Page 111 of Life Out of Order

“She wants to know what happened to Jasper. He seems to have vanished off the earth.”

“Maybe that’s good? I thought she didn’t want to deal with him.” I like watching Mama cook. She claims she’s a bad cook but she isn’t, now; she moves around the kitchen like it’s her studio, it’s like watching her make paper.

“She doesn’t want to get in touch with him,” Mama says. “She just wants to know he’s safe and find out if he’s the one who messed with her servers.”

“Oh. Couldn’t she just ask future Alba? It would be a lot cheaper, I bet.”

Mama considers. “How would your future self know, unless somebody investigates?”

“I dunno. Causal loops are weird. Maybe future Beck told me and I could tell her . . . ?”

“Maybe. Ask yourself, next time you see her. Beck is pretty worried.” The toast pops up and we both startle. Mama puts the toast on her plate and scoops the eggs out of the water and onto her toast. She sits with me. The sun lights up everything on the table: white plates, smears of egg yolk, the texture of the toasted bread. Mama squints and looks at me closely. “Alba, are you getting enough sleep? You have big dark circles under your eyes.”

“Um, no? Probably not. I try, but I lie in bed with a squillion things going through my head and I can’t stop thinking. It’s too loud in my brain.”

“What kind of things?”

“Stuff from the news; all those shootings, especially those people who got shot in church.”

Mama looks shocked and I think, uh-oh. She says, “What people? What church?”

I feel terrible. I’ve screwed up. “Maybe it hasn’t happened yet?” Mama and I sit quietly, struggling with the urge to do something. We both know we can’t stop it. It’s already happened. We have not yet arrived in the part of time where it happens, but if I know about it, it’s there.

Mama takes a deep breath. “It’s terrible knowing about things and not being able to change them. Maybe you need to think about things you can change.”

“Like what?”

“Well, maybe you should stop following the news for a while. Make some music, instead.”

I agree, but I already know more than I want to: next year’s presidential election results, all the crazy hate crimes, the pandemic, the civil war, climate change . . . but I can’t tell Mama. I don’t want to know these things. Knowing the future doesn’t help. All my friends are working on political campaigns or volunteering at homeless shelters. “What good is music if it doesn’t help people?”

Mama doesn’t say anything right away and I think I’ve upset her. She gets up and pours herself a cup of coffee. When she sits down again she says, “Who says music doesn’t help people?”

“I mean, you can’t eat it. You can’t live in it or wear it. It’s not useful.”

“There, I think you’re wrong, Alba. Music gives people joy, and joy is very good for a person. Read up on the science of how the brain experiences art. Art can reshape your brain. Music in particular can change your mood, it can be very healing. Your dad always said that music helped him stay in the present, and I think it does that for you, too; it helps you concentrate, and when you concentrate you don’t time travel so much.”

“Yeah. But then I get stage fright and I’m gone. Music only helps me when I’m playing it for myself. So I don’t think I can save the world by playing music.”

“Who said you have to save the world? Start small. If you don’t want an audience, maybe you should find other musicians to play your music. Then you won’t be worrying about making mistakes; you can solve problems in the studio and present the piece when it’s ready, like I do.” Mama collects her dishes and brings them to the sink.

I add mine and start to run the water into the basin. “I don’t worry about mistakes, that’s not why I disappear. I just don’t like everyone watching me.”

Mama laughs. She has a nice laugh, it makes me feel better. “Alba. Art isn’t something you owe to anyone. Your dad wanted you to have music because he loved it, and he thought you might love it. Your grandfather could see that you have a gift, and he wanted you to be able to use that gift. But neither of them needed you to play Carnegie Hall. Terryl says you are very inventive, that he enjoys listening to you improvise. But if you don’t want to make music, you don’t have to. It’s yours, and if it makes you happy to play for yourself, then that’s all you need to do.”

“Okay.” I want to get out of the kitchen before she says anything else, to think about what she’s just said. Instead, Mama takes her coffee and heads out the back door to her studio, leaving me to do the dishes.

Sunday, June 7, 2015

Clare: These days our lives are conducted around the dining room table. When Henry was alive, there might have been salt and pepper shakers or a newspaper on it, but we didn’t spend time sitting around between meals. Then Alba started school, and every school night she sat at the table telling us about her day in kindergarten while Henry cooked. We’d eat with her art projects and violin homework pushed over to the empty, fourth place at the table, then I would wash the dishes and Henry would listen to Alba play violin.

After Beck moved in, we started to leave more things on the table: books, laptops, phones, earbuds, paper and pens, cups of half-drunk liquids, sketches for sculptures, lists. Once in a while someone tidies up, when the clutter becomes too sticky or we need space to think.

This morning after breakfast Alba cleared the table and did the dishes without being asked. Then she brought a thick stack of blank staff paper and some pencils, an eraser and a little green plastic sharpener to her place, arranged it all very neatly and sat down and sharpened the pencils. Now she’s been staring out the window for half an hour. The paper is untouched.

I finish reading the newspaper and gather it up. Neither Beck nor Alba have any interest in The New York Times in physical form. Dead trees, they both say. I feel a little ridiculous insisting that I read differently on paper; mostly I just love the ritual. I find it restful. I love the feel of the smooth newsprint on my fingertips and the way I end up smudged with ink after a morning’s reading. Also there are lots of useful things I can do with the newspapers in the studio, it’s practically an art supply. I zip out the back door into the wind and through the mud to my studio, leave the newspapers in the box with the others, and return to the dining room with an armful of linen rags to find Alba unhappily leaning her chin into both hands with her elbows splayed on the table, the very picture of writer’s block.

“Would you like some coffee?” I ask as I plop the rags on the table. I need to cut them into small pieces before I can put them in the beater to make paper pulp.