Tomorrow

For cello and piano

This work was written for Wendy Lu (cello) and Elijah Orlenko (piano). I’d like to extend a genuinely gigantic thank you to the both of you for being amazing collaborators in the creation of this work. You all put up with…just an obscene amount of weirdness on my end and I will forever be thankful for that. You both rock and I am beyond excited to see what you get up to in your careers.

About this work

Instead of trying to put my thoughts about this work into writing, I think it might be best to just leave you with a quote which both saved my life and inspired this work.

“A friend and fellow philosopher wrote to me recently, ‘I have not spent a week of my life without thinking of how much better it would all be if I could just end it. Even in the happiest of times. Sometimes I find instant relief just by indulging a quick suicidal ideation.’ I wrote back to say how healthy I thought this way of thinking was, for someone who understands herself to be suicidally inclined. We have the habit of thinking that thoughts and words tend to manifest as actions, but just the opposite can be the case. Letting yourself have the thoughts and the words can be precisely what relieves you of the need for the action.

Ultimately, we might be better off deferring adjudication on the great question of life or death. Suicide is indeed a human possibility, but, and somewhat paradoxically, for that very reason, we don’t have to choose it. After all, you can always kill yourself tomorrow. Take a breath, get some space: tomorrow isn’t here yet. And maybe you’ll find you can get through today.”

– From How Not to Kill Yourself by Clancy Martin