Frequency=Speed/Wavelength

"...all objects have a natural frequency

 or set of frequencies

 at which they vibrate when struck,

 plucked, 

strummed

 or somehow

 disturbed."

A quick dive into memory recalls the meaning of "struck." Learning of my parents' separation. Seeing my grandmother lying, serene, on her deathbed. The early morning of the eleventh day of September in the year 2001. The days when teammates died.

Such strikes against my fiber left me oscillating chaotically among states. The crest of waves along one z axis would match sadness, others confusion, some numbness. Or dangerous empathy.

Plucked... by a coy smile from the woman across the room. By that first, fleeting touch of her hand on your arm when she bursts into laughter at your first attempt to make her smile. In an entirely different dimension, by the reckless giggle of a child.

The keen of violin strings, the rhythmic motion of a warm body against my own, the smell of holiday dinners, the firm embrace from a long-missed friend. Strumming the strings at the core of me, where cords twist and ripple and knot....where the time between successive strums interacts intimately with the elasticity (or rigidity) of the fiber. 

Whether struck, plucked, strummed, or otherwise disturbed, the resulting frequency finds a way to manifest. In something like a crystal goblet, the material sings at certain frequencies. At other frequencies, the same crystal shatters.

"The actual frequency is 

dependent upon the 

[material properties of]

the object..."

I've sung, and I've shattered. With each frequency reached, a new state of matter explored. I can only identify the different vibrations relatively; each new frequency is an opportunity to extract a core sample, a glimpse of my material properties, of how that material behaves when struck, plucked, strummed, or disturbed. 

Of course it hurts sometimes. And sometimes it's bliss. But it's plumbing past that depth, that surface manifestation, which produces a sonogram of something more essential. One more element of the ever-unwinding equation which could, in the span of a few lifetimes, yield my natural frequency.

Here's to the attempt to solve that equation with just one life.