I am a lover of music unlike anyone else I know. That is not to say that others do not love music or are not fanatics but it seems that my connection is more personal, more bloodline than energy. I hear songs and they immediately take me right back to the place I was when I first heard them. In true technicolor, vivid, all senses come to life. I get this honest as both of my parents were also music lovers and music has/had always been a part of our/my life. Today I am reminded of this as I am sitting this morning enjoying my favorite place these days, my back porch, and listening to my favorite morning station on Apple Music. The song that inspires this blog today is “Sober” by Demi Lovato. Listen first and then maybe come along on my morning writing journey…

I love music written in tragedy. This is not to be confused with me loving tragedy, I am not that sadistic. I love music as an art form, as an outlet, for the artist that is willing to pour it all out in song. Demi has gone through the fight of her life, again, and in pure vulnerability pours it out. I feel it, in my heart, my soul, my bones. I get it on a very raw level. Sober is a condition of healing, righting wrongs regardless of the substance. I get it. I am not Sober, either. Being sober means that your imperfections are not noticed externally and ultimate sobriety is full internal resolve. How many of us are really sober? In these terms…hmmm…hard to admit.

For my mother’s eulogy I weaved the music of our lifetime into the words spoken from my soul and it gave the context, it gave the sentiment I could not have otherwise expressed with words alone. It wasn’t about creating a false presence of emotion but allowing those in my world with me at that moment in time to be brought back to the place, the very place I longed to be in that moment…a place where she still existed. A place she still lived, loved and laughed. It worked. It worked for me…it was all that mattered. In that moment on that day, I was talking for her and music was as much my voice as the words coming from my mouth.

I use music like a heartbeat, a rhythm to inspire the action before me. When I run the music matches the tempo I need to keep, when I walk the music is resolved in the journey without fight for breath, when I work the music creates the background noise to keep me focused. It is how I relate to this world. It is nutrients and as needed as water, food, and breath. A life without music is not a world I wish to know; empty, quiet, meaningless.

Music is culture, it unites us, all races, languages and classes. One song has the power to move a nation. Another can be so private and only known to the listener absorbed in the secret only known between the lyrics and the soul.

Music is my language and those that know me best speak to me in my native tongue. This week alone I received songs from those that know me best and love me most. Those songs were genuine communication from them to me with nothing more needed to be said except, “I heard this song and it made me think of you.” How perfect. I conclude by sharing those songs with you as my Thank You to those that sent them to me and my want to pay it forward to my reader that may not have the fortune to know music in this form, may this be your entree into something more, a new language of love, friendship and vulnerability.

• Tones and I – Never Seen the Rain – Link https://youtu.be/UdRJY-jlEhQ
  • Lyrics “…and it gets you down But that’s ok You’ve been pushed round You feel the pain And when you fall Just lean on me Cause you’ve never known Never seen Never smelt Never felt The rain Rain, never felt the rain, rain rain”

• Lauren Alaina – Getting Good – Link https://youtu.be/AkNc0-7ierw
  • Lyrics “.Once I get a house that I can hang my hat on, I bet I’ll want to build a bigger one if I could, yeah, I’m thinking, once I learn to grow right where I’m planted, Maybe that’s when life starts getting good…”

• Joshua Radin – Beautiful Day – Link https://youtu.be/G70dtJRr6nc
  • Lyrics “…Gonna drive my car to the sea, Swim out far cause I believe, That waves will wash the grey away, I’m making a beautiful day…”

May you find your energy, your universe, what makes your world go ’round. Music is my everything and those in my life are personified through those rhythms. Blessed to hear the love in those messages.

Life as I hear it – L.