Of leave-takings and homecomings: My love affair with the music of Cynthia Alexander
There was something about the way she sang where you couldn’t tell the song from the sigh and the sigh from the cry
THE LAST time I saw Cynthia Alexander perform in June 2012, I was struggling to keep my spot by the stairs of the Conspiracy Garden Café. As the crowd squeezed in front of the makeshift stage, I was pushed to the side and was so close to knocking over a stack of empty beer bottles on the floor behind me. I was not about to ruin a sacred moment.
It was the last leg of the singer-songwriter’s Send-Off Series, and fans gathered to catch the gigs before she relocated to the United States.
My husband and I, with close friends, decided we’d watch the show. Again. See, we were just at the same venue a week earlier for the second part of this farewell set. It was a long goodbye, and we were lingering, stuck in tentative adieu.
Like ants storing food for the rainy days ahead, we were try- ing to take everything in, remember the moment and hoard memories to sustain us until we meet her again in God knows how many more years. And my memory of Cynthia and her music go a long, long way back.
I was first introduced to her
music sometime in 1997 by Pia, a friend one year my junior, but who knew better and probably wanted to shut me and the rest of the “MMMBop” generation up. Pia played “Comfort in Your Strangeness” over the phone, and I must have sat there in silence for a long time. I knew then what holds true until now, that Cynthia’s music has a way of rendering one speechless.
The song was from the album “Insomnia and other Lullabyes,” and I have been daydreaming since.
Poignant recollection
But there was one song, “No Umbrella,” which really stuck with me. It is a poignant recollection of the last time a woman saw her beloved. There was something about the way Cynthia sang, at 2:30 seconds into the track, in which you couldn’t tell the song from the sigh and the sigh from the cry. There was a quiet stirring in my heart, the song taking on a personal, visceral meaning.
Not all words lend them- selves to music, and some words choose to remain spoken. You never know with the art of Cynthia Alexander—her prose sings, poetry in motion, dialogues in dance.
A poet once told me that everything is all about closing your eyes. So, you close your eyes, let yourself be lulled by the rhythm, love it, live it and let it be.
When news got to me that Cynthia would be playing as a guest at the Jack Daniel’s On Stage Philippines Indie Music Awards, I dropped everything to attend the event. I rallied on my husband and friends to do the same, and it was to be our own welcome party. We were in Whitespace early.
When all the bands had performed and a man with a violin took his place on the stage, we knew it was time. Many in the crowd rushed to stage left, and you realized the very reason why everyone showed up that night. Cynthia Alexander was home, and our arms were open to welcome her back.
Everything felt surreal—from seeing the moving shadows, making out the silhouettes on that dimly lit stage, to the bright lights that focused on that one spot and the fine-tuning of the guitar. A strum progressed into a rhythm, percussive, folk, Hindi, indigenous, a deluge of sounds, but most importantly a voice, braver that when she left.
And once again we found ourselves drifting, dancing to the all-too-familiar beat of a lovely reverie. I closed my eyes, listened to the music and heard her say, “I am waiting so long, waiting so long, to be with you, be with you.”