I Increase The Volume

There are times when nothing will address the condition of being human, this particular experience of being human, except very loud music. So the volume's up, and it's Mahler 7.  Because Mahler 7 is sweeping, exhilarating, soulful, poignant, mad, grandiose, wild, melodramatic, experimental, desperate and sincere. 

Why the Mahler, and the volume?  (I expect my neighbours are asking the very same).

If I tell you that today, on "I'm Still A Mother A Week After Mothering Sunday Sunday", my younger son gave me a present of my words (This Is Not To Exaggerate) set to his music (for Soprano Solo and String Quartet) - if I tell you this, you'll know why I have felt like bursting from the sheer pleasure at the fulfilment of one of my deep desires (to have my words set to music by my son) and at the sheer terror at the fulfilment of one of my deep desires (to have my words set to music by my son).

It's exhilarating, it's terrifying, this joy.  There's so much love in it, and there's so much I cannot express.  So I'm listening to Mahler, who seems to know how I feel.

I wrote This Is Not To Exaggerate coming out of deep loss and grief, and out of the relief of being able to speak about it: its coming to me was a gift - it was enough to be able to articulate it, but it was another gift to have the poem recognised by people I trust and admire.

And then this, my son's music: another gift, another joy, another transformation.