transcendence

Have you ever seen a painting that haunted your inner vision, read a book of ideas that gnawed at you, heard music that would not let you rest but challenged you to risk immolation? When this happens, and it is rare, it is deeply unsettling and uncomfortable in a way that one can only hope will eventually lead to greater insight and better art. But there are no guarantees, and there is a whisper in your gut saying, "now what do I do?"

What, indeed.

This past Friday I had the great privilege of seeing Chris Thile and his new band, the Tensions Mountain Boys, at a house concert on the night before their Carnegie Hall debut. It is now Tuesday evening, and I am still wrestling with the experience. It was the most extraordinary concert I have seen in decades. On that long ago night, I finally saw Joni Mitchell in person. Jaco Pastorius was in the band, vibrantly alive. The Persuasions came out to sing Shadows and Light with her. This artist, who had been so important to me since her very first album, was transcendent that night. I cried from the joy of being hit by so much beauty at once and the pain of doubting that I would ever be a fully-realized artist. Not just singer. Artist.

Beauty isn't pretty. Beauty is overwhelming. And because we are equipped to handle only so much at a time, unexpected glimpses, overdoses, of beauty take our breath away. Bring us to tears. Knock us to our knees. I think this is why angels usually have to say "Fear not." And I have never met an artist who did not have to wrestle, at least now and then if not every day, with self-doubt of some sort. The tormenting question is "am I good enough?" Am I skilled enough to realize my vision? Can I put this into words and endure the endless process of revision? Can I get this sound that is in my head into my fingers, onto the page, onto the recording? And will I hold up, can I last long enough, will my voice hold out?

Joni's concert -  her work that seemed to me so fully realized - raised the doubt demons that had been hiding in my spirit, and it was not until I started singing a capella 20 years later, and had recorded Feather and Bone, that I felt I had done something as fully-formed. I am not saying I wanted to be like Joni, or that I envied her. I just thought that she was being Joni Mitchell with every fiber of her being and every morsel of her creative spirit, and I wanted to be fully Laurel in that same way, and it takes a long time.

I don't know if I can articulate what I am feeling. There are feathers and bones inside me all the time. Everything I have done since then rests on what that was to me, a glimpse of what I am when I get out of my own way, a taste of what I could do if I really committed.

I have done good work since then, I know, but I am being told is time to ratchet up. I know this because of what I heard and saw last Friday and what it has called up in me. Chris Thile, one of the finest mandolin players in the world, has taken his music far beyond boundaries, just right through them as if they are not there. And so they are not, not anymore. Chris and his band were extraordinary. I whooped and cheered at the concert, and I have been crying off and on ever since. It was the real deal. It was  straight on till morning. It was What We Are Here For. And so, like that Joni Mitchell concert so long ago, it was a great big smack-in-the-face gauntlet, and a challenge: What, Miss Laurel, are you going to do NOW?

And I don't know yet, and that is painful.