WE'RE ALL ALONE TOGETHER

I guess we've all experienced changes in our priorities throughout life.

When we were young, everything was traumatic and would result in the end of the world. The absolutely ESSENTIAL things were like the right kind of clothes (in the correct stage of either neatness or disrepair) and listening to the right music (usually anything our parents strongly objected to). 

Looking back through the 20/20 hindsight of maturity (in years, not in actual wisdom), we now smile at the small, insignificant things the younger us would have DIED about, such as if that cute boy in English did NOT ask us out.

And suddenly what the music was saying isn't that important - the people that we had serious crushes on are the ones we smile sadly at during reunions and think "Thank God I missed that one!" - and we laugh out loud at photo's of 60's/70's/80's/90's hair styles.

Where was I going with this one? Oh, yes, changes in our priorities.

I grew up with a professional musician, and a lot of music in my life. It was important to me.  And I couldn't imagine it ever being something I might try to avoid.

Now?

I have an older brother who constantly criticizes my taste/knowledge in music (or rather lack of both, from his point of view), and I've gotten to the point where I simply avoid the subject with him. I have a tone-deaf husband who listens to country music stations.

And tonight I deliberately did NOT attend a outdoors blue/jazz concert, that I helped organize, that was held literally three houses away from me.

I've changed. And in some ways, I don't like the way I've changed. I need to actually decide if I want to get some of these things back into my life.

ANGELS VOICES OR DEMONS SHRIEKING?

I love leading music in church. I was born without an inkling of stage-fright, so am fully comfortable standing up in front of hundreds of people. And I am fully prepared to make an ass out of myself, bellowing out in my thin alto voice and waving my arms around in some poor imitation of proper time signature to the four people in the congregation who are actually watching me.

But the part I like best is actually hearing the congregation sing back at me.

I am partially deaf, and when seated in the front row, off to the left, I can really only hear the speaker and people sitting by the podium. Which, by the way, is deliberate - I'm not distracted by all the chatting, babies crying and whisperings going on behind me.

But I don't hear much of the voices of people behind me - usually just one strong tenor to my left (whom I greatly appreciate, since I am trying to pick up the tenor part at least in the last two verses of each hymn) and whatever the organist and chorister are bellowing out.

So when I'm up in front, I can HEAR all those voices - and even when it's bad, it's lovely - just voices attempting to unite in praise and worship.

SORT OF A DEJA VU DAY

I like it when patterns emerge, so bear with me for a minute.

The sense of smell  is supposed to be the most powerful for memory stimulation, but I grew up with either a stuffy nose or the L.A. smog drowned all of it out.


It's music for me that unlocks my temporal lobe.

Perhaps because my father was a musician - maybe since I grew up with rock and roll - could be that I used to be able to hear normally.


But a simply melody, the opening notes of a song, sometimes even just the basic beat unlocks a tsunami of emotions, touch sensations, even taste. Memories of people, places, events. Even the memory of how I physically felt when I heard the song - exhausted, rested, angry, happy.

Today I am playing some old tracks - George Harrison, REM, Dave Matthews, Aretha Franklin - while I am bouncing from the computer and the completion of some pretty mundane household tasks that have been ignored for the past couple of weeks.

And I've been listening to the soundtrack from the BBC Sherlock (yes, I am that much of a geek/Sherlockian).

So there is an almost tangible web of tingles, of awareness that reaches back into the 80's, 70's, and yes, even the 60's ("Wow, dude, I didn't know you were that old!"). I can feel my cut-off jeans, my hair down my back, tied in a pony-tail -- I can feel the heat of Los Angeles pavement soaking up through my tennies (this is before running shoes, people).



Yeah, I'm getting old - because of all of these old-time memories, and I'm getting nostalgic about it.

But it's familiar - it's comfortable like an old cotton blanket - it's well-known.

And at this particular moment in time, it's what I need.

Desperately.