Dance to the Music

I get cracked up when I see commercials where you can buy CDs of "the classics." And they're talking about Pink Floyd, not Mozart. I like all sorts of music and at the same time can really hate others. Music is spiritual in nature. It burrows right down into your soul and tells you things. It makes you dream, makes you mad, makes you crazy, makes you think. I marvel at the immense power it has. 

As a child, I heard my MawMaw humming as she swept. It changed what she was doing. I used to sneak out to my Daddy's Volkswagen Beetle and flip stations until I found songs that I liked. Georgie Girl, tunes by the Beatles, Up-Up-and-Away, the Mamas and the Papas. It was fascinating and forbidden at the same time. The public pool and the skating rink were dangerous, because of the boys and especially the music. Christmas was about the shows that came on once a year, with their delightful verses woven throughout. And church, well...there was nothing more beautiful than voices lifted in praise, hushed arias to the Lord. In fifth grade, our teacher introduced us to Mozart, Bach, Beethoven, Haydn, Schubert -- music that stopped time for me. My Mama bought me albums at a yard sale for a dollar -- Beethoven's Ninth Symphony, his Pastoral Symphony and then a whole whopping sixty minutes of Mozart. I died and went to heaven. My friends thought I was weird. It was the most deliriously gorgeous thing I had ever heard. 

Time marched on. Music, a smorgasbord of delights -- sweet and sour, tangy, spicy, creamy, smooth, bitter, salty, from subtle to insane. I added likes and dislikes to my palate, ever thankful that I was lucky to get to play the piano, my flute and sing in the church choir. Music doesn't ask you, it compels you. It brings other worlds and the field next door right on up to your brain, your soul. I remember the first time I got to see the Nutcracker, with its Pandora's box of melodies springing out. The story came alive because Tchaikovsky churned it. Hearing Messiah and the Hallelujah chorus, then "For Unto Us a Child," not to mention the incomparable Alleluia at the end -- I heard angels. Then again, how I love an earthy folk tune, sung by a husky, time-worn soul. A traveler who has seen those places I haven't, whose heart has dragged the depths. There are mysteries there and at once all that is familiar. There's rock, pop, swing, jazz. And so much dancing to be done.

When the holidays roll around and Christmas peeks at us from the bend, I love to drag out all the decor and music. Recent years have cheapened it, as they start playing it right after Halloween and at every store and street corner. No longer do we pull out the Perry Como album once a year from its fragile sleeve and play it with the white noise and pops and scratches. We open an app on our phone and conjure up instant gratification, any time we like. There's good and bad in that, but I just don't want to lose the magic. It's kind-of like the cure for anxiety and the eating of a chocolate truffle, both... The anticipation, the taking-in of it, the melting into the soul. In the end, it's about that crystalline moment where the cares of the world fall away and, if even for just a little while, all is well.