if their role is to harm us,
nothing but compassion and sadness.
