Left-handed compliments
“Riding with the wind…” Owen rode with the wind.
Owen. Oh-When. Oh-Wind. (from his journals)
God concepts are much the same, no matter your religion. For some of us, music is our god. For others, the mythologies we create or have inherited, are so thick with limitations and restrictions, and if we’re lucky, allowances and gifts, that it’s hard to find true meaning without a solid foundation. Not everyone has a foundation on which to build a life, and for them, I am sorry. Our family built our traditions, our values, our beliefs, and our foundations on the piers of love, honor, respect, and grace. Not because we’re so full of knowledge and faith, but because we’re all that “experienced” - think Jimi - “Are you experienced? Have you ever been experienced?”
As Lea said many years ago, “Whatever you believe, you’re right.” I couldn’t be more in tune with her resonant key on this one. Many were the mornings when she showed up at our door, guitar in hand, jumped onto our bed, and asked, “Hey, do want to hear my Jimi Hendrix?” Most often we replied, “NO, we’re sleeping.” She played on, and still does.
Invariably, we would wake up and listen to her few chords, her few bars of Hendrix’s music and lyrics, and ask her to please, please go back to bed. Once in a while, we woke, and began our day with coffee and music, conversation and laughter. She reinforced this spontaneity with Owen. (He rarely told her he didn’t want to hear her Hendrix. He went along with her musical impulses, and sometimes joined in.)
There was no time like the present to offer up their talents and their obsessions. They both excelled at expressing themselves at those moments of inspiration. She still does. And, I still hear him breaking into song in the living room, whether there was an audience or not.
Owen spent more time with music than with any other art form - except conversation. He loved Hendrix’s music, for more reasons that I can remember now. Jimi was the reason Owen wanted to learn to play left-handed guitar. He never did - it was on his lists of things to accomplish. I believe he can play left-handed, upside-down, and backwards guitar now, for he no longer has human limitations to music or anything else. Jimi played guitar with his teeth. Owen played with his soul.
Nat recently said he’s sad his kids won’t have Owen’s musical interests to inherit directly. He loves to listen to music, and has a great singing voice, but did not chose this form of artistic expression as his own. He will find one, I’m sure. We all do, whether it’s building houses, or fighting fires. There’s art in everything, if you look for it. You can train yourself to express your talents left-handed, even if you usually use your right hand, and vice versa. All it takes is a desire to think from another perspective, and practice. Practice, practice, practice.
Song for the night: Little Wind, Jimi Hendrix
http://youtube.com/watch?v=B91ZZE8hMgs&feature=related
emmitt-owen-riley
linda-siniard
Left-handed people are special. Believe me. I have 2 daughters that are, 1 that is not. Also, an ex-wife that is. So I know the left.
Creative inspiration comes from the left side of the brain, Jimi shows this. I watch this and other videos of his songs, and I see that inspiration flow. I also see a remarkable resemblance to images of Owen. The poses, the facial expressions, the cigarettes.
To give a left-handed compliment is most often associated with a way to downgrade something, but in this case, left is the right way to remember the life that Owen lived.
Oh-Wind, how does it sound, now?
Love ya,
Dad
Seanna was ambidextrous. She wasn’t great with either hand, mind you, but it was amazing to watch someone swith a crayon, fork, or just anything from one hand to the other and use it in precisely the same way. She had difficulty with fine motor skills because of the brain damage (lack of oxygen to the brain as a baby) but she would astound me by having one hand play with one toy and the other doing something completely different. Try it sometime! She could keep that up for hours, utilizing both sides of the brain equally. Freaky.
I’m drawn to your blog for the obvious similarities to what I’m going through, but also because, like Owen, Seanna had a passion for music. She listened with her whole body. She liked to listen to church choir music in private, no one around to distract her intense concentration on the voices.
I used to sneak around the corner and watch her listening to Ave Maria. It was her favourite. As the choir worked up to a crescendo, she would lean in closer and closer to the speakers and then at the same point in the song the music pulled her to her feet where she stood with her head down, eyes closed, and arms waving slowly in the air, hand a’flapping. Every time. She responded physically; she felt music deep in her body. The autism, I suspect.
Some people think autistics are less aware of themselves and their environments. The truth is that they’re hyper-aware. Lucky buggers actually experience physical pleasure from certain types of visual stimulization such as an automatic sliding door crossing their line of vision at just the right angle. Astounding, but true. The pleasure centre of the brain is located near the same place that processes visual stimuli. Whatever processes music has surely got to be right there, too.
I envy the connection Seanna and Owen had with music. I don’t have it. It’s the lyrics of a song that get me every time. I’m a wordsmith.
Steph