Danya Benson 4-18-10 Song/Book/Movie piece
The bell rings at 2:11 and I’m off, out the door and down the hallway maneuvering through the mass of people. I don’t wait for friends at their lockers, or even stop at my own I just walk, face ahead, out of school, in a hurry to get nowhere. I snatch my iPod from the bottom of my bag and scroll down until I find it, “Castle of Wonders” By Greg Maroney. A piano piece that swirls into my ears and fills my consciousness. It’s light and tender at first, gentle trills flowing through my head like a stream. It doesn’t need lyrics, because the pictures in my head offer me more meaning than words sung by someone I don’t know. The beauty of the piece being the silent understanding I get when it’s finished as if I was told an entire story without hearing a single word. The song is beautiful and enchanting; it makes my thoughts swirl with inspiration. They become pools of liquid ideas I can spoon out and use to cook a masterpiece. And I start to think of stories, scenes, and scenarios. A gypsy woman twirling the end of her skirts pinching up in small mountains as her feet step one over the other. A music box ballerina stuck in a pose, arms above her head, plastic face smiling as she moves along to the mechanical melody. Or a rain storm in a dense forest each drop of rain splashing against a leaf and bouncing off sliding down and soaking into the earth. I walk passing people on my way to the bus a six grader with binders stacked high, paper scattered and sticking out of the edges, an Eighth grader who thinks she’s all grown up her nose turned high snubbing all but her giggling friends. They are all oblivious; they can’t see the revelation brewing in my mind. I smile at them, at what they’re missing, wondering if they could understand. My imagination runs wild, spurred on by the soothing melody that resonates in my ears; I look up and see ships sailing across the blue sea of sky.
Memories I cherish pop into my head and I reminisce fondly about them. When my father came home from Iraq my family stood there in the gym of the base holding tiny plastic American flags as one by one soldiers from his unit filed off the bus until finally he came wearing a smile in army fatigues and we ran to hug him. Or Walking through the cobble stone streets of the stockade with my grandmother a floppy sunhat resting on my head as we looked at the different art work in the colorful tents, we stopped to watch an artist paint and smiled when he pointed to the canvas and said “There you are”. I can’t help but to feel an overwhelming happiness a buildup of emotions that explodes with the last notes of the piece. When the song is over I want to replay it until it’s all I hear, Greg Maroney’s fingers fluidly gliding across the keys. And when the bus stops at the corner of my house I get off and sit on the concrete steps, take out my notebook and write. My ideas pour out onto the page, streams of sentences, and metaphors that swim like fish. My ideas are quick, as if the song its self has turned on the faucet of my inspiration. It leaves me in awe of Greg Maroney’s talent and my fingers itch, wanting to create something equally as breathtaking. I grip the pen in my hand and begin to write the tiny scratch of pen against paper becoming my own melody.