Xylophone chords
on a regular afternoon
Striking a chord is easy when you’re ready to grab the mallet for the xylophone.
It can also be easier than that.
In fact, you didn’t grab anything.
The chord got struck, yes. Yes, it rang through each scale of your afternoon. Then that chord connected with another chord. A handful of days later, another chord followed until there was a string of autonomous yet congruent sounds. It’s the music from nowhere.
You would love to take credit. But you never picked up the mallet. You didn’t exercise your endlessly imagined will. It’s because it comes into itself, exists for itself. The music comes from wherever it wants and enters your life.
You find that the top of the tea spins like a galaxy, whether or not you tried.
Your life isn’t about how it’s constructed. It’s about how it’s also allowed to live itself.
Your gift to your own life is to take a more comfortable seat on the couch and notice how it spins.
i am writing a novel and, with the fact that the story has an overall arc and a clear ending, each sentence/ scene/twist/quote comes to me like the chords you describe - a chime, a discovered next way to express something, a gift. Your "Xylophone chords" expresses the creative discovery of this writing process. Thank you!