MUSIC MOVES MOUNTAINS

RECOMMENDATION: Keith Jarrett The Melody At Night With You (solo piano)

I was actually scared the other day driving my 24' motor home (The Moho)  through the Cottonwood Pass in Colorado.  I don't get afraid very often, but I pulled over and told God ("um, hello?") that I was.  I got to the top and knew that down was next.

The first two hours up was a dirt road, no shoulder, steep grades, washboard-like ripples in the surface to go with the potholes.  Okay, if you have never driven a Moho or a Milk Truck over an insanely bumpy road well, it's nerve-destroying.  Everything rattles and shakes and protests and your shoulders creep up to your ears, where they stay.  I made it through telling myself over and over again, I'm doing this.  This is what I'm doing right now, though pissed, I wished I'd just taken the main roads.  I'd been told it was beautiful, but guess what?  "Beautiful" (peaks at 14,000', massive boulders and rich pines) is stark, unforgiving and foreboding  when you're stressed out. And you start thinking of T.V. shows like "I Shouldn't Be Alive".

Halleluiah.  Pavement appeared as I descended.  I relaxed enough to put on some music and almost notice the Aspens turning yellow. I drove with Keith Jarrett, The Melody At Night With You to soften the harsh curves and dilute my focus.  What's not beautiful when you're listening to that album?  This should restore the beauty and wonder of the mountains for me any minute now.

But what happened was I started to cry. The music took the stress I was incubating, shook it up, broke it into little particles, spun it in my abdomen and released it through my head.  The child in me stretched her arms, legs and spirit, struggling to be heard.  The adult in me (the one clutching the steering wheel) said, yes, I understand.  Of course you want to cry.  You were scared for the last two hours.  Mmmmmm, that's good.  You just let those tears leak out.  You deserve it.  You were a big girl through that.

Okay, so, music might not move mountains, but it moves mountains of emotions.  Sometimes it can show us how we are really feeling. 

Dear Diary

I am learning my way through "squarespace.com", more or less designing my own website.  Although I would rather be out playing in the leaves, throwing a stick with my dog, making popcorn or talking on a telephone that weighs eight pounds and has a squiggly cord attached to the handset, I am sitting in front of the computer for hours and hours, rubbing my right shoulder blade and blinking my eyes from time to time. 

"Annie, it's not 1985." 

"But...but..."

"Annie, you're a big girl now and it's a different world where you have to tweet and you're not really friends with someone until you've accepted them on facebook.

"But...but...can we (WE ...this is me and myslef talking) go live on a commune and grow vegetables?"

"That's not realistic.  Stay with the times or you will be like your grandmother Meme who never learned to operate a microwave or open a bottle of Aspirin"

Meme knew what was REALLY important. 

I want to change T.V. channels using a manual dial and I want my car to have one long seat all the way across the front and the back.