Tuesday, August 01, 2006

iWomb

the most inexplicable thing a person ever said to me was,

"i'm just not really all that into music..."

::

lately i've been despising some of my most loyal tunes... when i hear them i know i'll live through these days of grief, that i will somehow pick myself up and keep going, find hope from somewhere, and there have been nihilistic moments when i'd rather just give up... it's been a while since i felt this fuckin' miserable... but i'm still here and living through it and i'm doing my best to get eating again, and if i can get a string of days without shaking anxiety, without tears, without being overtaken by rage that has nowhere to go but inward, without numbness that is the only other relief from the choke in my throat...yesterday was okay. today so far has been too... i know i am capable of feeling joy, and hope, and believing in love and kindness, and that trust is a risk worth taking... i want it back...i want to feel gratitude... i want to be surprised...

::

when i listen to music, what is it i am connecting with: biography or autobiography... am i the narrator or the listener...?

does the song describe me...
or someone in my life...
or a sense of 'us'...
of how life is...
or how i would like it to be...
am i singing the song...
or is someone singing it to me...
do i wish to sing it to someone else...
or do i wish it would be sung to me, and if so, then by whom?

some tunes are a trigger, they shift my mood whether i want them to or not - to anger, to melancholy, yearning, brimming joy, passion...
some i select because they reflect how i feel in a moment, and loyal friendship with these songs means i turn to them when i need them, they speak the words i cannot
and some because they create a cocoon of 'expressing the inexpressible just so' no matter how many times i hear them - purveyors of truth
others still create a dream of illusion, if this were written for me, i would surely be happy...so let me pretend for a moment this is for me...

is the perfect song the one which distills an emotional experience to its purest expression, or the one that captures the complexity of human emotions in all their messiness?
i have often questioned why it is i love the songs i love...is there a secret code to the voice that touches us, a perfect melody, a rythmn, a chord sequence, written within our dna? does the music that we get mirror segments of that code? out there - is there the song that will be its perfect match? i can only conclude that i love what i love because it moves me, it makes me feel alive, i experience it not only through my ears but in my inner world...

when a new song is added to that canon, i receive it like a gift, i welcome it in...
whatever its tone, its style, its tempo... it will always be one that says to me, and i to it, baby, i know just how ya feel

here inside my headfonz exists a delusional womb of safety and empathic comfort entirely within my control...

so little wonder i love it. no surprise it keeps me going.

LB,x

2 comments:

  1. Here's to hoping the rest of today was ok too - and tomorrow is aswell...

    I grew up almost without music - till I left home that is - now I'm not sure I could easily live without it - it's certainly powerful and moving and our music here is certainly eclectic...

    A dream of mine - to have a song sung to me..... or more to have it written for me :-)

    Take care, RDx

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  2. the last time i felt like that about music i was pregnant and sitting in my car and tom waits was david to my old man's soul.

    i can totally relate. the power.

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