What started as a night out at a one-man comedy show had imploded unexpectedly into a singing prayer circle. I was holding hands with people on either side of me in the theater, our arms stretched awkwardly across seat backs, twisted over shoulders, and laying lightly on each other's legs. The solo performer sang a song, and someone hugged him spontaneously. The girl on my left held my hand softly, she did not squeeze, she did not look at me meaningfully, and her hand did not sweat and her arm did not shake with feeling toward what was happening. I still hated her intensely. I concentrated on keeping all the tension in my body out of my arms and my hands and clenched my jaw. I thought my teeth would have melted together by the time my hands came free and came together on their own in my lap.
Coming from a small, church-on-every-corner town in Oklahoma, I am never surprised to watch what should be normal situations flip suddenly into evangelical nightmares. I had grown up beautifully and blindly faithful, quickly becoming a deacon in my Presbyterian church and regularly writing the printed prayers in my church bulletin. One Sunday I was at the mic-ed pulpit, leading my very own prayer, when I heard a small guttural grunt of assent from an older man in the first row, and my stomach turned. In a flash of a realization more staunch then there-is-no-Santa-Claus, I knew I did not write to inspire empathy, or sympathy, or goosebumps that people wouldn't understand. I no longer wanted to be swept up in the up-and-down rhythm and dynamics of a preacher's voice, and I would not sing "Amazing Grace" to hold my mother's hand and feel close to her for no reason.
I stopped going to church, and I've regularly avoided the kitschy feeling associated with organized religion. But just as you feel unused love inside of you when you lose a lover, I felt a sort of urgency to quietly worship something abstract.
This is precisely the reason that I hide out in a practice room with a marimba and play pieces by Mr. Johann Sebastian Bach, over and over and over. It is only recently that I realize their effect moves beyond therapeutic to outright life-changing and I've decided to put words in Mr. Bach's mouth and try to understand why every Sunday night I'll end my practicing with a quiet cello prelude and me believing that somehow, yes, I'll find a way to get through this next week.
The first important thing to understand about the works of Bach is that he wrote solo works, and plenty of them, meaning I can indulge in the solitude I crave. The last thing I want in a moment of distress is to have to check the wrong notes of a partner or try to gauge his emotional content. These are for me and I may say anything with them I please. Which is a surprise -- my favorite parts of church when I was younger were the crowd-linked swayings of "Our God is an Awesome God," when goose bumps pop up so easily on your arms and anything said from the pulpit at that heightened collective moment would swing straight into your heart as the truth.
The second important thing to understand is that Bach was smarter than everybody else. Especially the folks that continue to try to play his works. A look inside of his head must reveal, instead of a brain, an interlocking batch of festering reason, volatile yet perfectly in order. The opening measure of a Bach piece is unfailingly beautiful yet extremely catchy -- meaning you are not allowed to stretch rhythm past the point of understanding, and you must be unfailing in note accuracy and consistency. Coming from a young lady that often discovers her milk on top of the fridge and her Cheerio's chilling inside on the top shelf, the infuriating discipline it takes to piece together a Bach work is almost refreshing. Playing Bach also exposes a player to levels of unequivocal accountability -- sitting in the audience during a careless rendition feels like you're watching someone back his car over a newborn baby.
There is another important thing about Bach that is the sweetest and most resonant with me. Everything is simple. Bach's music is the equivalent to talking to a rancher -- you hear what you need to know and no pseudo-hipster-intellectual ramblings covering it up. It's simple, it's clear, it builds on foundational harmonies, and it's always going somewhere. After it states something a few times, it moves on, trusting that you understand and not feeling the need to color it further. There is no confidence more beautiful than the confidence that is quiet and brief.
My confidence in talking about Bach may insinuate that I am a confident and somewhat arrogant performer of his works, but it's quite the opposite. I have never gotten through a performance of any of his works without violently shaking hands, without a brain clinging to memorized notes yet irrationally panicking about future passages. I am aware when I am involved in something that is bigger than I am.
This is all that went through my head as people around me at the one-man-comedy-turned-God show clasped hands, and talked about energy and consciousness and manifestations of this and that. These were not gentle or calm thoughts, I was angry and I thought their actions were bullshit and their words were wasting space. The older women in pancho-like crocheted shawls that were suddenly talking about repressed emotions and motivations and the younger kids talking about their centers and their vibes and feelings -- I didn't need that. I don't need group sympathy to make me shiver now. I don't feel like I have a single thing to say in these situations. I don't need to hold your hand, and we won't share misty eyes together. A month ago I played Bach for my friend, and he cried, and that was all I had to say.
