Straight No Chaser

Mia Says Music

m again. i was thinking i'd try something a little different and not make this entry be about marcus, but then i thought again, and why bother? so i visited scroll and passed around a prompt collection plate of sorts (which reminds me, happy easter to anyone who observes it); came back with viable ideas from three fellow scrollers. fortunately, as i told them, i'm long-winded, so it's highly feasible that i'll find a way to touch on all of them in one delicious anecdote. this'll be chunky, but it's one of my favorite memories, so please pardon the hard time i'll have keeping it continuous.

i love music. i know that's not a particularly meaningful statement; everyone says the same thing. and it doesn't help matters that i'm a fifteen-year piano veteran, or that when i say i love music i mean it elevates me to metaphysical orgasms, or that i have a greater knowledge of discographical trivia than most people twice my age, or even that i'm as well-versed in romantic-era orchestral as i am in avant-garde jazz--and know more about both than i do about the ying yang twins. so why even bring it up? only to say that music was one of the first conduits through which marcus and i truly connected, the day we met; as i remember, we danced, and i was shy, and he whispered something in my ear about the dissonant strings, and from that moment i knew i was dealing with someone wonderful.

my favorite piece of music is scheherazade, by the russian composer nicolai rimsky-korsakov. it stands to reason, because arabian nights is one of my favorite books, and because i just love the scheherazade story in general--we're both storytellers, she and i, and who better to idolize? it's just the perfect love story, as far as i'm concerned. the symphony, for anyone who doesn't know, is divided into four distinct movements, with a few unifying themes woven through, and there's this one string theme--it's beautiful. real personality in each one; i use it to categorize people. marcus is the second movement (self-assured and highly perfunctory, but with rare lapses into melodic humility). i'm the third (tenuous and overemotive with frequent, rewarding climaxes) (yeah, that's pretty much the extent of my self-analysis).

he'd never heard it, and last christmas i really wanted to share it with him. he was home in louisiana and i was home in maryland, and i sent him a package containing my own retelling of the story, a cd containing the four movements, and a poem i'd written that ran parallel. he got it the day before he flew back to atlanta.

our first day back, we listened to it together on my bed. i told him the story, creatively (the way scheherazade would, i hope) with the first movement playing softly in the background. he listened with his eyes closed and made really intelligent remarks throughout; i was COMPLETELY tense the entire time, one hundred percent worried he'd hate it or something. he didn't. he loved the first movement and was wild about the second (which made me happy; i pegged him right). the third movement made him horny ("it sounds like you" is what he said, and my heart skipped about three hundred beats). by the fourth movement we were kissing, and i don't think we even noticed when it went off. that was our new year's kiss, our first kiss--not exactly my first kiss, which was sarah's prompt, but close enough, because it's the one i'll remember long after those earlier ones fade away.

we kept that first kiss under control, more or less, not only because krystle was due back to the room, but because it was early in our physical relationship--i was still getting used to his cues, and making discoveries that gave me pause at every turn. plus those forty-five minutes were about the music. by consequence, i can't listen to anything by rimsky-korsakov without wanting him nearby, and the fourth movement of scheherazade (climactic section with lots of cymbals, represents a storm; fitting) leaves me thinking musical but unchaste thoughts.

he says i'm music to his ears/eyes/heart/(other body parts) and i don't know if i can reciprocate, but there's an ever-growing list of musical moments made a thousand times better by his presence. that one's at the top.

so there they are: a positive memory, a first kiss, and music. i bent everyone's prompts a little, but yum.