I’ll normally write a blog, post it and not read them again but last night I sat up reading pretty much all of them. Looking back I can see a few reoccurring themes.
One is that I have had to really work hard to get to a place where I am truly feeling good. Of course we are all a constant work in progress but I know that I am really starting to get this all figured out. I have been trying to move my life forward in the way I want it to. Setting my intentions and making them happen. I have been working through all of my insecurities and more than anything trying to find courage. I don’t want to look back at all the times I could have acted but didn’t. I’m not a pro at this by any means, it’s not easy to be brave but I’ll get it figured out.
The other thing I noticed is that music is truly something that has helped me. I have always felt very connected to music. I have always wanted to be a musician of some type but I can’t sing, and after a year and a half of guitar lessons I have realized that I have no limb independence and aside from some basic finger picking of songs I have no talent at all. Maybe I should try and write a song, I seem to be an ok writer. Or even better, find me a musician who will be content to sit around the fire and sing to me for hours. Wouldn’t that be amazing.
Music has had such a huge influence on me. I grew up listening to old school country with my mother. She listened to Kenny Rodgers, Loretta Lynn and The Judds. I don’t have many good memories of living with her, but the one good one that sticks out the most was when I was about 9. I was sick and my mother let me sit her lap while she rocked back and forth in her rocking chair playing The Judds on the house stereo. I can remember sitting there with her as she sang along to all of the songs. I remember feeling very comforted and safe. I remember loving her so much, and that day I felt her love for me in return.
My dad listed to AC/DC, CCR and Trooper. He probably still has most of those tapes at the farm. He has hundreds of them and they all have an identifying green nail polish mark on them or maybe its permanent marker but either way that’s how he would know it was his tape. I remember when I was a teenager he turned one of the wall in his room into shelving to hold all of his books and tapes. It was impressive. I’m starting to think that my love of music and reading come from him.
I remember one time when I was about thirteen I was out cruising around with my dad in one of his old dodge cars. Doing burnouts at stop signs and playing the music loud. My little sister who would have been three at the time was also there and we were listening to AC/DC and Big Balls came on. We all starting signing and laughing and he was so proud. He knew he was raising us right because we knew all the words to the song. Still do.
When I turned 12 a lady I babysat for got me my very first tape. It was Alice Coopers Trash. I listened to that tape so much I am sure I wore it out and to this day my favorite Alice Cooper song is “Bed of Nails”. How risqué, to be driven like a hammer on a bed of nails. I loved it. When I was 16 I signed up for Columbia house. For those of you young ones, it was a company that you could order cd’s and tapes from. Get your first 10 for a penny and then pay full price for the rest. I still have all of those CD’s. Guns N Roses, Tom Petty, Garth Brooks, CCR, Cher, and one of my all-time favorites, Tina Turner and Whats Love Got To Do With It.
My favorite song right now is called Gravity’s Gone. I am always listening to new music and it just popped up on my playlist one day when I was working. The line that got me says, “I’ve been falling so long that gravity’s gone and I’m just floating.” Seriously, that’s genius song writing.
I refer to lyrics often in my writing and some of it has been repeated throughout. I am currently writing a novel and I have based some of my ideas off of music I have heard. I recently went and got a handheld voice recorder and I find myself often recording lyrics, among other things I see and hear that I want to revisit later.
So I am going to keep the music constantly playing while making new memories to go along with the soundtrack of my life.
