Bridges

When I was nine years old and had just started boarding-school, I shared a room with another girl. Mrs Josephson, our guardian, kept strict tabs on us. We were not to talk, whisper or get out of bed in the mornings until the school bell had rung in the courtyard, when she would come in and draw the curtains. I usually opened my eyes before this moment, noting the grey light showing through the gaps between the curtains. My awareness would swim in that liminal state where it was neither dark, nor light, where I was not quite awake, nor asleep, where dreams were still close enough to catch by the tail and the tasks and demands of the day had not yet begun. In these moments it sometimes happened that I could hear orchestral music arriving from a distance, sublime and unfamiliar, playing in the halls of my inner ear. If I paid attention, the sounds became clearer and louder. I marvelled at the range of instruments and the way each part wove through the whole, swelling into dissonance and resolving into harmonies that reminded me of something much more expansive and beautiful than Mrs Josephson’s tightly run and joyless ship. 

Where this music originated was a mystery; the complexity and beauty of it was far beyond my own musical capabilities. All I knew was that it transported and comforted me at a time when I needed it. 

Photo A-Levi Ackerman

The art of creating something is to bridge the gap spanning inspiration, visions and ideas to the physical realm where they can be perceived through sound, vision, touch, taste and smell. 

Mozart, who famously composed music in his head, retaining all the various parts, wrote to his sister in 1782, “I send you herewith a prelude and a three-part fugue. The reason I did not reply to your letter at once was that, on account of the wearisome labour of writing these small notes, I could not finish the composition any sooner. And, even so, it is awkwardly done, for the prelude ought to come first and the fugue to follow. But I composed the fugue first, and wrote it down while I was thinking out the prelude.”

Apart from the genius of being able to write one piece of music out while thinking of another, what strikes me are Mozart’s words, “the wearisome labour of writing these small notes.” Even Mozart had to go through the tedious process of writing out the score, note by note in order to bring us his heavenly music translating it into something we play and listen to today. He gave himself over to the labour of catching a part of the ineffable and turning it into a thing he could share. 

For most of us, it is in the difference between the vision and  the process of making it real that our frustrations and limiting beliefs show up. The inspiration arrives for a song, a plot, an event or an invention and if things don’t develop with ease, the discrepancy between that initial spark of inspiration and the clumsy effort we face can be frustrating. I remember how aghast my youngest daughter looked the moment she realised that turning her design of a rucksack, complete with its own propellor into something that could allow people to fly was not going to be straightforward.  

It is in these moments that thoughts like, ‘I’m incapable’ or  ‘I’m unworthy’ or ‘I don’t have what it takes’ rise to the surface. Questioning these beliefs loosens their hold on us, leaving us freer to create. If not, they can cause us to freeze. 

Sharing our dreams with peers, reminding each other that when we get stuck in the process of making, things are bound to look dissatisfactory for a while and holding each other accountable - these things all help.

Sometimes in the process of planning, our dreams can become reduced to a dull list. At these moments it helps to drop from the anxiety and preoccupations of the head and remember what our vision means to us and why it matters. That can be a vulnerable and powerful thing.  

Remember how Mozart wrote about the wearisome labour of writing down the small notes? He would have done it note by note, or bird by bird as Anne Lammott describes it in her brilliant book on writing, Bird by Bird. Word by word, chord by chord, step by step, stitch by stitch, breath by breath.

Martha Beck describes turtle steps as very small, achievable steps to which we have almost no resistance. The smaller the turtle step the more likely we are to bridge the gap between the dream and the finished creation.

Clapper Bridge on Dartmoor - Image from Unsplash