Muzak.

There was a time, back in my foolish years, that I didn’t appreciate the music of The Beatles.

What? I know. I can hardly stand being friends with myself. {Sarcasm.}

But now, now I appreciate it. I don’t just love it, I get it in a way I didn’t then. I understand the themes, and they’re applicable to my life.

At my {our?} wedding, I wanted non-traditional music. Don’t get me wrong, I love the classics, and have a special place in my heart for Pachelbel’s Canon in D, but I wanted the songs that played to reflect the joy and the happiness of the occasion. If you haven’t figured this out, I don’t do tradition for tradition’s sake. The song we kissed to and then floated down that petal-strewn aisle was “All You Need is Love.” And at that moment, that’s all we really did need. Now, thousands of miles apart and living out of a suitcase, sometimes that’s all it feels like we have.

Music plays to my soul in a similar way that writing does; they both feed it, nourish it, revive it. A song can instantly snap me out of a funk, or place me in one. Yesterday, after a few  particularly difficult hours, I drove my car down the expressway, the windows down to get out the smell of hospital that had permeated my clothes, the music cranked up to drown out the wind and the negative thoughts in my head.

There’s something pretty nasty in my life right now, and no easy fix for it. It’s going to be a sad road, and facing it without my husband by my side is something I don’t even want to think about. And, I don’t know, maybe love won’t be enough to get us all through. Maybe it will. But step by step, minute by minute, we wait, we pray to whatever deity we believe in, and we go on, for life does not stand still.

When I find myself in times of trouble, Mother Mary comes to me
Speaking words of wisdom, let it be
And in my hour of darkness she is standing right in front of me
Speaking words of wisdom, let it be
Let it be, let it be, let it be, let it be
Whisper words of wisdom, let it be