Family History of a Place Like the Cabin, Was Present in So Many of Her Favorite Memories
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THE MUSIC OF WATER By Lisa Ellen Balvanz RECOMMENDED: Chair, Department of English APPROVED: Todd ShermanTM.F.A. D^arp, College of Liberal Ar . / John Eichelberger, Ph.D. / ^ Dean of the Graduate School THE MUSIC OF WATER A THESIS Presented to the Faculty of the University of Alaska Fairbanks in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of MASTER OF FINE ARTS By Lisa Ellen Balvanz, B.A. Fairbanks, AK May 2016 For Janell “They tried to bury us. They didn’t know we were seeds.” -Mexican proverb v vi Table of Contents Page Signature Page.............................................................................................................................................i Title Page ................................................................................................................................................... iii Dedication Page..........................................................................................................................................v Table of Contents.....................................................................................................................................vii 1......................................................................................................................................................................1 Chapter ..................................................................................................................................................1 3 Chapter ................................................................................................................................................2 11 Chapter ...............................................................................................................................................3 25 II..................................................................................................................................................................33 Chapter ...............................................................................................................................................4 35 Chapter ...............................................................................................................................................5 47 Chapter ...............................................................................................................................................6 59 Chapter ...............................................................................................................................................7 71 Chapter ...............................................................................................................................................8 83 Chapter ...............................................................................................................................................9 99 Chapter 10........................................................................................................................................... 107 Chapter 11........................................................................................................................................... 121 Chapter 12........................................................................................................................................... 125 Chapter 13........................................................................................................................................... 137 Chapter 14........................................................................................................................................... 147 Chapter 15........................................................................................................................................... 161 vii Page Chapter 16........................................................................................................................................... 171 Chapter 17........................................................................................................................................... 177 Chapter 18........................................................................................................................................... 183 Chapter 19........................................................................................................................................... 193 Chapter 20...........................................................................................................................................207 Chapter 21...........................................................................................................................................219 III.............................................................................................................................................................. 237 Chapter 22...........................................................................................................................................239 Chapter 23...........................................................................................................................................255 Chapter 24...........................................................................................................................................271 Chapter 25...........................................................................................................................................283 Chapter 26...........................................................................................................................................291 Chapter 27...........................................................................................................................................297 Chapter 28...........................................................................................................................................311 Chapter 29...........................................................................................................................................325 viii I. 1 2 Chapter 1 This is my mother: brown corduroy pants with a khaki blazer, mid-length brown hair, loafers, standing behind a music stand laid flat, baton (16” white oak) in her right hand, both arms poised in front of her, her head and body leaning forward slightly in anticipation. The stage lights warm her back. In front of her, her students wait, instruments to their mouths, all their eyes on her hands. Maybe someone shifts his weight. Maybe a percussionist accidentally taps her foot against a drum stand. Out in the audience, a baby sighs. Mostly we sit in silence. In this moment, everyone relies on my mother. When she raises her arms, we inhale together. Sometimes, when she is directing us, I believe our hearts beat in unison. Practice makes permanent, and we’ve practiced this over and over, my mother more so than anyone else. Every note is marked on the page, and her hands move out of habit. She doesn’t need the score in front of her, though she has it. She could do this with her eyes closed. She could do this in her sleep. Sitting on the end of the second row, I watch her above my music stand, try to tie the sounds of my saxophone to her hands. Perhaps I need the music. More often I don’t. I am in seventh grade, and I like to believe that we can all become one through the music, that it holds something spiritual that unifies players and listeners, all of us. I like to believe that I and my mother, the two of us who have undoubtedly prepared the most for this moment, can become one. But my reed squeaks, or the stage lights get in my eyes, and for a split second, I fumble, while my mother continues on. My mother reads biographies of well-known saints and drinks only herbal tea. She wakes in the morning to prepare my father’s lunch, and in the evening, there is a warm meal on the table when he gets home. She doesn’t like movies with sex or violence. She bakes bread and puts 3 together a house warming basket when new people move into the neighborhood. She volunteers to lead the church choir and organizes teachers for Sunday school. She kisses my father only when she thinks my brother and I aren’t paying attention. Beside her bed, my mother keeps two items: her Bible, with its worn leather cover, underlined passages, and scribbled margin notes, and a journal with a blue ribbon running down the middle. In the journal, she takes notes on the scriptures. She does not write about her life so much as use the journal for theological meditation and prayer requests. She does not write anything personal. I read it once and was bored. My mother makes me pancakes Sunday mornings after my father has left to ready the church. She picks my brother’s outfits, but she leaves me to choose my own. Sometimes I have trouble brushing my hair out, and I like to have it braided, but only my father can do that. I try to teach my younger brother, Peter, to braid my hair, but the end result is bunchy, with one strand of hair twice the size of the others, and my mother says to take it out before we leave the house. At church, members of the congregation tell me we are blessed to have my mother there, the way she is always helping out with events, the way she will make time to visit older members in their homes or the hospital who cannot make it to church, the musical talent she brings to the choir. My mother leaves the house in the car an hour before me, and I follow her later on my bike. The eighth