The Sound of Sonny’s Blues

How one ADHDer does their homework.

A lot happened today, but I want to share a little before I call it a night. I’m working on an exercise for a prose workshop at the SF Writing Institute led by the amazing Alexandra Kostoulas.

The assignment is to do a close read of Sonny’s Blues by James Baldwin. I feel like an idiot. I can’t effing read. Is it ADHD or the material? It feels like the language is too dense, the pacing too slow. I underline a sentence and immediately forget why I’ve underlined it. I’ve got the fidgets and the wanders.

Exasperated, I open the PDF in Adobe Acrobat and let the new AI feature summarize for me. But even the summary makes no sense.

As a last resort, I turn to Youtube, the great teacher. Maybe there’s a chance that some MFA influencer can lend me some insight, but it’s blah, blah, blah.

And then, a miracle, I come across thecoachableactor4478. This man does an amazing dramatic reading of Sonny’s Blues. He doesn’t have to explain it. The text speaks for itself, or rather, it speaks through his embodiment of it. Suddenly, I can focus, and I sit for the next 90 minutes reading and listening simultaneously.

Now I can feel why Sonny’s Blues is held in high regard, and I want to underscore every other sentence.

Here’s my favorite quote:

“I had never before thought of how awful the relationship must be between the musician and his instrument. He has to fill it, this instrument, with the breath of life, his own. He has to make it do what he wants it to do. And a piano is just a piano. It’s made out of so much wood and wires and little hammers and big ones, and ivory. While there’s only so much you can do with it, the only way to find this out is to try; to try and make it do everything.”

I’m sure there are a lot of ways to read this piece, but ultimately I really feel like it’s an exploration of how to show up in the world and for each other.

Note for my future self when I’m stalled out with a reading. Keep looking for another access point. If the words don’t want to stay on the page, let them off and see where they go.

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