First off, I love my iPod...I really cannot overstate this. It was a gift from two of my best friends who just happen to be married to each other. The gift meant so much to me that I was moved to tears and I was pretty much stunned by the gesture...and grateful beyond belief.
Its not hyperbole to state that this iPod has changed my life and added a depth to the way I see the world and all the geometry and people that occupy it.
Music has always been the one thing that I am most passionate about, despite the fact that I can barely play anything myself. I have always viewed music as a soundtrack to our lives from a timeline perspective. You know...you can remember what you were listening to when you received your first kiss...you can pinpoint the song that was playing when you broke up with who you THOUGHT was your soulmate in 9th grade...what was on the radio the first time you made out in a car...good times with your high school friends...the precise songs you picked out for a mix tape for a girl you liked...the background music to your first time...those special songs that are shared between two people in love...and even the music playing when your child was born.
The history of our own lives connected through music in good times, bad times and just plain confusing times.
What is so wonderful about my life now is that I can have my own personal soundtrack playing out in real time whenever I want it and for whatever mood I feel that I am in.
Tonight I was just walking in the cold brisk night air watching the shadow that I cast upon the ground while thinking about someone I really like at the moment, all the while listening to Nick Drake's "Pink Moon" and being moved at how the music combined with the briskly cool night, my shadow of one pining for the company of another in a light cast by a single street lamp. Suddenly the textures meant more...the concrete as canvas, the warmth of my coat and my breathe expressed into the cold night air. A soundtrack played out in the here and now...the good, the bad and the confused.
Recently there was a night where after a wonderful late night talk about everything and nothing with someone that really like, I found myself driving home and listening to the Replacements "Achin' To Be"...a song about an oddball girl that no one seems to understand, except the singer. The song played while I drove down freshly wet streets lit by the orange street lamps in the hours before dawn and found myself feeling the lyrics:
Well I saw one of your pictures,
there was nothing that I could see.
If no one's on your canvas,
then I'm achin' to be.
Whether I am walking through the Fort Worth Stockyards, traversing Sundance Square or getting coffee at any number of Starbucks, I can play the music I want to, to create a real-time soundtrack and feel more in tune with the world around me...sort of like my own personal freeform music video.
Simply said, music can make you feel something if you want it to. Maybe you just want to feel the majestic power of a sunrise or the quite goodbye of a sunset or the shimmering subtleness of the moonlight. Maybe you want to feel the awkward first steps of a child or feel the way a mountain range just speaks to you.
Like me, maybe you know a thousand love songs and long to give them one by one to that someone you are thinking about right now...even if its from the sidelines. Whether it will be good, bad or confusing, its really good to just feel something again and for that I am grateful.
That's great...so I guess everything is working out?
You ought to learn to play at least one instrument. It really helps you relieve stress. I grew up playing the flute, piano, drums, lots of instruments. I miss the piano the most though but no way in heck I'm hauling one up three flights of stairs.
Right now my brain is just a one track sound...a train barreling through on the tracks 'cause I'm just so busy lately! I reloaded my MP3 player though so hopefully I will have some time to listen to a few tunes at work. Speaking of which...I'm already running late!
Posted by: Shell | January 31, 2007 at 06:48 AM
Shell: I would like to say that things are working out, but really they are just plain confusing and pretty much in a holding pattern...but I am fine with that for now.
Posted by: Uzz | January 31, 2007 at 12:42 PM