Safe in A Crazy World

I once read someone saying, "Music saved my life." He was in depression for an extended time and had repeatedly considered suicide. I suppose he found an outlet in music -- all I knew was he started composing music in genres that were... not so mainstream. The phase passed, and he seems to be a happy person nowadays.

With a brief Google search I found more such stories. A youngster who grew up in a slum learned to play the guitar and so instead of getting drawn into the neighbourhood gang he became a performer. A student who couldn't do well in any subject at school found her potential and purpose of life in playing music.

I haven't thought of music that way until the past week when I experienced something like that, albeit in a much milder scale. In my case, stress was building up from an assortment of little things: unsettled issues that piled up, small annoyances from people all around... Sometimes I feel the little things are worse, because in addition to these you second-guess yourself why you should be so upset with them when they seem so insignificant, and you chide yourself for being narrow-minded.

So I needed a tranquilizer. I turned on music and sang. And to dramatize a bit, I can say that music saved my sanity at the time.

As a Buddhist, a perhaps better alternative would be silence. But I'm ashamed to say that I've been struggling with meditation, that my mind is still too untamed that it kept slipping back to the noisy thoughts. But drawing a lesson from our former music director, I'd like to think music could be a form of meditation to some.

So while I continue to train this monkey mind, let me just hold on to my music -- the ever reliable companion when I need to be alone.

Noise keeps chasing me no matter where I go
And life likes pretending that it's on a TV show
When it's hard to tell what's real
From what the world just wants to preach
You are the voice I seek

'Cause when I'm wrapped up in your arms
Nothing else can touch me
What a wonderful way to recharge
I feel like I can breathe again

You keep me flying
You keep me smiling
You keep me safe in a crazy world

-- Corrinne May, "Safe in A Crazy World"

In Other Words, A Tropical Winter

つながった
冬の星座

Once again Orion tells me that winter is here,
a kinder sign than the cold that bites my skin.
Ah, winter has come, year by year,
even to this land that has only sun and rain.
And the world churns out songs of snow,
of feelings white that keep you warm;
tunes ringing with the longing you'd know
despite a climate tens of degrees off.

Yes, winter is here,
the season dancing in the sounds,
the season written in the stars;
and with none* of the freezing it still lets me glimpse
icy lands far and foreign,
frosty wonders my eyes have never seen.


* Except for the illusion of it on fingertips and such extremities.