Intervals: Life Between the Notes

Playing some notes while mom explains intervals.

Listen to me read this week’s reflection.

Intervals are spaces between two things. Intervals exist in math and physical activities, like running or strength training, in sporting events and concerts. Intervals may be perceived as interruptions or disturbances. Intervals may be a welcome rest or lull. Intervals are part of life.

In music, intervals are the space between two notes. I checked in with my mom, who is far more musically inclined than I am about this. She explained that intervals are not marked by the physical distance between two keys on the piano, but the distance between the pitches. She went on to talk about scales and chords, which while fascinating, was beyond my range. Our conversation led me to two quotes.

Mozart said, “the music is not in the notes, but in the silence between.”

For French composer Claude Debussy “music is the space between the notes.”

Silence and space are not always synonymous, but in relation to music, at least for me, they both invite reflection. Offer room for the notes to resonate. Their meaning and power to be absorbed.

I’ve been reflecting on notes. Not so much musical notes, but keynotes. Did you know that the term keynote comes from music? A keynote is the first note and sets the tone for the whole piece.

Just over a week ago, I was one of four keynote speakers at The Next Level Private Practice Summit, an event for therapists and private practice therapy owners. My keynote was titled Not Just Telling Stories: The Healing Power of Speaking Our Pain. When the host of this event, who is also a friend, reached out asking if I would be one of the keynote speakers, I was hesitant. Not because I don’t love speaking, but because I worried that I wasn’t qualified for this particular audience. What would I say to a room full of mental health professionals and clinicians? I remember my friend saying, “be you and tell your story, that’s where your power is.”

In my keynote to a crowd of therapists, I shared how therapy saved and transformed my life. Therapy didn’t take away the memories or impacts of trauma and abuse. But my story of pain and healing from it is only possible because therapy gave me the strength, and more importantly, the language to tell it.

Camera caught me warming up before I went on stage.

After my second hospitalization for depression, I began working with a therapist. Her office was a warm and soft cocoon for me and my story. An hour each week where I didn’t have to pretend. Sometimes that meant silence. Other times it meant telling chapters of my story that I had kept inside, much to own detriment. In therapy my story had air and my pain was allowed to breathe. Over time therapy is where I started scripting the story of the life I longed to live.

Looking back, I recognize that my healing happened in intervals. That therapist was part of my journey from my second hospitalization through my last. For nine years I did that work with her at my side.

I told the audience that this coming Spring will mark 20 years since my last hospitalization. What I didn’t say is that my last stay was at a hospital just miles from the Summit. On my way home, I drove by the hospital remembering my final discharge and all the experiences that have filled the spaces of my life since that day almost two decades ago.

This most recent keynote was not my first. About nine years ago, I offered a keynote speech at a national gathering for organizations active in disaster response. At the time I was serving in ministry. My primary appointment was directing a flood recovery project on behalf of the denomination where I was a provisional clergy person.

That keynote was a catalyst, but not in the way many imagined. I never sought out a role in disaster response. It literally found me, like hundreds of thousands of families woke up to find their homes and basements inundated with water after torrential rains fell in the Metropolitan Detroit area. I accepted the position because declining it wasn’t really an option. And I gave my all to it because of the immense devastation and needs I saw firsthand.

When I was preparing my keynote address, colleagues were abuzz about my future in the disaster response world. Where would I go next? What project would I lead after this one ended?

Something was stirring in me for those nearly three years of navigating mold and asbestos removal, FEMA claims, and signing mass purchase orders for drywall, furnaces, and hot water heaters. Advocating for the dignity and humanity of flood survivors, in and out of wet basements, I realized what I really wanted for my future was to get out of the closet.

Mucking out a flooded basement, 2015.

When I made my way to the stage in that large ballroom, looking out at the audience, I wasn’t afraid of being heard, but of being seen. I was ashamed of me so anyone who really knew me would be too, right? I’d worked so hard to heal, only to hide who I was and what I had survived. In my mind if people looked close enough they could see my past, even though I covered it with so many things. I was sure there were rainbow letters on my forehead. That I’d be disqualified because of my history of depression. That I’d be rejected for being queer.

My keynote was well received. It brought new partners and resources to the flood recovery project that enabled us to finish out our work strong. That little project that could continues on in the disaster response efforts birthed from it.

That platform didn’t catapult me up the ladder of disaster response, but it sent me somewhere even greater. While I had been working with a new therapist for over a year on how to embrace my queerness and figure out how to exist in a system that said I had to choose between being me and being ordained, that keynote rearranged spaces in my heart and chords in my mind.

I returned from that gathering ready to be me, whatever the cost. If you’ve been around Wednesdays at the Well for more than a minute you know that decision indeed came with a very heavy cost. Yet it’s one I do not regret for even a second.

Over these last nine years I have done a good bit of public speaking and storytelling, but last week’s keynote was different. It was my second keynote and my first time speaking without shame of who I am or fear of being seen. There is something magical about simply being you and unapologetically and unashamedly sharing your story with others. And having others trust you with pieces of their stories in return.

It wasn’t until I drove by the hospital, where I once found myself in a complete state of hopeless despair, that I made the connection to the number nine. I was born in the ninth month. Nine-year intervals seems to be part of my life score. For nine years I was in and out of hospitals and treatments for depression. For nine years I worked with one therapist to slowly release the pain and pressure that had built up from trauma and from keeping silent about it.

And there were nine years between my first and second keynote speeches. In that nine-year space so much music has been made and played. I have traveled distances I never imagined possible. I have created a life of authenticity from the unraveled fabric of a robe I never felt comfortable wearing. I have found my purpose in sharing the stories I was told to keep quiet.

Still selling and signing copies of Unraveling: Coming Out and Back Together.

In numerology, the number 9 represents completion, but not in the sense of finality. It’s cyclical, ushering in the end of one season and guiding the start of another.

I wasn’t sure I’d survive life outside of hospitals and off of medications or find hope and joy again after the church’s crushing rejection. I really believed my first keynote would be my last. Yet here I am, playing in the space between notes. Enjoying every chord, creating new songs, telling new stories, composing new dreams, perfecting my unique pitch. Like music, coming to life in the intervals.

What intervals have you experienced in your life? What spaces have you filled or navigated in between significant events? What distances have you traveled? What lessons have you learned there?

Maybe you are currently in a challenging place or frustrating situation, does thinking of this season as an interval help you to reconsider your response or relationship to it? Does an interval feel less confining than a rough patch? Less daunting than a mountain to climb?

Do you have a story of how you found fresh perspective or deeper awareness or enhanced wisdom in the space between two notes? How and where might you tell this story? Who would benefit from hearing this story?

Water-fully Yours,
Rebecca & 10CAMELS

I am ready to make keynote speaking a more prominent part of the work I do and the offerings of 10CAMELS. Are you part of a community or organization looking for an engaging, educating, entertaining, and empowering storyteller and keynote speaker? Let’s chat! Send me a message to talk about how I might start turning words into water for your event.

There are five Wednesdays in October so that means lots of words and water are flowing. Next week I’ll be sharing another reflection inspired by my experience at the Summit.

And this month’s Friday Field Trip, for paid subscribers will be on Halloween. I’ve got a spirited poem to share. Become a paid subscriber or upgrade your subscription today to save your seat on the bus.