It's Wim Wenders' fault

When a friend I hadn't seen in awhile asked me what I was up to these days, I mentioned that I was learning to play the cello.

He raised his eyebrows and asked, "The cello? Really? Why the cello?"

"It's Wim Wenders' fault."

(My friend is used to me giving answers that only make sense in my head. He's a patient person, though, which is probably why he's still my friend.)

Back when my panic attacks were far worse than they are now, I'd be up at night pacing, sitting down, standing up, always hoping that somehow, I could get out of my skin and let it panic while I got some badly needed sleep.

Sometimes, I'd put in a DVD in an effort to distract myself. Someone had loaned me a copy of Wings of Desire. I had seen City of Angels a few years earlier and discovered it was partly based on Wings of Desire, so I was interested to see the original version. [Confession: I didn't like City of Angels, particularly after I saw Wings of Desire.]

After Bruno Ganz recites a bit of "Song of Childhood," cello is the first thing you hear in the film as the hand-etched white-on-black credits begin - a long, slow, low note; then another; then a quiet little run, then some pizzicato (plucking), then another long, slow note, and then as the camera pans over Berlin, a little run that sounds like a despairing cry. The angel Damiel stands high up on the edge of a bombed-out part of a clocktower. His head is bowed. His wings are just visible. Only the children below in the street notice him.

The film is mostly black-and-white, which is the angels' point of view, and then it dissolves into color when you see the humans' point of view. There is a montage of the angels observing different people to "assemble, testify, preserve." They listen in on inner monologue. They occasionally comfort people. They smile at children, who can always see them. Damiel eventually encounters Marion, a circus performer, and Cassiel (another angel) starts to observe Damiel. Peter Falk plays himself with a lovely twist. I won't tell you how the rest of it goes. You should watch it.

There is other music in the film - harp, voices, songs by Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds, Crime and the City Solution, Laurie Anderson. Actually, other than the beginning and bits scattered throughout, cello isn't prominently featured, but it's what grabbed my attention. Particularly that despairing sound. When you've panicked for days in a row and are severely sleep-deprived, despair feels exactly like that sound.

I watched it all the way through that first time while pacing the living room at 2 in the morning. Then I started watching it again, finally managing to sit down and not fidget, and eventually, I fell asleep to Bruno Ganz reciting "Song of Childhood" a third time.

After watching that film, I started hearing cello in a lot of music on the radio. I deliberately started seeking it out. I quickly found that there is more cello music out there than just Yo-Yo Ma, although he is one of the finest cellists around, and I do have many of his CDs. Abby Newton recorded in a cave. Zoe Keating makes the cello do avant things. Rasputina goes all steampunk goth singing about Howard Hughes. Charlie Chaplin composed cello music, and left-handed at that. My current favorite is Apocalyptica. Metallica covers on four cellos = awesome!

My doctor advised me that I really needed to work less and find more creative outlets if I didn't want the panic attacks to take over my life. Along with renewing my interest in story writing and watercolor painting and knitting, I remembered that film and started to seriously consider cello lessons. It took a few years before I could afford an instrument and lessons, but I was able to do it finally. I watched the movie again recently while I battled a spring cold. Even now, it still reminds me "why the cello."

In a way, I equate cello with panic, but in the sense that sitting down with the instrument to practice undoes the panic because I can get myself to focus on something outside my head, which somehow calms me down. Dunno how it works, but I'm damn grateful that it does.

Whenever I sit down with the instrument to practice these days, I imagine Damiel and Cassiel are standing behind me, observing. And wincing.