Monday, January 18, 2010

The Perspective of Tone

Lately I've been thinking about perspective. How much it changes with time, how much it changes us. It's impossible not to have any, yet very difficult to summon. Especially when trying to live at the current moment; of which, not doing so, of course, is impossible.

As an interesting side note, I started this post on 1/12/10.

I think I lost it for a while there, Perspective. Just before I had my 2nd son in November... my whole life was Life As Mom. I never had a great surprise party for turning 30, no collegial late 20s--that glorious Purgatory before a serious mortgage but after the impressionable early 20s. I was never in college, in teenage angst, and certainly not listening to Pink Floyd as a precocious pre-teen. My entire Being was always centered around shuttling someone around and being at a little person's beck and call.

Wait, that's not right, is it? Have I always had someone else in the #1 spot? Of course not. But it seems that way sometimes, the reversal of life's focus so complete. So complete that not one square inch of my car interior doesn't show some effect of a toddler being captive inside much of the time. So complete that phone conversations with friends invariably involve the mysteries of the toddler mind, and denigrate to poop. Lack of sleep means I hang up without ever saying the reason I called.

Even my brain is unrecognizable. I used to remember stuff. I used to think about subjects like economics, and statistics. And going out at night. And .. I wrote more regularly! (Though, ironically, in an actual diary.)

A good way to bring my Perspective, that elusive and eloquent elf, back in the foreground, is music. A song from a particular point in my life can bring me right back to the exact moment in which I had the luxury of time to enjoy it. Listening to Pink Floyd in my bathroom growing up. To Live in my first-year college dorm room. To something poppy, like Puff Daddy, in my early 20s. Dave Matthews can bring me back to many various late-20/early-30 situations, like dancing around my living room with wild abandon and flying arms and legs. Small, unknown alternative bands like Carbon Leaf can take me back to Charlottesville in 2005.

Most importantly, Van Morrison and Into the Mystic can transport me, emotional and pregnant for the first time into sitting at my desk, working from home in Fall 2006, and to two weeks ago. When I held my toddler tightly in my arms and danced him wildly around the kitchen, to squeals of laughter.

It's just that I hadn't had the chorus of laughter until now.

5 comments:

Jenners January 18, 2010 at 5:38 PM  

Hey! Congrats on the new baby (very belated but I think we lost touch for awhile).

I know what you mean about music taking you to very specific places in your life. And "Into the Mystic" was a college song for me ... I can imagine myself listening to it (on cassette tape no less) right now.

septembermom January 19, 2010 at 6:07 AM  

My music sticks with me all the time. I find that I'm still that same 15 year old some days. Other days, I feel like that lost and searching 20 year old. Now I'm just a 41 year old wondering where I'm going next. Grateful for my daily dose of DMB. It keeps me going :)

♥ Kathy January 19, 2010 at 2:59 PM  

I say this all the time: I couldn't imagine a world without music. I HAVE to have it...every day.

Casey January 20, 2010 at 12:54 PM  

Ahh, I love me some Van Morrison. Perspective is a funny thing and it changes rapidly depending on the day.

Glad to hear you're still kicking up there. ;)

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