The Hardest Part Is Noticing Things

Jeff Beck is blaring on the hifi again. What he does to a guitar is magic, it’s murder. I never knew it before, how anyone could do that, not until we got this Yamaha receiver and the Pioneer turntable to go with it, the one I bought from that guy in Huntsville selling electronics out the back of his suburban.

These pieces are older than me, they know things I am still discovering. 

In this room, there are no screens—attention is required here. Most days, I sit and sometimes write but always listen. I want to feel the instrument sounds coming at me, out the speakers and across my ears. I want to bump into them like styrofoam facsimiles of Saturn and Jupiter, hanging from the ceiling. 

I remember when I first heard anything: I was thirteen, going on fourteen, riding in the car with my dad. We had abandoned the banality of cornfields for civilization; and I felt the transition of population density, from fields to strip malls to city. And as we approached Chicago, I heard it:

Sound—

Or rather, sounds. Many of them at once, separated but whole.

I had been learning to play guitar at the time, had quit saxophone a year before, my dad trading in the tenor woodwind for this Fender knock-off, leaving me with a fifteen-watt amp, some headphones, and plenty of time to figure out the rest. 

I was not good. Starting with a Beatles songbook, I practiced what I saw: C, then G, then scrunching those fingers into the claw that makes D, then rushing back to G. This was a song, a progression—it was damn hard. 

Plus, my tools were primitive. How could anyone make anything out of this?

But then there was that song—it must have been Zeppelin or Eddie Money on the radio—as I knew it but had never heard it before.

First, there was the bass: a rumbling and warbling. 

Then there were drums: the kick, the high-hat, snare and toms.

Then the guitars, lead and rhythm, talking to each other. 

Above all this were the vocals, sliding up and down scales I could not yet comprehend. 

It all came at me that day like a cascade, the sound bubbles hitting me in the face, catching me smiling. Before this, music had been a something. Now it was many things: notes and rhythms, dissonances, syncopations, melodies, and more. I could hear them all now.

First, I heard; and then I saw.

This took decades. 

The second occurred in the morning, as good things tend to do. I saw them like flamenco artists, those treetops dancing in the wind, watched as they swayed, those leafy bushes in the sky. They had been stationary for so long, and now they were moving! I saw how brittle everything was, how tenuous and robust, how little I knew.

And I saw how difficult it was to become acquainted with the world, how the hard part of anything is learning to pay attention. This is something that cannot be taught, only experienced. It is grace, a revelation. Have you ever looked in the mirror and seen someone staring back? I have, but only a few times.

I used to think being a monk would be boring, but now I want to move through a garden slowly, counting stones, feeling the cool heaviness of my robe against my chest. 

What else, I wonder, moves when I concentrate?

P.S. Speaking of noticing things, here are a few worth checking out:

• My wife took me to this film—and it really deserves to be called a “film”—and it was incredible, unlike anything I’ve ever seen. I recommend seeing it with someone you love, and don’t read the reviews before you go.

• I finally read Mary Oliver’s short collection of essays—Upstream—and it’s lovely. Understated, easy to read, wonderful with coffee. Highly recommend.

• Oh, and if you want to listen along, here’s what I was writing to this morning, but it’s better on vinyl.