How quickly music can change one’s state. I thought immediately of this title for today’s blog because I decided I was going to pick up Seth Godin’s “Your Turn Challenge” again after ten years- a blog a day for thirty days. I was thinking back to when I did it before, how much I enjoyed the challenge and the commitment to the process. I was also looking back at where I was at that time- having just turned 60 and recently moved into a log house in Rhode Island that I really loved. It felt like home. And there was a strong sense of starting out fresh on various levels.
Now I’m 70. It’s ten years later. My life has changed a lot. I am living in North Carolina due to a series of life circumstances that were not necessarily my own conscious choice. But this is where I find myself. New England, in particular Rhode Island, is my real comfort zone in terms of habitat. I have a huge community of family and friends up there. When I moved here I knew virtually no one- except my dear friends who rented me an empty house on their property, after having gotten stuck out of the country in 2020 due to the pandemic and not having a place to live when I finally got back. I have made certain choices over the years, sometimes deliberately leaving an area because I was too comfortable, and then moving back to RI after 17 years away, because I felt that I needed to be back in my comfort zone. And now I am back out of my comfort zone again! This time it wasn’t a conscious choice and, when I was thinking about it a few weeks ago the words that I spoke aloud, totally spontaneously and without forethought, were, “This is for my growth.”
As soon as I wrote the title for this blog post, the John Lennon song “Starting Over” came to mind. I went straight to YouTube to find the video and was taken back to another time and place, years earlier. The album “Double Fantasy” was released on November 17, 1980 and immediately became my new favorite album. That song in particular was so powerful, so full of life and hope and love. Just 3 weeks later, December 8, Lennon was gunned down outside the Dakota in New York. We all know the story.
As I listened to the song and watched the video such a wave of emotions washed over me. At first I was just excited to revisit the song, which I hadn’t heard in a very long time- and I was still thinking about where I am currently in my life. I was thinking about now, and I was thinking about where I was ten years ago, and suddenly I was unexpectedly swept back to 45 years ago, thinking about the the life and legacy of this dynamic creative person who had such a huge influence on me, on a generation, on music, on society, along with the other Beatles, but also very much in his own right- and suddenly that life was just gone. And watching that video, listening to the song in a deeper way than every before, visualizing he and his beloved Yoko growing old together in a sweet little cottage somewhere in Ireland I felt such a deep sadness. Tears came and I moved through it quickly. When the song was over I was done with that and filled with the awareness of how quickly music can change our state.
It’s why music heals- at least one of the reasons. It has this incredible capacity to pick us up and carry us over a threshold and gently put us down on the other side feeling complete.