the tacos of necessity — Joshua Bornfield

trigger warning: depression

i took today off from my day job because my friend jordan offered me a ticket to an afternoon showing of this movie called the revengers or something evidently it’s supposed to be a real marvel

so as is every day part i take off ever this one is packed to the brim full of doctor appointments and shopping and naturally i just forget to eat breakfast because i know when i’ll be eating and it’s right before i see the revengers

so i’m driving through a suburb when BOOM my stomach opens its yawning ferocious maw and i immediately require food

when appearing around literally the next corner

like an image of the virgen de guadalupe

is Isabel’s Latin Market

conductors jordan smith and ryan tani and tacos that are a lot better than the ones i just ate

the place was quiet and it had a little shop and i needed tortillas so i went in and lo and behold they also served tacos so i asked for some breakfast tacos and the lady behind the counter politely shook her head so lengua it was and man let me tell you

each was a #justfinetaco

the lengua was just a little over cooked and the tortilla was just a little gummy and dang it i want raw onion on a taco not sautéed with the meat and where’s my radish

and i thought about giving that appraisal to a place staffed by such courteous people, so clean, so well-organized

and something came to mind

i’ve struggled with depression since i was about 12 and went through a really bad patch for about four years that ended last autumn

music was a coping tool to help me with the roller coaster of emotions and composing became the best avenue for expressing the most difficult feelings to deal with

and then i went and decided to do it professionally

and writing what other people wanted me to write was stifling and made me hate the process and oh look here i am not writing music and oh wait there it is the kittycat of depression curled up on my chest it’s almost as if the two were related

so when i started practicing some self-care in may i went back to writing and committed to finishing a piece within a month which didn’t happen

instead i worked on it intermittently for five months and stopped right before finishing because i had to write an orchestra piece for an imminent premiere

but then i finished both pieces in quick succession and came to terms with what writing music means to me now so i did a little exercise on my next day part off you know like you do

i decided i was going to write a little piece from downbeat to double-bar in a single sitting like i used to be able to do

and i did

and that piece is just fine

it isn’t epically great

it will win no awards

but it will get performed a lot because it’s got a purpose

it fills a “what do we sing when something horrible happens to the jews” sized hole in the christian church music repertoire

and it does so with integrity and i’m proud of it despite it not being the greatest piece of music since oh i don’t know maybe the theme music to the revengers or something but when the performers believe in it the music can be quite marvelous

in just the same way these tacos will absolutely do in a pinch i mean they did today

all this is to say that not every taco is a #perfecttaco just like not every piece you write will be a masterwork and

that’s

just

fine