You Wouldn’t Believe Me

Posted March 22nd, 2004 by Sean Williams

If you live in New York or LA, which are the only two places I’ve lived since ’96, you have come across that moment when two or three car alarms are all going off at once, all at their own pace. Even if you haven’t, you’ve probably had a leaky faucet and a loud clock in the same room, or you’ve been on a treadmill while listening to headphones… something where a constant system fights against an equally constant but unmatching system.

And life is full of these gears that turn on the wrong axis’, the impact moments of sound blipping one against the other until one moment out of every twenty matches up and produces a beep louder than the combined parts.

And our lives move in these patterns as well. We have hard patches and easy patches, we have times when we are happy for days on end with no real reason and days when we can’t seem to smile even when good things happen. And our individual rhythms are moving at a speed that no-one else can match, a constantly variable speed. And once in a great while, the beats match, they meet. And when they meet at the nadir, it isn’t the sound of two people crying, or three or all of them and you at the same time. It feels like one voice, almost silent, crying when they know no-one can hear, the worst sort of sadness there is.

So, let me say this about that. I don’t feel God, I don’t feel the infinite or the metaphysical. But there is a moment for me that I can go back to, a moment that visits me and stops me from despairing. It was there when Michelle and I were in the Second String and I said to her “we aren’t going to save the world, we just aren’t. So, knowing that, what are we supposed to do?” It was there when, before the show each night, Mac, Jordana and I would tell each other we loved each other and Jordana would say “I love you, Seth!” for no reason. It was there when I made enchiladas with my mom and she showed me that the cheese that fit in your loose hand was the right amount to put in the tortilla. It was there when we were done mixing Dies Irae from Verdi’s Requiem. It was there the first time I made my dad laugh so hard he cried.

I don’t know what it is. It’s so small, this tiny little moment of happiness that flits on and off so quickly. I could spend twenty three hours and 59 minutes of every day angry that I can’t be a better friend or a better brother or husband, and that one minute of not feeling lonely is actually my entire life. My entire life. And my entire life is spending that twenty three hours and 59 minutes trying to make sure that one minute is there.

So, maybe like everything else in this blog, that thing I wrote about not feeling God is a lie. I really hope so. I hope that people who know God feel that one minute all the time. I know I’ll never have that, and I know the only place I get that feeling constantly is in my art, my friends and my family, so I’m gonna keep looking there.

My wheel isn’t with yours right now, if you’re hitting that horrible note, but so many other people are right now that I feel I have to admit to feeling hopeful.