Though I could never really whistle, I've never ceased to try... Though I could never hold a proper note, I've never ceased to sing, the singing being purely for myself and not for ears of critics... Though I have never played an instrument, I've never missed the chance to play accompaniment with my ears and with my heart, and often with my feet and clapping hands...
When I clean the house or car or porches, I pace myself to energetic sounds of music, for it makes the drudgery much easier; it speeds the work along... When I garden, I hum for just the pleasure of it as my fingers touch the earth; I reap bouquets and wrap them in a song... In my morning shower, my silly operatic imitations clear my sleeping lungs and bond me to the therapy of water...Music! It glued itself upon my spirit farther back in life than most remember. My Southern-rooted mother sang to us in her old-time songs; she painted stories onto music and crooned hymns softly a Capella as we slept.
In my Roman Catholic childhood, I loved the reverential majesty of Gregorian chant, coupled with the calming sing-song of the Latin Mass. It always served to bring a certain sense of order back to me, a child of a crowded, hectic home.
In my teen years when my father died, and I encountered grief and loneliness and desolation, I became aware that some musicians seemed to share my sadness, and willingly I sank into their doleful music, then put my tears away and reveled in the growing novelties of life around me.
In motherhood, I lullabied my baby sons to sleep with the low-pitched voice my mother gave to me, and I soothed my savage little beasts with bedtime stories that rang with music through the cadence of my words.
When a tiny preemie middle son was left behind with nurses and I went home without him in my arms, sad music helped to trigger needed tears that acted as a safety measure 'til he was home and I could toss the blues away. Each morning when I found myself without him, I wept a bit with music as a background and then I dried my tears and walked into the day with strength and humor.
Now that I walk the earth as a grandmother, I strive to copy the example of my husband's mother. She never stopped connecting with the young around her, making music with her kids and grandkids; communicating with them through their music; reaching to them through their songs; rocking with them to the youthful beat; watching them with love and laughter as they danced; and never saying no when they invited her to join them on the dance floor.
I savor music as a keepsake key that can take me back in time. The effervescent innocence of an Everly Brothers tune can jet me back to joyful teenage Friday nights with friends, when passing radios could set us dancing on the sidewalks in the cooling summer dusk... A tender song of romance heard in veiled sunlight on a bright September can waft me in an instant to the golden autumn day when I was married... "Ave Maria" soaring on a tenor's voice is bittersweet to me, recreating sadness rising from a Christmas season long ago, when we dwelt in sadness at the bedside of a dying patriarch who loved that hymn and sang it often with his trained and splendid voice...
There is music everywhere in life. Electricity could die and all the instruments of music could be permanently destroyed, and there would still be music... Music in the wind and in the water, and in birdsong, laughter and the human voice... Music in the words we write... Music for the joy of it, the inspiration and the sweet distraction and for the healing, soothing and hypnotic balm of it...
There is music everywhere in life. Electricity could die and all the instruments of music could be permanently destroyed, and there would still be music... Music in the wind and in the water, and in birdsong, laughter and the human voice... Music in the words we write... Music for the joy of it, the inspiration and the sweet distraction and for the healing, soothing and hypnotic balm of it...
Our world has music for a reason.
It is a gift for life.
It is a gift for life.
