A weekly dose of dauntlessly dealt reality from the What It Is Wednesday Blog Carnival…
It’s no dramatization to say that I think I would have died years ago were it not for music. Growing up I often said that writing was a coping skill, that it helped me make things make sense. It was, and it did, though it became something more, after a lifetime devoted to doing it professionally. Music, though, I hid. I kept it pure and untouched by discipline.
I started piano lessons at age eight, and by twelve could play anything put in front of me. I sang in youth choir at church, then began chorus in junior high. Shortly into chorus, the instructor asked me to play for our rehearsals and concerts. I played the piano for Sunday School by age fourteen, and progressed to sing and play in the adult choir. For college I made the hard decision to pursue writing over music. I left home and my piano, and relegated my sonic expression to concert choir. After that, it was all radio blaring with the windows down.
I miss the performance component of music, the synergy of blending harmony with others. I made the right choice of study and career, though, because while my writing refined and carried me, music breathed life into me. It helped me feel sadnesses that I couldn’t name. It enabled me to feel vicarious joy when I stumbled to identify it in my own life. I found release, ecstasy, closure, perfect words, perfect melodies in music, when those things were not forthcoming in my life dynamics.
I’m not carrying the sorrows now that I did in my youth. Still, music moves my life as a sonic ally, a presence, a healer. Through it I found my soul love, met countless friends, rubbed against fame, and crossed barriers of gender, ethnicity, time, geography… As often as I can, I incorporate it into the healing work that I facilitate in myself and others.
I love music. It has given me so much of myself, and opened me to so much in life I would have otherwise never known. One of my greatest joys has been sharing music with my children, and watching them light when they hear certain songs.
What songs light you? What does music bring to your life?
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