There is always music on if I am pretty much anywhere, but especially in the car. I sing along to the car stereo almost as a form of meditation. (I almost mis-typed that as medication, which is also kind of appropriate)
I don’t have a set playlist, I just have my iPod set to shuffle. I’ll skip a song I don’t like, or that I don’t feel like hearing, but they come up as they will.
The other morning on my way to work, I got a stretch of songs that was kind of hard to take:
Please Don’t Leave Me
Rape Me
The Bitch Of Living
It sort of went downhill from there, as did my mood. I shut the stereo off, since it was giving me a message from the Universe that was a downer, and drove to work in silence. I had my attitude adjusted soon enough.
On the way home, I got a different version of Rape Me and it didn’t bug me at all. I sang along. That got me wondering, as things are prone to do. One time a song is depressing, another it’s inspiring. Same song. Different mood.
For instance, I have wildly different reactions to REM’s song “Everybody Hurts” depending on my mood.
When you’re sure you’ve had enough
Of this life, well hang on
Don’t let yourself go
‘Cause everybody cries
And everybody hurts sometimes
When I’m in a good mood? This is inspiring. It means that I am not alone. My pain is not unique. There are people who understand how I feel.
If I’m sad? It’s a whole other thing. It means that everyone is in pain. Everyone is suffering. I might as well be dead, because life is a bitch.
Same words. Different emotional meaning. In the wrong kind of emotional state, there are no right words, I guess. An emotional state I’m thankfully in less and less frequently as I get older.
I’m hoping that also means that more words will be the right ones as I get older. I’m willing to bet that it won’t work that way!
One thing I know for sure: although I am not missing work even one bit while I am in Cabo, I am most definitely missing my daily mis-guided meditation and singing in the car. I was singing in a bar earlier. That is a sure sign I’m getting music starved-it’s starting to leak out around the edges of things.
I tried headphones at the pool, and it just isn’t the same.
Got my Elvis fix though.
I’ll be OK.
Someone hand me another Paloma.
Booze cruise tonight turned into whale watching. Seeing whales is magical. It just is. When it’s also sunset, and there’s a pirate ship? It’s surreal. When there are many of them, and they’re breaching and spy hopping and seem to be enjoying themselves as much as we are? Best thing on the trip so far. Everyone on the boat was beaming.
Magic.
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