So im laying on my roofdeck’s gray sectional couch under the sunset with my ipod on shuffle and the song Forever and a Day by Hilary Stagg comes on.
Ive listened to this song thousands of times over the last 6 years and I realize, quietly, alone on the rooftop…
that I have been silently judging this song for years
The thoughts sound like
1. Oh, fast forward this you never get into it…
2. So there you are again..distracted and off thinking thoughts instead of loosing yourself into the music
3. Do you even like this song?
And as I lay there I realize this judgment and became curious about it…
What If I really listen to it instead?
my mind wondered.
So I did.
And I noticed 2 things: judgment
-
even in the manipulative sly kind I do to myself everyday-
( like my selection of music is sub par at times) …has a Fe e l I n g to it..
I only noticed this feeling because the second I relaxed into the song..
I felt different.
As soon as I gave up my judgment of it and instead decided to just beeee with the music, I noticed this tiny shift deep inside my chest area- of like a clicking …
and my mind and body were in complete alignment
This I could feel.
and It feels GREAT..this place turns on a state of being that feels alive and joyful.
I notice how often I am deciding to feel this way instead of allowing my unconscious judgment of self to decide how I feel.
Instead I am choosing to just feel more deeply and with intention to feel more of this amazing body mind connection… and am grateful for being aware of this magic inside me.
ok.
So now im deep with the music and feeling great and notice i am smiling and thining about all of the amazing people I am connected to in my life-
a social worker I haven’t seen in years and realize how much I miss her when I see her…a great friend from grade school that makes me laugh and feel so relaxed when im near her- and she’s’ super smart…and I get to have dinner with her and she is lovely..and new friends that im getting ready to experience relationships with- and all of the wonderful work I am getting to do lately with a surprising number of new and expected clients…
and then I think about my beautiful family
and remember telling my girlfriend at dinner two nights ago this one really funny memory I have of my brothers and I..
It went like this:
So me and my brothers used to create this murder/burglar scene to trick our parents when they were out to dinner and we were “watching ourselves”
(that alone makes me laugh)
I mean we would spend hours planning it out and talking about it and the three of us would gather in the kitchen and gather the perfect knives
and topple the most perfect chair
and very vey delicately take the lid off of the treasured antique ceramic bowel in the middle of the formal living room coffee table and place it on the floor in just the right place so no one would step on it..
and then there was the high and almighty most important condiment in the universe-
Ketchup.
Heinz preferred….but really any old ketchup would do…
we decided to place the ketchup on the knives at the last possible moment so as not to mess the floors up..
So the house was all ready and now all we had left to do was WAIT.
So we waited….
With shit eating grins on our faces and an anticipation of the laughs to come.
And when the real moment was about to take place and we could see our parents car headlights peer into the driveway,
we quickly (while laughing)
…made the knives look bloody and take our respective spots already discussed on the carpet and placed the bloody knives on our bodies in just the right place…
And then Dottie and Tony walked in the door
“oh Look hon, my mother would say..”the kids are dead again,”
and then my father would laugh- but like a short little deep laugh from the back of his throat…
( I loved that laugh)
So what did my brothers and I do?
Oh we were working really hard at not breathing
so maybe
in one last ditch effort we could successfully get one of them to say…
“wait a minute..i think something really is wrong here
(Even if just for a second!)
Schucks I would think to myself and then our parents would walk over us and we would all jump up screaming…….
“Kidding!!! Gotcha !!! Wasn’t that real?? Didn’t that look great? We got you!~!! Admit it!!!
ok-
I was experiencing happiness and joy and realized the beauty of being able to spend hours playing.
Hours playing.
Hours.
and thinking up fun things to do.
and Hours creating and planning and designing FUN.
WOW- what a blessed thing a child is.
To have the unspoken expected rule to spend hours having fun.
So back to the present time on the roof deck and now im laughing out loud on the roof still listening to that song and im thinking to myself–
-wow we really spent hours planning that stuff out- it was so much fun..
and then im thinking
could you imagine if I did that now- like on Monday morning when my co-worker asks me how my Saturday was I could say
well Susan thanks for asking! It was great!! I spent hours saturday thinking up and creating the most perfect burglar murder scene as a joke for when my friends came over later that night…
( you get the picture)
and then I was laughing even more!!
and at the same time im realizing that allowing myself to be with the music- that Hilary Swagg song.. Forever and a Day, nonetheless…
that I really I chose to be in the moment
with the music
and with joy
and with gratitude
and with of course, that shit eating grin!
There are many different ways of connecting to your special place of feeling alive and in joy…Music is one of them.
what is yours?
