The Talented Mr. Kekhia (Or, Those Who Can’t Do, Indulge)
The issue of talent is a strange one to me. I am thankful for my writing talent – it’s my escape. It’s how I choose to express myself, and really needs no tools save for a hand and a writing tool (be it a pen or a keyboard). Some people have told me how much they enjoy my writing, and I’m fortunate to have those brief moments where I can feel proud of something that I do for enjoyment instead of professional enhancement.
Yet, there are some talents that I would love to have, such as music. I think I would have been good had I been given the opportunity, and at one point I tried to take things into my own hands – I bought a bass guitar back in 2003 and taught myself how to play. I wasn’t very good at it, but I enjoyed it. My best friend is a musician (a damn good one, too), and I’ve seen him write songs before – it’s magical. He hears it somehow, somewhere among the firing of his synapses, and breathes life into a series of numerically-based sounds. The same way my sentences are more than a sum of the words in them, his songs are more than just the notes he writes down – they’re a part of him – fun part, sad part, silly part, happy part, scared part… all sorts of parts. Like any talent, you need inspiration for that kind of thing, and sometimes the muse takes a hiatus. Well buddy, you’ve got a poem on your desk – and I know because I sent it to you – maybe you need to pick up those instruments and go beyond the jazz standards that bring you comfort. Jump into this, and maybe you’ll remember how much fun it is. It worked for my mother.
Ah, yes – my mother. I was surprised when she announced one day that she was going to take up painting. She went to classes, she practiced, she painted until she got it right. She made paintings for my friends, one of which is hanging over a piano in Cap Sur Ville, and the portrait she made of my father captured enough of his essence that our old neighbor started talking to it thinking it was my dad. (Then she put her glasses on and felt a little bit stupid, like you would feel when trying to push open a door that’s clearly labeled “pull.”) But she lost her muse too, perhaps a victim of the 2006 war with Israel. The paintings stopped, the canvas remained unloved, and the acrylics dried up in their bottles. The easel stood in its corner, dejectedly waiting the day that someone would decide it had taken up enough space and it was time to throw it out – I had to do something. Frank needed a painting on his wall, and mom needed a muse, so I asked her to make a painting for him. It took her months, but it now adorns his bedroom wall in Waltham, traveling across the Atlantic to get there – and it wouldn’t be the last portrait she’d paint.
I admire my mom’s talent, and the fact that she picked it up at a later stage in her life after three kids (who kinda sucked up most of her time). I admire the talent of one who can draw, and constantly wish that I had that kind of coordination – oh, the worlds I would create! The characters I would give birth to, the things I’d make them do, the satire I would create! Wishful thinking. All I can do is admire the work of others, but instead of moping about how I can’t draw, I’d rather admire how someone else can. I love it when someone tells me that my piece moved them, so I love to see the look on an artist’s face when I not only tell them that something is beautiful, but why it speaks to me.
Perhaps one of the most accessible talents to pick up (after writing) is photography. In this day and age, it’s easy to find the right tools – a good camera and a good image editing program. However, there’s more to it than that. You have to have the eye. You have to find that perfect moment, know when it’s coming, and know how to make your camera capture it. Ayham taught me that. It’s not about taking five, ten, fifty photos and choosing the best one – that’s for advertising, functional and calculating. Photography is like a scalpel, you have to cut into the flow of time and extract the exact moment that you want, and not everybody knows how to do that, nor does everybody know what to do with it once they have it.
Meedo does. I have never met this man before, but the way he presents his images go beyond just simple editing and “fixing them up.” He’s daring, he tries things, pays homage, finds that perfect combination of tint, grain, and sharpness to make your heart stop. Or your eyebrows furrow in puzzlement, depending on what he’s trying to make you feel. Point is, he makes you feel it, and no matter how dumbed-down your explanation of “why you like this picture” can be, the way you feel about it is inexplicable. What a talent. I think that someday my sister will be doing just that in a way I never can.
So no, I don’t have all the talents that I wish I did. I doubt that anyone is a complete package, otherwise he may as well be named Adobe. But I happen to know that my mother started to paint in her late thirties/early forties, and I know that I love the bass guitar. Maybe one of these days, a few years from now, Frank and I will write a song while my sister freezes those precious moments in time with her camera.
Hey, it could happen.
