Spinning

My friend sent me a cover of a song tonight, it's from the movie Interstellar which I have yet to watch. The song is called called Cornfield Chase, it's a piano piece composed by Hans Zimmer. The first time I listened to it, it gave me chills. The second time, vivid memories. I am listening to it now trying to chase that feeling again, but it's never the same the third time around. So I figured I'd write about it, in an attempt to preserve at least some fragment of it.

I listened to the original too, just to compare and I think there is something about this cover in particular that makes it special. The video is no more than 30 seconds long, filmed on a vertical phone camera, the quality isn't the greatest, and you hear the obvious reverberations of the piano in the room. Closing your eyes to listen, and afterwards opening them, what strikes me is how low the ceiling appears in the video, you could have told me that this was recorded in the world's grandest basilica, with domed ceilings and stained glass, and eyes closed, I'd believe you. But at the same time, there is something firmly grounding about this version. It doesn't feel interstellar at all, this feels like the earth version. There is something deeply urgent about it, almost frantic, but contained, like a tornado in a vacuumed vessel, chaotic and fighting for your attention, while not really going anywhere at all. It does not sound like the universe to me, it sounds finite.

To me, it sounds like spinning. Do you remember that feeling? When you were 6 years old, and you discovered how to spin, standing in place. It must have been one of those summer evenings, and there you were, just spinning with your friends on a grassy hill. You would laugh and spin and laugh and spin until you couldn't fight back, and the world started to spin with you. Eventually, you'd fall and laugh and pick yourself up and start spinning all over again. And it didn't matter, the summers were long and the grass was soft, back then at least. You could spin and fall and spin and fall, always laughing, never hurt.

Back then, I didn't feel finite, I felt like I could have spent my whole life spinning, I felt like I could have spent my whole life doing anything really. Tomorrow felt like tomorrow, yesterday was yesterday, and neither existed today and that's all that mattered. I had all the time in the world to make mistakes, then fix them, forget about them and make the same mistake all over again. The ease of this happiness was it's only flaw, it made me feel as if I had an infinite amount of time to possess it, over and over again. I didn't know how to hold on to things. But in hindsight, had I known that I would be thinking about it decades later as a 25 year old, I don't think I could have spun as fast as I did, I don't think I would have allowed myself to fall, not even once.

As an adult, this music reminds me of a different feeling. Picture this. You are living in a city that is not your own. Let's call this city Lyon. It is nighttime, and you are biking by the river. You haven't biked in years, yet you are surprised at how your body always silently remembers these things and does not allow you to forget. The city is lit up, you are biking fast, and with every street you pass, you catch brief seconds of light peeking through the space between the buildings. You bike faster, always chasing the next flicker, until suddenly there are no more buildings and it is all light, rushing towards you. The people sitting by the water are illuminated, you notice them, laughing, drinking wine, doing absolutely nothing at all. And for the first time since being here, you feel like you are part of their secret, that you all know something the rest of the world has not yet figured out.

New scene. It is now winter, you are in a new city with friends. Let's call this city New York. You have walked all day, your feet are tired, it's already dark out when you find a small Chinese restaurant in a narrow alleyway. You go in, a rush of warmth, your glasses fog up. In a city so big, it is nice to see families, big ones, with distant uncles and second cousins all sitting around a circular table, with dishes to share. It strikes you that you rarely see round tables in any other kind of restaurant. You and one other friend don't have cash, and you venture back into the cold and find an ATM machine down the street. Maybe it's the pure magic of seeing ATMs dispense money into your open hands, or its the thought of returning to the warmth of the restaurant, or simply because you are going downhill, but you both start to run. And you are laughing like maniacs for no reason at all, and you run and run until you feel like your legs might run away on their own. The scene ends there, so that in this memory, you never stop running.

It doesn't matter what we call these cities. It doesn't matter if I was actually there. I could be telling you made-up stories. It doesn't matter. Because you know that what I am saying is real. The finite nature of these moments, the finite nature of our happiness, it allows us to recall these moments in such exquisite detail so that we may replay it over and over it again. As an adult, when time begins to exist and we can no longer spin and spin with no tomorrow, this is the only consolation. And yet, where we would be without an end? The very possibility that we will eventually cease to exist is what makes us notice the moments when we do exist, when we are are reminded of the fragility of our very being, and how it allows us to fear and hope and feel, but most importantly, value, treasure. Maybe in this way, it makes sense that this music was composed for a movie about space. Floating through an infinite universe, you become acutely aware of your existence, the only finite thing in an endless pool of silence.

Author's note: I am currently isolating due to COVID. If I wake up tomorrow and read this and realize that I sound insane, well chances are, I probably am. Isolation and 5 days of no human contact did this to me. I apologize in advance.