Tears at dawn
An unexpected YouTube video at sunrise recalls death, music and direction. About Mozart, field coherence and why tears can be the purest response.
POPULAIR
Paul Hager
6/21/20251 min read
This Morning
YouTube.
First coffee.
The sun rose slow
above the Mediterranean.
Orange brushed my skin.
The world still holding its breath.
I clicked.
Not knowing why.
A pianist.
In a café.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iI9AjiQPrhU
Mozart.
Lacrimosa.
Breathing more than playing.
And then —
voices.
Around a table.
They sang.
Just like that.
No announcement.
No applause.
Only attunement.
The air changed.
Napkins paused.
Cutlery stilled.
Eyes widened.
And I,
on my couch,
facing the sea,
began to cry.
Not out of sorrow.
But because it rang true.
My body knew.
My skin, my breath,
they remembered.
I had been there.
At the edge.
Not of music.
But of disappearing.
No more treatment.
No future.
Only direction.
That’s when I began to write.
Not to survive.
But to follow the field.
Like Mozart.
On his deathbed.
Eight bars.
Then silence.
Not because it ended.
But because it opened.
Today,
years later,
as the sun climbs,
I remember.
Tears are not weakness.
They are measurement.
For what resonates.
And sometimes,
just sometimes,
the field sings itself back.
Through a video.
Through you.
Through me.