Facebook will occasionally place an old posting in your feed that is a "memory" from X years ago. One came up for me from nine years ago, something I wouldn't have remembered otherwise: "From a recent dream: I was told I have a secret name. The name does not form itself as words in the normal sense, but is closer to a musical sound, sounding something like a series of vowels. I was also told that playing the saxophone in the way that I do has been a subconscious attempt at recreating that name."
I like the poetry of that statement. I can't solely lay claim to having a dream of having a "secret name." Don't many religions, including Judaism and Catholicism, involve taking a (at least partially) new name when fully entering into the faith? It's an element of the novel Dune.
My mother, unusually (strike that, uniquely) responded via Facebook. My father has an account but only reads from it, and Mom must have access. She wrote, "You were a wonderful and mystical child, with your own language that we could not understand. You also gave us written messages that we could not decipher. You called the grandma who lived next door "Guda Guarda" and her attempts to be called Nema failed. Love, Mom."
She's told me some of this before (if not all). As a young child (between 2-5 I'd guess) she's told me I would speak in a chirping unintelligible language, and people would ask what dialect I was speaking. I don't remember hearing about the undecipherable written messages before, though I was always inclined to draw given the chance. Both of my parents being artists, there were always professional quality art supplies around. My compulsions to draw were deeper than just having good quality materials around the house, though.
Guda Guarda, or Nema, or whatever her real name, was our neighbor in West Baton Rouge/Port Allen, LA. She rented to my family the large plantation house where we lived from 1965-1970. The Sandbar Plantation House. You can look it up, it has an historical marker at the end of the driveway now. There was, no lie, an extant slave house in the back. It must have been built a short time prior to Emancipation. I was told by Dad that I was, in no uncertain terms, to never enter that building. The most I ever did was crane my neck to try to see in the window. It was dusty, dirty, and even my 5-6 year old self had enough sense to know it was dangerous. I assume it no longer exists. Some years after we left Sandbar, a hurricane blew the roof off our old house, and it needed extensive repairs. It would be hard to believe the slave house could have resisted such winds.
One of the last times I saw Guda Guarda, I was seven and in swimming trunks going to my first swimming lesson. I was running up to her house to show her, when her dog ran up to me and aggressively bit me full jaw on the ass. The doctor checked me out, I was generally fine, just some small puncture marks on my cheeks and thighs. I later spoke to Guda Guarda on the phone, who told me her dog was now "sleeping." I asked, how long? "For a very long time" she said. This confused me. Was he going to wake up years from now? I think I was ambivalent, because I didn't want this dog who attacked me unprovoked to wake up. It wasn't much longer before we packed up and moved to eastern Pennsylvania.
As an adult, I am irreligious, non-mystical, and supposedly grounded in this world. Secular humanist. And yet I'm given pause. Do I have a secret name? Have I been searching for that name as a musician? Is it why I've been drawn to music my entire life, and more specifically to woodwinds? My mother has long commented on my innate musicality as a child. I loved to sing, and would, as she put it, learn the most complex TV commercial jingles. I still remember the Apple Jacks cereal song. When I grew older, I was far more drawn to the sound of the instruments than the voice. The instruments generally speak to me far more than any words or voice.
Perhaps my early attempts at language and writing were imitations of what I saw and heard. I was imitating writing, speaking, without getting the particular "notes" correct.
Yet, despite my atheistic ways, what if I'm wrong? What if there's something to be rediscovered? What would happen if I actually found a way to unlock my true name in my playing? Would I achieve Zen enlightenment? OR...would I unlock the hellscape beings such as in the movie Hellraiser?
I know the latter has a lot to do with my particular taste in movies.
I think I'll take this attitude: I don't think there's a secret to be unlocked by my playing, but I will continue to try. I'll play often, play hard (I always play hard), and I'll keep searching.
But, who was Guda Guarda? Not the actual person who lived next door, but who I perceived her to be?
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