Memories of the Heart Blog

I was thinking about music CD’s the other day. How they’re kind of like life. How is that, you say?

Most CD’s have both excellent songs and okay songs. On most CD’s I’ve listened to there are a few songs that are wonderful and I could pass on the rest.  Sometimes I’d rather not listen to the ones I don’t particularly care about.

It reminds me of my life when I was younger. I had a lot on my to-do list. I worked full time, raised my daughter, was sometimes a wife, cleaned house, cooked, spent time with my extended family and read. A lot of areas but more of a piece than you might think. I was so busy. My life was like a standard CD that had lots of regular songs and a few songs that were incredible.

Then, as my daughter got older, I went back to school and started to form another kind of life. As my life became more varied I began making composite CD’s. I would pick favorite songs and combine them on one disc. Every song was a great song.

But lately I realized that each of my collections fit one genre of music. The discs may contain songs from the 1960’s or country music or jazz but I don’t mix and match styles much. I listen to Arlo Guthrie (those were good days, very good days) and Brad Paisley (“I drank all the fish and caught all the beer”) and Miles Davis (and they call that the blues) and the Doors (you have to have first heard this band as a teenager) but not together. I’m not sure why this is. Is it a mood thing? Do I get so immersed in one segment of my mind that I can’t switch between sections? Am I afraid that my mind will go in too many directions at once and my brain will explode?

Now I have time to think about the person I am, the person I’d like to be and what I’d like to do for the next ten years or so. I find myself trying to live a life made up of my favorite people, places, activities and events. I’m exploring new creative avenues of interest. My life is more eclectic. Anything boring or tedious or ordinary, for that matter, gets left out. My goal is to create a composite life filled with only the best my world has to offer.

So now that I’m so highly evolved (or old and self-absorbed, call it what you will) I think I’m ready for the next musical step. I’m going to make a composite CD with all kinds of music. There will be 50’s music, 60’s music, jazz, country, rock and anything else I can think of that I enjoy. I’m going to bounce around all the different types of songs and see if the combination is distracting or if it opens creative pathways. See if it’s confusing or clarifying. Dizzying or balancing. Confining or liberating.

Stay tuned.