The Voice

Spike really likes singing.

He hasn't shown a particular dislike to any music I've played, but he will curl up with his eyes and ears heavy with contentment when I play, say, "It's a Big World". The soundtrack to "Once" is having a similar effect.

He likes acoustic guitar and simple voices. He likes clear harmonies -- thirds, not seconds. He particularly likes live singing. Mom's old songs as I sing them when I do dishes sometimes in the late evening. I sing Mom's songs and I sing what I know of Grandpa's songs and then I switch to God's songs -- hymns I've known since before I could read from when I would sit under folding tables during choir practice -- and now I sing "It's a Big World" and whatever that first song is. It's nice to have an actual being to ask.

Are you a beach? Are you the sand? Are you the wave that washes up upon the land?

He also has been enjoying the audiobooks at night. During the Drawing Hour I sit and listen to 90ish minutes of "The Hummingbird's Daughter," (which is read by the author and very good -- it helps to have someone who knows how to pronounce the Spanish and say it as it should be said,) and he will lay on the bed or sit with me sometimes on the stool and listen.

Something must resonate in the voice, in a cross-species sort of way. There is something about hearing auralizations that is somehow correct. At first I thought that it may just be that his first house had far more ruckus than he gets here, but it isn't just noise. He doesn't really respond to movies -- pictures or scripted words set to music. But bare-voiced singing and talking in long unbroken strips seem to captivate him in a very interesting way. So there must be something there. Something deep and True.

And all this is really interesting, since figures in my art have suddenly started to have things to say.





Pieces always SAY something. But the literal world bubble has been a relatively new development. Which sort of will culminate in the silent shout piece I am trying to work out. The unsayable murk and colorful mess of how I've been feeling.