Just spent a deep smile-inducing afternoon sharing time with a friend. It has been so good to connect over a shared love for music and expressing this through our voices and our instruments. Music isn’t something I’ve written about much in this space but it is so much a part of my everyday. I suppose I don’t write about it regularly because it’s more often a medium through which I think and experience rather than being the object of my thought or my experiences. But to share music is like sharing a good home-cooked meal – it’s inviting the other into a part of your world and giving something of yourself in a vulnerable way. As my friend and I partook of the one song our voices united, weaving notes like aromas. It was refreshing to do so. It makes me sad that music has become a money-fetching item to be produced on mass for greedy sods in plastic castles. Music should not be merchandise. Yes it’s something to share, but sharing means giving generously and of yourself. I like the fact that so much good music is so readily available to all through the radio and the net these days. It just makes me sad that it’s so controlled by people who don’t know anything about it, people who don’t care anything about it, people who are only interested in the way it fills their bank accounts. I hold to the belief that as music is a timeless creation, it will survive this age and be carried on amongst those who have ears to hear its authentic heartbeat.
Filed under: contemplation
Is it just me or do different groups of people conjure unique characteristics in the individual? Hanging out with some old friends this arvo has made me feel like I used to. They continue to joke in the same old way, as though reciting from the same old joke book. They expect the same old answers from me. And I’m comfortably slipping into the old roles without a second thought. I believed I had grown as a person. Yet within these reunions I still feel like the anna of three years ago. Of course I’m still anna. That goes without saying. But I feel as though I’m a malleable being, ready to fill the same old mold and be the shape of the moment. Is this the reason why we become distant from certain friends? Is this why we continually say goodbye to one set of peoples and say hello to the next?
Not that I do this much. I love the idea of relationships that stand the test of time. I love friends you can meet with after years of distance and it feels like only a couple of months lay between visits. But it does happen from time to time. School friends for instance… Work friends… Not sure where I’m going with this one… Anyway, I think what I’m trying to say is that some people bring out the best in me and others the not-so-best. How cliché.
My time and inclination for writing has slowed down to something of a trickle over the past month. A busy schedule is the main culprit. When a little time becomes available in between the planning, the early rises, the later nights and the changing of flat, nail-embedded, tyres (that one was Sunday’s adventure) I attempt to enjoy it. In these little moments, rather than write I tend to have opted for having a lie down to listen to a few tunes on the old cd player, for soaking in the new spring sun and for picking up the charcoal and having a bit of a draw. This last one is probably because my beloved camera is broken and in much need of a good service. How I miss picking up my new packet of prints and perusing the pictorial contents… it’s always been one of those sweet surprises.
I’ve also found I’m over willing to take up opportunities to get out of the house and to escape the turbulence of full time teaching (as student teacher). These flighty diversions seem to regularly fall on Saturday’s nights and seeing as I work every Saturday night I’m finding I’m getting to bed later and later as the weeks roll by. Probably not ‘late’ for some of you night owls out there, but this bird is generally a true dawn chorus hatchling. The thing is I’m still waking up ultra early because my body clock has adjusted to the 5:30am starts with school. The sense-driven vegetarian in me is saying I need to up the sleep or get some iron into the veins. In the past lack of sleep has quickly escalated my consciousness into zombie status throughout the waking hours. Despite this reasoning my immune system has been holding up unexpectedly well. My mind seems to be thriving on the learning occurring in the classroom and I’m really not feeling the slightest bit lethargic. I’ve just under two weeks left and here’s to hoping that it all continues in this fashion.
