Winter's Showers Someday Bring Flowers: Being a Late Bloomer

"You're HOW old and you don't even have a car yet??" My five year old cousin's eyes were full of sympathy and horror at what he perceived as a major tragedy in my life, reminiscent of little Rusty Duritz when he wails to his grown-up self Bruce Willis in The Kid: "You don't have an airplane, you don't have a girlfriend, you don't have a DOG?! I grow up to be a loser." I tried to explain that sometimes grown-ups have to trade in what they want for what they need, like paying for school tuition instead of a set of wheels, but I don't think I got through to him.

Yes, I'm twenty years old, and no, I don't have a car. But honestly I don't mind hoofing it around Caldwell, especially in the fall and spring when the entire city feels like it's own kind of Eden, and it takes the train whistle blowing or a radio blaring rap to bring me back to the sidewalk in front of me and remember it's built with human hands. Under the perfume of maple leaves and lilacs lurks cement and tar, car exhaust and ash.

On one of my recent walks I was passing a semi-circle of rose bushes by the campus activities center when I saw something that gave me pause. Two of the bushes were still growing, despite the frost and chill of the past several days. Late bloomers. These blossoms, bright and pink against the white of the snow had laid dormant throughout the summer and autumn waiting for their moment to burst through the bark and shine. The fact that they were the last to appear made me wonder if they were the strongest or the most long-suffering, having picked the cruelest period in nature's cycle to make their debut.

I think all of us know real life late bloomers. Friends or family that were dorky in grade school and grew to class president, or struggled with sports before blossoming in art and music. As I kid I had the works of geekhood: head-gear, glasses, a perm gone wrong, and braces within a few short years of each other. When I got to high school I was blessed with friends who accepted me exactly as I was, and I never really felt out of place until after graduation. When The Unknown loomed. Now a Sophomore in college I've found a few niches: jazz band, choir, food bank, journalism. And in some ways I've began to peek out of the branches and look at all the flowers around me, full grown and confident in who they are. But I haven't bloomed. Not yet.

I survived the summer. I survived the frost. I survived the scavengers of doubt that creep up and whisper "give up...it's not worth it." And now the sky has opened up and the flurries are raining down (forgive the corny metaphor) and I've started to wonder if I'm going to bloom at all, or just keep waiting for my moment forever. School is majorly stressing me out, not just because I am racing to catch up before finals, but because increasingly I get the feeling that I'm running and running and not gaining any ground. Every last drop of confidence I pocketed away over the years found a way to slip out, like pennies falling through the tear in a pair of jeans. I can look back and see them, see the moments when I felt secure and capable winking up at me from where they dropped, but I can't pick them back up.

It took Robinson Crusoe thirty years of shipwrecked solitude to finally be able to say "I learned not to despair of anything...that labor and patience would carry me through." Crusoe even thanked Providence for the shipwreck, the disease, the rains and the wolves, losing his crops and meeting the cannibal native Friday because they made him humble. I think if I was him I'd say Providence deserved a swift kick in the you-know-where.

Plenty of middle aged men or women long to go back to their college days, and I always wonder why. If I had their perspective maybe I would see it, maybe these things that appear to overwhelm me I will come to look on with fondness in time. Maybe this is Providence's way of shaping my character. But as I watch the snow fall and imagine those beautiful roses resting in confident peace, their potential having been successfully reached despite the cold, I hope I'm one of the late bloomers. And I hope it's not too late.

*picture from me*

Dragonfly Wings

By: Robyn Argyle
(attempt at poetry take three)

They began in spring,
tiny green fists clenched tight
to the smooth skin of their mother.
They grew far too fast;
fanning out, spreading thin.

They clung so strong
though the wind blew angry.
Flat, leather limbs
refusing to falter, or bend
or spin to the ground.

They didn't plan for autumn.
Did not feel the chill
or see the browning grass beneath
their proud, tall perch.
They were invincible.

But October brought frost
and November brought snow.
They stopped getting food.
Their bodies grew brighter, and duller
and finally fell apart.

They caught in my hair,
whirlwinds around my shoes,
little helicopters spiraling down
sleeting in the sky
skittering across parking lots.

I bent and caught a handful.
Brown and gold and brittle
they crinkled in my hand.
I could see through their glossy
web-work of crisscross.

They looked like stretched
wide dragonfly wings
torn from small slender bodies;
I threw the handful to the breeze
and watched them fly away.

*picture from Google*

Climbing the Impossible Hill

Ah. It's THAT time of year again. I've finally left the teenage years behind, and entered the twenties. Scary. And exciting. And somehow, aggravatingly, exactly the same. Last November I took an opportunity to reflect on what my years had made of me, and where I was going next. Allow me to do so again.

A year ago this time is when I started writing this blog, and it was something different then it is now. It was an outlet for my frustrations, a confidant when I was alone for the first time, swept up in campus life; and above all, I suppose it was a physical necessity. I NEEDED to write. To express what I can't in the spoken word. I am hopelessly awkward in person, tripping over my words and embarrassing myself to that degree that the generous call "cute" and the more realist call "dorky." But give me a keyboard (I type faster than I write with pen) and some time and I will churn out something closer to my real voice. The one I'm too quiet to use in the classrooms.

In a lot of ways this blog is still that megaphone for thought, but it doesn't come as easily as it used to. Now it has weight. What I write here helps to correct my language, improve whatever skill I have so that when I stand in cap and gown and wave good-bye to Caldwell, I'll know where the hell to go next. I finally narrowed down my majors from fifteen to two: English and Psychology. Somehow I had the idea that choosing a major gave one a sense of security, a handhold to grasp when someone stops you on the street and says "well...what next?" To any of you college Freshmen, this concept is WRONG. Choosing a major is just one step on the staircase to graduation. And it ain't small. We're talking the grand slopes of Mount Niesen. We're talking the bleachers the track coach made you run fifty times over at practice. Every decision you make in the next four years will open up a host of other staircases, until you arrive at who you are, and what you're meant to be.

Last week in my Lit class we read a poem that summed it better than I could: "On a huge hill, cragged, and steep, Truth stands, and he that will reach her, about must, and about must go; and what the hill's suddenness resists, win so." After reading it I thought seriously about what careers I wanted to look into, and mused to myself "gosh I guess editing would be ok." After talking with a professor and a career counselor, my options had multiplied into the hundreds. What kind of editing? Technical? Literary? Research? Did I want to volunteer as a peer editor? School newspaper? Online magazine? What internships could I find? Who should I start getting to know?

Head spinning, I then veered to the other vague career path, and after the first ten minutes of conversation with my psych professor I realized I'd stepped on another mine of possibilities. Counseling or social work? Working with kids or adults? How many extra years of college did I want? Could I handle the emotional stresses? What training could I get to help people? (And, most frightening for me,) how would I handle it if I failed?

If it's possible, I feel MORE lost now than I did in my Freshmen year. Sure, I've learned how to live on my own, how to balance my homework load with life, how to speak with more confidence to a classroom of strangers. I know not to grocery shop when hungry, and not to cram ten minutes before the test. I've settled into a kind of niche with people I feel comfortable with, and look forward each week to the two places I can be me: my music classes and food bank. But when I'm not delivering food to families or practicing my saxophone or singing, who am I? What will I be remembered for?

While I usually avoid her music like the plague, Mily Cyrus did make one good song. My favorite goes:

"Ain't about how fast I get there
Ain't about what's waiting on the other side
It's the climb"

I've chosen a lot of Everests to climb this year, from the wonderful guy I am dating, to friendships I have lost, to my relationship with my parents, and being less afraid to try new things. I learn something new every minute, every day. But wisdom doesn't always equal character, and as the one grows and grows I come to question the other with greater intensity. I still feel selfish, silly, and ungrateful...but...I'm still climbing. Hand over hand, inch by inch.

And take it from someone who fell and fell hard last year, climbing feels GOOD.

Part Time Waitress, Part Time Janitor, Full Time Ranch Girl

"You lead a strangely sheltered life," Sarah said flatly to me one day after I confessed I'd never had raspberry pie before, one of a list of things I'd never experienced prior to Ten Sleep. I vanquished a host of "nevers" in the last three months:

--driving a stick shift (while my cousin Andrew gripped the armrests of his seat and pretended not to be terrified)
--galloping bareback across the hay fields with Cassie (I regret working too much and not getting to do this more often)
--getting high (on VERY strong cleaning chemicals while cleaning out the bathrooms at the high school...turned me into a giggling twit for an hour)
--watching my crazy relatives fire roman candles at each other and catch the field on fire (Andrew said when fireworks carry the label "Caution. Light and get away." It REALLY means "hold in hand and aim at someone's face")

and allowing myself forgiveness for the first time in over a year.

Many people know that my Freshmen year of school was full of painful memories, and watched me fragment slowly into something I wasn't. There is a kind of flower on the hills, I want to call them Daylilies, which bloom only after the sun has gone down. The only eyes that get to see these flowers are those similarly active at night: coyotes, bats, alley cats, and night-shift waitresses heading home late. It was Sarah, one of the cooks at the Crazy Woman, who pointed them out to me one day, and I couldn't help but compare their transformation to mine last spring. I began my school year full of life and eager to make friends and be involved with every activity on campus, and slowly closed myself to the confines of my room until over time, I became a living Daylily. Coming out only in the late late hours when sleep escaped me as it so often does. My writing, both in classes and for my blog, became sullen, withdrawn, and dark. Eventually, I gave it up entirely. Writing down my emotions made them more real, and thus more painful to bear.

But something changed the longer I stayed at the ranch. I felt my roots stir, my desire to stretch out and fight the long nighttime hours win out, and eventually, slowly, I started to put thoughts to paper again. A friend of mine suggested a kind of therapy for me. Keeping two notebooks as journals over the summer; one with only positive entries that showed progress, healing, and joy, and one that recorded everything else. Within two weeks of being on the ranch, I expressed these two things: "My cousins really do feel like brothers and sisters to me. The whole family is like that, they just adopt you in, give you a place to stay, with no questions asked. They don't care about my past. There is love here." And then later, "It's good to not be afraid to write anymore." As the summer drew to a close I felt a flash of fear that I might crumble back into a broken Daylily, but as Valerie, my coworker at the school said, "Wyoming has a way of staying with you."

And she was right. Wyoming is everywhere. In the shards of freshly cut grass spilling over my shoes and piercing my nose with the natural earth that the city tries so hard to cover. In the handful of country tunes that somehow made it into my playlist by the end of the summer despite all previous loathing of that genre, because sometimes they really do know exactly what to say. It's in the sky and the beauty of campus. And most pressingly, it's in my mind, flashing to the surface every time something triggers a memory of what has been the best summer of my nineteen years.

Today I walked to Albertsons to pick up last minute school supplies and got the uncomfortable feeling of eyes following me across the hot asphalt of the parking lot. I nearly walked straight into the thing before I realized what everyone was staring at: an over-sized antique of a John Deere that had somehow shuddered and wheezed it's last tired miles into this particular park space, right next to a shiny new silver Mustang. The contrast between the two vehicles was laughable, and I snapped a picture with my phone just like everyone else rolling their eyes and shaking their heads, writing "only in Idaho!" on their Facebook profiles from their Smart Phones. But a feeling kept nagging me up and down the aisles of the store and to the check-out stand. It wasn't until I was walking out the automatic doors that the feeling developed a name: Homesickness.

Yes, only in Idaho would a tractor and a Mustang share the same road with semi-equal respect. In Wyoming, it would be the Mustang people gawked at and photographed, and the big city folk inside the vehicle being ridiculed for daring to navigate the same dirt roads. As I passed the strange pair again on my way home, I let my loyalty slip to the tractor and its owner, whispering the same parting lines I gave to everyone in Wyoming, "drive safe."

There is this duality existing in me now. The born and raised Idaho Falls native who needs a telephone to be surgically removed from her ear to have a real conversation, and the country girl who would rather listen to crickets chirping at night then the cacophony of electronic buzzes and beeps that now keep her awake in her dorm room. The way I still can't pronounce "creek" properly (crick instead of creak,) the way I've come to glare at people who freak out when a little mud and rain gets on their shoes. I have to remind myself that I was exactly like that, AM exactly like that, nine months out of every year. It's only in the summer time, when I'm removed from city limits and my self-imposed picky lifestyle, that I truly become who I was meant to be. Open. Free. Selfless. Strong.

I chose to spend my summer in Ten Sleep, Wyoming (population three hundred and four) away from my friends and family and the familiar for two reasons. First, because I had made a promise to somebody I cared about that I would not be around flashing my existence in her face, and secondly because I needed money. Tuition was on the rise, textbooks are expensive, and a little spending money is as good as gold to a college student living off mac n cheese and popcorn. My Aunt Becky acted as my guardian angel, job hunter, and reference and helped me get two jobs: one as a waitress at Crazy Woman Cafe, and one as a janitor at the local (and only) school in town.

Working at the cafe was absolutely the best job I've ever had. Ever since I took a road trip with my mom and we listened to Joan Bauer's "Hope Was Here" on tape, I have longed to waitress. Hope is more than a waitress in the novel, she changes lives. Now I can't really say that I changed anybody's life serving endless coffee and Philly steak sandwiches, but there were little moments that shined. The expression of pure child-like euphoria on the face of a woman celebrating her ninety first birthday when I slipped her a piece of cherry pie on her way out the door. "You only turn ninety one once," I smiled and she laughed and replied triumphantly "calories be damned!" The night when a snooty couple with a poodle insisted Steve had over-cooked their steak, and Steve ripped the meat open with his bare hands, waving it in their shocked faces and demanding that they call it anything but medium rare. (Steve got the full tip from that table, despite the couple's fervent demand that I give nothing to "that uncultured man." Best money ever spent for a night that is now legend.)

Last night in the college cafeteria as I scanned the choices for dinner, my waitress-trained brain reduced every beautiful dish to shorthand: "Organic fed beef roast with a vegetable medley...spicy chicken stir fry...cous cous...and chocolate cream custard" becomes "spec w/veg...fry...CC...and tard." Crude? Maybe. But it gets the job done. If there's one thing I learned in the cafe it was that food doesn't have to sound pretty to taste good. Just take the horrible assault on the senses called Sour Cream and Raisin Pie. AMAZING. Really. Ask anybody.

I loved the bikers who came through on their way to Sturgis or Yellowstone. The stories they had to tell and the generous tips they offered. I loved my other waitresses, with whom I could talk openly about school, sex, life, and fight over the tables with the cutest guys. I almost soiled my jeans many times laughing so hard with the cooks and the dish-washers, and still miss the pies that Mary Margaret would make. I miss Sarah and Steve, who took up the immense task of being my guardian angels over the weeks and helped me believe in myself again. I even miss Gail, the owner of the Crazy Woman who up until the last couple weeks of work I was convinced hated me, because I was clumsy and broke things and asked for days off to trail cows with my cousins.

Being a janitor was also amazing, but in the "I can't believe I take this for granted so much" kind of way. Janitors are definitely some of the most under-appreciated people in the workforce, and for the first time I experienced what it was like to wax floors only to have a single table scratch them to pieces later, to shampoo and scrub and shine classrooms that would be demolished in a few weeks by children with innocent faces and sticky hands. I am forever grateful for Valerie and her patience with me, her stories about her grandchildren, and the talks that we had about growing up which ended in hugs and tears.

But the best memories came from the ranch, and from the family that lives there. Shara amazes me. I watched her calmly flip her baby boy Brandon over on her knee and administer CPR when he choked on his breakfast, while I stood frozen and helpless nearby completely freaking out. When the rest of the house is yelling and stomping trying to get organized and out the door, she is humming a song or wishing us well or making someone smile. Brandon seems to have absorbed this calming ability. One hot July night when I was staring up at the ceiling feeling lost and waiting for sleep that would not come, I heard him screaming in the room above mine. Minutes ticked by and he didn't go back to sleep, so with a sigh I got up and climbed the stairs to his room, finding him wide-eyed and howling at a nightmare. He clung to me when I picked him up and I sat with him in the rocking chair for nearly an hour, feeling my anxiety melt away with each passing minute as the little body I was trying to comfort comforted me instead.

Each of my cousins and I bond in a different way. For one it's video games, for another horse-back riding, and for a third it's fencing high up in the mountains, where troubles seem to be nonexistent. (Maybe hermits like John Muir and Jedidiah have the right idea.) We all bonded when Ten Sleep got struck with a nasty case of the flu, and we swapped barf buckets and fever reducers and played board games in the basement. Andrew even managed to drag me out on a couple of double dates with his friends, where I experienced another couple of "nevers:" fishing in the dark, archery, walking the train tracks at night. My Uncle and I might disagree on politics, but I will never be able to give him enough credit for picking the most beautiful place on the planet to live, or give enough thanks to my Aunt for working so hard for people (like me) who are often ungrateful. They are the people that helped me feel like myself again, helped me stop being so angry with the world and with God, and loved me in spite of me. They deserve medals.

This morning I look out my third-floor window at the campus beneath me, at the city spread out around me, and realize I feel the most at home walking through those wheat fields I can barely see shining gold and amber in the distance. For now, I will have to settle on weekend bike trips to find the open spaces free of cluttered living and a cluttered mind, but next summer you can bet I will be headed back to the place that opened its arms to me. Thanks Wyoming :)

Daring to Create

This was an undertaking for my journalism class--I am fascinated with the idea of composing music and have tried (and a pretty feeble attempt at that) to compose my own stuff. I loved this assignment and hearing from different composers my own age who are learning how to make it come alive.

Samuel G. Freedman, in his book Letters to a Young Journalist, writes: “There is something daring, then, in believing, as I believe, that journalism must do more than pander to prejudices. There is something daring in letting your own attitudes and orthodoxies rub up against inconvenient realities. There is something daring in taking on a burden of expertise, proving by your own example that being a journalist means more than putting up a Web site and saying you are.” While Freedman was talking about the written language and the act of investigative journalism, his message can be applied to any art form that is losing its place in concrete places. Creativity that once belonged on the stage, in the museum, and the in concert halls are being transferred to youtube, ebay, and iTunes, and Freedman asks his readers to dare to be different. Dare to not buy in to what is simply efficient. Dare to still seek quality with the digital age, and perhaps even despite it. He is asking us to create.

The first vinyl record my father ever owned was the Beatle’s Sergeant Pepper’s Lonely Heart Club. It was ranked number one in the Rolling Stone’s feature “the 500 Greatest Albums of All Time,” sold over eight million copies worldwide over several years, and was quoted as being “an unsurpassed work of concept, sound, and songwriting.” The album, released in 1967, had to be bought with dollars and cents at an actual record store. This meant that people actually had to get dressed, leave their homes, and pay the original listed price to get a portable playlist of their favorite tunes. Once purchased, getting the album home was another ordeal. Too bulky to carry in one’s pockets or bag, the record would have to be carried in both hands to a playing device either the size of a microwave or a small refrigerator before it could be enjoyed. If it were scratched, broken, or dirtied, the songs simply stopped playing.

The modern mind reels.

Forty two years later, I too purchased from my first big hit album. It was Lady Gaga’s “Poker Face,” which amassed an incredible ten million copies in less than one year, at least half of which were downloaded online. In the comfort of my pajamas, I logged into iTunes, dragged the digital track to my digital shopping cart, and headed to check out. There were no lines. No pushing or shoving at the counter. No risk of scratching or dirtying the cover. And within seconds the song was transferred literally into my pocket to be sung along with as I got ready for school. In less than two minutes I was able to own a song of relatively larger popularity for cheaper and enjoy it sooner than my father could have at the same age.

But perhaps “own” is the wrong word. John Lennon himself was quoted as saying: “Music is everybody's possession. It's only publishers who think that people own it.” This is precisely the mindset of music consumers today. Songs are streamed, pirated, uploaded, downloaded, traded, created, enhanced, and produced on a far wider and faster scale than in any other time in history. There are literally thousands of opportunities to swindle, share, discover, change, and enjoy the complex international language of music, and all that is needed is a little monitor and an Internet connection.

From this viewpoint, with the tools of music globally accessible to the public at large, it is hard to make room for old technology like vinyls, eight tracks, tape players, and CDs. Just as typewriters and pen and ink made way for digital processing and newspapers are making way to Internet news feeds and blogs, music, as another form of language, is now taking its turn to digitalization. The art of creating a new song is as simple as entering a few notes into a software program, synchronizing them together with digital beats and instrumentation, and printing off the finished product. This is how it’s done for hundreds of commercial jingles, vlog channels, video games, and even concert music for band students.

All of these advancements beg the question: does anyone make real music anymore? Is the future of music cutting and copying pre-made beats and spending more time with keyboard and mouse then piano keys, instruments, creativity, and pen and paper? Will inspiration dwindle and be replaced by online commercial supply and demand?

I know at least five people who refuse to let that become the future. They are individuals who still find inspiration in themselves, their friends, the world around them, and even in God. They are the few who for their own personal reasons and in their own way bring music to life and compose their message into new songs with depth and ingenuity. They are the few who dare to create.

Ian Troester-Solbrig is a student at ISU in Pocatello and one of the lead songwriters for a band he formed called “Walther’s Wallpaper,” specializing in ska and alternative music. He records and distributes much of his music on the Internet, and his band has its own page on Facebook with videos of their latest performances for fans to view. While this seems a complete embrace of the technological age of efficiency, consider this: when Ian composes a song, he treats it like an investigative journalist treats a breaking story. In lieu of a laptop or blackberry, he uses a notebook and a recorder to capture his ideas. He tape records musical phrases, chords, and bits of tunes that he is working on and then listens to them over again with paper and pencil in hand. In this way he is able to write and rewrite lyrics that fit the emotions he is trying to convey, and more often than not the initial rough copy of a song is a jumble of words and chords on paper. Only after this process has been tempered with to satisfaction is it put into a computer music program and saved for printing.

“There is no right or wrong in music composition,” Ian explains, “you’ve got to experiment beyond the confines of what you’ve already heard. I like to think that my songs reflect who I am and provide an artistic framework for me to explore my emotions, my philosophies, and my possible reactions to alternate realities.” In other words, Ian doesn’t have to cater to online popularity or use the techniques that are the most efficient to make music. He uses his own timetable and his own resources to create songs that are personal, interesting, and inspired.

Anna Chapman and Ricardo Osuna share similar views. Both music composition majors at College of Idaho, the two compose through their emotions to produce music developed for their own ideas and inspiration rather than to any specific audience. “When I start out writing a song or a piece I’m never sure if it’ll work out,” Ricardo admits, “I always start with a feeling or emotion in mind, then try to write a melody that I feel captures that feeling or emotion.” For Ricardo this means a lot of starting new projects before finishing original ones; constantly shifting directions until the music finally fits into place. The hardest part about this kind of composing is that there is no employer or online review to provide instant feedback on the songs, so Ricardo must become his own critic, and this often makes it harder to find confidence in personal music style.

But this doesn’t stop him from continuing to grow and develop as a composer, and as he does so he turns to the computer more and more often. That isn’t to say that he lets the program do the work for him. On the contrary, it takes a great deal of knowledge in improvisation and music theory to be able to layer the parts of a song and make it professional and complex. The process of making a jingle or a simple tune takes only the knowledge of clicking certain buttons in a certain order. But the results have no depth to them, and cannot convey the kind of emotions and inspiration that composers like Ricardo strive for. For educated musicians a composing program acts as an organizer and simpler means of saving projects in a more logical way then paper, so each time Ricardo needs to go back to a past idea and make major changes to it, he can.

Anna also struggles with “composer’s block” and leaving pieces unfinished, but unlike commercial musicians who labor to make their pieces more complex and interesting to listeners, Anna fights to make her pieces less complicated so that her audience can still hear the message underneath. She relies on a composing program called Finale 2009 for most of her music writing, which is considered the standard program for music writing and allows the musician to plug in an electronic keyboard to the computer and play the notes directly into the software. Like Ricardo and Ian, she begins her pieces on paper and then saves them to the software using what she has learned in music theory and research to connect it all together. Because she isn’t writing for a specific agenda or product, she has more creative freedom with her pieces and actually has to put in the effort to harness that creativity.

Think about it. If commercialized song-writers had complete creative liberty there would be no limits to length, content, complexity, instrumentation, or tone. A thirty second jingle for a toilet bowl cleaner might grow into a thirty minute symphony. Radio stations would lose their advertisement investments as the airtime for music grew from a few minutes between commercials to a few hours. There’s a reason that these songs have restrictions. Attention spans are short, particularly on the Internet. So what gives composers like Anna and Ricardo and Ian the advantage over those who write for companies?

The audience difference is obviously a big part of it, but music theory is also one thing that divides those who compose for efficiency from those who compose for themselves. Anna explains it this way: “I’ve heard [music theory] termed ‘informed intuition.,’ and it’s entirely true. A composer knows the theory in the notes and harmonies and is ‘informed,’ yet they must also allow the ear and creativity to guide the composition, which is the ‘intuition.’” Digital technology cannot invent intuition or creativity, nor can it teach the user the music theory skills needed to really operate it.

Anthony Parry is another C of I composition major who combines “informed intuition” and the digitalization of music together without losing the elements of either. “I compose for myself. When I sit down and compose, I get lost for hours. Time doesn’t exist to me anymore, and I completely envelop myself into whatever I’m writing. Music is an escape for me.” Based on this statement, Anthony’s passion for the language of music is clear, and so I was surprised to hear that his hopes for publishing were centered widely on the Internet. There are public domain access programs which allow companies to sample bits of music for use in commercials and production, and Anthony plans to be a part of this media sharing and begin publishing his work for others.

“My love of contemporary popular music has led me to believe that three minute songs will make people happy,” he remarked, and it is this compression and limitation of inspiration in the corporate world that has caused creative minds like Anthony and Rob Walker, a musical instructor at College of Idaho, to seek out employment in the entertainment and advertising agencies. Initially I was dismayed to hear a college student already limiting himself to employment in the mainstream, but listening to the rest of Anthony’s beliefs about composing and the things that inspire him I realized that there was a difference between blindly accepting the shift in what is marketable and remaining true to oneself.

Because Anthony spends time in music classes that help him grow creatively and allows his own talent to be tested with improvisation, and because he continues to write songs so that his own message can be heard, he is already different from the composers who pander only to the consumers. He knows that what sold in the music industry twenty years ago is different from what sells now. Getting hired here and there for advertisement is not only smart financially, it will also get him recognized by other groups who might be willing to publish his longer, inspired compositions for film soundtracks, concerts, and even internationally sold as sheet music for other orchestras and bands to perform world wide. And really, that is what music is for. Sharing the message of one creative mind to hundreds of others.

Rob Walker is no stranger to the corporate world. He has a large number of television and film credits to his name, including High School Musical III, College Road Trip, Fired Up, Friday Night Lights, The O.C., Ugly Betty, and Animal Planet; and he also recorded the music for NBC’s Triple Crown Coverage for horse derbies. Rob saw the trends in the composition business and followed them, and was more than accomplished enough as a musician to be given a deadline and an idea for a song and to write something with quality for publication in a short amount of time. But Rob still remains true to himself and his passion for music. As a jazz instructor at the college and an active musician in the community, he often improvises and composes in whatever genre inspires him most simply for the pleasure of bringing new music to life.

When asked what the hardest part of composing music was he replied: “Narrowing down the possibilities. I always use the analogy of asking an artist to create a picture. Go! An artist must make decisions such as watercolor or charcoal, canvas or paper, colorful or dark…once these parameters are set, creating the work is easy.” So although Rob has a hand in fast-paced production of media music, he also takes the time for his own music projects that use different materials and a fresh canvas for his ideas. This past spring he held his own compositional concert at the school to showcase songs he composed for choir, orchestra, band, and jazz alike, most notably of all a tribute to President Lincoln which took weeks of research and piecing together of old 19th century tunes together to create.

As Rob explained, “composers should learn all of the rules and then forget them or attempt to break them.” By selling songs for television and soundtracks, Rob follows a few guidelines and preferences for others, but on the side, he is still feeding his ingenuity with music that defies the standard, stretches limitations, and even makes parodies of media tunes and their simplistic nature.

All five of these individuals have dared to be different, and have worked hard to make their own musical vision continue to develop beyond the restrictions of downloads, deadlines, and distribution. For Ian, music is a love affair that began in his attempts to be the next Jimi Hendrix. For Ricardo, his passion is in the drive to create something that is his own and express himself. To Anna music is more than a part of her, it is a calling and a way to share her feelings for her friends and the world around her. Anthony explained composing as “opening up so many boxes to create feeling and emotion without words,” and finds inspiration in love, in life, and in nature. Rob uses music as an outlet for his ideas, whether professionally or for fun, and constantly keeps a new mental canvas ready for the next project.

While their inspirations and motives differ from one another, each of them agree on one thing: when asked what the most rewarding part of composing music was, each and every one of them replied “hearing it.” Hearing their vision come together and become real, whether in front of an audience of two or two hundred, is what composition is all about.



Sources:
1. "Beatle's Srgt. Pepper's Lonely Heart Club History". CD Universe. 20 May, 2010 .

2. Chapman, Anna. Interview by e-mail. 27 April, 2010.

3. "Finale".Wikipedia. 20 May, 2010 .

4. Freedman, Samuel G. Letters to a Young Journalist. Cambridge, MA: Basic Books, 2006.

5. "John Lennon Quotes". Great-Quotes-Powerful-Minds.com. 20 May, 2010 .

6. Osuna, Ricardo. Interview by e-mail. 27 April, 2010.

7. Parry, Anthony. Interview by e-mail. 27 April, 2010.

8. "The Fame". Wikipedia. 20 May, 2010 .

9. Troester-Solbrig, Ian. Interview by e-mail. 19 April, 2010.

10. Walker, Rob. Interview by e-mail. 16 April, 2010.

Minestrone Soup-As It Was Published

Minestrone Soup

By: Robyn Argyle

Maturity has a selective memory. Age six: the unique perspective of the waist-high. Flat marble counter tops reach high above my head, making it hard to reach the elusive Oreos. My feet remember cold linoleum floor and stiff carpets in ugly colors; dark brown, deep orange, and jungle green. Hands recall scraped palms from falling down, then the soothing wool of the cream blankets in the guest room, where my sister and I have a sleepover. Magic exists. There is glitter on the ceiling embedded in the stucco that looks like stars; a whole secret galaxy for us to name and own. Brightly colored tinker toys wait patiently in the closet for us to free, building cars and cities and make believe heroes from painted sticks and plastic wheels. My brother smashes my skyscraper, and I cry.

Smells. Bacon and butter frying in the morning. Old lady perfume. Outside in the garden, the smell of tomatoes, cucumbers, dirt, grass, and sky. The euphoria of squishing snails and worms on the sidewalk after rainfall. The sound of the rusting swing set creaking back and forth, back and forth. Aunt Ruth’s perfect hair. The way she never seems to stop smiling. Having two Uncles in one house. One has big glasses and laughs a lot. The other uses a walker and stutters when he talks. Sometimes we watch Little House on the Prairie together. Sometimes we just sit and I read the funny papers. Dinner is a big deal. We always have to eat the weird soup. It has beans and little noodles and green things floating in it. Unnatural things. Things that don’t belong in soup. I always eat a lot of rolls so I don’t have room for the soup. Although I always have room for ice cream.

Age eight: I’m not so certain about magic anymore, but death is real. One of my Uncles, the one with the big laugh, is lying motionless in a casket. He was the husband of my Aunt Ruth,

and he is gone. He could do a perfect Daffy Duck impression, and suddenly I realize that is all I really remember about him. I cry big, round tears for the man I barely knew.

The house seems emptier after that. Aunt Ruth looks the same. She is a rock. She is strong and always smiles, at least when people are watching. And her hair is still perfect. But she is frustrated. Everyone forces her to sit down. They take the dishes away from her and chop vegetables for the soup that I won’t eat. They hold her hand, and whisper memories and sympathies that will never bring my Uncle back. For the first time I see something else in my Aunt. I see exhaustion. I wish there was a way for me to protect her from the pestering relatives. I wonder if she wants to go to the garden. It always helps me, with its promises of growing and scurrying things.

Not today, she says. She smiles, but it’s an empty smile. Not today.

Age ten: my other Uncle is Aunt Ruth’s twin, Reed. He was born with “complications.” He has trouble speaking, and hearing, and seeing, and walking. When I say hello to him, I hold his hand and speak loudly and clearly. I listen hard to understand what he says back. I can reach the oreos myself now, and frequently do. My sister and I are grown up now so I have a guest room to myself. It is almost entirely green, like the garden. There is a painting over the bed of a little girl with a black eye and a crooked smile, sitting outside the principle’s office. Her painted parents have furrowed brows, but she looks so proud of herself it’s hard to be on their side. The caption says Tomboy. At night the window is always open and I hear trains go by till dawn. They make a sad, crying sound.

In the morning I go out and pick the biggest tomatoes I can find. I help my Aunt to wash them and cut them up for the soup, which I am now too polite to refuse to try. She looks tired

again, and she smiles a little less often. My parents wash the dishes for her and in return she presses them to accept the leftovers from dinner. There is a chalkboard hanging by the door, and as we leave I write “we love you” in big letters with yellow chalk.

Age thirteen: in the garden room again. As I slip into my pajamas I pause to examine something familiar and gray on the dresser. Aunt Ruth’s perfect hair. It’s a wig! Something clicks into place, and I open one of the dresser drawers and see some of Aunt Ruth’s folded laundry. This is her room. I am sleeping on her bed. Where is she sleeping tonight? Does she sleep at all?

I see my Aunt with new eyes. I ask her about the painting in her room, and for the first time in many hours she smiles. It’s a Norman Rockwell, she explains, and the tomboy in the picture is the spitting image of herself in grade school. Aunt Ruth, getting in fights with boys? Coming home in mud and tatters? I can’t imagine. I help her cook the bacon for breakfast. Real bacon, I realize. That’s expensive. I go to the fridge and see it crammed full of fresh food from the garden and more expensive food that looks brand new. Whole milk and olives and salad dressing. I wonder how much money she spends to feed us when we’re here. I wonder, when we aren’t visiting, how empty the fridge gets.

Uncle Reed shuffles up the stairs and takes his seat at the head of the table next to Ruth. She fits a bib on him and loads his plate with hot eggs and French toast. Sometimes he misses his mouth and food rolls onto the floor. Aunt Ruth picks it up, scolds her brother, and continues on in conversation with my parents. She waits until all of Uncle Reed’s food has disappeared before she touches her own, and I wonder if it has gone cold. I watch her through the meal and notice that she eats half as much as the rest of us before she is up again, collecting dishes, clearing the

table, ignoring our protests. She reminds me of the rabbit in those commercials, the one that never stops working and banging his drum. I wonder how and if she ever recharges.

I play with the neighbor’s dog until the neighbor chases me away and the sun chases the light from the sky. The garden room has changed in the hour or two since I’ve been outside. My clothes are in a neat pile in the corner instead of strewn around the room. The bed is made. When did she have the time to do this? I could have sworn that my Aunt never left the living room. I feel like crying.

That night when it is time for soup, I don’t complain about the green things. I even ask for seconds.

Age fifteen: Emergency Trip. We announce our arrival at the house with as much warning as a firing squad, and making about as much noise. Aunt Ruth has had maybe an hour’s notice before we show up at her door, and yet there is the steam of soup cooking on the stove, the smell of laundry detergent in the air. Aunt Ruth fills up bowls of dinner for us, empties out the bathroom so we can take turns showering, and somehow still finds the time to ask us about our lives. She remains calm, talks cheerfully through the night, and keeps us all from falling apart. I remember getting impatient for my turn in the bathroom. I remember being too upset to eat much of the soup she had prepared. I don’t remember ever saying thank you.

There are more of us than there are beds tonight, and as I stretch out on the couch, warm, fed, and safe, I catch a glimpse of my Aunt’s insomnia work ethic. I hear her in the kitchen washing dishes, and as I listen she begins to sing; a sweet, low tenor that I have never heard before. I didn’t know what song she sang, but I recognized the emotion. It was the train whistle out my window.

I fall asleep to her humming as she dries the dishes and wake up to her cracking eggs and stirring juice. Same place in front of the sink. Same clothes. Same expression. That morning everyone is in better spirits, healed by the good care we’ve been given. My parents offer to pay for groceries which Aunt Ruth refuses with her usual shake of the head. We give her hugs and promise not to drop in on her without warning again. And we don’t, not for a long time.

Age sixteen: another funeral service. This one is for Uncle Reed. Aunt Ruth ages before our eyes. Her hair is lopsided, her mouth set in a stern line. She doesn’t smile once. She forgets what she is saying as she’s saying it. She drops things. Strangest of all, she lets people help her and doesn’t argue. We have the soup as usual, but this time I imagine it tastes bitter and salty. Like tears.

Age seventeen: our last visit. The house feels empty and cold. The garden outside is overrun with weeds. My parents sit with Aunt Ruth for hours and hold her hand, the way we did with her brother. I walk through the room with the star-studded ceiling and to the closet. It’s still full of tinker toys and pictures of grandchildren smiling, as if nothing has changed. But it has. I can feel it. I go to the green room and look at the Tomboy picture, and wonder what my Aunt was like when she was my age. I realize that for all these years of visits, I’ve never seen her weak. I’ve never seen her spirit break down. Until now.

We clean up before we leave. We wash all the dishes and make our own beds. We are no longer the ungrateful guests; we are the caretakers. It is our turn to keep her from falling apart. I write “we love you” on the chalkboard as usual before we slide out the driveway, taking one last look back to the kitchen door. I can still feel the yellow dust on my hands hours later, as the freeway takes us home.

A few weeks after that, we receive the phone call we have been dreading. Aunt Ruth is with her husband making Daffy Duck impressions. She’s with her brother helping him finish his dinner. Her funeral is enormous, full of friends and neighbors and family and acquaintances, who remember her kindness, her strength, and especially, her cooking.

Age twenty: independent living. College is a test of perseverance and discovery that I am eager to pass. But sometimes, I feel swallowed up and small on campus. Sometimes I still feel like I’m standing on my toes in my Aunt’s kitchen, stretching high above my head for the elusive, just out of sight. I lay awake at night and hear the Caldwell station trains make their sad, crying chords; and for the first time I think I can put a name to that feeling: longing. On nights like this I find comfort in a cup of minestrone soup. There are still the green things, and the unnatural things, and it tastes like the can instead of her garden, but I think of the girl with the black eye and the crooked smile, and savor every drop.

*Picture by Chelsea Larson*

Rewriting Myself

"Robyn you baffle me"

Somehow I was not surprised. I'd gone into this "session" with the full intent of crossing my arms protectively around my heart and letting the man across from me ask the questions while I gave short answers which revealed nothing. I would be stone.

So much for that plan.

"Most people come into this place because someone else makes them. Most people don't want to see their problems and try to solve them. Most people, in fact, resent the very idea of counseling."

I flinched at the word. I couldn't help it. Counseling implies broken. Counseling implies troubled. I was neither. Or maybe I was both. I preferred the word survivor. I was still here, wasn't I? I hadn't taken the pain killers. I hadn't given up. Not yet anyway.

"You are not most people."

That got my attention. Wasn't I? I was just as hesitant about "getting help" as anyone else would be. I hadn't expected that I'd be sitting here facing this same man for over an hour and a half, words tumbling fast and measured and sometimes torn from me by sobs I could not control. He had handed me a tissue box with gentle concern and gone back to his seat opposite me, contemplating me like a bird contemplates something strange in the grass. Head cocked to the side, he listened and wrote and listened some more, sometimes interjecting with a question but never interrupting the flow of my story. I was surprised that so much time had passed and I still had more to say. I guess I had never told anyone the full details cover to cover before. It was my story. It was our story. And it was painful.

"Robyn, I want to help you." Sure you'll help me. I pictured prescriptions for strange pills. Referrals to psychiatrists in long coats who stood around and shook their heads at me, declaring me "incurable." Or even a round of flashcards where the "patient" stares at ink blobs for an hour wondering if this is all their life is worth. A bunch of half-formed splats on a note card. A series of accidents. Nonsense. It was all nonsense. Making something of nothing.

"You are obviously a writer. A story teller. Well, we are going to rewrite your story."

I thought about this. What did that mean? Here I had spilled my mistakes into his hands, laid out every doubt and fear and painful moment in a row like children lay out rails for a toy train to chug around. The perfect set-up for a train wreck. Only the wreck had already happened, and I was here to try to put it back on the rails.

I have written this particular story a thousand times in my head since last June, when it all started. Sometimes it was a drama, a soap opera where each of the actors cried a lot and seemed to take several episodes to get anywhere. Sometimes it was an action piece, or a love story, or a comedy. Sometimes it was even a fairy tale, complete with the words "happily ever after" inscribed in gold on the back cover. But most often, it was simply a tragedy. And that's where it stopped. That's why I was here. No matter how I looked at it, the past year of my life had been one big loss. Loss of family, loss of control, loss of self. And now loss of the only person who had come to know me better than I knew myself. The only person to say she truly hated me.

But to rewrite my story. This was something else again. How does one begin to rewrite themselves? Is that even possible? Was that saying I would ignore what I did? Forget my guilt and cast myself as a hero? Impossible. I couldn't do that. In at least one way, I was the villain in my own play, in turns ruining and trying to UN-ruin the lives of those around me. I couldn't change that. I couldn't re-script it. It had already happened.

But maybe my counselor meant something else. Maybe he was referring to the future. Could I change the future? Hadn't that been my goal for the last four months? Or was I still stuck in the past, just like all of us? Was I only fooling myself when I said that I had gotten better, had stopped my old habits? Suddenly I wasn't sure.

I hope to God that you never know what it feels like to want to die. To know that your actions may have helped cause someone else to want to die. I had contemplated suicide, helped cause someone else to contemplate it, and talked another person out of it; all in a matter of weeks. I told them that life was worth living, even though I wasn't so sure myself. I was driven to undo the damage I had helped to inflict, and in the process I forged a deep connection with a woman that until January, I hardly knew.

This young woman and I had a strange understanding. Over weeks of e-mails, messages, and visits, we got to know each other. I realized the extent of my influence on her life and tried to reverse it, to smooth out the bumps and return her to the simple road she once traveled down. Only it wasn't so simple to begin with, and the scars of past misunderstandings cast a shadow over everything. Depression was common. Mood swings were common. One week she was as serene as a lake; still as glass. She told me she loved me as a sister, and she forgave me, and that things were getting better. The next week she was a raging swollen tide, shattering in on itself and reminding me of my part in her pain. She shouted her rage, her hatred for me, and the hopelessness of her life.

I could only tread water in this host of intense emotions, neither drowning nor making any progress to land and to normalcy. But what was normalcy anymore? Did it even exist? I didn't realize that I was so invested, so convinced that if I wasn't able to help her than I was a failure. In the end she shut me out entirely, choosing to keep the hate and discard the friendship.

Can this be rewritten? I don't think so. I am not the author of her life, and as much as I would like to say that I never did anything wrong in trying to help her, I know that is a lie. I know sometimes I made it worse. And maybe it wasn't intentional, but in this life, that hardly matters.

So what CAN be rewritten? Not the past, because it is already done. And not the future, because it is full of uncertainty and pain. But maybe the present. Maybe I can dedicate myself to this moment, and this day, to not hurting anyone anymore.

I'm sorry for the changes I made, and the person I became in the process. I'm auditioning for a new part now, and I hope it makes a difference.