She loves the sound of an oboe. Her eyes
sparkle when she hears one play
– regardless of the source.
She says it sounds clean, like a human voice singing “ahhh”
in a clear, solid tone. She wants to show me but I
never hear it the way she does. She says it's a mystery to
her. The sound confounds her, it seems as if it's playing in the back
of her head and not in her ears.
It's
part of her somehow, I guess.
She skips the
blaring trumpets, honking clarinets, and avoids the plink of a piano.
She wants to compose music for a
hundred oboes. She only wishes she could read and write music.
When the music plays I can see the chills run up her arms as her eyes
close. I
wish I could hear sound the way she does- maybe I would finally understand
what she means when she says my voice makes her
smile.
I don’t think I’ve ever sung to her. I could never find a song that
would tell her the things I want to say.
Her music encompasses everything she is, takes the front seat in her car,
the sofa in her living room, sometimes my side of the bed. She sits
cross-legged on the bed with her records splayed out before her like a giant
game of solitaire.
In her headphones, oblivious of me, she glances at the lyrics off the
back of an old record, or sings off-tune to Ben Folds while painting her
toenails. If she could hear herself sing I doubt if it would make her stop.
Sometimes I sneak up behind her and bat her with a
pillow. She throws it
back at me with a embarrassed laugh, continues singing, and flips me off.
I can see the music in her smile and I wish I could capture it in
oboes-
I could make it the soundtrack of my life.
She pulls the headphones from her ears and jumps over to me, her lithe
arms around my neck, and kisses me. She pulls me close and kisses me on the
ear. All I can hear are oboes in
her laughter– “ahhh”