My father rarely raised his voice. Growing up the eldest of nine in a house with only four bedrooms left him reserved, thoughtful, and inclined towards subtlety. He used a modest inheritance, the only financial help he ever received from his family, to purchase a sailboat, in part because it is possible to sail quietly.
He dispensed with silence, though, for one thing: music. Sibelius’ Symphony #7, or Rimsky-Korsakov’s Scheherazade, or Prokofiev’s Romeo and Juliet — all favorites of my father’s; these required volume. He wanted more than just intensity, though. He sought something approaching reality. He guaranteed everything could be heard, down to the slight squeaks created when fingers shifted on strings. Listening was especially acute from his chair, set at the focal point of all four Ohm speakers. From there you could hear violins to the left and basses to the right, where they belonged, exactly where they were positioned in a live performance.
I distinctly recall, at age nine or ten, arriving very early to sit in the front row of our local symphony. While we waited he mapped the orchestra for me: the conductor in the center, woodwinds here, brass there, carefully arranged. And when I started to tap along with the first piece, he gently set his hand over mine, teaching me to listen with stillness.
We drove old cars, but my father invested in terrific speakers there, too. We never got cable television, but he was the first person we knew who purchased a CD player. I like to remember him in this way, a quiet person with a fondness for loud music, and someone who spent his time and money on beauty and shared experiences rather than ephemeral possessions.
He died when I was nineteen, when he was only forty-eight. In the emotional turmoil that followed, I cast about at random, grabbing physical reminders of our shared life. These ranged from the deeply meaningful (inscribed books he had purchased me, family photographs) to the absolutely inconsequential (still in my possession: an uneaten Tootsie Roll).
His passing also left a stark silence. I would never again hear his voice. I would never again sit beside him and listen. I filled this as I could, incompletely, by filching most of his CDs, listening again to the pieces he loved.
I drove a lot the summer following his funeral, back and forth across seven states, from the dense forested slopes of my youth to the exposed Midwestern plains of college. I also took meaningless meandering drives through late afternoons and evenings, in contemplative mourning, avoiding awkward conversations with my roommates. I made use of a portable CD player, fed through a thin wire and rickety faux-cassette into the tape deck. I listened systemically, going through every disc, through every piece I remembered.
Eventually, though, I got to those we had not shared. I listened to them out of obligation and curiosity, not affection. John Adams’ Fearful Symmetries was one of these. I started it without any particular interest, nearly done with that evening’s directionless drive, after I had turned back to home.
It was different than the others. It did not sound like a full orchestra; it sounded spare. A handful of instruments drove a relentless cadence, similar to nothing else he had ever played for me. It also sounded, to my additional surprise, like something my father might have actually composed, had he been so inclined; more subtle, more spare, quieter, though not without intensity. I slowed, distracted. I eventually parked on some dusty roadside, enclosed between opposing walls of cornstalks, listening, until the sun vanished behind me.
I thought of our last extended time together, driving home from my grandmother’s house, listening to something I have long since forgotten. But I remembered our conversation, in the protective isolation of the car. His soft, thoughtful, almost informal advice about classes and relationships, his enthusiasm for books and ideas, his casual compliments, deserved or not, I would never again hear any of these. I would never again know what he thought about anything.
So there I sat, at a center of emptiness, skies, fields, in that same car, alone. We want to feel presence, or at least I did, whether it is conjured from memory, or imagination, or actually from some unquantifiable realm in the world outside ourselves. And I certainly felt a presence that night, in the purple dark, after the brightest sunset faded but before the stars had become distinct. A liminal hour. I thought I could hear him inside those notes I had never heard before.
Close to thirty years have passed, and I still return to that piece to recall his presence. I’ve also played it for my own children, who, to my slight surprise, find it fun. One contemporary review calls it a trickster piece, and hilarious. A YouTube video reveals the orchestra of Montpellier performing it before clips from Buster Keaton movies. Where I heard — and hear — something spiritual and meaningful, others are simply amused. What did he hear, or think, or like, or dislike? And further, what would he think of my kids, our current world, my life? I didn’t know, and I’ll never know.
The title, Fearful Symmetries, taken from William Blake, has begun to haunt me; I so much want to be like him, at the same time I dread too close an alignment. I look like him, I am told I sound like him. His siblings will on occasion flinch when they see me, as if I am his ghost made real. I am only six months younger than he was when he died. Six months is not much time.
The piece ends not with a crescendo but with three quiet, almost lulling minutes, music for reflection, calming the earlier liveliness. It fades, like memories. But relistening to it both restores my recollections and reinvigorates a weird triad of disparate emotions: mourning and gratitude and curiosity. I miss him. I’m glad I want to miss him. I wish I knew what he’d think of everything now, this piece that we have separately shared, certainly of this essay, especially of me.
Jeff McLaughlin was born in Nebraska, lived in eight states and France, and now resides in Minnesota with his wife and two children. His short fiction has appeared in the Kenyon Review, Southern Humanities Review, Raleigh Review, december magazine, and elsewhere. His first novel is almost ready for an agent.
Jean Wolff has had group and solo exhibits in various galleries in New York City and internationally. In addition, she has published 109 works in 74 issues of 50 different magazines. Born in Detroit, Michigan, she studied fine arts at the Center for Creative Studies in Detroit and at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor, receiving a BFA in studio arts. She then attended Hunter College, CUNY in New York, graduating with an MFA in painting and printmaking. She is now part of the artistic community of Westbeth in Manhattan. For complete exhibition list and bibliography please visit artist website at www.jeanwolff.com