If Life were a Song

Slow Saturdays and fast-paced Thursdays…if life is a song then my tempo is all over the place. Some days are allegro, so fast that I have hardly any time to think, fingers moving on autopilot as I try to hit all the right notes. Other days are largo, slow with whole notes lingering as I struggle to stay awake and upbeat. The tune chances each day, some sounding like summer nights with music played on a guitar near a fire, people swaying with the fireflies in the night. Other days mirror Tchaikovsky’s 1812 Overture, canons going off at random times and trying to get the cow off-stage. If our days are songs, then years are albums, with a medley of tunes from friends and family creating a playlist of the year. There are favorites, there are songs you wish you could skip. Melodies that get stuck in your head, tunes that remind you of moments in your life when you first heard the chain of notes that makes up the chorus.

Music is deeply tied in with human culture, instruments and beats unique to certain regions of the world. Deep drums from Africa, high whistle flutes in Scandinavia, modern pieces combining ancient practices with new life as the lines between countries, race, and religion blur to form something unique and beautiful.

Song is one of the earliest forms of expression, as humans have found their voices over the centuries. Some sing loud, others soft. Everyone with their own timbre, whether they sing out loud or only in their hearts. Music fills the container that is our bodies, pulling the harp strings of the heart and beating in rhythm with the blood that flows through us. Like every song, each human is unique. Some may play in the same key or have the same rhythm, but each has their own special spin.

Music can be grounding. It can be exhilarating. Lifting you to new places you never thought you could reach. It can be an escape, a release, a way to form connection.

If you were to write a song that would encompass yourself, what would it be? Would you sing a happy tune to dance to in the sunshine after a rainstorm? Would you lament in minor key or pronounce your glory in major chorus ending with a finale of trumpet cries and tambourines? Would one song be enough? I doubt it. We humans are complicated creatures. A song that tried to tell the story of someone’s whole life would be a very long song indeed. Many movements, marked by key changes, slow transitions or abrupt shifts would be needed to tell the tale of one person’s experience. The melody may be the same, but in each period of your life it changes just a bit, as you do. Becoming more beautiful, more refined. Changing in ways you may not have predicted. Sometimes almost lost or drowned out by other players, but always present if you listen closely.

Do you know your melody? I’m still trying to find mind, but I’m glad I have music in my life to help inspire me and guide me to find the tune that fits the best with the rhythm of my heart.