The time arrives

The time arrives to begin to grieve

One of the delights of the summer time is the weekend I spend each year in Melbourne conducting at a new music reading program for the Melbourne Schools' Band Festival. Michael Jongebloed organises it and he's a great mate. The session provides me with contact with conductors but also allows me to hear new music 'in the flesh' and experience the reaction of the conductors to those new works.

That year I arrived on the Friday evening, the 12th, so I could spend time with a colleague over dinner and on the Saturday morning I went walking, a pleasure I enjoy in all the cities I visit. This was my 'normal' experience; a brisk walk (though slowed somewhat by the temperature. It was a warm day for Melbourne - 42 degrees C). I went rambling through the markets (and finding fudge or something not quite 'right' for me to eat - and to take home to the scallies) and a 'nose around' at things I never seem to have time to look at otherwise.

I can remember coming back to the room and deciding to write some sketches because I had been plagued by a melody that would not go away. It had bumbled around inside my head for I'm not sure how long and I became aware of it on the plane on the way to Melbourne. It was a chorale and it was in D major.

I am unsure of how long I spent sitting on the bed, in the room, working on the piece. The cricket was going on the TV at the time too but I would have had the sound down quite a bit, or even muted. I like that type of noise sometimes and other times I love the back yard and the birds, and then there's the hum of the jet engines on a plane...

The details mentioned above are vivid in my mind - the day, the temperature, the need to come back and write, sitting on the bed. I love to walk and with nothing to do until the next day I had the day to roam and be anonymous. But, on this day I had to write.

The melody was vivid in its desire to be born - see how, in the sketch from the hotel room, how I scribble with fluency and assurance.

There was no plan for this work to be written and no premeditation, either in creating this piece or any piece about Heather and her suicide. However, I was aware that this music was indeed from my subconscious; a response to the trauma of the preceding months. Sense of urgency grew in me.

"I must hurry – I must get this down or she will be gone from me again!"

An image of Heather, as a young girl, dancing in her ‘twirly' dress was clear in my mind

"You must stay and dance for me…" I begged.

The melodic ideas began to announce themselves in my aural imagination – those seen above, yes, yes; and new ones – good, good!

As I began to write, sitting in the hotel room, I was consumed...

It was very much a matter of writing as it came. The sketches came out whole, the complete form of the work, even to the extent that I left spaces on the manuscript to write in extra parts later. I wrote what came but it didn't mean one part came before another. More so it was that one was more fragile and needed to be notated quickly, before it disappeared.

As I looked at the sketch there was very little 'working out' evident. There were the decisive moments when I knew exactly what I was doing - aware and considered. Other moments when I just scribbled as quickly as the ideas formed - no consideration, just notating what was immanent in my head.

This kind of sketching, the hurried response to inspiration, is not uncommon for me. I don't know how I write. I think about how, but as I compose, just like in that hotel room, it just comes out. I wonder at the attention I give to the writing and I find that in this work I am aware but involved and drawn along. I am immersed yet aware; I am caught in the flow but I am not drowning.

I wonder when awareness might become the enemy of emotion; or is it an ally? Knowing what I have done allows me to process and it gives me the chance to confront emotions and memories and find comfort. But it also makes me helpless; then it releases me - I am unfettered now. All of this happens when the pain is illuminated.

Once again let me emphasise that I am immersed yet aware; I am caught in the flow but I am not drowning.

Listen to Heather, see her 'twirly dress', and I sense her tears; tears for Mum, for Dad and for herself. They mingle with mine as they fell gently from my cheeks on to that hotel bed in Carlton.

Alone, quiet, a little sad, but with Heather - for those precious moments.