The joy of music

Music has long been a source of solace for me. Most people who know me now don’t realize how much music was my life in my teens and 20’s. I sang a lot. I sang at my grandparents funerals. I sang for my sister’s wedding. I was actually quite good, my senior year of high school I auditioned and was accepted into a national choir that performed Philadelphia,in New York’s Carnegie Hall (do you know how cool it is to realize I got to walk in the artists entrance?) before leaving and touring Europe where we performed in various cities and amazing locations including Notre Dame Cathedral. I was a 17 year old girl from a small farm town in Minnesota and I left the country for my first time and traveled to Italy, France, Austria, Switzerland and England before returning home. It opened up the world to me. I had never traveled alone before and Ilearned I could do a lot of things I wasn’t sure I could.

Singing and playing the piano was a place of refuge for me. I sang in college andlater joined church choirs. I’ve always listened to a wide range of music and still do. I can listen to classical, country, Christian, blues, jazz, Broadway, old and new, it didn’t matter to me, I loved music. I haven’t sung in public for probably 15+ years. It just fell away, I’m not sure why. Sometimes I felt people never knew who I was, only that I could sing and that got tiresome. Once I had the girls it was hard to find the time to join a church choir. I think I’d like to do it again, but it just doesn’t fit in my life at the moment. I don’t play piano anymore either. I have my piano and won’t let mom sell it, but I haven’t sat down to play in a very long time.

Listening to music is still part of my life and how I deal with stress I think. I use music as a way to talk to God. I use music to change my mood. While I have an ipod, I still mostly choose to listen via cds. My girls laugh at me, but it suites me. When I pull out old cds I remember where I was in life or something that happened when I listen to that cd. Today I pulled out my old Rich Mullins cds. Lord I had forgotten how I loved him. And it reminds me of living in Dallas. So today I sit wrapped in the musical cocoon of Rich Mullins filling my head with encouragement and faith. It is holding me together and soothing my jangled nerves.