Tiptoe into Hope

By Heather Michelle Williams

Here’s some poetic thoughts:

While sitting in the morning bath, I hear my very independently motivated son begin his diligent devotion to his practice of piano. The notes hook into my hearing to perk my ears up,

causing me to remember the inspiration of years back when I was a music major in a Christian college.

Music asks questions. It calls you to hope.

It makes you think: if music can be low, then high, so can you. Music does healing work.

I think back to those college professors who taught music. Of course they were different from the other professors. They were constantly lulled out of the humdrum of life by the chords that tell the deep truth of hope, that ring out into the air just like the visible scent you see on those old cartoons that draws the characters to float away with the smell through mid-air.

Music is what feelings sound like.

Sometimes, I like a song in minor key. My professors explained those as sad-sounding songs. But there is more to it than that. The minor keys open the cellar door, calling to the deep in our souls. Calling out to let what is down there come out.

Many people can’t handle that. They have hidden too many sad or scared thoughts down there, never to see the light of day again. They keep it locked so no one else will find those thoughts either. No only that, but they run from that door, always scared the deep will find them again and overtake them.

I like a minor key song sometimes, though, even a sad movie sometimes. It calls to the deep. It doesn’t jump out and trap me—because I have let my deep out. I have let the light shine into it, the golden warm glow that alters the chilled, untouched air that would be deep in a root cellar.

Happy seems like the goal. Happy feels good. It is universally recognized as a positive. I have to question if happy even occurs on level ground. Is it not the dips that lead you down and back up to heights that make happy recognizable?

I can’t remember before anything ever happened to me if happy meant what it does now.

The opposite of deep is not high, but shallow. Shallow waters are where most people will stay. What’s down deep scares them too much. Too much is unprocessed and so, still haunts them.

The opposite of high is low, referring to ground area.

High is a similarity to deep. Both are extremes. Places we cannot live but only visit and come back to shallow or else high would not be high and deep would not be deep.

Therefore, middle is synonymous with shallow and opposite of high and deep.

Earth people, we walk on middle ground. In any case, we have a portal to the depths and the heights within our very souls. Most people keep those portals closed and convince themselves that they do not exist.

I cannot deny the times that I was carried away as the cartoons are by an alluring aroma when the heights are intriguing my very inner-being. I cannot forget the times the deep depths of my soul called out to be filled with hope like a well that had dried up leaving only crusted mud. Knowing there was more but not having a flow to fill it, I once pushed a cover over that empty, disappointed, deep, deep well. It hurt too much for it to be empty.

One day, I can’t exactly say when, it somehow became open again. It may very well have been sitting in one of those music classrooms when a missionary came to speak to us. Yes, something did open that day. And something did flow again that had been stopped up for a long time. Tears were evidence of the opening back up of something that had been abandoned, and left lifeless... but not dead.

Today the well overflows with life and hope and inspiration. Dreams can come true. Listen to the notes. The highs and the lows. The middle is beautiful on its own. Lovely melodies can be made. However, when the low chords are added, such texture can be appreciated. When the fingers tiptoe over to reach a couple of higher notes every now and again, it lifts the soul, giving a new median. The brain is given notice that there is something above what is normal. Something to think on, something to hope for again, something that gives light to your life.

A whole song full of only highs would be almost unbearable. Consequently, these tiptoe notes show up on cue through the humdrum textured other notes.

Notice the beauty. It is collateral and unexpected. It is undeserved but bound to showcase! Open up the inevitable.