silence

Lying on the floor for the final stretch at the end of my Sunday Body Conditioning By Dancers class, the music starts to play. It's a haunting melody. A mournful melody. The first week, exhausted from the class and not really absorbing anything but the yoga mat under me and the fact that the class was finally over, the melody was all I noticed. By week three of the eight-week session, I had started to pick up lyrics here and there. By week six, I finally began to piece together the song. This week, the final Sunday, I will hear it and understand.

Yesterday, I recorded some violin tracks for the EP of a singer/songwriter who also happens to be aquainted with a great number of people I know. As a result, she knows my situation. Terrifying, at one time, that thought. Not any more.

She asked some point-blank questions about my journey of the last couple of years. Questions that, while initially musically related, were also intensely personal. The answers were shockingly revealing. Perhaps, curiously enough, not for her; my responses were self-revelations. It took a while, it took a long time, but at last I have learned the hardest lesson: to face what was real, and to let go. At last, emerging from silence, I have clarity.

It's a funny thing, music. It can hit you where it hurts. Hit you when you least expect it. Hit you, hurt you, but leave you feeling, somehow, stronger than you thought. Leave you with the sudden realization that something that once hurt immeasurably is now but a dull ache. This I have learned. In silence.

At last I have clarity
It took a while, it took a long time
But now I can seeI learned to let go
It was the hardest lesson of all
But I gave you my love
In silence
Silence

There would come a time in my life
When I'd face what was real
I turned a blind eye
I'd feed the lie
Too afraid to come clean
But I learned to let go
Although you would never know
That I gave you my love
In silence
Silence, silence, silence

But I learned to let go
It was the hardest lesson of all
Did you ever know?
I gave you my love
In silence

Silence,
Selena Cross