During my month in Ireland, I reconnected with the power of music – it healed my heart, soothed my soul and primed my pump. I’d forgotten just how much my soul longs for the fuel that is music.
I used to listen to music all the time. As a teen I was one of those weird kids who had LPs of Bach, Rachmaninov, Pachelbel and The Beatles and listened for hours in the comfort of my shag carpet in my bedroom. I loved to play music in my car and sing at the top of my lungs (and sometimes intentionally off-key with my daughter for laughs), dancing in my seat as I zipped around in my little “Ya-Ya Bug” (name for my silver VW Beetle). I have a magnet on my fridge that says, “We dance in this kitchen”.
But over the years things changed. I got a car without a CD player and had only downloaded Jason Mraz and Christmas tunes to my phone. My patience for learning what’s required to download ITunes is basically zilch. I became more “focused” for my work and the thought of playing music while I worked only seemed to be a time-waster; time would be required to search for music and figure out how to save it, etc etc and “ain’t nobody got time for that”. I had things to DO, for heaven sake! I had less space or time for music and I didn’t realize how this was starving my soul.
In Ireland, my roomie streamed beautiful guitar music from her laptop while we journaled or read. We got lost listening to the most amazing jazz and rock music played live in bistros and bars. We even drummed and attempted to play a hand-carved flute on the evening of the autumn equinox. My soul felt different. My brain felt like it was firing on more cylinders. At the London Concertante candlelight concert at St Patrick’s Cathedral, the narrator for the evening told us that listening to music actually grows your corpus callosum (or something like that ?). I could FEEL my corpus callosum expanding.
Selfie from St Patrick’s Cathedral, Dublin. I’m on the left about halfway back in the gorgeous dress.
My Ireland tribe reinforces the feeding of our souls by sending each other songs via FB Messenger on a daily basis (and ONE of us is supposedly creating a playlist, ahem, wink wink).
Yesterday one of my most awesome clients who keeps me updated on all the books I need to read, exhibits I need to check out, social change movers & shakers I need to follow, told me that Lin-Manuel Miranda created Spotify Playlists to soothe all that ails us this year. God bless him. Evidently he taught himself about Spotify on his day off and began creating playlists to help us get through things like the inauguration. Since then, he’s evidently created several different lists, including one for people with writer’s block.
So in my usual fashion, being the gifty gal I am (according to my love language preferences), I am writing to share the good stuff with you too. I hope you enjoy. I hope you feed your soul a bit more today. I hope you grow your corpus callosum.
I hope you dance.
You can find Lin’s playlists on Spotify under his user name Tobillo24601 (evidently the name of his dog & a marvelous nod to Les Mis❤️).
Play On,
Ann
