She's Got Wings

Rubato and the Art of Flight

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Rubato is what makes you cry when you hear Moonlight Sonata played in C minor at the Royal Albert Hall. This rhythmic freedom transforms a mechanical score into a living organism that ebbs and flows with artistic interpretation. A disregard for strict musical notation.

Just as a flexible melody line wanders nimbly to and fro upon the balance beam of the tempo, some people are created to stand outside the walls of convention. Others are the anchors of society; The Metronome. Both types of people are significant but also very different from the other. Some have wheels and some have wings.

As someone born to fly, I get disenchanted and wearied on a long country road. I need a runway to operate as I should. To use my wings and generate lift. The problem comes when the person with wheels criticizes the other for having wings simply because he doesn’t have wings himself and so, doesn’t understand. It’s like The Musical Pulse criticizing The Passionate Melody for ‘dragging time’. Or the one with wings blasting the one with wheels for not getting off the ground when all she needs is to let the wind blow through her hair as she goes from 0 to 60.

I was born in a circus tent. Life was never neat and tidy. We played with tiger cubs on the cheap linoleum of the living room floor and ate dinner on a cedar chest where clown accessories were kept. In the same spirit, when I play and sing, it’s in a passionate praise for this brief slither of time we call life. Intense expression finds a home within the emotion of the moment.

And so I carry a torch for my fellow Travelers who dream of life beyond these city walls. You who Riot the Monotony of thoughtless ritual. Who feel trapped by a societal norm that leaves no room for the messy and untamed. To those with a restless expectation that when morning comes, a Wizard will be standing in your doorway with a tale of adventure and a fresh horse.

I can’t sit still. Wings rust if they don’t regularly take to flight. Even now I can hear a faint song in the wind that echoes from a distant land as Wanderlust calls from her grassy knoll.

My gypsy shoes are always by the front door.