Honest to goodness I don’t know why I am amazed to be at the end of another day. One moment I am sitting up, shaking off sleep and writing in my morning journal and then I sort of remember the process of getting ready and going to work and working and then getting into the evening traffic on the way home. Then it’s fixing and eating dinner, perhaps watching some of the day’s news for a bit, then retiring upstairs to begin the blog writing and other things I do in what seems to be a very narrow window of time and energy. Somehow after spending time with Lessons in Gratitude and then posting it on Facebook and checking to see what everyone’s been up to all day, it’s time to take my rest before waking and starting all over again. Such is the way for millions of people, I am by no means special in that way. Still, the passage of time occurs now with such speed as to be breathtaking. Nevertheless, I am grateful for this day.
Tonight, just for a few minutes I want to return to an oft-visited theme of this blog: the transformative power of music. I had a song in my head that I wanted to hear–a James Taylor tune that for some reason was calling to me just then. I couldn’t find it, but I turned on my iPod to one of my JT playlists and pushed play. I was immediately transported by the song that came on to an earlier time in my life. I’ve listened to (and played) James Taylor tunes for well over 40 years (since I was a wee baby.) The power of his music to take me back to various times of my life is remarkable and instantaneous. Music is something I never take for granted. I am grateful to have been exposed to such an incredible variety of musical genres and consider my tastes wide ranging and eclectic.
I must confess though that I miss the days when I could take whatever I was feeling and pour it out into music–my own songs, my words, my composition. Music was what gave me voice when I didn’t have other ways of expressing myself. Like my garden that I mentioned in my blog a few days ago, as my life got more hectic and stressful, my ability to create new and expressive music has diminished to a mere trickle. This is definitely something I would like to reclaim at some point, but as with the garden and a few other things in my life, time, opportunity, and creative and physical energy haven’t aligned at the same time to allow me to write any new music. While I might be tempted to shrug and say, “Oh well, that was for a time in my life and that time has passed,” somehow I can’t quite bring myself to believe that. I still have a lot to say, a lot to express and share with the world around me. As is true with so many other parts of my life at the moment, I have no idea what, how, and when the planets will align and I will get simultaneously hit with bursts of inspiration, opportunity, creative energy and time. The best I can do is to promise to continue to pay attention to the subtle signs that come my way and be ready when the burst hits.
Sometimes it feels like I spend a lot of time waiting for this alignment to happen. Not idly waiting, mind you. I do try to keep myself engaged in some occupation that will encourage movement in the direction I am hoping to go. If I truly desire to get back to a place of writing music, I need to be sure to keep singing, playing my guitar, thinking in rhymes. I get impatient and agitated and worried that perhaps I might not compose another song, write another poem, plant another garden. But that is when the gift of perseverance kicks in and that small gust of wind that I need fills the sails of my little boat and keeps me sailing forward rather than sitting still or sinking. I am truly appreciative of that gift. It has not failed me, even in the midst of the challenging times of the past year. When I call upon it, it is there. Thank god.
I never did find the James Taylor song I was looking for in my music library. I had it once, but no longer. But the beauty of the internet meant I didn’t have to look far to find it. Enjoy “Secret O’ Life” with me. Life really is “such a lovely ride.”
