Building A Mystery

Untangling sorrow and the music of Sarah McLachlan.

By the time I was a young teenager, maybe 13 or 14 years old, I was pretty good at playing the piano. I could play Chopin, Debussy, Beethoven, and Mendelssohn. I could also sing, and songs like Scarborough Fair, Be Thou My Vision, and even some of my own compositions were played daily in our home. I loved melancholy waltzes and mysterious melodies best.

As a homeschooled kid in an era before cell phones and tablets, singing and playing the piano was my main source of entertainment. My music was my safe place amid the stress and sadness of an abusive home.

My dad loved the music of Sarah McLachlan, and I dreamed of being just like her. I wanted to sing and play concerts like her. I wanted to perform at Lilith Fair. I wore jeans under my dresses and studied her songwriting techniques.

One of my dad’s favorite songs was Adia, and he asked me to learn how to play it. He used to sit by the piano in a dining room chair, watching me practice, telling me to play it again.

The lyrics go:

Adia, I do believe I’ve failed you
Adia, I know I've let you down
Don't you know I tried so hard
To love you in my way?
It's easy, let it go …

We are born innocent
Believe me, Adia,
We are still innocent,
It's easy, we all falter.
Does it matter?

But it did matter to me.

Sometimes, I understood that I was Adia. That to my dad, this song was more than just a catchy tune and a moody ballad. That the lyrics meant something. That they addressed a deep and unspoken darkness.

Other times I wrote off my fear and apprehension, and told myself it was just a rambling song that my dad liked for no particular reason. I should just play it. Even though it hurt. Even though it felt wrong. It would make him happy.

I was partially innocent; on the brink of adulthood and yet still a little girl. As a child I couldn’t and didn’t want to understand that my dad was abusive. But as a young teenager, I was pivoting between naivety and understanding. The more he pressured me to sing Adia for him, the more I grew to hate the song.

Because it did matter that he’d falter.
It wasn’t enough for him to love me in his way.
He was not innocent.
And he did not only falter once or twice.

Another favorite song in our home was Possession, from the album, Fumbling Towards Ecstasy. Thankfully, I don’t recall my dad ever asking me to learn that one, but we listened to it frequently and the words still disturb me:

The night is my companion
And solitude my guide,
Would I spend forever here
And not be satisfied?
And I would be the one
To hold you down
Kiss you so hard,
I'll take your breath away,
And after I wipe away your tears
Just close your eyes dear.

It’s been a long time since I escaped my abusive home. Jason and I have been married for 18 years. In another three, I’ll have lived with my husband for as long as I lived with my dad.

Last month, I inexplicably had the song Building A Mystery stuck in my head. I don’t know why. It had been over a decade since I’d listened to any of Sarah’s music. And yet, there it was, holding on and holding it in.

Over the past few weeks, I’m finding that I can listen to Sarah’s music again without getting that sickening tightness in my chest. I can even enjoy it and find wisdom and comfort in her lyrics. I still skip Aida and Possession, but I can dip my toes into pools of memory without feeling the sting of abuse.

The life I've left behind me is a cold room.

My own talents and musicality became an element of his abuse. A loving father will encourage his child to excel and take joy in their talents and accomplishments. Only a very warped father would obsess over his child’s gifts and pressure them to sing lyrics absolving him of wrongdoing.

It’s easy, let it go? … we all falter? It doesn’t matter?

The very thing that I had loved — my safe space, my piano — was used to minimize, trivialize, and normalize the abuse I was suffering. Because of that (and partly because I have three young children), I have taken a very long break from music. It started around the time I began unpacking my deepest psychological abuse, and has continued for about fifteen years. I still sing, but mostly in church or at home. I rarely touch my piano. I rarely play songs for others. I never write new songs anymore.

It’s my hope that something is changing. Perhaps getting Building A Mystery stuck in my head was my brain unlocking an old vault and clearing out the broken pieces. Perhaps wanting to listen to Sarah’s music again signals a new chapter in my recovery. Perhaps my season of grieving wounds that have no name is almost over.

Maybe someday soon I’ll be able to write songs at my piano and sing again.