“Gunnar liked these, and I do too!”
a Minimalism Playlist:
“Minimalist” songs and artists that my ex-husband, and only “True Love” listened to before or after we were apart. I found the newer ones online and it helped me feel calmer and a type of peace because I loved them too. I soon learned that Glander, Skalpel and Vate’s tracks, mostly without words, are often listened to by programmers when coding, as the electronic music produces a tranquil rhythm that is easy to work and think by — It induces a state of being in the moment, mentally, and takes your mind off other background noises and sounds, allowing you to achieve a “zen” state and maximum productivity.
Mort Subotnick, Terry Riley and Steve Reich are minimalist composers Gunnar studied at CalArts in the early 90’s while getting his MFA in Music Composition. I lived with Gunnar in California, from 1992 until 2000, but we met and fell in love in my senior year at Colby in 1989. We married in 1997 and a terrible “music tragedy” ended our epic and perfect “American Dreamlike” relationship in 2000. I was temporarily seduced by a clarinet teacher who I had gone to take lessons with at 7:30pm after work so I could play music with Gunnar, who played piano and guitar.
The teacher would sit on a couch and stare at me while drinking wine. I had no clue how to tell him that wasn’t appropriate, and eventually, I drank the wine too and I believe I was drugged because I was in a very different, if not psychotic, state of mind about feeling this was the only place I should be — It was as if I was escaping into another world with this teacher and the feeling of learning and sound. But I never truly loved him — I always loved Gunnar, but I see how what happened hurt Gunnar and I believe he would understand my pain from this if he were me. He would feel the helplessness I felt, that there was no other choice. I wasn’t attracted to the teacher physically, at all, but he “seduced” me with music and wine. It is one of the creepiest and mind altering experiences I ever had, and it ruined my marriage to Gunnar, caused me to attempt suicide by cutting my wrists, and brought me into the deepest, major depression of my life when I needed to take Zoloft and spent time in two hospitals for “rehab” after a suicide attempt.
The depression I had was so bad after Gunnar left that I couldn’t even feel joy in Spring, when the pink blossoms on the trees were out and the sky was blue. Even with our dogs around me, I was completely depressed. Thinking back, I don’t remember what happened to Wiley and Quest when the police handcuffed me behind my back, and took me to the hospital when I cut my wrist… who took care of the dogs? Later, I returned to life with Zoloft and went back to work, with a huge hole in my entire soul, as if all the joy I’d ever had in life was vacuumed out of me. The doctors had also discovered I had hypothroidism, and put me on levothyroxin. This required, daily thyroid drug actually changed me forever — I could sleep better, I could turn off the thoughts racing in my head at night and was freed of the person I was before. As a required medication for low metabolism, I have taken this daily for over 20 years. Losing Gunnar in this way is still a traumatic experience in my brain, but the story gets even more complicated, as I became pregnant with twins on the rebound, and played clarinet to them, alone for 5–6 months before I eventually moved to a house in San Anselmo with Brian, the biological father.
I had been working full-time as a graphic designer at a bike company, and they fired me when they found out I was pregnant. I scrambled to find other work, and eventually worked as a nanny for two lawyers who had 2 girls, and twin boys. They paid me half in cash, and half trade for twin equipment and baby clothes. An incredible family, they were kind and intelligent. I did realize how wonderful they were to me at the time — real life saviors. They taught me almost everything I needed to raise my own twins who were growing inside of me. I got through the loss of Gunnar by loving my twin boys, even if I wasn’t in love with Brian in the same way as I was with Gunnar, I tried to make it work. It was suddenly, an entirely different life.
You don’t survive this mentally very easily. You just do the work that has been put before you, taking care of two new humans becomes your entire, physically exhausting existence and new mental task. Brian was not my true love or a match spiritually, the way Gunnar was. I had zero mental support from Brian. It was always a huge task with him, to do anything. My brain was never at ease. Add in the drugs he was doing and alcohol, and it was like raising spectrum twins with a mean clown. I went from the perfect marriage with Gunnar, to the hardest life I’d ever had… but I loved my sons. I did everything I could to help them, despite spectrum disorders, despite their father, despite the loss of Gunnar, despite having no emotional or spiritual support at all from Brian. I loved them, and I gave them music and art and dancing and dogs and nature… and friends, and the best doctors and schools, swimming, beaches, sailing, surfing… piano, keyboards, drums and travel to see Grandparents… We got through the loss of Gunnar, together. My sons saved me back then, and they probably don’t understand this. Music played a role in our lives through all of this, from love, to loss, healing and joy. I owe so much of my own music appreciation and ability to listen to all kinds of music, to Gunnar. The love of the piano. The love of peace and behavior that is calm.
This playlist starts with a funny song, that feels much like Gunnar’s humor, and moves through meditative electronic music for work and “coding”, (which used to only be called programming btw) and then it goes back to the minimalist composers learned at CalArts Music Composition. Skalpel is added at the end- also a newer discovery for Gunnar, later in life, I saw that on his music blog at one point.
My “life” is in California. My sons are in California, and I want to have my own home and a dog, back in California. This isn’t because of Gunnar, or any one person — It is because my sons, and friends and 32 years of my adult life were lived in California. It’s not a perfect place, but it is a State that protects more kinds of people, in a kinder and gentler way than most States. The landscape is still beautiful and vastly different than most places in America.
If we are losing the land, and the oceans to our inability to change fast enough, we must obviously CHANGE FASTER. We must speed up the rate of change with laws, technology, education and world wide support of all the new technologies available. This is definitely a time in history where we all are forced to see how helping the poor and those with the least ability to adapt is critical to our survival. Perhaps this minimalism playlist will help others enjoy some of the “zen-time” I had with Gunnar over the years, or focus on their work at hand. I often see albums titled, “Music for Tough Times”, or “Music for the Apocolypse”, etc… This one is eclectic, but quite comforting to me.
