Is the light at the end of the tunnel really just a train?

I was wandering through the Karangahake Gorge, just on the outskirts of Waihi, New Zealand, a few weeks ago.  There are a number of tracks that meander beside the river, exploring the remains of the old gold mines.  In some places, the tracks edge into, and through, the rock face, requiring the explorer to walk through tunnels with little light.  I'm not a fan of little light.  It scares me to have to step into darkness from the warm summer's day I have been immersed in.  I would force myself to take one step at a time, heart pounding, trying to avoid the puddles that I could barely see beneath my feet.  The darkness and coolness were highlighted by the warmth and security of what I had left behind.

In my previous entry I claimed I didn't have a specific point for this blog.  I've realised I do.  To share with whoever reads this, my journey about taking ownership of being a composer.  For 7 years I have taken one step at a time into an area that is dark, cold and very uncertain.  As the years have progressed the darkness and coolness have increased.  And yet, to turn back would smother what grows inside me with each step - to explore the possibility of living a life creating music, living a life dedicated to giving beauty and discovering meaning in a world where my eyes often fail to see it.  How strange, to have to step into something before you realise this is precisely where you need to tread.  How strange, that it is in the very act of believing that the soft voice that whispers in your heart, may actually be there for a reason, and it may yet be heard and give some fulfilment to an unknown ache, before you can give it room to have a voice.

I have run from the truth that I want to create for many years.  To admit it, is to face the fact that I don't know how I am to do it.  Admitting it brings that desire into the light, for all to see, and harder yet, for me to see.  And I'm afraid of seeing.  I'm afraid of what might be in the dark.  But, when one turns and faces the whispers that haunt the canyons in ones soul, when you seek them out and find where they are coming from, it gives room for change, it gives room for the possibility of stepping beyond what you know, into the great unknown, and discovering the immense possibility of living.  If, on my journey, I am not willing to tread beyond what I can fully see and fully know, how can I continue on?  All around me I will find rock walls, or dark tunnels.  If I attempt to spend my life only in the light and not step into the unseen, my world will become increasingly smaller.  I am 'safe' in my daylight, the daylight that I know, yet my journey will cease if I cannot step into and through the darkness, and embrace the coolness of the next tunnel.

I am a composer.  That scares me.  My life will be a pattern of known, unknown, know, unknown.  I have not taken ownership of that until now.  2 years ago, when going through my first patch of 'unknown', there was a week when, at the end of my rope, worn out from 2 months of no work after much promise of a bright future during my studies, I took time out and I stopped, turned, and faced the whispers that had been causing me to run from the yearning to create.  I realised that I feared composing as it was like creating a castle in the clouds.  A composer is at the bottom of the food chain when it comes to making music.  I have an idea and I write it down.  I give it to a performer who interprets what I say, and then in turn, conveys it to an audience.  Anywhere along that chain, something can go wrong, and my idea can be misinterpreted, misheard or misunderstood.  At any moment the castle can be blown away.  And yet, if I do not create these castles, something in me is smothered.  I am willing to face that fear, and face the unknown, for the times when it does work, and I cry, and they cry, and we all have a new understanding of some profound mystery, are worth all the times that I've got wet feet, and a sore head from banging into another cold, wet, rock wall.

A Musician's Musings

This is the blog of a freelance composer.  I write music for a living.  Mostly.  Last year I ended up with 4 part time jobs.  Can you call yourself a free lance composer when you are earning a living from 4 part time jobs?  3 of them were music related, so maybe that label's ok.  It's only been in the past month that I have begun to call myself a composer, even though I have been earning some sort of living from this occupation since finishing my Masters in it 2 years ago.  It is very hard to take ownership of something that has come to fruition through loss, pain, fear and deep confusion.  The only reason that now, when people ask me what I do, and I say I'm a composer, is because I am currently writing music for a film, my first commission.  It has been delayed a number of times and I've ended up with a very, very long holiday.   When asked what I do, I have no choice but to say composer, as that, currently, is my only clear form of occupying my time, when it does.  Being a deep thinker and very much in touch with my emotions, a long holiday means: many, many thoughts, and many, many feelings and many, many tired nights of mulling over life, God, relationships, the cosmos, love, fear, and identity.

I have contemplated blogging for a long time and it is purely out of sheer frustration that I begin now.  Frustration about life.  Frustration about trying to figure it all out knowing full well I never will.  Frustration about having 'great revelations' but with none to share them with as many grow tired of my 'great revelations'.  Common phrases I hear from well-meaning friends and relations often run along the lines of: 'just stop thinking Hannah,' 'just go with the flow Hannah,' or 'get a real job Hannah.'  Telling me to stop thinking is like telling me to stop breathing.  Telling me to just chill out sometimes works, when I'm willing to stop thinking. And telling me to get a real job is an impossibility, as I'm so overqualified that no intelligent store owner would want to hire a unintentional musician who has spent 5 years at University and 2 years as a free lance composer.  Any jobs that I have acquired that have not been music based have been due to the fact that I heard of the job through friends of a friend, and those who hire me have not asked for a CV, or the job only runs for a month and therefore anyone is welcomed, well educated or not.

Welcome to my life.  Welcome to my heart.  Few have been invited in until now as it has taken me years to welcome myself there.  I have no goal for this blog, and nothing in particular that I am trying to achieve.   My life is not driven by a vision, or a 'where I want to be in 10 years time' plan.  At the beginning of last year, when 5 projects I was to be involved in fell through, each getting more and more ridiculous - from writing orchestral music for a rock band based in Auckland, New Zealand, to a workshop in the Amazon Rainforest recording the sounds of the jungle - I realised that my life needed to be grounded in something far greater than a 'vision'.  Or a 10 year plan.  I can barely plan out a week, let alone a decade.  My only desire in life is to be honest with God, honest with myself, and through these, be able to be honest and open with those around me.  This has taken years to come to, and at the tender age of 25, I am aware there are many more years still to come in this process.  Join with me, if you would like, in my musings, my revelations, my questions, and my discoveries while on this journey called life.