141 292
All the voices
141
to mention him? Because
if you think I’m a weirdo
I don’t know what you’d
make of Ciaran. I dislike
the thought that our
weirdnesses may be linked
and everything could all
be, you know, genetically
ordained. In that case
there’d be no possibility of
escaping. Would there.
Most particularly, I didn’t
want my whole life
wrapped up in a musical
haze the way most people
seemed to do. I liked
silence itself, also ordinary
sounds. Such as the scrape
of chair-legs against rough
floor surfaces, or the noise
of paper being crumpled
up if you squeezed it into
a ball. I didn’t know all the
sounds that interested me,
butmusic itself I kept trying
my best to avoid. Because
of the way it envelops
someone so that they can’t
think clearly. Your mind
can get overpowered and
you become, oh I don’t
know. … somebody else’s
puppet. You lose yourself.
Some people say that’s a
good thing, losing yourself.
I supposetheymeanyou let
go of anxieties. And there
is something to that. For
that’s what happens to me
when I dance. I feel calmer,
better, and I don’t focus on
my leg imbalance. But the
difference is the dancing
is
me
. It’s all mine. It’s not
something from beyond
myself, controlling me and
makingme do things, while
I hang helpless, at the end
of a piece of string. It’s
not something from the
outside that invades you
on the inside. It is what
you truly are.
A further thought: Music
makes you believe you