I am grateful this evening for the music that permeates my life. It connects me to my deepest emotions; a song can transport me immediately to a different emotional-mental space. Yesterday I wrote about the impact that the song “Home” from the musical “The Wiz” has on me. It scarcely matters where I am or what I’m doing, that song touches a place in my heart in an immediate almost instantaneous way. Songs like that are part of the soundtracks of our lives: lovers associate certain songs with their loved ones, “Remember when we danced to that song?” Some songs I can remember my father singing or whistling, and certain songs never failed to make my mother cry. There were those I sang to my children, sometimes making them up on the spot. Songs that comforted or silly ones that brought on the giggles. Music continues to play such a vital role in my life. And now my children each make their own music, compose and play their own beautiful music. It makes my heart smile to hear them play and sing, to watch them create and know that I had a hand in passing that love along to them, though it would have no doubt developed anyway.
I grew up listening, dancing to Motown artists and the Beatles–my older sisters had stacks of 45s we used to play on the old record player. As a freshman in high school I listened to all kinds of music, but it wasn’t until I started playing the guitar that I really discovered the power of music in my life. One of the first of the lessons in gratitude blogs I wrote back on July 5, 2011, was about my discovering my voice through my music. I am sharing that posting again this evening as I prepare to wind myself down after a long week. From LIG Day Four:
“This afternoon I had the opportunity to sit outside and enjoy the company of friends while listening to a singer-songwriter play her guitar and sing for a couple of hours. I thought about my own songwriting and the role that music has played in my life in the nearly 40 years since I first picked up my guitar.
When I was in high school in the early 70s,I wanted to be a writer–fiction mostly,but I also wrote poetry. It was frustrating to me that all my poetry rhymed. I grew up in an era when non-rhyming poetry was much more hip and cool than verse that rhymed. But no matter what I did my rhyming poetry was always way better than anything I ever came up with that didn’t have rhyme or a particular meter. I was quite dejected about this for quite some time. Then at age 15 I started playing the guitar and at one point it finally dawned on me that I wasn’t writing rhyming poetry–I was writing song lyrics!
Once I reached that realization,my life was literally no longer the same. My songwriting gave me a voice I’d never had before,a way to express feelings and fears,sadness and angst I would not have been able to express to another person. It allowed people to know me in a way that I was too shy to otherwise make myself known. I could offer my music as a personal gift to friends and family. It was something uniquely mine.
Music was a salve to my soul. When I was sad I could pour that sadness into my music and the sweet sounds that came from my guitar and singing gave voice to that sorrow. I could be angry,I could be lonely,I could be many things through music that I didn’t know how to be without it. And that emotion often reached out and touched the people who listened. There was an exchange of energy and spirit between me and the listener that was palpable to each of us. Music has that kind of power.
So today as I sit writing this I realize how grateful I am to have the gift of music in my life and I realize that it’s been far too long since I actively gave myself over to it. I think when I finish,I’ll get up and tune my guitar and refresh myself with a heart song. Nothing quite revives my spirit as when I connect to the divine through music.”
I’m going to take a few moments this evening before I take my rest to tune up my 12-string and play and sing for a little while. Close my eyes and sigh and let the music feed my soul and let my heart fill with gratitude for the gift of song.
