The ocean shone under the sunlight,
Every sparkle a glimmering gold,
A buried treasure,
A captain’s cap.
Reflection,
Refraction,
Everything sailed within sight.

Enamored and enchanted,
Not by siren’s song, but by thirst,
He dives headlong into the deep,
Heedless of ship and crew.

The brine quenches nothing.
He struggles to plunge further,
The seawater drags him, drugs him,
It clutches him and damns him further and further below,
His thirst tinging, infecting, infiltrating every thought, every moment.

The sky had long fallen, the sparkles without sun, the gold and prestige far on the horizon.
The sea toiled in anguish, the waves wailing in turmoil, cutting like steel, striking like iron.
The ship, long abandoned, saw nothing through the storm.

Nothing remained for him.

Faced only with black, he sluggishly tosses and turns, reaching for starlight.

A shrieking cacophony of chains and rust pierces him.

A hook and chain, taut with tension, creaks for but a moment.

Reflection.
Refraction.

It pulls.

A thrashing.
A threshing.

And the sea silenced.

… comes a quiet thump. Again and again it fights, weak yet determined. The world around it, the voices, the words, the greetings and chatter, the students and teachers and conversations and friends had all gone mute, only to be heard through the echoings of the internet, of facetimes and zoom calls and everything in between.

Despite it all, it continues. It fights, it fuels its hungers, its passions, and it beats, over and over again, a sound in the void, a light in the darkness, the very certainty of survival.

It fights within all of us, our heartbeats, keeping our minds, bodies, and souls alive and intact through whatever hardships we may face. It fights for us, and we fight for our passions, what make us tick, what in turn keeps our heart doing the same– ticking, beating, every hour of every day of every moment of our lives.

I, alongside countless others, fight to hone my craft. To learn what I can at home while I can’t search for knowledge elsewhere. That was my decree and I worked to fulfill it. The result? Online Learning. It may not be ideal, but it’s what we have, and what could possibly possess me to let that go? I’ve applied for and been accepted by summer programs by the likes of Yale, Berklee, and Columbia. I’ve taken control of my resources at Coursera and Udemy. I’m learning as much as I can, and that fuels me, it carries me forwards, it makes me tick.

And so I wonder:

How does your clock tell the time?

Does it measure in knowledge? Skill? Wealth, or power?

Or does it measure in something else, in satisfaction or joy?

Whatever it measures with, whatever it is that drives you, I urge you to pursue it, to work for it, to work for yourself. The clock’s not going to turn itself…

… And we’ve quite some time on our hands.

Recently, I stopped the cacophony of my day to day life to consider something for a moment as my subconcious reminded me of it.

Between May and June, I found myself performing at Carnegie Hall twice in around a 2 week period- and yet, I never really did anything with it. I didn’t sit around in awe of the experience for days afterwards or brag to all my friends, nor did I even write about it here.

Let me tell you why.

Performing at Carnegie, while not to say it wasn’t a fantastic opportunity and experience, underwhelmed me. You could look at layer upon layer of rows upon rows of seats, all teeming and filled to the brim with people, and still feel the space was a bit smaller than you expected. I walked into the hall expecting some sort of unimaginable grandure, and left a little sobered to its reality. Just like any other stage, coming onto and even standing on it, the mundane populates everywhere, from power cords and outdated technology to scuffed and imperfect choral risers.

It’s at this point that I should clarify why I was performing at Carnegie- the first time was a planned event in the main hall with our school’s higher level chorus, where we collaborated with a university choir from California, and a professional one from Vancouver; hence, the choral risers. The second time was for the winner’s recital of the Suzanne Culley competition in the Weill recital hall, where I played piano.

Regardless, the ‘dissapointment’ of both the main hall and Weill recital hall popped the idea of Carnegie holding this high, almost god-tier status in music because, just like the beautiful music its (frankly wonderful) acoustics coaxes from performers, Carnegie is universal; and that idea perforates through all levels of musicians and listeners alike.

What Carnegie did for me wasn’t unfathomably awe-inspiring, nor did I leave in shock or inspired- but instead, very much the opposite. It brought great musicians much closer to me, lowering pedestals and evening playing fields, and brought me closer to the music itself. It truly did encapsulate the most important trait of music.

Just, not the one people thought it did.

So it looks like I made the ‘welcome to my blog post’, and then immediately decided to neglect the whole thing for 2 months. Whoops. Regardless, I’m picking it back up now and starting with an ‘About Me’ page you should be able to find in the top bar of this webpage. You should be able to expect more regular posts and updates on the blog from here on out. Sorry about that, but I hope you enjoy any and all future posts!

…and hearts still at the sound of an echoing melody: a new beginning. The music floods the halls and calls towards those silent souls to join in synchronous harmony- and who would they be to decline?

Those voices, those souls, those persistent heartbeats coalesce into one swirling mass of song and emotion, and suddenly everything encapsulates one word, one idea, and spreads one message to all who listened:

“Welcome”.