#6: ode to the inexplicable
I call this post ode to the inexplicable because I hope to encourage the creation of art that is difficult to describe - except it lingers, it nudges, it haunts, its world seeps into your world and the borders begin to dissolve.
I call this post ode to the inexplicable because there is so much that is fraught looming in the world and in the midst of it, I have gone and recorded a most curious storypoem about an island, a boy named Riiaz, a lobster named Zilllhaz and the songs that save us.
Also, because today is also a lunar eclipse and there is something about the movements of planets and moons in the far yonder, the place beyond words, that makes me feel connected to generations of human animals who looked up at the night skies and wondered.
In the world of On the Island, there is a phrase that people say when they hear indescribable words, words full of resonance and wisdom. They say:
“his words are water” or “her words are water” or “their words are water” or “those words are water”
In my non-story life, I find myself using this phrase and I forget it's a phrase only I use, and that it comes from a place I created. I used it again last week and that took me back to the island,
And following a feeling, despite the refrain that questioned the feeling, I recorded the first part of the storypoem - spoken, sung, with sounds of the sea as a backdrop. The melodies scattered through are inspired by flamenco, an Irish lament, a raga.
This first part is the new episode of the Faraway is Podcast.
Every week, for the next few weeks, I’ll record a new segment of the storypoem. It’s not that long a storypoem so I think in a few more segments, you’ll hear it all.
LISTEN: ON THE ISLAND, part one
On the Island by Shebana Coelho. Riiaz is an island boy who, one day, stops fishing and throws the lobsters he has caught back into the sea; Zillahz is a lobster who take a stand against the might of men and nets, and her father Miryal is the great lobster of the deepening sea who transforms himself into a human to confront the village of men - all to save the old songs, the ones that save us.
Oh and why lobsters? I think because the first time I saw a lobster when I was 8, I cried.
I was in the revolving restaurant of the CN Tower in Canada. I had ordered it or someone had ordered it for me, The server brought the dish, the lobster was buttered, pink on my plate. I cried. I didn’t eat it even though it was expensive and my grandmother broke it apart for me. Later that same evening, she placed her purse to a side panel near the table, the side that revolved. We watched the purse slide out of sight. Later still, the waiter brought it back. He took the mostly uneaten lobster away. Maybe he was incredulous. I don’t remember. Later still in my life, I met a fisherman who told me that lobsters in the sea are blue. That when you bring them out of the sea, they turn pink. Something in me remembered these details and inexplicably grew a story that I wrote, that wrote me.
Speaking, listening, singing, humming the story poem last week, I re-lived the mysterious impulse to share what haunts you, what brings you solace, what seeks connection, and how those connections, these connections spiral out across the sea, and under it, and the songs sing on - no matter what, the songs sing on…
LISTEN: a 30 Second excerpt from ON THE ISLAND
Returning to podcasting
Consider this my return to podcasting after some months of radio silence.
I'll be glad to hear your responses.
Email me at info at shebanacoelho dot com.
And come back next week for part two of On the Island
Shukriya. Gracias.
Shebana
