Suddenly the music cut in again for Dee. If she were a phony, I was thinking, she would have probably bought the first explanation offered. But she keeps coming back to this. “There’s a piece of music that he did listen to all the time. He wants you to listen to the words. See, that’s the music I keep hearing. And if he was into country-western, those words have a lot of…” As she momentarily paused, falling into a brief silence, another idea suddenly came to her. “Does he have any tapes or c.d.’s lying around that he listened to? Any that maybe had special meaning for him?” It took me a moment, but I finally had a brainstorm. “Wait a minute,” I remembered, “there was this tape of love songs Scott made for me.” “That’s it!” Dee exclaimed excitedly, finally recognizing the right answer. “You told me about that country music thing and got me off the track, but that isn’t what he was talking about.”
“He’s saying, he wants you to listen to the words.”
The Tape, and Where it Led Me
You see Honey though it might seem that way the music has never stopped
Scott, September 1997
Channeled Writing
The next day, I held the tape in my hands. It symbolized a great deal to me, although it had resulted from a painful period in my relationship with Scott. During our first summer, a few months after our meeting, I had gotten scared and broken up with him. In retrospect, it was the single most stupid act I can remember taking. Though the reasons are now irrelevant, I had never before been in a successful, mature adult relationship, and I found the prospect terrifying. In my fear, I had pushed him away. Scott had been crushed, simply not understanding. He knew in his heart that our relationship was right, and meant to be. Nevertheless, despite his pain, he had carried himself with a grace and kindness that left me with new respect for him. Within two months, we were back together for good.
During those days of painful romantic exile Scott had made this tape for me as a gift, compiling his favorite songs of romance to express to me more than he could say in words. The tape had become one of my favorites, always among those carried with me in my backpack along with my tape player for musical inspiration as I sat outside painting. Now, a chill ran through me as I paid attention for the first time to the title written on the tape in Scott’s handwriting. Healing Rhythms, said one side, and the other Transitional Tunes. “All right,” I thought to Scott, smiling, “I hear you.” But the message was not yet complete.
I thought back to the reading with Dee. Immediately after we had finally gotten the message about the tape, she had said “He’s talking about his voice. He wants you to listen to his voice.” She briefly paused, then continued. “Was he into poetry? Did he put his words down…in a notebook?” I answered affirmatively, thinking of the numerous notebooks still stacked among the library bookshelves. “Well he’s saying, those are his messages to you. Those are it. You’re supposed to just enjoy them. He said to read the poetry; there’s a lot of meaning in it. And he said they weren’t meant to make you unhappy, they were meant to make you happy. To know that there is always a bridge to span the gap. Just a small bridge.”
Scott, a prolific writer, had left behind several bound journals of his writings over the years containing poems, essays, fiction, and free-flowing creative writing exercises. On page after page he had honestly poured out his heart and soul, exploring his inner angels and demons and constantly pushing forward his creative limits in the flow of his words. Though I had skimmed the dusty notebooks since his death, thirsty for contact, I had not read their contents carefully.
Now, as I found an entry dated September 10, 1990, my breath was taken away. He had penned the words on the very day he’d made the tape for me:
Well I’ve made it up up and away and emotion flows freely but tears well up and change seems imminent and inalterable prevarications incumbent upon our one life and once more into the breech good men and chase down that demon through the hallowed halls of Christendom and discover self and avail oneself of Freudian psychoanalytical bombast and learn and revel in truth and make cassettes that heal and rhythms of peace and transitional tunes and onward Christian soldiers to rise up like a phoenix after long arduous death and know we will remain and know we will be free.
What rational explanation could there be, I wondered, for his having written these words? Though I searched my mind, I could see none. It occurred to me that, in freely expressing himself through the creative-writing exercise, Scott had spoken straight from the soul. On some level Scott had been in direct communion with the greater mystery even as he’d been here, living his life. Part of him had glimpsed even then the outlines of a greater picture.
“I’m slow,” I thought to Scott, holding the paper in my hands, “but bear with me, baby. I’m finally getting it.”
“Thanks.”
A Chill of Confirmation
It’s a little hard to describe but everything is different but I am so much the same and I’m so very much with you…
Scott, April 1996
Channeled Writing
Dee is only a receiver of information and often does not understand its meaning. Like an interpreter in a long-distance conversation, she can only pass along what she picks up and hope that the message will make sense to the recipient. During the session she made one casual statement that would have meant nothing to anyone else, but took my breath away and left me convinced that she was making genuine contact with Scott. Just as she had finished telling me that it bothered him when I made statements to the effect that he “wasn’t there,” and to just give him a chance to get through, she suddenly chuckled to herself. “What is this noise he’s making?”
Before I could respond, she said “He used to go into this voice when he was alive. It was meant for humor. What is this?” she laughed, “it’s like a Donald Duck noise. What is that?” It took me just a second to figure out what she was talking about, but the answer then became perfectly clear to me and I was filled with delight. Scott used to make a certain noise sometimes when he was in a light mood, an expression of his buoyant flippancy, that is hard to describe. This short sort of bursting quack, that might be spelled like “nnyacch!,” reflected his playful humor and was quintessentially Scott. My law partner called it the “Scott noise,” and another close friend called it his “veto noise.”
When I explained this to Dee, and made the noise for her, she said, laughing, “That’s it! He said he’s done that several times hoping you’d hear him. He’s right near you doing that and you’re picking him up and don’t know it.” Warm feelings flushed through me. Had she tried, Dee could not have chosen a more specific or unique identifier of Scott’s personality. Joyously sorting through the implications, I asked her “Does that mean that they keep their personalities when they pass over to the other side? Their sense of humor?” “They don’t lose a bit of it,” she said, “they take it all with them. Especially when you get really down, his sense of humor comes out. He’s not going to be unhappy, he can’t be. He has to be happy, he’s earned that.” Scott had reached me, and touched me with his joy. Deep within, the dark clouds began to lift.
Stumble It!