Soundtrack of life
Music has played a huge role in my life for as long as I can remember. It's really hard to imagine a day that I have lived without music involved. It was just always a part of what was going on around me.
Ok, I want to be perfectly clear, I am NOT a musician. However, I did grow up in a house full of musicians. All three of my brothers are extremely talented and my dad definitely enjoyed dabbling in musical instruments. Some of his adventures were move fruitful than others, but he always seemed to really enjoy himself.
Recently I have realized just how much that music is a part of the fabric of my life. As I mentioned earlier, my brothers are all extremely talented musicians and as pre-teens/teenagers they started a rock band. (Thanks Mom for always reminding us it was a rock band.) At that time there were some of their friends involved in the band and I thought they were all super cool. They often met our house to practice and that meant the cool kids (which my brothers definitely were) hung out at my house, so I was, by association, cool. As is true of many teenage formed garage (or basement) bands, eventually that first band broke up, but the music in our house didn't stop. My brothers and another friend formed a new band and this one practiced pretty exclusively in our basement. By this time, our parents had bought some huge speakers and other equipment because they were supportive of this venture. Somewhere along the way, a semi sound proof room had been built in the basement for band practice. (Please note it was directly below my bedroom and the ceiling of the room was not sound proofed at all...I'm not salty about that.)
So, what's the point of this detailed description of my brothers being musicians? The point is that I couldn't have avoided musical influences even if I wanted to, which I didn't. I enjoyed having brothers in a rock band, remember I was cool by association, which was awesome. Anyway, the music that my brothers were playing was the stuff we were listening too on the radio at that time and it was the 80s, so we were listening to the best music of all time. My brothers were playing everything from INXS to The Rolling Stones to Three Dog Night. It was all being woven into the fabric of my life without me even thinking about it.
Remember how I said my parents were supportive of this venture and love of music? Well, this was the 80s and early 90s and we didn't have cable, so we weren't watching MTV or listening to music on demand (that wasn't even thing yet) but we were listening to the radio, records and tapes all the time. We were also going to concerts. If we wanted to see a concert, we usually did. My mom and I saw so many rock concerts it's hard to remember who all we saw. (Again, thanks Mom for always reminding us they were rock concerts.) Fortunately, I have shirts from most of them to help me remember and since throwing out perfectly good clothes was unheard of, I recently discovered that all those shirts were still in a trunk at the house. Now they are in my drawer and I wear them. One more way that music is simply a part of my life.
Here's the thing, the music isn't just the music, it's a memory. It's a moment in time. It's a feeling of being loved and connected to something that was so cool to me. As I grew my personal soundtrack started to take on other music that was not associated with my brothers. I'm 100% sure that none of them ever owned a Madonna tape, but I had most of them. Eventually I added some country to my soundtrack (believe that was a big deal in a house full of budding rock stars...or at least I thought it was a big deal) but I found some stuff I liked and started listening to it. I'm really glad I did, some of my favorite memories are attached to country music. I mean, come on, I saw Reba McEntire in concert in college with my best friend and we were so close we noticed a white string on her black skirt. It was incredible!
As I continued this wild adventure called life, my soundtrack kept collecting music. As Husband and I began building our relationship and life together, some songs became important to us. "Come What May" is etched on our hearts as our forever love song, but there are other songs that make us both bust of laughing no matter what's going on because they immediately spark a memory. Also our first dance as a married couple is a song that my song writing brother (Brother 2) and I wrote together. How cool is that?!?! I love that Husband and I danced our first dance to my brother singing a song I helped create.
It doesn't stop there, teaching has added songs to my soundtrack and so have my kids. Never in a million years would teenage me have believed that singing vegetables would be a part of my soundtrack, but here I am regularly quoting/singing along with those Sunday morning values and Saturday morning fun. (If you know, you know) Even though both offspring are teenagers now we still listen to and sing those songs.
But it's not just those catchy, fun songs that are part of the musical quilt I'm blanketed in, it's also the song we sing when we have the house blessed. The music of Lent, the music of Pascha (Easter), the songs to the Theotokos, the hymns of the Pankhida (Memorial Service) are all part of me. The rhythm of the Orthodox church can be heard (and felt) in the music. This was a fact I never realized as a child. In fact, I honestly didn't realize it until just recently (OK, maybe in the last 5-7 years but that's pretty recent) and it's one more thing that I find truly glorious. It's one more way that the church is etched on my heart and my life.
I sang in the church choir as a child, not because I'm a good singer, but because it kept me busy and I never realized that the music I was singing was imprinting so much on me. As an adult that music brings me a special kind of peace. Yes, because it helps me focus my heart, my mind and life on Christ, but also because it gently reminds me of the connections that I have to those around me, through space and time. It's a common thread ties me to others and layer by layer helps create who I am.
Sometimes those connections and layers are hard places to be at that moment, like when the singing of Holy God, Holy Mighty, Holy Immortal transports me to the moments when my parents were being brought into the church for their funerals. It seems unbearable, but then at other times, I hear the beginning of Renegade at just the right moment and suddenly I can take on the world. We need all of those moments and I am so thankful for that beautiful mix tape being created by all the music in my life.
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