In music, counterpoint is the relationship between two or more musical lines (or voices) which are harmonically interdependent yet independent in rhythm and melodic contour. In brief, contrasting yet complementary. I’m starting to see life as counterpoint where different strands of life form an almost impossible fugal work of art.
If I could choose a piece of fugal music as inspiration, it would be Bach’s Prelude and Fugue No.2 Well Tempered Clavier, Book 1.
Work life takes up the most time of one’s 24 hours 7 days a week life, a sure-fire routine of starting up the computer and digital tools, the scrolling and clicking, the joining and leaving meetings, near-novel in-person meetings, the now clichéd Teams-Zoom meetings, the chatter around desks and kitchens, and of course, the actual work of doing-thinking-pausing in various reps and combos.
Work life, for all its transactional, practical and obligatory functions, might as well be the basso ostinato, a fixed bass line or chord progression that is continuously repeated while the melody and harmonies above it vary.
Or is it home life with similar ritualistic routines but with much heavier practical and obligatory functions that becomes the basso ostinato? Without paid work, home life would be untenable. And home life is the life that meets our most basic needs of food, shelter, safety and comfort.
Most of my working life has been as a ‘working mum’ (as opposed to a ‘non-working mum’ or ‘mum’ who are firmly positioned in the home), and as the primary income earner, have developed a no-nonsense almost survivalist mantra of ‘no work, no money, no food, no clothes, no house, so work’.
The work and home life balance is more like a see saw that keeps the momentum going for both lives to thrive. It now becomes evident to me that of course both work life and home life form the basso ostinato, stubbornly persistent and intertwined.
My community life is less about survival and more about serving and lifting others up. I spend this life with my church community – the women’s group, playing the piano, leading church services, praying for others. No doubt, the basso ostinato of work life and home life provides the ballast for me to be able to serve others. You can’t pour from an empty cup, but when you start pouring, your cup overflows.
For whoever has will be given more, and they will have an abundance.
Whoever does not have, even what they have will be taken from them.
Matthew 25:29
My creative life has only recently resurfaced like a Phoenix rising from the ashes of unfulfilled dreams of being a professional pianist, a composer, a published poet – the things that have been considered fanciful, unrealistic and hobbies at best in my down-to-earth middle class Asian upbringing and a pragmatic, competitive, discouraging Singaporean society. Perhaps it was going through adulthood, motherhood, and if I may coin the term, migrant-hood, in a place like New Zealand, that the creative life could be re-born. And just to be clear, in case you thought I was now a full-fledged musician and published author, I am not.
Instead, I have become increasingly comfortable in my own skin, whatever shade it’s purported to be, and feel free and encouraged to write, experiment, create, sing for those who willing to be the audience. Perhaps it is living in Wellington, the creative capital of New Zealand, that is the fertile soil for anyone who is willing to give it a go. Last year, I self-published a poetry book How To Be Different, How To Be Me. And in the past year or so, I’ve tried to make time to write poetry. Poetry is may start with a flash of inspiration that causes words to appear magically on paper, but it is the working through the word choices, sequence, rhythm that makes the scenes and emotions come alive.
This year, my creative life branched out into songwriting. Inspired by a worship leading workshop I attended at The Street Church in a few months ago, I rekindled my desire to write music and wrote two songs. I’ve sung one of them in church, and will sing the second one at the Christmas Eve service. I’ve been encouarged by my church community, and I share these songs with you.
The Offering is a song about what we offer to God as an act of worship, and what God has offered to us – his one and only Son Jesus.
Silent Night Is Calling is a Christmas themed song, inspired by one of my favourite songs, We Are the Reason by singer and songwriter David Meece. In Silent Night Is Calling, I used ‘silent night’ as a motif for the different settings Jesus is present in our lives.
Life’s journey this year (and every year) can feel like it’s been full of routines and activities, and that is why the do-things-for-myself life becomes important. Often overlooked or considered dispensable, this life points to the rests, long pauses and empty bars of my fugal composition. The do-things-for-myself life is unwinding with a book or something on the iPad screen, baking seeded crackers, lying flat on my back in quiet contemplation, walking on my own around the neighbourhood. They are wordless unambitious indulgences.
Time and intention has written this year’s fugual composition, or rather, a movement of a much longer piece of music.