The Opportunity to Conduct

By Michelle Small

The steady chords of Justin Timberlake’s “Can’t Stop The Feeling” alert me it is time to get out of bed. I hit snooze at 5:00 am, 5:02… 5:05. After the third time, my patient husband nudges me, so I slowly pull my legs out from under the safety of my covers. My mind is already moving faster than my body can keep up, filling with swirls of questions and to do lists. Do I have enough time to exercise? I didn’t yesterday. If I don’t shower I might be able to. Wait. I still need to get the slides ready. Write out the kids’ schedule. Am I prepared for the meeting? Did I order the groceries? Which carpool is tonight? Did I miss the deadline for signing up for camp? Where is that email? Do I even know the password?

The pulsing beat of indecisions and questions clamor around in my head as I shuffle down the stairs. My sweet puppy slowly stretches herself awake, and sleepily looks up at me as I open the door of her crate. I walk straight to the kitchen to turn on the coffee pot that David kindly prepared the night before in an effort to help me save time. My body goes through the motions of my morning routine, while my inner thoughts ping around at an accelerated tempo.

I hear the tip-tap-tip-tap of puppy feet walk toward the back door in tune with the drip-gurgle drip-gurgle of the coffee pot … my signal to get my cup, my protein bar, and let Sienna out. I think to myself, “I don’t have time to write in that stupid gratitude journal today.” But I force myself to look for a pen, find my journal, and get myself ready to write.

I let my pup in and she scarfs down her breakfast, while I sit at the kitchen island and flip through pages of writing. I find a blank page, sip my coffee, and slowly eat my Blueberry Muffin Quest bar, while I muster up some ideas of things I am grateful for. This exercise feels hard, like walking through tar and muck and being clouded by a fog. It’s supposed to help me fight the yuckies and start my day with beautiful intention. But somewhere along the way, this routine has become forced. I feel sad, lonely, and lost. I want so badly for this to be the magic fix my soul and headspace needs. Why isn’t this working for me anymore?? Nevertheless, I reluctantly pick up the pen and begin to write. Everything I write is true. Yet. I feel zero connection to my own words. It’s as though my heart, soul, and mind are three separate bodies, lost and unable to come together.

After this daily failed attempt of fixing the hurt in my heart and mind, I go upstairs to set up my work station. I attempt to prepare my body to fake it through another day. Panic suddenly builds like a noisy whisper. The lists and questions begin their steady crescendo. I push them down as far as I can, but the noise in my head continues to build and move through my chest, my arms, my legs. Panic is no longer a whisper and completely takes over, demanding attention.

I try to walk over to my closet, as the heaviness of it all crashes into my core. I begin to sob. Short, convulsive gasps for air escape from a body that does not feel like my own. I am drowning in my own whirlpool of uncertainty, fear, and sadness. I crumple to the ground and fold over, the weight of my body heavy on my legs. I can’t stop the tears from flowing down my face, and it is getting harder and harder to breathe. David comes upstairs, his blue, kind eyes staring in horror, asking over and over again, “What can I do? What can I do?” I stay glued to the ground, sobbing uncontrollably while the world around me stops. I feel like I will never catch my breath.

I can’t remember how I got off the floor that day, or any of the other days when this would happen. The noise and pressure in my head would take over my body, and I would curl in a ball on the floor of my closet, crying and trying to remember how to breathe for what felt like hours at a time. I just remember my David being there, rubbing my back, and telling me I would be ok.

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And now, suddenly, the quiet - it’s a welcome stranger. After years - decades even - of constant noise, clutter, and closet floor wailings - the quiet whispers herself into existence. “I’ve been here the whole time,” she says. “I’ve been waiting patiently for you to find me.”

I want to understand why it was so hard, why it was so noisy. Yet, I don’t. This place of “A Ha!” This new realization is where I want to sit and embrace the change of tempo and volume. I have worked so hard to get here and I am not looking back.

I know this is not a magic “A Ha!” and then time to move on. This is a progressive realization, slowly discovering itself and writing lyrics for me to follow. I am learning how to add quiet to my mind and body, and while it takes a lot of energy, time, and focus, it is a prescription I am learning to live by.

There are times when it starts up again, though. Usually it is a steady beat, pulsing and echoing, like a drum solo in a classic rock concert. Suddenly it is two drums, no, three, and they drown each other out as the sound intensifies, mismatched and off beat. It becomes a loud scattered banging of noise, rather than a song.

This pell-mell confusion was the constant state of my thinking, slowly taking over my body each day until I completely shut down. The temporary absence of it now is strange - quiet. I walk around and go about my day with questions and ideas that are now punctuated and separate instead of a blended, confusing mess.

Each day I find that I wait for the music that isn’t music to come along and cause havoc and disruption. Yet it isn’t as frequent as it was before. The noise will come, but now I am standing there, tall, in front of the band, the conductor and arranger of the music to come. I can dismiss one drum at a time with the flick of my wrist until all that is left is a steady beat - just one steady beat. A clanging cymbal may erupt here or there when I stop paying attention, but with a confident wave of my hand and a stern, yet forgiving glance, the drum solo is back on my beat. The beat that I need to be enjoying my beautiful life.

I’m so grateful for the opportunity to conduct, to make my own music. Yet this opportunity has always been there. I just didn’t know how to find it or even the fact that it existed.