“I was only dreaming.”
Her voice, her laugh, the summer twilight breaking through redwoods.
“A familiar gesture / misplaced in time.”
To remember these things so vividly.
“I was only dreaming / of something I left behind.”
To work through grief, slowly, slowly.
To take a deep breath and pause.
I wasn’t seeking a spiritual experience with music. But transformative music often has an uncanny way of finding you at the right time and place. I stumbled upon Ana Roxanne’s album “~~~” in December of 2018. About two years before this, my mom was diagnosed with multiple myeloma, a form of blood cancer that affects the bone marrow. When I heard Ana’s music for the first time, my mom was staying at UCSF hospital. She had undergone a stem cell transplant and had attained remission the month before, but her cancer had returned. When I needed to take breaks from the hospital, I would go for walks. It was a cold winter and I felt alone. Ana’s music felt like a lifeline. Through heavy fog and cold wind, I found warmth in her album. Moments to myself, while before felt brief, seemed to expand. It felt like I had time to breathe, to meditate on heavy feelings, to hold space for both sadness and beauty, or maybe even beauty in that sadness.
Perhaps what I’ve learned the most from listening to “~~~” is the comfort you can find when you allow yourself to fully receive the present. How you can get so lost in a single note, like on “Nocturne.” The way each word stretches so far that you forget what came before, where you lose track of the lyrics themselves and get lost in the beauty of their utterance. Ana’s music is never in a hurry. It ebbs and flows, starting softly and building ever so gently, expanding and expanding until it fills your heart completely. It is sweet and it is tender and it captures your attention in its slowness. With care, Ana invites us to take pleasure in these moments. To get lost in the warmth of bubbling analog synthesizers. To find a home in the hiss of cassette tape, sounding like rain cascading off an umbrella. To breathe in time with the sound of ocean waves lapping up against the shore.
On “Slowness,” a voice recites a quote by Milan Kundera: “Why has the pleasure of slowness disappeared?” This album is a meditation on this sentiment, an exploration of the expansive possibilities of the spaces in between, of the beauty that inhabits each of these spaces, and how, if we slow down and listen, we can notice them. In some ways, I had been holding these ideas close to my heart even before listening to Ana Roxanne. With the future being so unknown and so scary, I tried to ground myself in the present. I tried to cherish each moment I had with my mom. On our slow walks around the neighborhood, I would look differently, listen differently, noticing the way sunlight seemed to shimmer on leaves, listening to the wind, or even being content with silence. To slow down felt like a necessity. To take one day at a time and to be grateful for that time I had with my mom. To try to look for the beauty in small moments. When I finally encountered Ana’s music, it was a powerful moment of identification. I listened to “~~~” and it felt like coming home.
I saw Ana perform live for the first time about a week after my mom passed. On stage, her set up is sparse. A table holds a sampler and a vocal loop pedal, which she adjusts from time to time. She does not move much, as if each action is measured with the utmost care. Mostly she sings, usually with her eyes closed, one hand lying on her chest as the other hand gently sways. As rolling synthesizer arpeggios build in the background, her voice grows and then soars. Her eyes remain closed and her head gently tilts up, as if connecting to a higher state. It is a joy to be there, to be mostly still and close your eyes and let the sound wash over you like rain. It is a joy to be welcomed into this space and find pleasure in its slowness. To let the sorrows of yesterday and the anxieties of tomorrow slip away and find a home in the present, if only for a moment. When we say “only for a moment,” it implies that a moment is brief. But sometimes, a moment can feel like it stretches on for an eternity. When we are fully present, we can experience moments like this. There is clarity in this experience. It is the understanding that there has never been and there will never be another moment quite like it. To be able to witness this unique moment, then, is a gift.
When I try to recall memories with my mom, the ones that come to mind are often small fragments. The view of our dogwood tree in the courtyard, rustling lazily in the summer breeze, as my mom lay in bed and told me she loved me, again and again. The sound of the pepper tree swaying in our backyard at dusk, as I sat in silence with her, the night before she passed. The closing piece to Ana’s album, “In A Small Valley,” is a collage of moments like these. The sound of wind chimes, a breeze, intimate snippets of conversation and laughter, water ever so gently lapping against the shore, a choir, a child’s voice. These fragments fade in and out, memories merging with each other. Ana’s music shows us that there is a special kind of sweetness that can be found in these small moments, that there is beauty in being still and allowing yourself to receive the world. And that what will remain, forever after, is love.
To buy/listen to ~~~ by Ana Roxanne, click on the link below.
Active Listening 