Do you ever hear music that hurts you? That feels so big and so overwhelming that it rips you apart? Or that makes you laugh for the pure joy of being alive and feeling the sun on your skin. Or that makes you feel fierce and powerful, like you could destroy your enemies and emerge whole, bloody and victorious?
The theme music for the movie Interstellar does this to me. It wrecks me. It crashes over me like a tidal wave and it tears my heart into shreds. Part of it is that it's inextricably connected to a friend's death. I saw this movie for the first time very soon after I found out Astrid had slipped through the Veil (sobbed through the entire film). Part of it is the film's themes...Loss, global climate change and the resultant desolation, the vastness of the cosmos containing our oh-so-tiny pale blue dot, science and the eternity of love, hope and hopelessness, and the truth that much of what we go through, we ultimately go through alone. Most of it, though, is just the music, the raw, emotive power of the music.
There's probably something a vaguely science-y and mathematical behind this power, tones or keys or modes or somesuch, woven into the music. Curious certainly, but it doesn't really matter when Im left with tears streaming down my face, my fist pressed to my sternum, feeling like Im keeping my heart from exploding, and struggling to calm my hitching breath.
I will likely watch Interstellar again. I will certainly listen to the theme music again. But not for awhile, not until I feel strong enough to go through the pain once more.
-W
8.15.2020
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