Music
Music is the vehicle for so many of mine and other people's lives to move forward. We sometimes get so into music our hearts would burst with the beauty. We sometimes use it to show to the one we love. We sometimes use it to grieve, to find peace, to find ourselves. And sometimes as in the recent past we use it to do just about everything.
I'll start at the beginning. I can remember dancing with my mother to Work Out by Jackie Wilson. It was her favorite song. My mother loved all kinds of different music and it made her happy which as you know was not always easy. If I wanted music, music was what I got. Actually if I wanted anything she would at least try to get it for me and my brother. I can remember times when my mother, my brother and I would sit around the coffee table playing cards and listening to Paul Anka, or Elvis, or Herb Alpert ooh. Not a huge Herb Alpert fan even today.
When I was young my cousins Sal and LuAnn spent huge amounts of time with us as I think my mom needed reinforcement and my aunt and my cousins would come and stay or I would stay with them. I have great memories of listening to the Batman theme and making a play about it. And listening to Beatle songs, my cousin had those adorable little Batman bobble head dolls on her bed when I would sleep over. Funny how something so little and minor leaves such a lasting memory.
I can remember as a teen, listening to Pink Floyd with my boyfriend Tony, who is now a Facebook friend with his lovely wife Lisa. I remember the girls from the hill in front of my friend Nancy's house don't really remember the music just that it was there, we were looking at boys (swoon). I remember Us and Them from the first school dance I went to. I remember the Beach Boys the songs I used to dance to with my friend Jamie. He was my first big crush but alas his heart belonged to another. I remember driving up Route 9 all the way up to somewhere in New York with my friend Lisa and listening to Greetings from Asbury Park.
As I got older I went to medical assisting school, which was a waste of money as you can't be a medical assistant if you can't stand the site of blood but whatever. There I met the most wonderful friends who I would go out and dance with abandon with. There was also my friend Liz who I went out with all the time, she had a huge bosom(sorry) and I had a big behind and we would laugh that we would get them coming and going. I was one of those people that met a jerk every time I went out, most of them are not memorable but I did get a couple to write songs and poems for me without sleeping with them. That was rather remarkable although I didn't really know it at the time. I guess I had the "something" that when I danced I could make a man do anything. Unfortunately for me I did not realize that at the time so I was almost continually heartbroken and thought I was quite unattractive. I do remember the music though, it was The Cars, the Clash, Joe Jackson, Elvis Costello. I don't even like to mention the name Elvis Costello as the lady below me in
Peter and I's first apartment used to play Pump It Up over and over and over again. But who am I to say anything.
My favorite song that I wanted to have played at my wedding was I Only Have Eyes for You. It was a song that Art Garfunkel sang(and many before him) but the band who played at my wedding didn't know it. So we ended up with You're My Inspiration by Peter Cetera, I kind of liked his music at the time but time hasn't been good for me and old Peter Cetera. Can't even listen to him now.
When my beautiful son was born, I used to sing You Are My Sunshine and yes I know every mother sings that song at least once to their beautiful children. Now that I'm older and wiser You're the One is the song that most reminds me of my son. He is and was and always will be the one I adore. There is just no question about that.
When my dad was in his coma, I found Andrea Bocelli on PBS and just fell in love with that voice. He was the voice of an angel comforting me during those long months when there was nothing I could do except crochet christening outfits and cry. I did crochet cotton work and I guess maybe that had something to do with it. I could escape and go back to Italy where my ancestors came from and cry even though I don't know Italian.
When I wanted to move up state whenever I would feel like I would never reach my home I used to hear When I Saw Her Face I Was a Believer although I changed the verbage to make it Place instead of Face. And while here I found the most beautiful people to fit in all the little pieces. My friend Emily who I can say just about anything to and even when it's totally ridiculous she still laughs. My friend Cheryl who is my mentor in art and everything business. All the wonderful people I meet everywhere I go. The cashiers that smile and know me by face, the pizzeria girls who know my name Debbie. My neighbors who get a chance to be joyous either by something I've said or done or we are all laughing together. I try to be a light and nice to everyone. I used to think when I was younger that it was because I needed them so badly to replace my mother until my son came along, but I find they saw my light much more readily then I did. Mere mortals are not perfect but there are angels everywhere, I guess because I spent so many years with a beautiful angelic soul waiting to be reunited with her son I see angels in everyone.
Everything happens for a reason and why on the day that I picked up a magazine on childhood grief as I was leaving my therapists office and came home to my son giving me 6 Black Keys cd I will never know. But I kind of think every single song on those cds was an otherworldly gift or a couple of angels who know how to talk about loss, or just my mother putting one more piece in the puzzle. I know that when I started healing I started dancing, singing and laughing and everything changed after that by wiping out all the grief and leaving just peace and light behind.
I also have a future plan for myself. I would like to help children who are also dealing with the pain and loss of losing so much of their innocence as a child. I also would like to serve as an inspiration to every human being who thinks whatever their petty issues are it is somehow more important then the real loss of real love and real security and real abandonment. Those are real issues that kill mere mortals but when you have an angel who walked among you for 24 years you become something more then a mere mortal. You become a beacon of light for eveyone you come into contact with because when you live a life like myself and my brother you can relate to everything and the most important part of that is that you show them they are not alone. We understand everything in our own way. One note in passing, I have been known in the past to carry other mere mortals issues on my shoulders like they are my issues. My issue was the dark that enveloped my life since I was 2 years old. I don't have time for the pettiness of not having a boyfriend or failing a test or any other singular thing that makes them think their life is over. While I will always listen, and be here to listen to anyone who needs an understanding ear I am not going to scream at mere mortals to make them understand me anymore. They are going to have to understand themselves and then we can do some light work like embroidering or whatever makes them sing.
I am eternally grateful to all my dead angels, live angels, embroidery angels, art angels, therapist angels and the muses in music that brought me into the light. Find your own muses because for each and every human being there is a single soundtrack to heal their lives you just have to listen for it and take it everywhere you go. Then you can experience the joy of feeling light. Keep stitchin.
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