Tag: soul nourishment

the soul nourishment of music…

Music can do so much.

It can bring back memories. It can shift your mood. It can bring joy.

Music is nourishment for the soul.

I’m going to share again something that I originally wrote and posted over a decade ago, in November 2015. Even after all these years, it still conveys how I feel and what I want to say.

Here it is…

the power of music and memory…

Late Saturday night, feeling distracted and unsettled, I picked up the remote and started clicking through tv channels.

I was stopped by Austin City Limits on PBS, James Taylor singing and jamming with his band.

My heart immediately lightened as I listened to the music.

~~~~~

You’ve got a friend.

It’s the early 70s and I’m riding in the backseat on the long drive across the state to drop my brother and his friends at a church retreat before my parents and I spend a few days exploring Jekyll Island. I’m too young to join the teens at camp – our five-year age difference puts my brother in high school while I’m only in elementary school.

I want my brother and his friends to think I’m cool and interesting, but I’m shy and tongue-tied. As usual, I’m the invisible little sister. The quiet one. The weird one.

I listen to the radio as the road unfolds in front of us for hours.

Music is one of my best friends.

~~~~~

It’s our song, she tells us as we sit around the table at Pizza Hut. One of our songs, I mean. He said it reminds him of me, and I said it reminds me of him. And it does, It really describes how we feel. We make each other smile, you know?

She’s talking about James Taylor’s Your Smiling Face. We’re in high school, a group of girlfriends out for pizza and a movie. The rest of us nod knowingly. We’ve seen our friend and her new guy, the two of them smiling and laughing together, their blond heads close.

I love the time spent with friends but the high school years are difficult for me, for many reasons, and I’m not-so-secretly looking forward to the next phase.

~~~~~

As I watch James Taylor on Austin City Limits, Carly Simon comes to my mind…

It’s 1987 and I’m in grad school, immersed in writing a paper that’s due the next day. I study and work best with music blasting and my thick hair piled on top of my head, which means the radio is blaring in the 1-bedroom off-campus apartment I share with my black cat. I move back and forth between the typewriter on the old wooden desk I refinished several years earlier when I was a freshman in college, and the papers and index cards spread all over the floor.

Coming around again.

Carly Simon’s latest song is playing and my body sways to the music as I sort through notes for the paper I’m writing. I moved out on my own when I was 20, living in a tiny apartment in my hometown, finishing college and working various jobs. But grad school is my first time living in another state, away from family, moving there alone with my sweet kitty.

I have a blond-haired guy of my own now, we’ve been together for a few years, and things are rocky with us at the moment. But although my romantic life is shaky, my social life in general is full and fabulous to an extent like never before.

Do I realize that I’ll always think of my grad school time – even decades later – as one of the best times of my life?

~~~~~

I love this movie, I say to my husband as we snuggle on our couch watching Sleepless in Seattle on video.  It’s the mid-90s, we’ve been married for several years by now, and we recently left apartment living to purchase a house. I didn’t marry my blond-haired guy from earlier years; my husband’s hair is dark-almost-black, one of the few physical indications of his Creek ancestry.

Carly Simon sings In the Wee Small Hours while Meg Ryan, as Annie, gets out of bed during the night and goes downstairs, her thoughts on Tom Hanks’ character, Sam.

I nestle into the cushions even more, cozy and content in my own home, with my own love, watching the movie.

~~~~~

Listening to James Taylor also makes me think of Carole King…

The songs on the Tapestry album are embedded in my life’s personal soundtrack. They are interwoven with my years, part of the literal tapestry of my life.  I played my LP so much it was scratchy; I played the cassette so often it was worn.

I think of those songs, memories of decades flashing through my mind, while I watch James Taylor sing on the screen.

I feel his music lift my spirits even more. And not only that, the music grounds me. It brings me more fully to center, more completely into my body.

Even as the memories pass through, I can feel myself in the present and enjoying the moment.

Enjoying the music.

~~~~~

By the end of the show, my mood was in a much different place than when I first picked up the tv remote.

Music can do that.

Music is powerful.

And so are memories.

❤

The original post of the power of music and memory… can be found here.

it’s still the little things…

I’ve written before about how it’s often the little things that can brighten a day and bring a bit of joy. Little things that can help with continuing to go on, moment by moment, through the difficult days.

It’s the times of taking a walk – whether by myself, or with my husband, or with a friend and her dog. Enjoying the view, the fresh air, the moving of the body, the taking a deep breath and feeling more ease.

It’s the times spent in front of an easel or a journal, playing with paint and being in the moment. Not thinking or worrying, just moving the brush and the paint.

 

It’s the times enjoying the spring blooms. Seeing the beauty of nature. Appreciating the colors.

It’s the times of unexpected delights, like a new bloom on a potted plant that had seemed almost beyond hope until my husband did some sort of green-thumb renewal to bring it back to life.

There are other little things too, filling my days this spring in between my husband’s doctor visits and medical tests. Lots and lots of porch-sittin’ time, enjoying so many absolutely gorgeous days with feel-good temps we’ve had these past weeks. Slowly reading and savoring a good novel. Watching comfort TV shows while cozy in bed. Phone calls and voxes and texts with friends and family. Kitchen-dancing to 70s and 80s music coming from our favorite real-life radio station.

Little things. But big helpers.

What little things come into your days to help you get through? Look for those joy connections. Do those things, even if they seem little or small, that help you.

Sometimes the little things can make all the difference.

❤

 

creativity begets creativity…

Something I’ve noticed over the years is that the more I create, the more I create.

It’s true that there are cycles of creativity, and sometimes it seems to flow abundantly and sometimes it slows to a point that makes me wonder if it’ll turn back on. But all the same, it seems to be true that the more often and more consistently I write or paint, the more likely it is that I will continue to write or paint, and the more of it I’ll do. Even with the ebbs and flows, and the stalls and starts, the overall trajectory is that creating leads to more creating.

For me, this is the case with writing as I continue to slowly and gradually work on the sequel to New Life in New Melody.

And it is the case with painting and doodling and art journaling as I continue with my personal at-home summer art retreat.

Big blocks of time aren’t necessary to engage in some creativity – even brief bits of time work really, really well.

The thing is to do it. To create for its own sake…and for our own sake.

And if your experience is similar to mine, you might find that the more you create, the more you create.

♥