My middle name is Helen..."torchlight" and there has always been some part of me that is fascinated by Helen of Troy. By her tragedy, by her choice, by her passion. Helen of Troy, not of Sparta where she was born, no Helen of Troy, where her heart resided. I played Helen in the Faust once, and those words "is this the face that launched a thousand ships and burned the topless towers of Ilium" are burned in my consciousness. So it's really no surprise that the desire to find her through song is searing my thoughts and leaping from my fingers. I wonder, can you love someone you have never met? Can love cross the passage of time and space, the body remembering him before meeting, simply known in the cellular memory of the body? Do we call to us those we need most, those who fill the spaces within the atrophic gaze of indifference? Was she dying a slow death, pushed around like cattle, dreaming Paris into being? How deeply did she long to be outside her life, outside the beauty that made her and chained her? How desperately did she long to disappear into his love, into the her she saw in his eyes that existed beyond her crown, beyond the lines on her face, the tilt of her chin? Did she see in his eyes beyond her perfect profile chiseled into sorrow? How beautiful was it to be seen, seen. Seen. Not admired. Seen. Oh such desire that crosses time and space such that I long to find her voice within me.
They called me the torch
And in the hearts of men
My beauty was a curse
A wager to be won
So how do the towers of Ilium
Burn so bright
Burn so bright
A thousand reasons to let you go
Sail on ravenous seas
.....
More to come...
