Am I flying?

On Friday we didn’t have Philosophy&Ethics so Freddie and I ran up to the little school church where it smelt like old incense and dust. It was empty and open so we headed straight to the Grand Piano, passing all the neat seats and glazed windows. It was so quiet, the kind of silence that comes with great space. I dragged a small, green-velvet bench that smelt exactly like the church closer to the piano and curled-up on it slowly as Freddie began playing. I closed my eyes and listened to the notes ring through the room in wonderful reverb. They mixed together and melted, danced, sang as fingers swept over notes, playing made-up combinations or Queen and Regina Spektor and November Rain songs. I felt myself become detached from the word of thought and movement and stress and into one of deep, changing sound.

I have no idea how long we were there, but as we left, going down the stairs, we met a woman who looked up to us and thanked us for the scene we created. She was there for some guided prayer and I felt a little awkward but more touched when she said that Freddie’s music and my rest in it created something beautiful that connected her with God, like worship, making me painfully aware that neither of us believes in him. But we smiled and felt a sort of restful happiness because, isn’t that the beauty of music, of art in general; that it isn’t an equation with infinity-minus-one wrong answers? It is something which can be interpreted and felt and just breathed-in in so many different ways....And billions of people around the world were doing different things but us, we were there, there, where the ones who can listen go.