To take up where you left off! without a breath of separation your new movement is begun. The heart pulses on, developing a future. You do not rest your lips, your ears, your fingers. The field is full of daisies and the sun is shining greenly. It is a musical development, taxing and inspired, before the old love has echoed away. To the eager suggestion of a new face. It will be a great movement! begun warmly and without a pause. You have carried yourself to a new world, put off the final applause. Attacca by Frank O’Hara (via The Paris Review)
Sitting at my kitchen table in Montreal after five weeks of travel, my brain is inundated with the texts and rhythms I need to memorize in French, Russian, Czech, Polish, and German for upcoming concerts and competitions. I’m thinking of my articles due tomorrow, the pile of receipts I have that need organizing, and the repertoire I need to look at for tomorrow’s solo church service I’m singing.
And yet, I open Substack rather than immediately turning to face the music (hah). My mother texts me soup advice as I sip my favourite homemade coffee.
On this year’s resolution list was prioritizing creativity and quietude, which helps me to feel closer to myself and in turn, nurtures all my other work. This might include new tactile creative projects (knitting, watercolours… I have a vision of getting into air dried clay this year), writing projects, cleaning/redecorating my apartment, baking, cooking or just a twenty minute walk around my neighbourhood without headphones (as Julia Cameron suggests in The Artist’s Way).
I find myself appreciating Frank O’Hara’s poem “Attacca” (above) when thinking over the new year. In musical terms, attacca means to begin the next movement (or section) of a composition immediately and without pause. That’s sort of how I’ve felt when starting this new year. Rather than trying to completely turn a new leaf, to continue with what’s been going well. To focus on the work; that never-ending pursuit in which artists engage.
In an interview, Elizabeth Gilbert (of Eat Pray Love fame) shared a quotation from the Bhagavad Gita (yoga philosophy ftw!) that relates to this feeling of an artist’s attacca:
“You are entitled to the labour, not the fruits of that labour.”
As artists, we can’t be focused on results, rather the action of making art.
Ocean Vuong, a favourite writer of mine, said something similar about the pursuit of art-making. From Mary Kozeny:
Ocean Vuong compared the publishing of his work to sending a raft down a river: He has to be willing to let go and accept unknown results.
“If you’re on the raft, you can’t make anything,” he said. “You can’t live a life without destroying the raft. In other words, if you stay on the raft of your work, it traps you.”
So, while I’m nervous about the various performances I have coming up, I’ll try and approach them with the spirit of attacca:
It will be a great movement! begun warmly and without a pause. You have carried yourself to a new world, put off the final applause.
