#broken string

This is how they announced series 4. And we discussed in detail what the broken string could mean and how this would fit into the dark and devastating series 4. But I think there is another, more positive reading for a broken string.

What if Sherlock has been a puppet on a string all along? We see someone who is haunted by his past, his upbringing, by Moriarty, his virus in the data, by his love for John and the ensuing heartbreak, his vow and all its consequences, who has distanced himself from feelings until he realises that he cannot go on like that and yet does not seem to be able to cope with his newfound emotions. And there is of course Mycroft, always hovering in the background, having trained him since childhood in suppressing his emotions, constantly watching and checking and controlling, the judge looming over Sherlock in his TSoT mind palace, the adult despising frightened young Sherlock in the HLV mind palace. 

So the broken string might also be read as Sherlock finally freeing himself from the constraints of the past, his upbringing, his demons, his puppet master, whatever we may call them. As breaking free from the one pulling the strings. And in order to do that he will have to break the strings to meet John finally as a free man.

Nearly every musician who plays a stringed instrument has experienced, or will experience, a broken string.  What are they doing when it breaks?  Are they playing at home for fun?  Are they in the studio or rehearsing for a concert?  Or are they in the middle of a concert and the rest of the band has to cover for them while they get a new string/instrument?  

Carmina’s Cantata #2

So, I realised last weekend that I had been playing holding the ukulele the wrong way round, and so when I switched over and went to retune it, I got confused and ended up snapping a string. I was so upset that I cried… which is very typical of me. My boyfriend was there, so he documented the moment. This meant that the next day I paid £17 for it to be re-stringed at Duke of Uke, and had a chat…

I need an outlet for the words that fill up my brain until it asplodes all over everything. Journaling isn’t enough. I had two podcasts, but it was time to reboot my whole life and return to writing. Where to blog, and what? Tumblr? WordPress? It’s got to give more than it takes, it’s got to be free, and if I think about it too much — as with anything creative — I can’t do it. If I plan, planning is all I ever do. I’m a born pantser. That is, born to create by the seat of my pants.

Neil Gaiman wrote to a struggling writer something to the effect that he can only write if he convinces himself that’s not what he’s doing. I feel similarly. I have to get out of my own way, and the more I have to think about the process the more likely it is to stall. Psychotherapist Milton Erickson had to re-learn how to walk after a debilitating bout of polio, and found it most helpful to watch his two-year-old sister learning to walk for the first time. We learn so many things kinesthetically — that is, learn by doing — that to reverse-engineer this sort of learning intellectually sometimes feels like shooting oneself in the foot.

I taught myself to write a long time ago. All children are born poets. In childish naïveté, like so many creative children, I shared with gleeful abandon what I’d made, and clomping giant adults who had lived most of their lives with broken strings broke the connection for me with their reactions. Children, like all artists, are sensitive creatures, and deserve protecting. When those meant to be doing the protecting are those one needs protection from, the legacy of broken dreams and hearts passes on to the next generation. Careful the words you say, children will listen. Careful the things you do, children will see and learn.

I was made self-conscious. I became a third-person observer of my own experiences, a passive yet horrified viewer of my own life. Poison spread like cancer through everything I did, egoistic desperation to find connection and validity outside myself once robbed of connection and wholeness with myself. My mother was cold wire in a vaguely anthropoid shape. My father the all-devouring Kronos. We are fortunate indeed I had no siblings. But how bewildering to be an only child and still never be the favourite child.

I write for myself, but words unshared grow brackish and die in my heart, swarmed by flies of unresting though and bloodthirsty mosquitoes as I pick and pick and pick off the scabs and leave holes in my face, my arms. I will not heal without sunshine. What is the point of speaking, of writing, of words at all if they are not received, if they remain imprisoned behind my lips and eyes?

I do not wish to repeat the mistakes of my childhood. I do not wish to reveal my raw colander heart to be stomped on anew by those who have nothing better to do than piss, shit, and ejaculate in any receptivity they find. Kim Rhodes says to ‘go where the love is’ and ‘find an audience that has your back.’ In all my life I have had that but once and he died almost sixteen years ago, like a fluke. I will not find my audience through silence, but neither will I find it through reckless sharing. All my life I’ve searched the earth for eager eyes and willing ears.

Unlike Pluto – Broken String Lyrics

Unlike Pluto – Broken String Lyrics

Unlike Pluto – Broken String Lyrics Looking like a stormy day Don’t think that’ll go away So under my roof I’ll stay And that’s all right I’ll just play my Guitar for a couple of hours Play my heart and play it louder Play until I break a string Oh, it’s alright I’ve got all I need

Just a broken string And it gets hard And I’ve got five more, five more And I can…