reflections on rigour

it’s nearing the end of my school year. i have an essay to write. it sits, waiting for my attention, on my laptop, which is safely burrowed in my bag. i have other musings to share before i turn to it.

i spent a lot of these last 6 months either studying or working, quite relentlessly. i’ve never not been busy, but this new year, in a new place, i let myself get inhaled with a side job at my university that, frankly, wasn’t just a side job. it was what i lived and breathed; in the morning, i woke up and pondered the meetings i had gone to, which staff and faculty i’d seen, the things i’d heard, what would come to be in the next week. what was needed of me. what i needed to do, do, do.

i have always liked responsibility, it helps me step up to be and do better, for the sake of both others and myself. i even like writing emails on occasion. i learned so, so much. but it nearly consumed me.

the world beyond my immediate life was already so hard to bear, to learn about, to care for, and there i was, in a beautiful new city, toiling away, not looking outside quite enough.

i did other things these last six months, too, big things: i met beautiful people, i fell deeply in love. i gallivanted, saw museums that changed my view of the world, and read a few very good books (the salsa classes from two posts ago were too much on me. perhaps in another life). but throughout it all my body ached, drooped, commanded me to return to bed, never of my own volition.

in the midst of busy, tiresome weeks, amongst wide assemblage of activities i tried, one remained, every time, a respite: singing. this should be no surprise to anyone who knows me; music has, and will always be, irreplaceable to me. i felt it more and more when singing these last few months— the indescribable glow in my chest, the tingling in my heart, the giddy feeling that i have a purpose, a deeply human one, and it is to make art and share it with others. someone recently said ‘music for some is what makes life worth living’, and my chest reverberated with agreement. yes, i am on this planet to create change, but also to make sonorous joy with others by my side.

choosing to make art is political; to bring purpose to something so fundamentally under-rewarded, and to make it central to your life, proves that value is a subject deeply misconstrued by the modern economy of optimization. making music means all the more to me with this in mind.

i have no intentions of stopping working. i gain a deep sense of purpose from the type of work i have the privilege to do. i only want to ensure that my time with art, with a beautiful place, with my loved ones, isn’t neglected.

but now my work is this essay……so i will trudge on and get to it.

below: my school choir, which brought me immeasurable joy, and a beautiful work view from a few weeks ago, which made writing unexciting essays much more exciting