Music is one
of my greatest loves in life. When people ask what’s the best thing about living
now, my answer is always “that I can have music at the touch of a button.”
Think about that. Think about the days when you either had to make music
yourself, or had to go somewhere to hear music. You couldn’t have a string
quartet follow you down the road, or out in the fields. Music had its own place
and time.
Now we can
listen to what we want when we want. It really is a miracle.
Some people
don’t like running with music. Sometimes this is for practical reasons like the
inability to hear what’s behind you, and some just like the silence. Some
believe that music restricts their efforts at better run times because of our
tendency to run with the beat.
I can run
without music, but I find that hamster wheel unappealing. I’ll either get a
musical phrase stuck in my head (and I dare you to get “Straight up now, tell
me do you really wanna luv me for-ever –oh, oh, oh!” out of your head once it’s
there!) or I grab a metaphorical stick and pound away and a metaphorical dead
horse. And THAT’S usually about work which is one of the things I really try
not to think about when I run.
I have
always lost myself, and found myself in music. Oh and lyrics. The music reels
you in, and in some cases that’s enough to catch you, but lyrics, words
sculpted into rhythm, that’s the true hook that will keep you on the line.
10 Years is
one of my favorite groups to run to. The urgency in their songs lends itself to
pumping legs and driving adrenaline, and the under-line, if you get my drift,
tends to follow my natural breathing patterns. Oh, and then there are the
lyrics.
Running
yesterday the song "Soma" came on. I've heard it a million times, a
billion times, but never really heard it. Or at least, never really took the
words on board. But yesterday they got through. Yesterday the song hit my
headphones about the same time I realized that I’d made the appointment at the
vets for that very day even though I knew I was working and that I couldn’t get
to the vet’s that day. My dogs’ jabs are overdue and they need them, like, NOW!
And right then 10 Years sang :
“Stay asleep at the wheel and never
Care enough.
The crash is coming.
Are we destined to see a tragedy?
Look away.
The crash is coming”
And as often happens when music and
lyrics join hands, an epiphany occurs.
At that very moment I realized that I
have been “asleep at the wheel” for a long time. Really, that part of it wasn’t
like being struck down on the road to Damascus. I had figured out that I was
just treading water in my life in a lot of ways long before, but that metaphor
of what happens to us when we ARE asleep at the wheel, that was the light bulb
moment.
Life is dangerous, scary and sad
enough without abdicating what control we do have.
If I am not doing the things I know I
should be doing to get out of the situation I’m in; if I’m willing to let
things go undone knowing it will be more work down the road, or letting someone
else choose my course, then I have no one to blame but myself when the crash
occurs. And no one else to blame if, as often happens, others are hurt as well.
It is time to get back to basics.
Back to Mindfulness. Back to Thornton Wilder and living life ‘every, every
moment while we live it.” It’s time to
wake up and take back control of my life.
Or as 10 Years might put it “Wake up
dead fly!”
