Suspension

All year long I've felt like something important - something huge, even - was going to happen to me. My life and daily routine have felt like a suspended chord, waiting to be resolved. In my opinion there are few things in music that are more beautiful or interesting to listen to; however, it had never occurred to me until I became a suspended chord, as it were, why it's so cool.

Pardon the crudeness of the following figure, but, as I lack an adequate musical vocabulary to explain this, I find it easier to express this idea with a picture:

Lines one and two progress together at first. When line two drops down, however, an indeterminately long interval ensues during which we don't know if or when line one will drop and resolve the situation. The anxiety we experience during the interval is fueled by our expectation of the resolution. Sometimes the added tone is never resolved.

The band Sigur Ros exploits this effect all the time.

One of my longest-running and most cherished crushes left for a while and then came back recently. While she was gone I experienced the effects of a kind of suspended crush. My life continued in her absence, but I anticipated her return in the same way one anticipates the resolution of a suspended chord: what would happen when she came home? Meanwhile, I found it extremely difficult to commit to anyone else - I had to know how this could end.

Well, she came home, and after a few weeks, she picked the other guy.

The crazy thing is that I almost don't even care. The resolution was all that mattered. Naturally, I wish it would have worked out between us, for us; but, the fact that it worked out at all has set me free in a sense and made me realize that maybe this has been going on since well before she left. Entirely too long. How long have I been committed to a groundless expectation? It's amazing how the work of years can be undone in a matter of weeks.

Anyway, I'm ready, for the first time in a long time, for a new verse, if not a new song altogether.

Is this cheesy and stupid? Of course! Lives are little more than the accumulation of cliches rendered meaningful by lived experience.

Important.

Huge.

I guess twenty-four has been a good year after all.

...And a good excuse to listen to Blood on the Tracks over and over again.