When I look at a fretboard, I am aware that I am seeing something beyond the wood. I know that somewhere within, every song I will ever and could ever stumble into writing is lying dormant, cut into shy, inconspicuous fragments and scattered across six strings. I know it is the task and pleasure of my life to dig out the secrets which, while locked away in the corpse of a tree I have never met, are undeniably my own. I know these secrets do not live in me; they are transfused through the gentle kissing of rosewood and fingertips, and expose the things I seek to be.
I wonder what a dancer sees when she looks upon herself. Does her body serve as the conduit for that same uncanny void, or is each routine cultivated in a garden of self-discovery with care and intentionality? Is elegance in movement an inseparable product of the feet and the ground they touch? Could I learn to move myself like an instrument in the same way I’ve learned to move sound?