Tag: music

Hooked on a Feeling

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“Do what you feel in your heart to be right – for you’ll be criticized anyway.” ― Eleanor Roosevelt

As I age, I learn. I’ve learned that even though people think I’m a people person, I’m really not. I’ve always been an introvert. There was a time, I was so introverted, I couldn’t even lift my eyes and say hello to people. I was terrified!

As I age, I have learned that not everyone will like me, no matter what I do. This is big! It used to give me panic attacks if I knew someone didn’t like me. I needed to understand why.

I’ve learned that music impacts me deeply. I can be happy and instantly become depressed if I listen to the wrong song. I can be low and brought up in mood just by listening to the right song. It’s not always the same music, so I don’t always know what will hit me (though there are some I know exactly what they will do to me).

I’ve learned that I can’t be everything to everyone. This was a hard one emotionally. I was once a very active person, in every sense of the word. I volunteered, I worked overtime, I had my kids in everything reasonable, I stayed up late, I did it all. I hit the wall hard and everything came down in a landslide. Being diagnosed with a chronic illness will do that (MS in my case, along with others). I haven’t volunteered in so long, I work my hours (gratefully), but no more. I wish I could do more with my kids. I’m in bed by 7:30 pm or I don’t function the next day at all. It’s been over a decade and that was on of the hardest things to realize.

You always hear the tune of ‘just follow your dreams and life will be great’. I offer up the alternative – do what makes you smile, but remember, you are human. Not everyone can climb Mount Everest. Not everyone can travel the world. Not everyone can reach the outer reaches of our oceans. Not everyone can board a ship to outer space. It’s OK if your life is what it is. I struggle with this one. A lot. I dreamed of being an archaeologist. I did two BAs to accomplish that end, but then I got married. He was not kind and my dreams were dashed on the rocks. I created new life (literally), and began seeing my life differently. I have children I love, I have a yard I love puttering in. My second husband is my best friend and if we were stuck in the house together, just us, I’d be content. It’s not the life I dreamed I’d have, but it’s the life that makes me smile.

Sometimes I hyper focus on my depression and anxiety; on what I lack instead of what I have. At 48, I’m working hard on focusing on what I do have, what makes me smile, what I care about. I colour my hair crazy colours as a mood booster. I stopped caring what people think of my hair and skin – heck, I’ve even gotten many tattoos (for me, that was huge!). Letting go of what others think of me has been one of the hardest things to let go of. Yes, I still have times when I go into a panic attack because I worry about how I’m perceived (I’ve often been misread in my life).

Right now, in this present moment, I’m content. Would like I my dreams to come true? Of course! We’ve all been hooked on those feelings; but I’ve learned to be ok with my life, with how I’ve lived it. That to me is the best feeling of all.

Blue Swede – Hooked on a Feeling

Put up a parking lot

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“Unless someone like you cares a whole awful lot,
Nothing is going to get better. It’s not.” ― Dr. Seuss, The Lorax

I went outside for a walk today.

I heard the sounds of lawnmowers, the sounds of traffic and vehicles.

I heard a singular bird chirping in the distance.

I heard a Canada goose honk in the distance.

I did not hear insects.

No hum of bees amongst the dandelions.

No frog croaks.

Only one bird chirping.

Where I work is surrounded by woods within the uptown of a city.

In years past it would be nothing to see the geese in the pond, their chicks growing like wild flowers.

The birds would be a cacophony of music against the thrum of society.

Even the breeze seems to have lost it’s bluster…

What have we done?

Joni Mitchell – Big Yellow Taxi

Edie

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“i have laughed
more than daffodils
and cried more than June.”
― Sanober Khan

Sometimes it only takes one word for a bittersweet rush of memories to flood in.

I’ve been listening to Edie (Ciao Baby) on repeat all morning. I get obsessed with a song from time to time. A friend has a cat named Edie. I hear her name and instantly this song comes to mind.

Along with the song comes a flood of memories…teen to young adult memories. Driving in the summer with friends to the beach. The sun glittering off the water blinding me. The smell of the woodlands. The evanescent sense of embracing a love.

Memories of concerts loud, booming, throbbing with bodies moving in time. Closeness as that first kiss is on the verge of becoming true.

Memories of driving too fast. The rush of adrenaline from tipping it a little too far. The carefree roaming through a fairground, friends surrounding me.

Memories of lost ones, their voices still an echo in my mind. The feeling of the wind rushing past my waist-length hair out a car window. The spinning of the world, watching the stars in a swirl of light and bliss (usually alcohol driven at the time).

Memories of laughter, pleasure, naivety, innocence, pure unadulterated joy. The awfulness of hurt washed away in a flood of being.

Memories of times so wistful they have a dream-like iridescence about them.

Where has that young woman gone? Quiet rebellion, dancing with every song, moving amongst the throng of bodies; the music so loud our ears would ring and we did not care. We hugged, we laughed, we danced, we drank too much, we were.

Where has that sense of endless being gone? The tears fall freely, the sense of longing and loss are bitter pills to swallow. I’ve dreamt of recapturing that essence, but how?

“The dogs lay at your feet, Edie
Oh, we caressed your cheek
Oh, stars wrapped in your hair
Oh, life without a care
Ciao baby”

The Cult – Edie (Ciao Baby)

Silence

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“Out beyond ideas of wrongdoing
and rightdoing there is a field.
I’ll meet you there.

When the soul lies down in that grass
the world is too full to talk about.”
― Jalaluddin Rumi

Sometimes, the silence is too loud.

Sometimes, the silence is a clatter in my mind. It deafens my spirit.

Sometimes, the silence is too much and the noise of life can’t be heard through the din of silence.

I’ve had a lot of ups and downs over the last few weeks. Some of my own doing, well, most really. I would like to think I control my emotional responses to that which occurs to me, but I know that thanks to my MS, that isn’t always the case.

I usually keep silent to what is my inner turmoil, allowing my husband brief glimpses of what is eating me inside out. My children sometimes see the aftermath – lack of patience, inability to focus on a conversation. Moodiness.

I try to hide it, but I’m not very good at hiding.

Sometimes it ekes out when I least expect it. At the start of a conversation, I just stand there with unfelt tears falling. It’s only when they cross the threshold of my cheeks do I realize I’ve started crying.

Mostly, I try to silence that part of it, burry deep inside and live in the now. But it weighs me down, anchors me into my seat until I feel as a statue – made of stone, incapable of movement.

The silence envelops me in those movements. The lack of movement stiffening my joints, dragging my body further and further down, into my chair that is. Breathing these days feels heavy, tight.

Then the music starts. My body wants to move, to live. My spirit shakes off the shackles of the silence.

The sounds of life filter in around me. They wrap around my frame in the warmth of sound. A blanket covering my body in a will to be.

The silence is no more.

Delerium – Silence feat. Sarah McLachlan

Food for the Soul

On By NB GwenIn The Journey2 Comments

“Myths have a very long memory.” ― Bryan Sykes, Saxons, Vikings, and Celts: The Genetic Roots of Britain and Ireland

On Sunday evening I had the immense pleasure of watching Loreena McKennitt perform. Along side her were guitarist (etc) Brian Hughes and cellist (etc) Caroline Lavelle. It was mesmerizing. McKennitt’s voice and stories were captivating, but I have to say that Caroline Lavelle’s obvious passion for playing really blew me away.

Watching the trio gave me a full serving of questioning my life. Is that odd? Music is my food for the soul. It nourishes me in ways nothing else can. All my life I have dreamt of learning various instruments, singing, learning various languages to sing in.

Instead I sit here in my office, dredging over old reports, wondering why I am neither digging in the dirt and dealing with antiquities or singing and playing for my life. Those are my passions. I know that. Music and archaeology. Yet, neither has a huge roll in my life anymore.

I’m almost 42 years old. What have I done with my life? What am I teaching my children? When will I finally chase my dreams and make them real?

Loreena McKennitt – The Mystic’s Dream