Orchestra

"Orchestra" is the fourth of a few pieces I will be slowly sharing from my Senior Capstone, Oh, The Places.

Oh, The Places, is a collection of 15 short, creative nonfiction essays focusing on the theme of place. This project was meant to be like a plein air painting (but with words), like sketches. I wanted readers to feel like a close friend handed over their personal journal or a box of intimate letters. I wanted the collection to be a delicate thing of beauty like a single flower or a rabbit in the night.

I was inspired by many artists (Jenny Slate, Patti Smith, Lauren Elkin, Durga Chew-Bose, Rebecca Solnit, Robert Smithson, Norton Juster and Jules Feiffer, Lewis Carroll, Maggie Nelson, Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, Charlie Mackesy, Jamaica Kincaid, and Greta Gerwig in particular) and I have immense gratitude and respect for my wonderful professors at The New School for motivating me to refine my voice and use it. This project would not be possible without Rebecca Reilly, Richard Tayson, Timothy Quigley, Laura Cronk, and, of course, the incredible Lisa Freedman. 

Music That Inspired My Project: 
https://open.spotify.com/playlist/1fA25bbB4fh7KUcUzlBoOw

Behind The Scenes:
This piece was inspired by something someone said to me about sunsets, and by the Philosophy for the 21st Century course I was taking from Professor Tim Quigley at the time. We had an assignment where we needed to write a philosophical letter to someone with things we had been learning and the basis for this essay came about in that process. Technique-wise, I went to the beach to write this essay in the same way I go to the lagoon when I’m writing about it, or a café, or my car, or wherever else. Whenever I am writing, I do my best to write from the place or at the place I am writing about.
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​Orchestra

I drove to the beach's edge at 5:29 pm to write to you. There is a tantalizing shape of orange in the blue-gray sky but the sun is long gone—it’s December. “Black Sun” by Death Cab for Cutie is playing through my phone. My passenger window is rolled down enough to let in the chilling sea air. My entire car smells like salt and the hairs on my arms stand up straight. My throat is still hot from the tea I just drank. I have been meaning to tell you about the Philosophy course I took this semester. I know you also took Philosophy and I would love to hear about what you learned, too. Did you happen to learn about Immanuel Kant, the German philosopher, or his Aesthetic Theory? Looking at the sky and the ocean, I cannot help but to consider it. 

You know, light exists in frequencies beyond what we can see as humans—like bees can see in the ultraviolet range and we cannot. Even dogs can hear things that humans cannot perceive and other animals can use sonar to navigate their environments. Our perceptions are limited by our species. So, maybe the colors I see in the sky are not really there, or they look completely different through the eyes of another creature. I wonder what the sky looks like to a bee. Maybe the blue-gray I think I see is actually made up of a million little pixels all in slightly different shades: cyan, cerulean, charcoal, and slate. What do you think? 

I can try and imagine how a bee would view the night sky over the ocean, but I can never truly be inside a bee’s mind—unless I am reincarnated as one, of course. 

Almost every night I roll what you told me over in my mind—that maybe in heaven (if there is such a thing) everyone gets the chance to orchestrate a sunset. It is one of the best things you have ever said. It makes me wonder who is responsible for nights like this. Nights that begin by obscuring the sky in a dark gray cloak. I look for shapes in the negative spaces between the clouds. The shapes serve as a stimulus, and as I sense something visually without truly knowing what it is, that is when perception has occurred. The longer I look, I intrinsically draw upon my imagination and concepts enter my mind. The gaps in the clouds go from being abstract to concrete and I begin to see a face not unlike the one I drew in my sketchbook. I can barely make out the whitewash on the waves rolling towards the shoreline. The glow of yellow lights outside of the houses makes the sky to the distant right look almost red. Kant said that beautiful objects are perceived as having purposefulness without purpose, and I love that. Don’t you? The sky does not need to look a certain way to function as the sky. Yet, we still hold ideals about what a beautiful sky looks like. And that ideal can change with the seasons. To humans, a beautiful sky might be cloudless and blue, but in a drought, a beautiful sky to the plants might be dark gray and raining. 

I can see a house in my sideview mirror too. The little palm trees out front are swaying in the wind and the building stands still. I could fall asleep sitting in my car here watching as the sky goes from gray to pale blue to black. A plane moves amongst the clouds like a runaway star. It is frustrating how I cannot tell the difference between stars and satellites. I just want to know what is real and what is fake—or at least natural and inorganic. 

The weather makes me want to hibernate. But sleeping does not actually stop time. Going from summer to summer still involves growing up or maybe just plain growing. And isn’t growth a good thing? Don’t we all aspire to grow? Or is growing scary because it means having to change? I guess it is a little bit of both. Socrates thinks that we should act in our own best interests, that we should do what is best for ourselves. But, isn’t doing what is best for yourself, what forces you to grow and adapt, sometimes the scariest thing to do? I bite at the skin on my middle finger. For no particular reason. Just because it’s there and I don’t know what I want to say. 

I’ve been thinking about versions and layers of self lately. Analyzing what I want on various levels of my identity and what’s standing in my way because it’s usually just another version of myself. I want to check in with myself. But I don’t know which self to start with. 

As artists, you and I both make subjective discoveries every time we pick up a camera, a paint brush, or push fabric through a sewing machine. Sartre believed that things can be discovered through the process of creating. I agree. Art is like science to me. You go into any project with an idea or hypothesis about how it will turn out and you wind up with a final product or theory at the end. Do we even have control over that? I think I believe in free will but lately, determinism seems more likely. When I see you in person I would like to talk about it all. For now, maybe you can write me back and share something you learned in your philosophy class.

​​© Annie Fay Meitchik. All Rights Reserved. All content on anniefay.com is my own or credit is given when applicable, please do not use any of my images before contacting me above or @ anniefaymeitchik@gmail.com.