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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