Growing up near the water in Maine, I sometimes watched as people tied monkey's fists and other knots (such as sheepshanks and bowlines), only a few of which I was ever able to learn. After watching someone tie a knot a few times and seeing its twists and turns, I could duplicate it. But then I would forget it. So, learning a new knot meant I would tie and retie it obsessively—worrying at it, knowing that sometime soon I might not be able to remember how to do it again.
Learning to tie a monkey's fist was the inspiration for the musical structure of this piece. It's a tangle of different strands of music, perhaps resembling not only this particular knot, but also the way our memories are layered on top of other memories. Its anxious, obsessive quality reminds me of the feeling you get when you know that you might forget something…