"Finishing the Hat"

The song "Finishing the Hat" talks about George Seurat, a 19th century French Painter, and how he cannot escape his work to be with the woman he loves. It talks about the plight of an artist bound to their work, and how he cannot seem to put anything before his art, no person or place. And no one really seems to be able to understand that. If they could, they might be more forgiving when he seems to disregard or neglect those around him. Or why he must always stay to finish his work; finish painting the hat on the canvas. To create. And often times, the things and people the artists truly wants are no longer available to him when he is finally able to commit to them.

We artists toil and toil over our work. We struggle with the hopes of being remembered. We panic that we are wasting our lives. And we seem to never grasp the other joys in life the way someone else might. We bear this Creation Cross, the charge of making things, that others do not. We are asked on High to write Freedom, and to write truth about our experience. It is often a tough pill to swallow.

Making music is a beautiful life. I am completely blessed. But I also wrestle with the temptation of a more conventional life, with a career in medicine or education, and with being an art appreciator more than an art creator. Both are noble, I believe, but I cannot comprehend ever living that way.

For some reason, this song grabbed me today, as it has done dozens and dozens of times. Here's to Seurat, and his beautiful painting, "Sunday Afternoon on the Island of La Grande Jatte."

"Finishing the Hat"
by Stephen Sondheim

Yes, she looks for me - good.
Let her look for me to tell me why she left me-
As I always knew she would.
I had thought she understood.
They have never understood,
And no reason that they should.
But if anybody could...

Finishing the hat,
How you have to finish the hat.
How you watch the rest of the world
From a window
While you finish the hat.

Mapping out a sky.
What you feel like, planning a sky.
What you feel when voices that come
Through the window go
Until they distance and die,
Until there's nothing but sky

And how you're always turning back too late
From the grass or the stick
Or the dog or the light,
How the kind of woman willing to wait's
Not the kind that you want to find waiting
To return you to the night,
Dizzy from the height,
Coming from the hat.
Studying the hat,
Entering the world of the hat,
Reaching through the world of the hat
Like a window,
Back to this one from that.

Studying a face,
Stepping back to look at a face
Leaves a little space in the way like a window,
But to see-
It's the only way to see.

And when the Woman that You Wanted goes,
You can say to yourself, "Well, I give what I give."
But the Woman Who Won't Wait for You knows
That, however you live,
There's a part of you always standing by,
Mapping out the sky,
Finishing a hat...
Starting on a hat..
Finishing a hat...
Look, I made a hat...
Where there never was a hat