We were to meet on the steps outside the State Library. I waited by the oversized chess pieces until I saw him approach. We embrace and then talk in an excited, almost too fast kind of way. It is warm outside. I have sunglasses on and I can feel the heat on my back as we turn to walk inside. As we move through the columns towering the entrance and into this temple of words, it suddenly feels cool. And quiet.
Immediately we change. My voice becomes quieter, slower. As does my heartbeat. The beautiful, vast, cool, interior calms me. Compared to the hustle and bustle of crowds outside, inside is slower. The tempo of those moving about, even and strangely in sync. I feel something shift within me. And the two of us seamlessly fall in line with, what is, a new rhythm.
I don’t usually write about anything personal in my posts. But it’s hard not to given the world we are in right now. I’m feeling extremely out of sorts. Churchill’s black dog has been following me around for the past few days. I’ve mostly managed to ignore him, but he’s a tenacious bastard. We have been thrust into a strange new place; suddenly. Some would say violently. And with that, a new, unfamiliar tempo greets us. All of us. Our predictable daily rhythms have been rudely interrupted.
There is a feeling of disbelief as events unfold and we try simultaneously to absorb and avoid information. This new place, whilst constraining us physically, is largely a metaphysical one. One that cloaks us in isolation, and fear. It is easy to disassociate in places like this. To separate socially as well as physically from those around us. Not only have our daily rituals disappeared, but so too have our deeper rituals, with weddings, church services and funerals being impacted. These are the big, meaning-making and sense-making parts of our lives. It would probably be more concerning if you weren’t feeling overwhelmed right now.
You don’t need to look far to find quotes about life and rhythm. I’ll spare you them here. But in studying myth and ritual it is impossible to ignore the role that tempo plays, particularly in cultural transformations. It is critical. Arguably, it is life. In film, Directors often talk about tempo, describing their work as being more like music, than prose.
‘A film is, or should be, more like music than like fiction. It should be a progression of moods and feelings. The theme, what’s behind the emotion, the meaning, all that comes later.’ Stanley Kubrick
I was introduced to the work of CK Ladzekpo when studying ritual. You can watch him here as he talks about rhythm. He posits West African drumming/rhythm as a metaphor for life [2:39]. The main beat is predictable/stable, the contrasting beats are unpredictable/unstable. But together, they are music. Together they are a metaphor for life.
Right now, it’s the predictable beat that is missing. Or is, at least interrupted. The contrasting beat - the unpredictable/unstable one - is drowning everything out. And it is doing so without our permission. I think this is key to what we are experiencing now. The lack of choice. Whilst many of us may have already preferred the couch to a party, to work from home than a commute, to cook at home than go out - now we have no choice, and suddenly all we want to do is go to parties, spend time with colleagues physically, and go out for dinner. There is no tempo rubato*. Rather, there is a strict tempo we must adhere to. A lack of freedom.
As I sense-make what I mean by all this I think about how I can draw strength from it as I face things largely alone, I begin to realize that my focus now should be on establishing a new base beat. Because this is where my freedom lay. It may be within a much narrower boundary, but it is a freedom no less. And a freedom that could afford a new kind of predictable, stable, rhythm to my daily life. One that will be largely unfamiliar, and strange, at first. But one that will, I hope, provide the predictability required to make life musical again.
*Tempo rubato means ‘free in presentation’ in Italian. It is a musical term describing the slight speeding up and slowing down of tempo at the discretion of the soloist.