It's Always Been the Music

As I folded laundry to Spotify tonight, a peppy Club Mix came on, a bouncy flight of joy that forced my foot to tapping, my entire body soon ad-libbing into a slight sway-bounce-sway as I put the last of the towels and socks away.

I marveled at the happiness and childlike sense of pure fun the song imbued.

It occurred to me how dissension, disgruntlement, and being disturbed and pre-occupied with self-imposed burdens seemed oddly juxtaposed to tunes such as this dancing in the air.  

And then flickers of my own past conflicts crossed my line of sight: of impatience with my own children when they were small; misunderstandings and mean-spiritedness among family; the inability to remain true to one's self and to God; the faults of false pretense and worrying about what others think, all ran through my mind as sad, unnecessary truths in contrast to this delightfully playful music now filling my space. 

I thought, "How could there ever be dissension when music, be it of angels or electronica, is so able to quickly, and graciously I might add, swallow it up and prevent it even happening in the first place?"

The song ended, leaving my mind and inner being in smiling good-cheer. 

And that's when I realized that my wellbeing has almost always coincided with the listening to music.

It’s always been the music: 

The music that eased me awake, as a senior in high school, at five a.m., accompanied by the green glow of the eight-track in my bedroom, and enabled me to rise out of sleep and force myself out the door to catch the bus by ten minutes to seven in the cold January morning. All so that I could enter a high school building I didn’t want to enter, in order to spend the day with other students who only made me nervous and self-conscious.

Music that enlivened my free-spiritedness throughout my twenties, revealing a vista of new artists and dream-like live concerts. 

Music that soothed as I rocked my babies, and evolved into toddler singsongs on cassette tape that we chimed in with everywhere we went, and that made us laugh.

Music that stepped in along with sobriety, replacing the stadium-rock too heavily associated with having much-too-much of a good time.

Music that traveled loyally with me as I drove, alone, or late at night down the highway with the people I love the most sound asleep around me, as we journeyed home from an adventure or family holiday gathering.

Music that healed the wounds and heartview, so that today, I can once again listen to the old music I once had to swear off—its negative associations now faded; it’s melodies now familiar friends just as fun as they were before, but posing no threat whatsoever.

Music that is now a library of life on a planet called Spotify. Like being handed the grandest of pearls, the entering into the never-ending rabbit hole of tempos, beats, lyrics, and voices is priceless. Now all my existence is ministered to, enlivened and accompanied by portals of mood and meaning, fun and silliness—songs for every pulse beating on any given day—sad or glad, crazy-electronic-dance lively, or out-of-sorts-pensive. 

Music. 

I understand now that quality of life depends on it.

The times I’ve failed most as a person, I realize, is because I took myself and my surroundings too seriously, brought about when I turned off or tuned out the music. 

But, of course, music has an answer for that regret in its ever-present always-ness that, when it sees me coming, greets me with, “Are we ready? Let’s do this,” as if I’d never stepped away, as if I’d never put myself first in thinking that problems and daily obligations are too serious for songs and new album releases. 

Music will always wait and be, for the loyal, and for the prodigal too.

I pick up my headphones, slip them on, and in a wash of instrumental alchemy, enter Eden—the way the world, my world anyway, was meant to be; can be; might be, or simply, contentedly, just is. 

Copyright Barb Harwood