Music

When I was first traveling on my own I struggled to meet people. I would sit at a hostel dining table, wondering what to say as conversations flowed around me. By the end of the night I would be the one sitting by myself with a book while other’s sat in circles with guitars or wandered into an evening of possibilities.  I made a decision one day: I would learn three songs.

Music is communication. It breaks all barriers and ties us all together. A single song can make us feel so many emotions and these emotions are the words that form a conversation with our soul. It is an inner dialogue that each individual may experience but that all of understand.  We may not always feel passion, love, anger or those emotions that cannot possibly put to words, but through music we experience these feelings as the artist reaches out with each note.  When we share music with others, that music we listen to in our rooms or behind headphones, we show others that inner dialogue that is so personal and intimate.  

If we take the leap ourselves, to create our own music, we begin to find a new way to express ourselves. No matter what language we speak we being to speak a language that all may understand.  Music and the passion it brings is the chord that ties humanity together. It is the voice of change. It is the voice of community. It is the voice of one. It is the voice of many. And if we allow ourselves to create music, we allow others to realize that they are not alone in the world. It doesn’t matter how well you sing, or what instrument you can play. It is something that must first be done for our own soul and then naturally it becomes for the soul of others.

Lyrics from a song I once wrote:

Wrote your epitaph on the window pane

They said you wouldn’t get better but I loved you all the same

Pictures of you, quiet letters to me

Sideways glances all the words that fall between

Spoke to your father about when you were alive

Spoke to your brother, couldn’t look him in the eye

We laid you to rest in your mother’s dress

I could love anyone, but all I want is you