Come On In... Have a Seat and Listen To The Music

I know it has been a really long time since I blogged but I have to tell you, I just have not felt inspired in a really long time. Today is the first day I have felt strongly enough about anything to put pen to paper or should I say fingers to the keyboard. My apologies to those faithful people who have come to visit only to find nobody home. Not that there have been that many of you knocking but I will try to do better.



This afternoon I made my way down the dark dank basement to do my daily workout. I try to mix things up every day and do something just a bit different than the day before. Today was my longer workout day. I did step aerobics and heavier weights using the Bowflex. I have a collection of compilation CDs I like to play when I workout in the basement. Listening to the music today got me thinking about how music has played such a pivotal role in my life from very early on.
It has always stirred something deep within my soul and today was no exception.



What I noticed was how it brings images to my mind and feelings to my heart and takes me back to the moment when I first heard the song, or reminds me of an event or special moment that took place when that particular song was playing. I can remember things that were said, important moments that occurred that have shaped my life, emotions that were felt and even vivid colours and scents are brought to my mind.

I have some really early memories of music which I believe were records or the radio station that my Mother may have played when I was really young back in the early sixties... in particular Nat King Cole and Bobby Vinton.

My brothers also figured prominently in my life musically speaking. Mike had a large record collection, he is most definitely the biggest music fan I have ever known.
And I could always count on Mike to buy me for my birthday and Christmas presents the most popular 45s of the day.... some of which I still own to this day.

The music from my childhood and teen years is particularly poignant and stirs up some really interesting and intense emotions and vivid memories... some happy and some painful. I remember as a young girl one particular summer when I was 11. The music that summer was really speaking to me. That might have been one of the best summers of my life. I got a radio that year for my birthday and I would turn it on at night when I would go to bed and leave it on all night long listening to the songs I loved that would almost hurt they meant so much to me. I would listen until I fell asleep and sometimes would wake up to hear a song I particularly loved and would force myself to stay awake to hear it all before I went back to sleep.

Every year end starting on New Years Eve my favorite radio station would play the top 100 countdown for that year. I would be glued to the radio listening to the songs I had loved and listened to. Each one would strike a chord in my heart.

Certain songs remind me of important people in my life. When I was a teen my sister in law Debbie gave me an album of Leonard Cohen. She loved him so much at that time and wanted to share him with me. Whenever I hear the songs from that album I think of Debbie.

I remember Sundays spent at home with my parents listening to their favorite records. Mom would be resting on the couch and Dad in his chair listening to their favorites at the time... Glen Campbell, Petula Clark, Englebert Humperdink and Neil Diamond.

I received a record player one year for a Christmas gift and I would play my records constantly... the same ones over and over. I always played my favorite records while I was getting ready to go to school and my Mother could hear them when she was in her room getting ready for work. She would come knocking to find out what a particular song was because she liked it. When I hear those songs now I think of those moments and they were good memories for me and for my Mom. One time not too long ago we were down visiting my Mom and I deliberately played some of those songs on my Ipod and down she came to the room to hear them again. I know we were both remembering that time so long ago as if it were yesterday.

I have almost 2000 songs on my IPod. Mostly the songs of my youth from the sixties and seventies. They are the ones that I love the most dearly and when I hear them now I feel like that young impressionable girl again. They take me back to a time when life didn't move as fast. A simpler time... when I didn't have a care in the world and was footloose and fancy free. That is what music does for me...it reminds me of the person I was and who I have become.